Lets talk about utility creep.

Plat Ap Malphite··9 votes·6,466 views

With every new champ riot ruins the game further. Senna, aphelios, kaisa, Qiyana, sylas, kayn. Every new champ since like season 6 has never been a simple but effective design. We get a few good designs, but riot keeps thinking complex design is good design. its not. utlility creep is ruining the game when it comes to having fun versing them. These champs have so much ulitlity because every champ now has to be a little more complex and be given 20 dashes, a heal, sheild, percent health damage, hybrid damage. These champs are in every other game and I am sick of it, I see senna every other game and its never, NEVER fun to verse. These champs have so many ways to get around being caught, snowball hard, be annoying. Riot never cares about being fun to verse and They should. Make more then 1 simple fun design every year. We need to remove all of these champs utility, We need to remove this idea that complex design makes the game better when it doesnt. IT make the game worse. If they are complex dont give them utility. you should not be rewarded for playing a champ 5 times with ruining the game for everyone. Just because outplay potential on the lcs looks cool doesnt mean it makes the game better. If riot were to see a design like xerath today, his q would have 20 sweatspots, his would stun in the middle, his e would zig zag and his r would do percenth health damage and give you bonus damage every time you hit one. Instead of seeing a simple design that works riot needs to give every little aspect of it some outplay potential and rewarding you constantly for doing little things. This xerath would be even worse to verse, but it rewards you for playing like 3 games as him so its okay and justified. Complex design is not good design. Complex design makes riot add 200 extra bullshit utility spells that make versing them a horrible experience. We dont need to reward players like each champ is a gatcha game.
"but you can learn to counterplay" Counterplay should be broad strokes. I should not be forced to essentially have to play the character just to not have a shit time versing them. This thinking pattern ruins the game for anyone who isnt diamond. People in norms should be able to have fun and not get destoryed by 200 dashes, 20 heals, and high damage, because the player learned some basic combos after playing 20 games.

15 Comments

Noraver7 votes

Every time I face Senna (Or player her) I learn something new about her kit. She has so much garbage jam-packed in, I literally learn something new about her or her kit every single time she's in a game.

Senna, Pyke, and Yuumi are the worst designed Supports (Arguably, the worst designed champions in general) Riot has ever created, and they've severely altered the game, and not in a good way. Pyke alone has forced Riot to buff Blitzcrank's hook range to absolutely fucked levels of strong reach, and in return they nerfed his armor, continuing their oh so brilliant plan of "Buff damage, nerf resists!" to make games faster. 10 years of doing this and everyone fights like balloons with pins trying to pop each other.

Not to mention, Pyke and Senna have two items created specifically just for them; Umbral Glaive is so fucking broken it blows my mind. You seriously allow these two assassins "Supports" to have not just Lethality, but the ability to spot wards on a 45 second cooldown for free, and destroy every single ward in 1 shot?

Yuumi on the other hand, promotes the most disgusting gameplay loop I've ever seen in a competitive PvP game. Literally just sit on an ally and do nothing all game.

Aphelios will always be strong, no matter what Riot does to him because he has far too many combinations of things he can do, while getting free stats at the same time. It's impossible as an opponent to understand how quickly he gains power, because he has an impossible amount of variations of it.

But you're right OP. Why play Xerath with a kit full of weak skillshots when I can play something like Zoe, only needing to land a single gigantic range CC skillshot and follow it up with Q to instantly two-shot someone?

Riot's balance team is shit now. Remove my comment if you need to mods, I don't care, but it has to be said. It all started with CertainlyT, and it's gone downhill since then. He's introduced stupidly powerful and ridiculously overpacked champions, and now it's turned into a dick-showing contest with the Devs to see who can create the most fucked up champions.

Sett is a refreshing, simple design with a simple gameplay loop. And that's precisely why nobody's been talking about him on the forums. Because he's not over the top, extra bullshit like their usual champions.

Audhulma1 votes

{quoted}

Riot's balance team is shit now.
It all started with CertainlyT

Balance team =/= Design team. The design team and the serious lack of true oversight on it is the real problem. The balance team only exists to put out fires, since it's impossible to actually achieve balance in a game like this. In fact, they don't even try to achieve real balance because it would either be a waste of time and effort, or they'd have to homogenize every champion to the point that you're essentially just choosing a different skin.

The balance team also has to do this while accounting for statistics across ALL regions since the game runs on the same patch/stats for everybody due to LCS, which only complicates things further. It is very common for a champion to be super overpowered here in NA, but be mid-tier or even outright weak in other regions.

Noraver2 votes

{quoted}

Balance team =/= Design team. The design team and the serious lack of true oversight on it is the real problem. The balance team only exists to put out fires, since it's impossible to actually achieve balance in a game like this. In fact, they don't even try to achieve real balance because it would either be a waste of time and effort, or they'd have to homogenize every champion to the point that you're essentially just choosing a different skin.

The balance team also has to do this while accounting for statistics across ALL regions since the game runs on the same patch/stats for everybody due to LCS, which only complicates things further. It is very common for a champion to be super overpowered here in NA, but be mid-tier or even outright weak in other regions.

