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Riot, why continue to nerf champions one by one rather than buff everyone to the same level?

Kikirino·7/7/2014, 11:53:07 AM·2 votes·132 views

Riot has the idea that they need to nerf 'problem' champions for being too strong. I do not believe this to be the case. I think they are problem champions because everyone else is so much weaker. For example, I work out and am fit. My friend is not. He is lazy and out of shape. If you were to compare us I would be seen as 'strong' because he is weak when in actuality I am not strong. I am average. I simply look strong through comparison. If he was in shape and we were compared people would actually see that I am not strong. I think this is the problem with League's 'op' champions.

Riot has recently said that they are not comfortable nerfing Lee Sin due to the potential backlash from his large player base (Yeah... bad call but I think Riot gets it. We are pissed. Stop riding their asses about it). Okay. Why not buff all of the other junglers so that they are on par with Lee Sin? You avoid the nerf backlash problem and get a more balanced jungle.

In a recent Patch Note section for Lucian, Riot said he was "Stong -> Still Strong". Nothing was changed but they acknowledged that he is strong. But nerfing him won't help with all the adcs that are considered 'bad picks'. Nerfing him will just lead to a new top adc and that one will need nerfs in time. Why not buff the weaker adcs so they are all on the same playing field?

Jax has been seen as a problem in the top lane. He is just better than most top laners. So they nerfed his base stats. Okay... so you are still nerfing one champion and ignoring the several champions that would be fine if you simply buff them to Jax levels.

I could keep going but even I am getting bored because it is the same scenario with each champion. If all champions were brought to the same level then no one would be 'op' unless they just beat you in a match and you cannot accept that maybe they were just better than you (every late night champion thread). Instead you continue to nerf one champion so that a new one becomes 'strong' (even though they were not buffed in any way) and then you nerf that one so another becomes 'strong' and it just keeps going. If every champion was buffed to a specific standard wouldn't be easy to balance the game?

I know someone will read this and think "It is easier to nerf one person rather than buff 20". That would be true if the nerfs didn't just result in a new 'strong' (even though he was not buffed = strong by comparison) champion which then gets nerfed and the cycle continues until someone gets so weak that they see almost no play and need a remake which actually outs them on par but they are seen as strong because there is still a huge number of weak champions and get nerfed soon after.

Am I right? I dunno. All I do know for sure is that balancing looks like a vicious cycle of nerfs to strong champions while weak champions just stay weak. There are always dominant champions and it is always a small handful of champions.** If these constant nerfs were accomplishing anything wouldn't more champions be viable? Wouldn't we be able to play champions we enjoy and win rather than just play what is best at the time?**

Thanks for listening to my babble. It is sleepy time. Goodnight.

2 Comments

Worgslarg7/7/2014, 1:09:07 PM3 votes

To some extent, they do.

Also power creep.

Sir ArmaMalum7/7/2014, 2:20:12 PM2 votes

In an ideal situation yes, an even power level would mean everyone is viable and has an equal amount of success. However, in reality one can never work in ideals. Beyond the sheer amount of fine tuning that would require and the fact that any single change would mean a change to every single facet of the game you also have two different things working against this idea. Perfect Imbalance and Power Creep

####Perfect Imbalance

Perfect Imbalance is the idea in game theory that introducing intentional imbalances into a game will create more interesting and varied experiences in the game. This idea is almost always used in conjunction with active constant changes, so that way no one thing is going to stay over or underpowered, ala patches in League.

This may sound silly at first, but consider a normal RTS game. All the units are perfectly balanced. Sure, this means the deciding factor is your skill at the game, but it also means that your skill is the only deciding factor. The game wouldn't be fluid or changing, and while that may be a good thing for a few games, a long-lasting game will flounder badly. If this sounding at all familiar, it's because it's exactly what happened in Starcraft!

If you would to know more please refer to my Perfect Imbalance post

####Power Creep

As Worgslarg said, power creep is also a major issue. Quite simply put, it's nigh impossible to accurately balance a large group of assets all at once, and a change of this scale would take quite a while. There will always be one champion that's just a tiiiiny bit more powerful than the rest through some arbitrary value like mobility or range, and people will naturally call for a buff to everyone else with this system. This will then make another champion a tiiiiiiny bit more powerful than everyone else, and the cycle continues until you have tiny champions running around playing insta-kill tag.

Take your example with adc's. They specifically explained that they want to nerf him, but only a small amount, but the current avenues they see to do so will bring his power below where they would want it. But overall, buffing everyone else to then meet Lucian will bring in the problem of other Champions with different mechanics using those increased numbers to such an effective point that they'll be the 'new Lucian' and proceed to be in a bad state of OP. Nerfing him in a creative, low-impact manner will cause much less of a ripple, because your only tweaking one thing instead of a dozen.