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I am curious as to how hard the balance team actually works.

Schàdenfreude·2/8/2018, 1:08:32 AM·48 votes·1,805 views

No, seriously. Apart from playtesting, it honestly seems pretty easy to brainstorm changes to problematic champions and ship patches.

Take Zoe for example. It's obvious that this champion is a huge problem, yet the balance team believes that a simple 1-0.25 seconds increase on her Q will make a difference. Many within this community recognize the problem Zoe poses, and have brainstormed better ways to nerf Zoe, such as having cleanse remove the true damage proc form E, or simply toning down her damage to prevent one shotting. It seems pretty unbelieveable that the balance team would think of shipping such a tiny change as this and not something else.

Another example where the balance team has failed to ship adaquate changes to items or champions or failed to ship changes on time would be during the Ardent Censer days. Now, they may have been influenced by the fact that Worlds was coming up, and had no time to think of changes to Ardent Censer, the answer was pretty obvious: simply nerf the damage output it gives. This was echoed by many throughout this community and Reddit, yet the balance team did nothing to solve this.

A final example of the balance team's incompetency would be the problematic item known as Duskblade. What makes this so problematic is that this item is simply too strong on assassins. However, it's also impossible to nerf the item without destroying all AD assassins. A simple solution to this would be to nerf Duskblade and buff other assassin items. Done. Easy.

Now, it might not be that simple, and these changes would have to be playtested. But it's extremely simple to come up with certain changes and apply them to the game. I'm by no means a coding expert, but I do know some things. It really isn't hard to change values within a game. You simply have to replace one number with another.

I also don't know anything about the process in which they ship changes, which is my fault. I could be completely wrong about how hard they work. Maybe they actually do spend hours and hours thinking of changes to the game. But in this case Riot should probably tell us more about how their teams work. Give the players more information to help them get a better sense of what the balance team is doing. I believe that game companies and players should have close communication with each other in order to improve the game.

With all this in mind, what do you guys think? Is the balance team full of slackers or are they hard workers?

40 Comments

warwiller2/8/2018, 1:33:20 AM35 votes

They don't

redniwediS2/8/2018, 1:46:32 AM21 votes

We don't really see enough of the internal workings of Riot to make a real guess. We can make assumptions, but there are too many holes that are too easily filled with opinion for a real guess to be made.

Jinx Hunter2/8/2018, 7:05:57 AM10 votes

Pretty much this

GC: http://minimemes.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/1399969536846.jpg

Balance team: http://i64.tinypic.com/sxnq51.jpg [slayer-jinx-wink]

Cosnirak2/8/2018, 8:44:30 AM8 votes

Doing balance correctly isn't as simple as come up with idea, ship idea. Most things in the game are so much more interwoven than you seem to realize.

In reference to your comments about duskblade I say this: If you nerf duskblade but buff all other AD assassin items you're buffing every champion who uses any of those items but not duskblade (and yeah, there are several). You also likely change the order in which items are bought, which has numerous consequences.

There's also the question of how much to change each of those items. If you nerf duskblade by 5 ad do you add 1 ad to 5 other items or 5 ad to each other ad assassin item, or something inbetween? These all have different consequences in terms of damage after first item and damage at mid game and damage at full build. Do you change the gold cost instead? If so, the same question of by how much and what are you buffing by how much elsewhere applies. You could nerf/buff the utility of the items involved, but that's also likely to have massive unforeseen consequences and be very hard to measure and thus know how much change is correct.

Now imagine all of these options are on the table. How much time do you think it takes to change the code (especially if you rework how a utility item ability works), test each iteration, get feedback, test more and make sure you haven't caused a major bug, and finally pick a "correct" choice? And now imagine no amount of testing your company can do will ever be sufficient to actually be 100% certain your choice is correct and will vastly pale in comparison in amount of time played to just 1 hour of live gameplay happening after the change. So do you just use the live servers as lab rats and patch every 2-3 days? Do you test any changes internally for months before releasing in order to be certain but which leaves any awful situations on live servers unchanged for that long?

