Should Crit% be capped?

Linna Excel··3 votes·698 views

The other day I was thinking about D&D 3rd ed because the new one is coming out. Something I remembered about it was how critical chance was limited in that game. Usually it was a 5% chance, but with the right weapon you could have a 15% without considering magic or feats. Plus you still have to hit the other guy first.

Last night I was playing and the Yasuo on the other team got an IE and Shiv combo. In other words with his passive, he was at or close to 100% chance. That's not very much of a chance.

Now there is one thing I like about critical hits, they do introduce uncertainty into the game. I'm not going to go in to it but last year there was a nice article on grantland about how uncertainty helps to prevent snowballing in competitive events. I wish Riot would read it.

Now while I like critical hits, I think they need to be uncertain as that is their core mechanic and that's what makes them fun and frustrating. I was watching Vsauce awhile back and Micheal pointed out that there was an experiment that puppies who were randomly treated nice or poorly loved people more. Casinos prove, people can't get enough of randomness, even if it puts them in the poor house.

Yasuo kind of points out a flaw in the system: build two items and eliminate all randomness while doubling your base damage. Obviously he is an extreme case but typically an ADC is going to build an IE and a zeal item. That means he's going to have a 50% crit chance give or take. If you ask me that's not irregular enough.

So what would happen if crit was limited to about 10% to 25% (yasuo can be 10% higher). If it were there just enough so that you'd know it could be a factor but random enough you can't count on it, I think the game would be better off in general.

Edit: for those complaining about ADCs not being able to do enough damage if crit were capped, ADCs tend to build item 3035 half as often as item 3031 . Maybe that's their problem.

12 Comments

Zarkkast2 votes

I'm currently neutral on the subject, but it does seem like an interesting idea. Passives such as Ashe's would be more rewarding and Yasuo's passive would have to be reworked.

That being said, this is a problem because it would require an entire rework for adc itemization.

Fisk1 votes

I don't think there would be that much of a loss to the ADC position. As long as you made it a high cap (like 75%) it would be fine as most adc's wont ever build more than that anyway. Also yasuo is pretty OP as it is so he really probably would still be viable if they made a 75% crit cap.

Linna Excel1 votes

No. A 75% cap is just too high.

Fisk1 votes

Any lower would just be detrimental to gameplay. Crit really isn't OP its only OP when there is no chance involved (I.E. getting to higher than 85% where you will crit basically every strike). The RNG that runs crit re rolls every strike so there is a very low chance of getting those three/four crits in a fight actually.

Linna Excel1 votes

That's the point. Crits are only meaningful to gameplay when you can't count on them. In the gaming world they are supposed to be random. That's how they have value in a game.

It's fine to want something that multiplies your base damage, but that would be an AD rabadons. An AD deathcap would be fine but just remember you shouldn't be able to stack deathcaps. That's the other problem with 100% crits: it's the equivalent of stacking 3 deathcaps on an AP champ and letting the passives stack.

Talith PA2 votes

In season 5 we will finally see crit completely removed with some items providing crit like effects that aren't dice based. Because we live in an era where we don't have to be shackled to 30 year old game design based around dice.

XxXDarkSideXxX2 votes

Lower Crit, You Have To Raise Base Damage Or Adcs Are Worthless. Raise Base Thier Early Game Is Too Strong.

Only Way You Could Do It And Not Mess The Mechanics Is Adcs Would Have To Get Massive Atk Per Level. But Then You Will Probly See Tanky Adcs And They Will Just Build Ranged Bruisers.

Linna Excel1 votes

Or maybe ADCs shouldn't be buying last whisper in only 30% of their games.

XxXDarkSideXxX2 votes

Lw Is Only In 30% Of Games For 2 Reasons

1 Crappy Adcs Who Don't Understand Mechanics And 2 The Most Common Reason, Most Games People Surrender Before A Adc Build Gets That Far.

Worgslarg1 votes

I feel that limiting crit woud make it worse of a stat than it is.

Personally, crit should be removed, and yasuo's passive reworked.

The potential to win a game based upon pure RNG is toxic to the game. Riot removed dodge, as they should remove crit aswell.

Replace crit% with % bonus damage for the same overall output.

Linna Excel1 votes

No, luck actually benefits the game but it's something difficult to convince people of. Games need a degree of uncertainty in them.

Pikmints1 votes

If anything, I'd be more in favor of Riot changing some (probably not all) of the critical chance stats to unique passives. Placing a cap on it (below the current 100% cap), almost makes the game more binary than it currently is, narrowing the viable item paths each champ could purchase.

You'll see on threads from time to time people suggesting the removal of crit chance all together since it's one of the few elements of RNG still in the game. People often like to point out that crit chance is a good way of having ad champs scale into late game. Limiting crit chance means that some items that currently have crit chance will see their pick rates decrease, either to the point of the items receiving buffs (best case scenario), or the items being removed entirely (worst case scenario).

As you stated, some champs tend to focus a bit more on the crit chance stat than others. Champs like Gangplank would see some of their viable options reduced, placing the champs most effected by this change to be higher priority in terms of either buffs or reworks. Yasuo would be effected in more than 1 way, as that would likely mean Yasuo would either buy the same items he always has and waste some of his gold on crit stats he can't use, or he would deprive himself of other useful stats that those items tend to give such as Statikk Shiv granting additional attack speed and movement speed. That same principle is the same reason why a lot of ad based champs have a little bit of ap scaling, because Riot doesn't want people turned off to items because the champ they're playing wouldn't be able to use all of the stats it offers.

So in short, I'm against the idea of it, but I do think that there are some decisions Riot could make allowing the stat to be more... not what it is now.


Since I am always a fan of Riot considering new items:

Lucky Amulet (2250) Recipe: Giant's Belt + Longsword + Cloth Armor + 590G +400 health +20 armor +20 attack damage Unique Passive: Reduce the crit chance of nearby enemies by 20%

20% as in 50% turns to 40% rather than 30%. In other words, 20% of their existing crit chance, not a flat 20% reduction.

If Riot does implement an item with similar effects to this, that means that no nearby champ could have more than 80% crit since the stat does have a hard cap at 100%

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