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Why Do Some Champions Have to be Bad?

ModThe Djinn·11/1/2018, 4:26:10 PM·27 votes·31,072 views

At no point in League's history have all League champions been perfectly competitive across all skill levels -- or even within the same skill level. Should they be, though? I'm going to argue that no, they shouldn't, and that these disparities can be a good thing.

For reference, I'm going to link an article on Magic: the Gathering design that I think speaks to the core of what I'm about to dig into. If you're a game design theory fan, definitely check it out! If you're not, no worries -- I'll cover the important things.

##Assertion 1: Power Levels are Relative to Current Gameplay A champion that split-pushes exceptionally well -- maybe even best in class -- is only good if split-pushing is a viable option. A champion with powerful teamfighting cannot thrive when the game state encourages split pressure and rotations. A champion who synergizes excellently with mages suffers in an AD-heavy environment. With all of the factors in a game as complex as League -- and with the meta-game constantly evolving even without balance changes -- champions will fall in and out of favor based on the way the game is being played. Worlds this year was a good example: the environment of top lane changed without any balance adjustments based solely on the picks people were using elsewhere to influence team compositions.

##Assertion 2: Champions Can Succeed at Any Level If you look up pretty much any champion, you can find people who main those champions in high Master or even Challenger. The number may vary, but players who dedicate themselves to a specific character can find success with them pretty much anywhere but the world stage. Some undoubtedly are harder to succeed with than others at this level of player skill, but it can be done, and that is supported by data.

##Assertion 3: Diversity Rewards Skilled and Knowledgeable Players A player who plays only one character will naturally struggle when facing a good counter. A player who has high-level knowledge of how to play a rough lane will struggle less when facing the same counter. A player who knows the weaknesses of said opponent as well will struggle even less, and a player who has a deeper champion pool may find herself able to make the decision to switch into a stronger match-up -- while a truly skilled player can judge when the match-up advantage is not worth swapping to a less familiar champion. These are all representations of a player's skill just as much if not more than their knowledge of how to play a specific champion, and the existence of relative gameplay is what makes these sorts of decisions complex and interesting.

##Assertion 4: Player Seek Different Things from League

  • Some players want to win at any cost.
  • Some players want to defy the odds and succeed at something considered bad or silly.
  • Some players want to just play a champion they like.
  • Some players want to play easy or simple champions.
  • Some players want to play difficult champions.
  • Some players want to master ever element of a specific kit or role.
  • Some players want to play to achieve personal goals that are not dependent on simply winning games or increasing in rank.
  • Some players seek to experiment.
  • Some players just want to play something they think is "cool," however they define that.

#Inequality Can Be Desirable. Given these assertions, having some inequality in balance brings a number of interesting things:

  • Giving a player the ability to show off their skill through persistence or simply raw mastery. Overcoming the odds to play Garen at Challenger is a huge success for the Garen player, and gives them a personal goal to strive for.
  • Giving a player the ability to learn and grow by realizing when the capabilities of one champion or strategy is unable to contribute at a specific skill rank or into a specific matchup, and then offering them the choice to persist towards raw champion mastery or diversify with their better meta-game knowledge and awareness.
  • Giving a player the ability to experiment with things that are not popular or considered powerful to see if they can find success through unexpected or underestimated picks or team combinations, effectively throwing a wrench into the enemy's understanding of the meta and eking out a surprise win.
  • Giving a player a sense of discovery when facing something that gives them trouble, and encouraging them to explore other builds, strategies, tactics, and champions.
  • Giving a player the ability to define the goals and champions that best suit their playstyle, even if not every champion appeals equally to every playstyle.

Ultimately, I believe that striving for every champion to be viable in ever situation at every skill level would take away a lot of what makes the climb toward true mastery in League interesting, damage the macro-gameplay experience, and also harm the experiences of players who have playstyles that differ from the "climb as high as possible" playstyle. In an asymmetric multiplayer game the time spent trying to achieve this theoretical balance would further detract from other interesting additions and developments that offer players further ways to learn, express their individuality, and enjoy League, for a payoff that would take away some of the aspects that make mastering the game a great experience.