General Esdeath 2/8/2018, 9:48:03 AM8 votes

Well seeing as they're all ADC mains I'll portray them AS ADCs

Vayne "Ah shit, it's Monday night guys, the patch goes live TOMORROW! We need to change something."

Ashe "Oh I know, uh, we can buff throws dart Kennen by throws another dart increasing the ratio on his throws third dart Q"

Vayne "Great idea Johnson, anyone else have any ideas?"

Twitch "Well, I was playing a game as Tryndamere and I lost to a ranged champ because I was kited too hard, so we should buff Tryndamere's damage."

Vayne "Excellent idea Brandon, but we need something big. Someone check the Gameplay boards, what are people complaining about?"

Tristana "They're complaining about Zoe's damage being too high, even linking that LCS game where Ezreal was one shot by her."

Vayne Well we haven't had enough Zoe purchases through RP or CyberPop Zoe skins. We need to make it something noticeable but not too bad on her."

Varus "What if we increase her Q cooldown by 1 second and then gradually scale it down to just 0.25 seconds higher at rank 5?"

Vayne "Holy shit David that's genius. Johnson, start changing numbers, someone call Phreak and get him to write up some witty comments. OK, everyone got it?"

Ezreal "But...but sir isn't that a little light since her damage is the pro-"

Vayne "Jim, who let you out of the basement? We talked about this. The kids don't want damage lowered, they want it increased. Now go back to drawing up that new ADC item for 120 AD and increases AD by 35%. Those fucking mages don't deserve so much burst."

InfiniX2/8/2018, 3:48:50 AM5 votes

Very likely that the balance team is full of rent seekers that paid to get into their position. Because if they actually took the time to play with and against the shit they've put out, they would instantly know what is frustrating/weak/strong about the champ/item. Zoe for example, has way too good of wave clear, on top with insane spammable burst that is VERY hard to see coming because of how fast the projectile is(basically what Lux wish she could have been), and if you ever try to jump her you will get point blank bubbled which has 0 counterplay outside of cleansing fast enough after the CC hits to dodge her Q and she will most likely have RNG'd something with her W to save her.

So what I would do is up the cooldown drastically on her Q and E(taking in account of how easy it will be to max out CDR next patch), cut down the projectile speed on her Q, rework her W completely and maybe take some damage off her Q to give her a less bullshit and more consistently useful W skill, and cut her Q damage to minions significantly, so that her one and only strength is bursting people down(and if you miss your skillshot, you have EXPLOITABLE cooldowns), not waveclear so efficiently that everyone laning vs her is ALWAYS in kill range and being allowed to roam so easily. And I just thought of this on the fly as one person and it's not even my job, so just think about what multiple people on the balance team are supposed to be doing all day, that they are being paid to do, being HORRIBLY incompetent at their jobs. They don't even have to be good at the game, if they just used their brains and looked at the data, and see what pro and high elo players find frustrating about something, they could actually understand what real counterplay is, and not just skillshots = counterplay because you can "just dodge lol".

Busty Demoness2/8/2018, 3:49:55 AM4 votes

Zoe's E is intended as progressive CC, so Cleanse is supposed to remove both by normal rules.

Tuning down the damage and projectile speed on her Q would be better for preventing her one-shots and forcing her to rely on her E.

Mordius2/8/2018, 2:00:51 AM4 votes

Maybe if they opened up PBE, more people could test out these builds before they go live and make changes where they are needed

Bârd2/8/2018, 6:20:44 PM3 votes

9-5 job. Yeah, you have to work pretty hard.

You can't just gut everything that's too strong; you need to find changes that tone them down enough that they can be handled without nerfing them so much that you create more work for yourself to bring them back up to snuff.

Doesn't help that the community doesn't really give a damn when you get things right, but they'll lambaste you for any perceived mistake (even if the "OP champ" is balanced).

Nobody talks about Velkoz because he's agreed to be the most balanced champ in the game. People have a stroke whenever Vayne is viable outside of OTP's.

Pandemic Punch2/8/2018, 10:02:52 AM3 votes

Statistically, there are several other champions that are more problematic than Zoe in the mid lane right now. Like Twisted Fate, Xerath, Katarina, and Veigar.