I am fully aware they're two different teams. However, the champion design team (ie. CertainlyT) is the problem to begin with. Creating overloaded champions is why this game is difficult to balance.

To follow up on it, the balance team either A) Is entirely useless and doesn't understand how to balance the game (They literally don't understand that mobility needs to be taken into account for a champion's overall power level, ie. Lee, Riven, etc) B) Gets shit on by the champ designers for nerfing their champions, or any higher-ups if they touch the speed at which LCS plays end games/look cool/$ell $kins

CertainlyT is the worst champion designer Riot has. He's done: Darius, Thresh, Yasuo, Kalista, Zoe, Aphelios, Mord, and Akali; A very large chunk of the problem champions that the majority of casual players have issues with. Shit, this guy literally even said "CertainlyT stands for Certainly True Damage".

I have zero faith in the designers and balance team, both.

2gudaiya2 votes

the game is infinitely better for having champions that contain actual depth in their kits instead of one hit wonder Annie's and xin's.

Audhulma1 votes

{quoted}

the game is infinitely better for having champions that contain actual depth in their kits instead of one hit wonder Annie's and xin's.

Sure, but only when it's actually depth. "We added 3 extra effects to each ability just because" is not depth, it's just called being overloaded. Having the tools to handle every situation built into your kit is not depth, that's just inherent lack of counterplay or decision making.

2gudaiya1 votes

{quoted}

Sure, but only when it's actually depth. "We added 3 extra effects to each ability just because" is not depth, it's just called being overloaded. Having the tools to handle every situation built into your kit is not depth, that's just inherent lack of counterplay or decision making.

but there is no champion that can function in any situation. the closest you might have is a peaking mundo and he's lacking all depth of play being a literal stat stick, just get the right stats and you win. the rest of the roster comes undone when confronted with such things, even the much maligned akali.

Plat Ap Malphite1 votes

{quoted}

the game is infinitely better for having champions that contain actual depth in their kits instead of one hit wonder Annie's and xin's.

Its not a diconomy between annie and aphelios. A design can have a small amount of utility to make it different from other champs without going overboard. Xerath is my example because he has just enough ultility and gimics to make him interesting without being overbearing or overtuned. His q is a damage spell and its range increase, not to hard to deal with or to play. his w is just an aoe slow, his e is a small stun that also increase with distance, nothing to hard to verse. His r just does damage from range. Each spell has a way to get better as a player without being infurating to verse because of high utility. More designs like that are better for the game. Remove zoe, aphelios and senna's utility in favor a better design. If dont give a shit about aatrox mains they shouldnt give a shit about mains like them.

2gudaiya1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Plat Ap Malphite,realm=NA,application-id=yrc23zHg,discussion-id=7MZLA655,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2019-12-31T16:55:21.353+0000)

Its not a diconomy between annie and aphelios. A design can have a small amount of utility to make it different from other champs without going overboard. Xerath is my example because he has just enough ultility and gimics to make him interesting without being overbearing or overtuned. His q is a damage spell and its range increase, not to hard to deal with or to play. his w is just an aoe slow, his e is a small stun that also increase with distance, nothing to hard to verse. His r just does damage from range. Each spell has a way to get better as a player without being infurating to verse because of high utility. More designs like that are better for the game. Remove zoe, aphelios and senna's utility in favor a better design. If dont give a shit about aatrox mains they shouldnt give a shit about mains like them.

xerath requires more negative utility to be granted more power, and he's a pretty frustrating champion when he's meta cause it generally means he gets to push hard and half roam for takedowns. the direction on his balance has been misjudged but rito gonna be slow to get around to him. he also outright outclasses the match ups you mention just based on his range potential.

senna has too much personal negative utility to be problematic imo. zoe the same, the only thing putting her over the edge when she is is her W. aphelios is just overturned and it's only slightly. aatrox is problematic because his negative utility does not balance out his positive utility in tandem with his sustain but riot have got him into a good enough spot so I don't care about him and i quite look forward to having honorable match ups with him.

tell me, what is negative utility and where does akali have it? she most certainly has it but people can't spot it so they label her op.

Plat Ap Malphite1 votes

Understanding something like this doesnt make these champs less shitty to verse. I dont know what you mean by negative utility but that doesnt matter because the new designs are worse to fight. Dealing with a champ with more dashes, heals, shields and bullshit makes playing norms worse for those who verse them. Thats my problem with the increase in utility. Seeing an alone kog or twitch, or varus means you get a free kill, seeing alone aphelios means he will have a chance of winning because of all of the shit he has. These champs become overbearing to verse. I dont care about how they look on the lcs stage. I want my norms games to not suck because they just have more tools.

Waka FIocka1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Plat Ap Malphite,realm=NA,application-id=yrc23zHg,discussion-id=7MZLA655,comment-id=0001000100000000,timestamp=2019-12-31T17:45:06.792+0000)

Seeing an alone kog or twitch, or varus means you get a free kill, seeing alone aphelios means he will have a chance of winning because of all of the shit he has.

