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@Ghostcrawler The very long discussion about crit

Wertilq·9/8/2014, 11:14:02 AM·13 votes·3,677 views

Ghostcrawler - Crit is another example, but that's a very long discussion. :)

item 1018Introductionitem 1018

Hello Mr Crawler, I am an aspiring game designer, and a huge fan of league. I love the communication the designers of league give and I love their explanations of their decisions, it's highly educational and have helped me tons to grow and learn myself.

I've been in discussions about RNG loads of times with people I've worked with, and with friends. In the past league have had bad implementations of RNG here and there, which is not fit for this type of game really, but most of that have been abolished. RNG's last stronghold is the quasi-random crit. The discussion about crit is quite big, since it's core to a whole class of champs, and it's a base mechanic. Discussing changes to the foundation of the house when you already have built a freaking mansion IS huge, but please let us have this discussion.

item 1051 How does crit work and why is crit an issue?item 1051

Crit in league of legends provides additional scaling for auto-attacks, to make them scale better into late-game without being too oppressive early game, and not have a linear scaling. Each autoattack there is a certain % chance that you deal 200% damage, which can be increased to 250%. The % chance increases if you do not get a crit, and goes down when you get a crit, to even out the chance of you getting a crit, and not make it completely random. The aims is to even out the number of crits to your crit chance stat. This is to ensure you do not get 10 lucky crits in a row with 10% crit chance, or get 10 non-crits in a row with 70% crit-chance.

Now why is this still an issue, even if there is a derandom-mechanic added to crits in league? Because crits are too binary, either you hit a crit or you don't and the difference in damage is simply too big. In the big picture for your DPS crit is fine, like if an ADC fire at a tank in a teamfight, the random factor is not important since there is so many hits you are required to hit on the tank before the tank goes down. On the other hand if an ADC hit another ADC in a late game teamfight, while having phantom danceritem 3046 and infinity edge item 3031, for a totalt of 55% crit chance it's not implausible in the 2-3 hits that ALL are crits or ALL are non-crits. The difference there is that in one scenario the enemy ADC might survive and in the other it might die, and the only difference is luck, no decision making, no skillful usage or anything, it all boils down to luck, with a big difference in outcome. Especially if you pit two late game ADC against each other, if both get off as many shots on each other, whoever get most crits off wins then. Even if it's quasi random it's still random.

As I described earlier for extended auto-attacking crit is fine, but what extended in practice means depends on your crit chance. If you have very high crit-chance most of your attacks will be crits and it's fine. But if you have sub 10% crit, you get 1 crit every 10 hit on average. This is a lot of attacks, especially early on, and if that hit happens to be on an enemy champion early on it warps the lane quite heavily. It's part of the reason some people run 1 crit rune, to get that super low-cost miniscule crit-chance. In the rare cases you get a crit during the right time it gives you a huge advantage, while the cost of adding that rune, is very low. If you get this crit early in the laning phase, it is worth 2 auto-attacks and hit about 25-30% of the HP of an enemy, it's enough for you to win that early fight, zone the enemy off minions, and start to snowball the lane. It can be enough for you to win the late if you're a good player, and there is no decision making based on it, there is nothing you rely on, and you do not play differently until it happens. It's just luck, nothing else.

Example: In the 5th game between C9 and TSM, there was a decisive teamfight which won TSM the game, with both ADC dueling each other. Wildturtle's Tristana hits Sneaky's Corki 3 times with his autoattack, and all 3 of them are crits and kills sneaky. Tristana get a reset from that and kills Meteos too then. At the time Tristana had a item 3031 and a item 3087 for a totalt of 45% critchance. If instead turtle would've gotten 0 crits in that fight, he could have possible lost the duel and Corki could have killed him, using rockets and sheen-procs. It's hard to know how it would've played out though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cub6GwhhmlU#t=52m38s

item 3031 Why is crit good as it is? item 3031

Big damage numbers are fun. It feels good to hit a crit, because you deal tons of damage. For normal and casual game the random factor is fine too. There is nothing at stake, and it's okay if the game is not 100% skill based. If it's possible to make the game more exciting and fun, even at the expense of being able to show your skill it's not that big of a deal. For a game that is played as a sport, that have million dollar competitions, that is supposed to show the epitome of skill, it's not okay to keep as is though.

item 3093 Possible ways of fixing this item 3093

There is a few champs that is highly dependent on crit. Tryndamere have it as his passive, and much of his lane interaction is based on how much rage and thus crit he have. Gangplank uses his pistol for massive burst attacks based on crit usually. Kinda similar to an ADC, but more focused on burst instead of DPS. Yasuo scales off crit extra much using his passive and in his mid-game build he mostly removes the random factor on crits.