There is no such thing as a balanced game. They will always change the meta to compensate and keep things interesting. Wait a few months and the meta might be the way you like it.

Nea1042/8/2018, 3:47:36 AM3 votes

They are a company, not a scientific association. So they take into account other elements besides (and above) game balancing.

Lumendo2/8/2018, 10:17:11 AM2 votes

Honestly, considering it takes them two weeks to come up with a few completely pointless changes that most of the time miss the actual problematic things I don't think they work at all. "Work" implies doing something productive while they just fuck up the game more and more.

KennysDreamGirl2/8/2018, 8:56:40 AM2 votes

They dont think. They don't care. I've tried to keep up hope in riot but I'm done with that now. They don't know two things about balance not do they listen to there players for options for change

iTaLenTZ2/8/2018, 2:19:35 PM2 votes

I think they work their asses off but quantity doesn't make quality. You can have a mediocre football player work his ass off at every training but his result will not be the same as Ronaldo, Messi etc. Even if he works harder than them and has the best intentions.

Conclusions is Riot needs to hire more Ronaldo's and Messi's and less random people. That is how you improve the quality. Take Manchester City and AC Milan for example. Both have spent the same amount of money last season yet City bought a couple of high end players and AC Milan a lot of okeyish players. Easy to see who is better off now. And just like Yaya Toure and others City is letting people go who were good in the past but not so good any more. You need to keep striving to have the best people in their profession to work at your company. Otherwise you will have stagnation and decline like Real Madrid this year.

Kanzler2/8/2018, 6:53:19 PM2 votes

Have you considered that they dont implement your ideas because your ideas are bad?

Like honestly, a burst mage who can't burst? If any, the only meaningful change she needs is either CD or mana increases on early E. The damage is fine.

Tomoe Gozen2/8/2018, 8:46:40 PM2 votes

Riot already commented on how they lock patches internally and what/how much testing is done.
Depending on the change, they get feedback from us, from their data, try to figure out what's exactly wrong and multiple solutions to go about it. Then they iterate, send it to QA people, get feedback from them, iterate again and make adjustments, send again, etc. Depending on the scope of the work, this work also competes for their time with other projects. One Rioter is always working with multiple projects at one time so you can assume that each of these projects require the same hoop jumping when it comes to making changes to the game.

I can't quite remember which Rioter discussed the internal dynamics but they've also said (as far as i remember), that they usually have 2-3 weeks to do this work and then they have to lock the patch in in advance, like 1-2 weeks before the real deal and send it to bug testing. This is why Riot may seem slow to respond to some balance changes but this is due to how they internally have to follow the protocol.

So Riot also decided to have a few patches that are smaller when it comes to scope and then one bigger one, to specifically give them enough time to sink in bigger projects and have more time to test things out before they ship some changes.

Keep in mind @OP that you've disguised your post as a question and instead, you've made a statement. Riot already has made a comments about posts like these and that they generally avoid them because in many occasions, people who inhabit them are not interested in how Riot came to this conclusion, they're just angry that they didn't do it according to the boards' "findings" and they want to lynch someone.

Your suggestions may seem like reasonable changes to you but all i see is basically hitting the items and Zoe right across the face and not letting them be good at what they're supposed to because you find it frustrating. And this is not the way balance should be done.

xelaker2/8/2018, 8:52:45 PM2 votes

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/566f3aa872f2c193108b579f-480/party-drunk-binge-drinking-alcohol-shots.jpg

an actual picture of the balance team pulling a long 3 hour work day.

Bael the Riser2/8/2018, 7:10:43 AM1 votes

Leave the loli alone!

A P É2/8/2018, 9:51:24 PM1 votes

work? LUL

ModThe Djinn2/8/2018, 7:18:31 PM1 votes

But it's extremely simple to come up with certain changes and apply them to the game.

So this is the difference between being an idea guy and being a designer. The former is easy: we can sit here all day and go "Zoe is OP. Let's nerf her Q damage" and so on. The difficult part is figuring out if that's a good idea, if it's the right fix, what else could be done, what SHOULD be done, and what to prioritize for testing and development.