Aphelios easily turns the tide on a 3v1 gank/ambush if he has Severum, Infernum, Crescendum, or Gravitum. 4 out of 5 weapons that can handle multiple opponents converging on him with ease. Anyone saying he is only "slighty overtuned" and NOT outright overtuned and overloaded is actually delusional. The dude is 5 champs in one, with so many global effects that requires zero skill. Riot mentioned that they will continue on with this pattern of champions though. Senna>Aphelios>Sett. That was their own words as far as creating new champs in the future & they used those 3 as a base line to go by (referring to their complexity). It's unfortunate

2gudaiya1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Plat Ap Malphite,realm=NA,application-id=yrc23zHg,discussion-id=7MZLA655,comment-id=0001000100000000,timestamp=2019-12-31T17:45:06.792+0000)

Understanding something like this doesnt make these champs less shitty to verse. I dont know what you mean by negative utility but that doesnt matter because the new designs are worse to fight. Dealing with a champ with more dashes, heals, shields and bullshit makes playing norms worse for those who verse them. Thats my problem with the increase in utility. Seeing an alone kog or twitch, or varus means you get a free kill, seeing alone aphelios means he will have a chance of winning because of all of the shit he has. These champs become overbearing to verse. I dont care about how they look on the lcs stage. I want my norms games to not suck because they just have more tools.

people wanted a skill based game, they've sincerely been given that lol. negative utility is an auto attack because the character model must stop moving to perform an auto, and so orb walking becomes valuable.

something like syndra has nearly zero negative utility because none of her spells have cast times that root her in place, so she has a static range on her spells even when combined. she caps out on positive utility via her dynamic ball collection, her W, and pressing R.

akali has her negative utility in her passive, shroud cd and energy bar, also in her ultimate cooldown going by recent balance decisions to give it a flash tier cooldown at lvl1, but alas.

it matters to know these things because they make the game easier to play and understand. when a new champion lands I observe to see what it can and can't do and why it can't do the things it can't do. if a champion objectively has too little negative utility then it becomes problematic ala true stealth akali with the highly variable shroud length and infallible energy bar, but she isn't that anymore. likewise the positive utility of her R1 stun is gone even though I didn't consider it overbearing.

senna has all the utility pitfalls of a regular adc and then some with her shroud which she personally won't want to be attacking from all too often.

aphelios same adc woes but he has ammo and rng to deal with, along with some interesting utilities on some weapons both negative and positive. I don't consider him to have too much utility he just has too much dmg.

i don't find dashy champions problematic, what I find problematic are the infinite scalers and the top range getters. the dashy guys need the utility of those dashes to get onto hyper ranged characters, you see. but heck I don't want to be here typing out essays for people who aren't interested. everything on a champion has a purpose, on release some things may be superfluous but that's more and more rare as rito get better at gauging release specs for champs.

underdesigned champions that have low to midi utility caps are all set for reworks as there is no room to develop those champions further and granting their current kits any utility or stats without adjusting the entire kit is problematic. the overdesigned champs will age better as they can have locked mechanics granted to them if the state of the game permits it. it also doesn't help if they're (underdesigned boi's) are incredibly binary either as they either do their one move too well or don't do it at all. a champion with access to many combos of spells is all around better to play as and better to play against as the mechanical aspect itself becomes a chess game. that is skill based mechanics in the context of league, and on top of that is the macro aspect of the game. but I digress I'm not here to write a script for some lol skill capped video, and I'm certainly not expanding this for all champions without getting paid.

Tyermaillin1 votes

Senna, aphelios, kaisa, Qiyana, sylas, kayn

Out of these champions only Senna and situationally Sylas have utility. Let me define utility (Riot's definition):

"The champion's ability to apply beneficial effects like shields, healing, or movement speed to allied champions."

These champs have so much ulitlity because every champ now has to be a little more complex and be given 20 dashes, a heal, sheild, percent health damage, hybrid damage.

None of these are utility. Dashes are not a utility. Self-healing and self-shielding are not utility. Percent and hybrid damage are not utility. Stop misusing the word.

Wolfalisk3181 votes

As you touched on in the original post, I have to imagine the balance teams of old would cringe at the fact that you have to be a regular player of xyz new Champion in order to fight them at a base level. When you have tons of convolutedly conditional micro-mobility and a bunch of hidden, untelegraphed passives going on all at once, the opponent is not being given enough information at face value to play against said new Champion. They're losing not to a player, but a kit.

LordGeovanni1 votes

Riot needs to make sure the best utility is on Tanks and supports and scale down utility for damage carries Apropriately compared to whats on supports and tanks. Mage supports too need to have less utility or they need to lose their damage one or the other.

Nyarlathοtep

Yuumi on the other hand, promotes the most disgusting gameplay loop I've ever seen in a competitive PvP game. Literally just sit on an ally and do nothing all game.

Thats riot's fault for refusing to give her a reason to out. And even then, chances are that a yuumi STILL wont go out thanks to that stupid punishment for getting hit by a cc. Like, by late game a yuumi is always one hard cc away from death. Unless riot takes away that shit yuumi just cant go out.

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