Those champs will probably require some tweaks to them, but might work even with a new crit-system. Having a crit-system at all is kind of important as ADC-scaling is based on it, and to remove the crit-system would throw very many things up in the air.

item 3301 Solution A. item 3301 The easiest way to fix crit-system and still have autoattacks being based off 4 multiplying scaling parameters would be to simply make crit system flat multipliers of damage. Instead of having a crit-chance you simply multiply the damage by X. So with 30% crit chance in new system your autos simply deal 30% more damage. Then for item like item 3031 which increases crit damage from 200% to 250% it simply increases bonus damage by 50% of what it is. So if you have 30% you get 45%. If you have 10% you get 15%.

In all forms of DPS calculations the crit-system is unchanged then, the only thing that is removed is the random. It IS less exciting to have crits then, but they never had any decision making attached to them before either, but only a simple math calculation about which item is most efficient for your current build and playstyle.

item 3302 Solution B. item 3302 Instead of crit being a chance, it fills up a bar/number. Once it reaches and 100, 100 is removed and you will hit a crit next attack. If this number would be shown, crit would be a mechanic of its own to keep track of very similar to Caitlyn headshot passive. It would also create similar situation to caitlyns passive were enemy tries to keep away while you have a crit stored, and caitlyn tries to get the crit onto them. If it was hidden it wouldn't really add a mechanic and have people react to it as much as it simply removed the randomness from it completely.

item 3303 Solution C item 3303 This is the ramp-up system, it's not like the current system at all, but is slightly similar to the solution A. If you have "crit chance" you get stacks that increases your auto-attack damage. Each stack would be worth say 10%. The number of maximum stacks is determined by your "crit chance". Example item 3086 would give you 1 max-stack, while item 3046 would give you 3 max-stacks. item 3031 would increase the value per stack, so each stack is worth 15% instead. The stacks then rapidly fall off if you don't autoattack, similar to Jinx minigun-stacks.

This would add some gameplay to crits, while removing the RNG.

67 Comments

Earl Eulrich9/8/2014, 11:56:57 AM5 votes

Discussing changes to the foundation of the house when you already have built a freaking mansion IS huge, but please let us have this discussion.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/live-gameplay/hbEj1jWi-can-we-finally-phase-crits-rngesus-out-of-the-game, there you go.

Decrit9/9/2014, 12:59:08 PM2 votes

Hi there, fellow crit-not-so-enthusiast! I partecipated too in many other discussions about crit ( with the link to the comment lost somewhere ) and i wanted to drop some of my insights before the Almighty Crab Nerfbatbringer comes to us, if you like :D

First of all, let' s say that i agree with all your premise. All. Your proposals, instead, while address the problem in a good and valid way ( i mostly like the 2nd suggestion, that is actually the one i prefer mostly and that i try to recommend most of times ) are maybe a bit lacking of scope: you want crit because there is is and adds tons of damage, but why?

I want to talk about this: why add crit? what is crit? what scope it can have in LoL? Which would get that, instead of Ad or AS?

Before going any deep, if we want to design a place for crit we must conceptualize it in a clearer way, that not only answers to a specific objective but also gives clear paths on wich it can be used or prefeared. Let' s see the other stats: -AD increases basic damage attack and damage from skills, so it gives a general purpose source of damage that has the particolarity to affect skills, giving more the idea of a long-cooldown but sustained damage; Plus at the beginning flat AD gives a great contribute to personal DPS because of the low AD you have. -AS increases damage over time, and compared to AD in a balanced situation it helps to give way more Damage Per Second compared to AD but in order to scale well the champion must be in a situation where he can land a good number of attacks in order to be effective compared to AD, and needs time for that, for this reason is a stat usually associated to carryes and duelists, but also some kind of tanks and valued by junglers on their runes. It also scales really well into lategame, where a % of as can be intended as a % increase of dps while AD stacking becomes less and less effective.

This said, how can crit give a different experience and carve a place of his own? The SOLUTION A you have proposed is the least interesting one, creating broken situation where you just stack a stat and then stack crit when the other does become less efficient at stacking.