For example, nerfing Zoe's Q damage to the point where E+Q can't kill as many people actually has a lot of impact. It relies on her getting a W proc to secure a kill, or it extends her kill window by the entire cooldown of her Q, assuming she can land two shots in a row. It also weakens her wave clear and, by extension, her laning phase. A weakened laning phase hurts her late-game more, as she itemizes less. Also, even if it's the right action -- do you adjust the base value? The ratio? The bonus E damage? The damage from distance traveled? Which of these is the RIGHT solution?

Itemization gets even worse. Let's assume we nerf Duskblade and buff AD assassin items. What qualifies as an AD assassin item? What happens to the other characters who build Ghostblade/Hydra/Bloodthirster/Death's Dance/etc. without being assassins? What about the ones who might now opt into these improved items? What itemization issues might arise from that?

It's impossibly to meaningfully test all of these, so you have to take the time to consider them all ahead of time, determine which might be the best approach, and be willing to sometimes be wrong.

You also have to bear in mind that things compound on each other. A 1 second increase to Zoe's early Q cooldown is a more than 10% nerf to the damage output of her primary poke and her primary wave clear. That, by extension, weakens her early game, penalizes her more for missing, and, by doing both, increases the windows of opportunity an opponent has to threaten her and decreases her ability to harass an opponent out of lane. That can deny her needed gold/kills/advantage, and THAT can hurt her and her team's mid-to-late game.

Is it enough? Maybe not. But we see a lot of gut reactions of "this is BAD and HERE'S what they SHOULD have done, OBVIOUSLY!" that aren't really thought out enough.

Papa Andrei2/8/2018, 10:29:04 PM1 votes

It would be nice to have a video diary sort of deal showing how they go through it all for a few weeks.

Slythion2/9/2018, 1:40:31 AM1 votes

Take Zoe for example. It's obvious that this champion is a huge problem, yet the balance team believes that a simple 1-0.25 seconds increase on her Q will make a difference. Many within this community recognize the problem Zoe poses, and have brainstormed better ways to nerf Zoe, such as having cleanse remove the true damage proc form E, or simply toning down her damage to prevent one shotting. It seems pretty unbelieveable that the balance team would think of shipping such a tiny change as this and not something else.

here's the thing, Zoe isn't a balance problem. Her stats aren't stellar, she's just a complete shit champion design. She's not even remotely fun to play against, but difficult to win against is different. She doesn't need nerfs, she needs changes. You can confirm this by going to any stat site.

ardent censor

You answered your own question about ardent. There simply wasn't enough time to patch ardent before worlds, and it wasn't dire enough to warrant a hotpatch by their guidelines.

A final example of the balance team's incompetency would be the problematic item known as Duskblade. What makes this so problematic is that this item is simply too strong on assassins. However, it's also impossible to nerf the item without destroying all AD assassins. A simple solution to this would be to nerf Duskblade and buff other assassin items. Done. Easy.

Duskblade fix isn't as easy as "just buff other assassin items", because that's only a late game fix. Duskblade itself is a huge powerspike for assassins that they rely on, so buffing other items is taking that powerspike away which is a huge nerf. You'd have to go into each assassin individually which is a lot of work.

Don't think I'm a huge fan of the balance team btw, but it's important to actually understand the situation rather than continuously flame the balance team just because you disagree with em

Ginger9762/8/2018, 2:31:41 PM1 votes

{quoted}

No, seriously. Apart from playtesting, it honestly seems pretty easy to brainstorm changes to problematic champions and ship patches.

Take Zoe for example. It's obvious that this champion is a huge problem, yet the balance team believes that a simple 1-0.25 seconds increase on her Q will make a difference. Many within this community recognize the problem Zoe poses, and have brainstormed better ways to nerf Zoe, such as having cleanse remove the true damage proc form E, or simply toning down her damage to prevent one shotting. It seems pretty unbelieveable that the balance team would think of shipping such a tiny change as this and not something else.