45 Comments

SEKAI11/2/2018, 6:26:56 AM20 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Djinn,realm=NA,application-id=ELUpwER8,discussion-id=8xAs6LEY,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-11-01T16:26:10.336+0000)

##Assertion 2: Champions Can Succeed at Any Level If you look up pretty much any champion, you can find people who main those champions in high Master or even Challenger. The number may vary, but players who dedicate themselves to a specific character can find success with them pretty much anywhere but the world stage. Some undoubtedly are harder to succeed with than others at this level of player skill, but it can be done, and that is supported by data.

This is the same as saying because there is a handful of successful black people in the most overtly racist times of USA, therefore it means any person could succeed at any level regardless of skin colour; or how Asians are doing above average in USA today, in spite of the fact most things are institutionalised against them ranging from acquiring a seat in top universities, scoring promotion and raise, to dates (in terms of guys), and many other things. Obviously, you are not just going to ignore the unparalleled extra effort the marginalised people had to go through to achieve the same level of success as the others in this kind of situation.

Champions are the same, just because there is this guy or 2 who manage to play X champ in Challenger, it doesn't suddenly and automatically mean all champs are balanced remotely equal. It is pretty obvious that some mains have to work harder, sometimes multiple times harder, to achieve the same kind of success due to the fact champs are simply not balanced remotely equally and competitively in this game, something you both acknowledge and actively promote.

And that's also quite funny because your entire premise of the thread is that champs should be balance unequally and made many steps to try and justify it, but then turns around and claim that champs are actually all equal as one of the supporting arguments... for promoting that champs should be balanced unequally. I am not too sure what you're trying to imply, is it that because champs are all equal (even though you know and said they aren't) and that's bad and therefore they shouldn't be equal and that's good, or that some champs just has to use significantly more effort than others because fuck them? I don't get it.

........

#Assertion 3: Diversity Rewards Skilled and Knowledgeable Players

A player who plays only one character will naturally struggle when facing a good counter. A player who has high-level knowledge of how to play a rough lane will struggle less when facing the same counter. A player who knows the weaknesses of said opponent as well will struggle even less, and a player who has a deeper champion pool may find herself able to make the decision to switch into a stronger match-up -- while a truly skilled player can judge when the match-up advantage is not worth swapping to a less familiar champion. These are all representations of a player's skill just as much if not more than their knowledge of how to play a specific champion, and the existence of relative gameplay is what makes these sorts of decisions complex and interesting.

And you made a post specifically to promote that the LACK OF diversity is actually a good thing. Wouldn't this argument kind of debunk your own narrative?

........

Given these assertions, having some inequality in balance brings a number of interesting things:

  • Giving a player the ability to show off their skill through persistence or simply raw mastery. Overcoming the odds to play Garen at Challenger is a huge success for the Garen player, and gives them a personal goal to strive for.

This is a meaningless statement. The goal for any player in Ranked is to climb; what other goal is there?

Are you telling me that because you're promoting the notion that no champs should be equally competitive, and thus you want to substitute the champs intentionally balanced weak a sort of participation award where it basically says "here, your champ is destined to suck, and it sucks to be you. But take this, it means you should've been in Challenger division 1. I hope you'll forgive us."

  • Giving a player the ability to learn and grow by realizing when the capabilities of one champion or strategy is unable to contribute at a specific skill rank or into a specific matchup, and then offering them the choice to persist towards raw champion mastery or diversify with their better meta-game knowledge and awareness.

The implication that "meta-game knowledge" and "awareness" are about knowing the absolute tier of champs is imo nonsense.

A player is neither learning and growing when the champ they like is straight up impossible to go beyond a certain rank and they are all funneled into this tiny sector of supreme champs that receive the special treatment of being allowed to be competitive. Neither is it "mastery", because there is nothing about mastering champs, it's just about knowing which champs are destined to suck and you just have to avoid them if you want to be competitive.

And I still don't get how you can interpret deliberate gimping of competitive diversity to be an act of promoting diversity.