The SOLUTION B however opens up a nice possibility: let' s say you have to choose between 2 stats to stack ( limit case, you can hardly stack efficiently one stat and it' s good this way ), if you stack crit/AD you become an assassin that deals a good early nuke, then has to work his way attacking the enemy in order to proc the crit that deals an other heavy ton of damage ( this not only defines the role of the assassin as a short duration figher but also creates an healtier situation compared to skill->kill champions ), while a crit/as build allows to quickly proc crits over crits thank to the high attack speed and to dose little nukes all over the enemy team, allowing for more sustained combats than crit/as but less compared to ad/as, that in my mid with this distinction can take the role as the most efficient time/wise form of damage.

At the end of this comes out that crit is a stat that can be conceived as a lategame scaling for his power, but also an early game tool for lane harrass and short duels and skirmishes all along the map and giving the role of a mid-game stat. Also if put in a build it tells to the players that the champion wants to deal bursts of damage, in a way or an other, and can open up possibilities of tactics and counter tactics. Meaningful choces yay!

What i just described is a tris of stats from which a carry ( let it be ranged or melee ) can decide to focus on, each choice with his own characteristic point of strenght thta mixed with skills, other stats and different kind of items can generate a whole lot of possibilities!

... but is this enough?

Worgslarg9/8/2014, 11:52:57 AM2 votes

Solution A makes sense to me, but solution B is simply ashes passive applied to every champ, and that is a terrible idea.

Sire Hippington9/9/2014, 1:49:23 PM2 votes

I totally agree on removing rng from the game.

Solution A is probably the easyest to apply, but also the least interesting

Solution B does creat gamplay, but i don't think in a healthy way. Playing vs caitlyn is annoying enough, having that mechanic on every champ would make lane rather annoying and stale, and laneing vs Gp would be horrifying. It also would be hard to keep track of the numbers and therefor to take it into account when u go for a trade.

So i'm going to offer solution C: every 4th hit is a crit, stating at 0% bonus damage. Itmes don'T offer crit chance but crit damage and other on crit effeckts like the Sttatick Shiv lightning. IE changes it from every 4th hit to every 3ed hit. the stacks count for champs and minons seperate and are lost if u don't attack the respective target within 8 secs

This solution would obviously require alot work on everything that currently got crit(both champs and items), but:

  • it would loose rng
  • it would grant high damage numbers and burstspikes as crit currently does
  • it would preserve the awsome crit animations
  • it would create gamply as u could try to disengage befor the crit lands on u(evt to much possible counterplay though)
  • it would seperate crit-burst from abillity burst, as abillity burst is upfront while the crit is delayed
  • it would still funktion as a strong lategame-multiplicator for AA dps
  • on-crit effeckts would give opertunitys for more interesting and unique items/mechanics

(numbers are just there to give an basic idea, numbers obviously need testing to work properly)

Cujo9/24/2014, 3:33:40 AM1 votes

How would a crit bar fill up? Just from auto-attacks? Or from all damage damage? What about using abilities that don't deal damage but still effect an enemy player? Or the effectiveness of those moves? Could the crit bar fill up to full multiple times? Would/Should it be visible to enemy champions?

Old Man Teeto9/8/2014, 10:05:56 PM1 votes

The problem with making it a "stack" like Caitlyn's passive is very simple.

When Caitlyn has a headshot primed, do you willingly trade with her?

No. You walk back until she uses it, or until you're forced to move up to CS. You don't willingly trade with a Caitlyn who has a primed headshot proc, you do it only begrudgingly so you're not zoned.

If the "stack" method was implemented, champions such as Tryndamere which rely on a crit or two to win their trades, will lose trades simply because the enemy laner could disengage when they were about to be able to crit, and wait for him to have to waste his crit on farm.

Cloud Potato9/9/2014, 2:33:24 PM1 votes

Crit is just power without gameplay. AD does the same thing Crit does but without the randomness, AS gives you a better attack animation which improves your mobility as a side effect, and APen is similarly problematic but exists for anti-abuse (although some may say it does that too well). RNG by itself is not a bad thing, but it needs to provide gameplay, like Zac's blobs for example. Crit is also pretty damn overtuned compared to the other basic attack stats, partly due to its unreliability.

Crit isn't noticeable in large fights, but that's when it's least problematic. It's most problematic when it's most noticeable. That's just so backwards it's crazy. It also exists to prop up basic attack DPS, but there are other ways of doing so (like a massively overtuned anti-HP item). I'd prefer to see either solutions A or B implemented than keep Crit as-is, but I guess it wouldn't be a good idea to put in a new system that's also problematic, even if it's less so than Crit is now.