Another example where the balance team has failed to ship adaquate changes to items or champions or failed to ship changes on time would be during the Ardent Censer days. Now, they may have been influenced by the fact that Worlds was coming up, and had no time to think of changes to Ardent Censer, the answer was pretty obvious: simply nerf the damage output it gives. This was echoed by many throughout this community and Reddit, yet the balance team did nothing to solve this.

A final example of the balance team's incompetency would be the problematic item known as Duskblade. What makes this so problematic is that this item is simply too strong on assassins. However, it's also impossible to nerf the item without destroying all AD assassins. A simple solution to this would be to nerf Duskblade and buff other assassin items. Done. Easy.

Now, it might not be that simple, and these changes would have to be playtested. But it's extremely simple to come up with certain changes and apply them to the game. I'm by no means a coding expert, but I do know some things. It really isn't hard to change values within a game. You simply have to replace one number with another.

I also don't know anything about the process in which they ship changes, which is my fault. I could be completely wrong about how hard they work. Maybe they actually do spend hours and hours thinking of changes to the game. But in this case Riot should probably tell us more about how their teams work. Give the players more information to help them get a better sense of what the balance team is doing. I believe that game companies and players should have close communication with each other in order to improve the game.

With all this in mind, what do you guys think? Is the balance team full of slackers or are they hard workers?

I appreciate people asking questions, but when they come up with "solutions" and say things like "Done. Easy." it destroys all credibility. Not to pick on OP specifically, but this is for OP and everyone else that thinks they can do better:

Submit a detailed plan to balance an item or champ, complete with analysis to Riot. I 100% guarantee you will get hired (if it's actually good). Then you become part of the balance team and fix everything. Done. Easy.

If you don't do that, you're too lazy, incompetent, or just basically have no idea what you're talking about and while you should absolutely participate in conversations regarding balance, do not ever say it's "easy" ever again.

Ori On A Grande2/8/2018, 3:40:23 PM1 votes

I love when the boards or forums or any other place believes with any percentage that they themselves are more qualified to balance this game more than the people who actually know what they're doing. The fact some believe it's as simple as "do this and boom done" only further prove the point. Buffing or Nerfing champions, items, or anything can seriously upset everything in this game, not just gameplay wise but also the fucking code of the game.

No one remembers the Rioter who was trying to add some buffs to Aurelion Sol, like some bonus movement speed and buff the speed of his stars and could not find out a way to not cause Sol to not flip out and walk into himself for a few days. Any movement command made Sol walk into himself infinitely and black hole himself (ironically) and he couldn't get it to undo it so he had to scrap the buffs.

Could any of you saltchildren asking for kneejerk nerfs and buffs to something even begin to deal with the shit the balance team has to with this game?

I did use to think a system of "just buff something really hard and tune it down later" was the best way to better balance champions, but after being with Riotand DE for Warframe for so long, that's just fucking incorrect. Doing shit like that can seriously ruin a game for a massive amount of your playerbase.

I know there's a lot of shit wrong with League, but sometimes that shit has to just be that way until it can be properly handled. Even dumb shit like Ziggs's E lasting 20 fortnites, Fiddle still being in the state he's in and whatever the fuck Skarner is going through. It just can't happen as instantly as ya'll think.

Jungle Lux God2/8/2018, 3:47:03 PM1 votes

If Riot wanted a perfectly balanced game they would do it if it was possible. The problem is it's not possible to balance a game except when every gameplay option is identical.

The more variables that a developer adds to a competitive game, the harder it is to balance the game. League of Legends has ~140 champions alone, which makes it extremely hard to balance a game (by contrast, most fighting games are similarly imbalanced with a playable cast less than a fourth of that size), and League also needs to balance around items, summoner spells, and runes, making it even harder to balance the game.

In addition, playtesting can only do so much. Playtesting only accounts for a very small fraction of the overall playerbase, and the capacity for the community to break something is significantly higher than the capacity for the playtesters to break something.

In other words, don't blame Riot for not balancing their game well, because they can only do so much to balance the game. Instead, blame Riot for making a game that's too good at giving the players a ton of options.