  • Giving a player the ability to experiment with things that are not popular or considered powerful to see if they can find success through unexpected or underestimated picks or team combinations, effectively throwing a wrench into the enemy's understanding of the meta and eking out a surprise win.
  • Giving a player a sense of discovery when facing something that gives them trouble, and encouraging them to explore other builds, strategies, tactics, and champions.

Why would any have any incentive to experiment, if the competitive roster is to be deliberately restricted by giving champs a hard tier?

No one stuck in a battle royale would be trying out a shiv if they have the choice to get their hands on knives, firearms, or explosives. If the weapon selection has a clearly visible tier difference, it does NOT encourage experimentation. Experimentation happens if there are a lot of options that all seem viable, NOT when it's very confined power curve.

  • Giving a player the ability to define the goals and champions that best suit their playstyle, even if not every champion appeals equally to every playstyle.

See the first dot point of this section.

........ ........ ........

It is indeed true that games generally would at some point reach an end-state where there is 1 or a couple superior meta that trumps all others. But that happens due to the inevitability of human creation not being so nigh impossibly complex and astronomical in scale thus there has to exist a finite end-points somewhere; it is however, NOT because all game designs have to come with a deliberate restriction on its available competitive approaches within it. The 2 have extremely contrasting dynamics, one is the product of inevitability while the other is a deliberate design choice.

But I mean, wouldn't any game with the rosters, different pawns, and other similar options be centered around having as many options be competitive as possible? If not, and going so far to deliberately restrict the number of competitive options available, then why even bother with the options in the first place? Why would League need 140+ characters when it's intended that only 10-20 are ever going to be competitive and the rest are there enjoying the "alternative" goal of some kind of participation awards and enjoy heating the bench?

I disagree with your ideas, OP. I believe the thing you're promoting is counter-intuitive and counter-productive to the very existence of this game and its genre.

ModUlanopo11/2/2018, 12:35:58 AM10 votes

My only disagreement with this is my feeling that you're saying Riot shouldn't attempt to modulate in the direction of (near) perfect viability. The meta is influenced as much by the practicalities of performance, personal preference and community perception as it is by math. As such, it's a chaotic system and can't be modulated in that way at all.

I would argue that Riot's only responsibility in this regard is to rein in the obvious outliers.

DerMangoJoghurt11/2/2018, 4:24:52 PM2 votes

I think you should highlight that, although the existence of bad champions can have positive effects, they are generally not desired in League. No champion is designed to be bad or purposefully left in a bad state when they could be improved easily. Even the article you linked states that the main reason for the existence of bad cards is that they simply can't be avoided.

Bansheenoir11/8/2018, 9:39:24 PM2 votes

Basically, some champions are pushed for skin sales.

Vlada Cut11/2/2018, 1:25:05 PM2 votes

Downvote button is missing, bs. All champions should be balanced, why balance for the sake of "balance" when all champions can be equally good or bad? If people really want something "new" or "refreshing" that's what new champions are for, for fullfilling missing roles or purposes and reworked champions so they succeed where outdated designs could not.

XeroKimo11/2/2018, 5:13:27 PM1 votes

Despite what people say, right now I'm sure that as low as C tier champs in their respective role is viable to play, but it's catered around team comps. I'll be forward and say, I hate playing meta champs, I hate people who only play meta champs and think it's the only way to play the game. I love playing champs that are 2-3 tiers below best, figuring out how they can put success even when it's not in their favor, and most of the time I do find success, then find it puzzling that people just see them as useless. Hell some of the champions I play could suddenly be meta and suddenly their mentality of said champion suddenly is "nerf this champ rito pls", and I'll become more surprised because you people said they were useless like a few days ago.

Sleep On Stream11/2/2018, 5:31:31 PM1 votes

BUFF BARD

Nik Nikerson11/2/2018, 7:42:41 PM1 votes

I think a lot of people forget that League is a game, and at it's core a game needs to be fun. Balance makes for fun game play, but only to a point. There is a break point at which balance actively works against fun. A flat power curve is hypothetically achievable, but it doesn't make for a good game. Rock-Paper-Scissors has a flat power curve, and I don't know that anyone could argue that it makes for an especially good time.

