Clarity, Visible Power, and the Future of League
Introduction (Hey there! If you don't care about my discussion and just want to skip to my idea, just scroll down to "Dynamic Item Descriptions" for the good part.)
So for those of you who haven't had the opportunity to read my lengthy and often convoluted responses and yell at me for being wrong, I'm Kouga. I've been a League player since the open beta, and while I have less time these to devote to playing, I still get regular games in and I always enjoy keeping up on the updates through the Boards and S@20. A few things have come through recently that caught my attention and I wanted to have an open discussion about how they will change the landscape of the game and what Riot might be able to do to improve the experience and increase visibility and clarity with all of the new and exciting Preseason changes.
Note: I am not here to discuss whether specific changes are good or bad, right or wrong. I love that League changes - it is why I've been playing for so long. So regardless of my personal opinion on the balance changes, this is to discuss how some of these new mechanics are being presented. Specifically when Champions have "rule breaking" effects.
Visibility of Power First let's set some groundwork. Riot has consistently tried to move away from game changes that tend to be hard to appreciate; abilities, stats or mechanics that, while certainly powerful, are difficult to appreciate in the colorful and hectic environment of a League match. Often these come into play with passive abilities that lend a lot of power, whether it be Champion passives like Zilean/Janna or item passives like Zeke's. With no visual indicators it can be hard to "feel" the impact that the power is lending. And, especially when that power is part of a Champion's kit, it is difficult to appreciate that Champion's contribution if it isn't easily seen. How do you measure how much Janna's passive global MS boost helped you win a trade, or how the bonus XP from Zilean's passive may have saved your life when you level just in time?
Q: How do you feel about "invisible" power? Do you find it unsatisfying or do you like to be able to contribute in a more passive way (or more consistent, since these by definition require little to no action from the player)?
Breaking The Rules of The Game The other aspect of this discussion is how Riot has decided to break their own rules. For the majority of League's history certain stats have been consistent, but recently as they have striven to make Champions unique and occupy specific or niche areas of the game, they have "broken" some of these rules. To reiterate, I'm not saying these are good or bad decisions - overall, I'm in favor of coming up with ways to make Champions feel unique. Certainly with over 120 Champions at some point you have to change the game.
The most obvious example off the top of my head is Critical Hits. For a long time the rules were very clear, "ALL Champions will have [Crit Chance%] chance to land a Critical Hit. Critical Hits will deal 2xAD damage." This was true for everyone, whether you're an ADC that is entirely based around crits or if you're playing Crittlesticks and running AD items on a mage, the 'rules' were the same. Then 
Yasuo came along, and he took a sledgehammer to the rules. He gets double critical strike chance from items, but his critical strikes deal 10% less damage than anyone (and even less on his Q).
Well alright, critical hits are generally limited to ADCs anyway so it just fits in their niche... so what about Basic Attacks?
Every Champion in the game uses basic attacks; even your most ability-reliant AP mage lasts hits minions or smacks at a tower. Then enter 
Kalista - now her basic attacks only scale 0.9:1 AD. She breaks a fundamental rule of the game, but it opens up new options; they can push Kal towards her Stacking gameplay patterns, and still let her use AD ratios on her abilities but soften her actual basic attacks. And with the Preseason changes we're seeing a lot more of this. Soon 
Caitlyn's auto attacks scale 10% less well with attack speed. And 
Graves' auto attacks are in a completely different class than anyone. What does all this mean for the future of League?
Q: What are some other new ways Riot could "break" the rules to make a unique and interesting niche?
In some ways its exciting! It opens up whole new possibilities. But how does this change the visibility of power? Sure, the tooltips will tell the player this information; if they know what to look for. But with a game with tens of millions of players, and as quickly as things change and how drastically they change from one season to the next, it can be hard to keep up. And if you're playing against a Champion that you're not familiar with, it can be difficult - especially for new or inexperienced players - to understand the factors at play. If, during the Preseason, a player picks up Caitlyn who is not familiar with her, how does this new "10% less AS benefit" factor into their builds?
"Alright Kouga, get to the point. What cockamamie idea do you have this time?"
Dynamic Item Descriptions What I think would help, specifically help the player understand the Champion's impacts, is to make dynamic item descriptions in the shop and while in your inventory so that you understand what you're getting. This will only change for a handful of Champions, but 1) I think it would be valuable to those couple of cases and 2) as Riot continues to explore these new possibilities, there will be more and more cases of this being useful.
So what do I mean by that? Let's say that Yasuo is looking at items in the shop. Currently, when deciding if he should buy Statikk Shiv he sees this:
Stattik Shiv
+40% attack speed +6% movement speed +20% critical strike chance
Instead, I think he should see something like this (with the bolded words being green, since he gets a benefit)
Stattik Shiv
Now that might create its own clarity issue, since it could be read as (+60 total) but I think with it being highlighted differently it would be clear enough. You could simply replace it, so they'd just see: "(+40%) critical strike chance. But I think having it displayed side by side gives a clear idea of what kind of benefit you're getting.
So Caitlyn, looking at PD would see this (in red):
Phantom Dancer
+50% (+45%) attack speed +5% movement speed +35% critical strike chance
Now I don't know about Kalista; since hers only impacts her basic attacks, rather than AD as a whole, there would not be an easy way to highlight her changes. And while there are only a few instances where this would come into play, I think it is something to consider on the back burner as Riot moves forward with these paradigm-shifting balance changes.
Well, that's what I got. If you have ideas on other Champions I forgot about where this could come into play, or if you want to share your views on Power Visibility and Riot shaking up the rules of the game, feel free to chat below in the comments - I'll make an effort to reply to anyone who wants to discuss it.
And if you're like to read more Needlessly Long Rants, I have some thoughts on Ezreal, Revamping Kha'Zix's Evolution system, and the relation between skill shots and mobility
If you somehow have gotten this far.... I salute you. -K
