Has Riot's champion design become the biggest issue of this game?
Hi everybody! I wanted to make an infographic/historical post about the last two years of champion releases in League of Legends, in order to analize the quality of recent designs. It's a modestly long read, I don't expect the post to gain much traction, but I'd be happy if it sparked a constructive discussion.
If you don't want to read my specific champion-related judgements and informations, please skip directly to the conclusion.
2019:
He's a very recent addition, so I will refrain from judging. May I say he doesn't look promising?
She released overtuned, and looks quite overloaded. She hasn't hit proplay yet, where I feel she'll realize her true potential.
He is a straightforward bully that reached an impressive 100% banrate at worlds. He is a huge problem in proplay with no solution in sight, but he's a reasonable, albeit oppressive, champion outside of competitive.
Another champion that scored impressive 100% pick/ban at worlds, showing everyone what a complete monster she is in competent hands. Given her high skill floor, she isn't percieved as broken in the average elo. She is a complete design nightmare that will require a lot of efforts to be fixed.
Ult departement lacks in counterplay, but overall number changes have proven effective in controlling his power state.
Complete cancer that yet again polarized pub and pro. Had to be neutered into the worst champion of the game for months. Recently Riot spent resources on a mini-rework which solved none of her design problems.
She proved a really though piece to balance, and has undergone a mini rework already, giving her range earlier. Overall she looks balanceable with enough effort put into giving her a bad early and a non-autowin late.
He dominated competitive in 3 positions all year long. Riot nerfed him every month, changed multiple mechanics but in the end they gave up and neutered him. He has yet another mini rework pending, which doesnt look promising at all. A balance nightmare for sure.
2018:
He may be strong, but I have nothing but love for this champion.
Fair and interesting design, easily balanceable.
Commenting is useless, you all know what absolute cancer she is. She sucks up all balance team's time, she lost so many parts of her kit, was nerfed multiple times and still remains top tier in high elo and competitive, while also being unsufferable and unfair for everyone.
A big frustration point for the community, almost universally hated. He received quite some attention, even if I'd argue that his glaring problems lie not in his design but in how Pyke has been handled by the balance team (lethality scaling, extra gold generation etc.).
The worst failure to recent date. His patch notes density is through the roof; 2 years of complete pick/ban in competitive, resulting in a neutered status that still endures. When your newly reworked champion is mini-reworked 3/4 times in a year you can conclude something went wrong in the design process.
Another case of unbalanceable discrepancy between low and high elo. She's not the healthiest champion when ahead, and right now she's kept weak for the game's sake.
She does everything you would want from an ADC: as a result she crowded out any variety of botlane for her whole existence, and her dominance still endures (in all elos!!), probably because she is a big skin seller.
Swain looks like he's a fine chap, but he was neutered because his dominance as an APC botlane, and was kept weak until his recent, successful, mini rework.
2017:
No comment. So many changes, still frustrating and unfair. Her very design of "old nidalee but on steroids" will always be a problem. At least right now she's sort of balanced, and she is rarely seen, but remains infuriating to play against.
Final classification and conclusions: NOTE: Senna and Aphelios are my personal predictions, and it could very well be bullshit. Dont mind it too much please.
Balance Nightmare:
Those are champions that were, or are, a point of frustration for the community in terms of counterplay and fairness. A common element in those above is huge performance diffrence based off elo. All of the champions of this list required, or will require, a lot of the balance team's attention in order to gain a semblance of balance. Iterative changes will be put out monthly, and mini-reworks are not guaranteed to achieve anything significant.
Balance problem:
Those champions suffer, or suffered, from being overloaded, or have some underlying problem in proplay. They can be challenging to balance, but one mini-rework + number changes are enough to put those in line.
Balanceable:
Number changes are enough to manage those guys.
As you can clearly see, recent releases prove to be more and more problematic. This is only partially subjective, for a champion success in terms of design can be evaluated by the number of changes he receives after its introduction. And, objectively, recent champions suck up most of the patch notes space; this very space could be spent into bringing on par with modern standards many older champions, effectively adding a champion to the roster (example: if Aatrox required less mini-reworks, Wukong changes would be here already).
Out of the newest 17 champions, 9 are unbalanceable messes, 5 are problematic but there is hope for them, and only 3 are fine. You might disagree about the single placement, but the trend still remains. What do YOU think about this situation? Is League champ design going downhill? If the trend continues, aren't you worried that balance nighmares will accumulate one after another and lead to an unsuistanable future?