Also, props on the MaRo article. MtG nerds unite!

HaIlMonitor11/3/2018, 6:51:50 PM1 votes

I think they all can be, but riot will always favor favorite champs. Champs like Ahri, Lee, ect, ect can sit at higher winrates (be strong) regardless if they are op or not because people don't care. Riot is a business so I think the reality is they don't care about about all champs being good, they care about the game being popular so they make money.

With that being said though, You also have to look at the whole picture. ADC's for example have "blocks" of champs that all do the same thing. For example KogMaw Kaisa Varus Hybrid Damage

Jhin MissFortune Quinn Bursty ADC

Lucian Caitlyn Draven Lane Bullies

So what happens is the meta will favor a batch or a specific champion from a set because they are the strongest, get buffed, others get nerfed. So it will always be this way as long as there are over 100 champs where some have very similar kits/playstyles.

Kaisha11/4/2018, 1:07:04 PM1 votes

You know full well if you were to actually balance the game even remotely the playerbase would leave. Don't pretend its about 'diversity' of gameplay or any such nonsense, its about rotating the meta to make as much cash from the store.

Faneseeker11/6/2018, 7:34:55 PM1 votes

WTF is an Ivern anyway. how do you play him and how do you play with him. To me every time I get an Ivern on my team he is either bugging me to take buffs as though I owe him my life or he just walks around planting grass....

I won't miss him if he goes extinct.

Linna Excel11/6/2018, 9:12:52 PM1 votes

Bringing up that MTG article makes this topic a tough sell for me. The moment I learned about the track printing and WotC flooding packs with garbage rares "for draft" my bullshit alarm starts going off. Then the other day we learned that the next masters set is going to have $15 packs meaning you'll have to pay $45 at minimum for a single draft. Said $15 packs will be filled with junk rares and curling cards. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of things in that article that are fair and I like, but at the end of the day he's being the PR guy trying to distract people from the fact wizards is tricking them out of their money.

For MtG bad cards exist to sell more packs to whales. I mean I get what he's saying, but at the end of the day people crack packs for good cards so bad cards are a part of the skinner box of compulsive gambling.

So on to Cleveland.

Assertion 1: Power Levels are Relative to Current Gameplay

This I both agree with and am fine with in league terms, that being define around a meta. There either needs to be an evolving meta or or enough viable options to make games feel fresh over the long term. The problem lies when champions are never allowed to be good (pre-rework poppy) or when their meta tends to be rare and short (shyvana).

However for MTG, which was the focus of the article, the point is that wizards needs shit cards to fill packs with so people keep buying more and they are focused around draft, which pulls down the quality of cards in general. Mythic rares are a great example of this. They (the good ones) help define constructed but WotC keeps them rare in drafting (3 mythics per pod) and frankly half the mythics are crap. Oh look, I pulled a terrible mythic in the 3rd pack and it's not even a color I'm drafting around.

At the end of the day, champs need to maintain a minimum level of viability and those like Sejuani fail to meet that standard. At the very least every bad champ needs a niche that makes said champ pickable. A Sej main with all her skins right now is sitting on a pile of wasted money. People whose mains are in a terrible state right now or saw their main deworked out of existance aren't going to keep paying riot. That's just burning customers away. So there needs to be a relative floor that no one can fall through.

So the financial reasoning behind overpriced garbage fire curly cards doesn't hold up to LOL.

Assertion 2: Champions Can Succeed at Any Level

Riot is trying to get better at this, but there are still low elo terrors, champs that are unplayable at lower elos, and a too small cast of champs that are picked at the pro level. Ryze basically only succeeds at the pro level. So who cares if a champ is playable by one of the best players who are spending too much time on that champ if that champ can't really be played at the elo you the player are in?

However even if a champ can succeed at any level, you'd have to admit that the extra time and effort to get the bad ones there is hardly fair to the people playing them. As a player, first and foremost I've got to care about the level I'm playing in. Everything else is academic.

Assertion 3: Diversity Rewards Skilled and Knowledgeable Players

This doesn't feel like it belongs in the topic at hand because it is more about the player and less about the champion. Sure things have counters, but having a counter is neither bad nor is people who like banging their heads against a wall the central argument of this topic.

Assertion 4: Player Seek Different Things from League

You forgot to mention weebs in search of their "best girl" waifu.

Gilgayu11/6/2018, 10:23:27 PM1 votes

Tbh I think some champions are bad simply because league has so many of them (over 140), and it very hard to really "balance" the game. For example, every time you nerf a champion, you are basicly buffing the champions it counters slightly

Daddy Ants11/29/2018, 3:59:36 PM1 votes

When you mean "Why do some champions have to be bad?"

I presume you're referring to champions like Sejuani, Galio, Shen, Ryze, Azir and Kalista?

Sadly that's called Pro Play Syndrome.

ModUlanopo11/2/2018, 12:32:13 AM1 votes

approved

King I Rat12/23/2018, 2:09:33 AM1 votes

Achieving perfection is impossible, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't strive for it. The game will never be perfectly balanced, most veteran/higher ranked players know this. For one character to have an edge against another is fine, it's when it becomes a "rock, papper, scissors" style of gameplay that you get problems.

A good example would be Graves through most of this previous season. He has been completely unstoppable for most of the season to the point where if I ever got matched against him cause I forgot to ban him or I made the mistake of thinking "Well, maybe they won't pick him this time and I can ban something else" I would just give up hopes of winning, cause there was no matchup I could pick that would be able to fight him. I could bring out 110% of my skill, I could predict every skillshot and stay at a distance and it would never matter, he would still beat me, just cause he was Graves and I was anyone else.

Riot needs to strive for perfect balance, even if they can never achieve it, cause otherwise, what's even the point of playing?

MasterDClone11/2/2018, 1:21:07 AM1 votes

Who is it exactly that wants every champions to be viable because for the game to be fun there needs to be champions that are better than others. I don't understand who you are trying to argue with because everything you wrote though well written is pretty much just common sense

EchoZeero11/2/2018, 10:45:30 AM1 votes

I think that a champion's viability has more to do with the the level at which the player is able to fill its role. I love to play off-meta picks, not because I want to antagonize my team mates but because I know I can do better with an off meta pick than with a meta one. Sometimes, players having trouble reacting to an off-meta pick has its benefits. I used to play a lot of top AP Nunu and would do very well, and I do very good with support Zyra despite all of her plants bugs. Sure, champions should be balanced and the power level should be somewhat uniform, but a champion's strength usually resides in the hands of the player.

PandaNator4311/2/2018, 2:41:02 PM1 votes

Well said, I agree with all your assertions, but I'm not sure how to apply them to LoL.

At any environment (pro vs solo vs flex/clash, high vs low elo), a champion can be too strong, and power needs to be shaved off. But if the champion is only over performing in one environment, it doesn't make sense to nerf them for all environments.

Taliyah and Ryze are my favorite champions, but I'm a lowly Silver player, where they're considered weak. I really appreciate Riots mindfulness when nerfing them. Nerfing the parts of their kits that are more powerful in pro play makes sense, as that is where they are overperforming.

So I know Riot talks a lot about nerfing/buffing champions for specific environments, but I don't think that necessarily means they want to force the same win rate for a champions across all environments. I'd say their pivot this year to stop working on Ryze, Kalista, and Azir shows their comfortable with some difference in win rates.

Do you think that's fair? I feel like I might be missing your point... I'm not sure you thinking about win rates or specific champions, but that's what came to mind for me.

Gilgayu11/2/2018, 4:23:17 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Djinn,realm=NA,application-id=ELUpwER8,discussion-id=8xAs6LEY,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-11-01T16:26:10.336+0000) Overcoming the odds to play Garen at Challenger is a huge success for the Garen player, and gives them a personal goal to strive for.

Garen in Challenger... (no offense but is this even possible?)