Question for Riot, with reworks/buffs/nerfs/NEW!

Oaklen·6/18/2014, 11:10:31 PM·3 votes·1,112 views

I was curious, when you rework a champion or even release a new champion. Do you mean to over tune them most of the time? I've heard that other games do the same thing, but never admit it.

Reasons maybe being. A) They sell more on opening day. Everyone loves money I mean that's just business.
B) Because it's easier to tone down a champion into line, then to buff one. (<- My real thought if you do overbuff them)

I just can't seem to understand how so many champions on opening day tend to be powerful, and next patch get nerfed. It seems almost every new champion has had this happen.

Do note none of this is mean't to come off as blaming or QQing ect. I just honestly wanted to know how it happens so often, compared to a champion coming out and being to weak. Thanks.

8 Comments

RiotPhreak6/18/2014, 11:20:20 PM10 votes

I can promise you 100% that we do not overtune things for monetary reasons. We want League of Legends to be around forever. If we lose your trust by simply making new shiny things overpowered so that you buy them, we lose your trust. We want your trust <3

We may end up over-tuning new champions and re-works accidentally. This definitely happens sometimes. For every one of those, there's another that was under-tuned, like re-worked Olaf, Quinn, Volibear, etc. All we can really say is "We're human" and learn as best we can.

(For this next paragraph, I use "we" as in "us players" not "Riot.")

One other note is that sometimes things are sort of... "Properly" over-tuned. New champions are, well, new. For example, we were all pretty bad Zed and Yasuo players when they came out. Release Yasuo had the lowest winrate in the history of the game. As it turns out, they ware actually both overpowered on release, but were perceived as underpowered because we were all bad at them. This is the type of "OP" that probably happens most. There's the general consensus that, "Yep, this champion is fine." In fact, they'll feel very balanced to play as and against. But after a few weeks or months, people get better at it, the champion becomes more powerful due to mastery, and will be nerfed. In my opinion, this is healthy for the game.

FaerKhan6/18/2014, 11:32:27 PM2 votes

Don't listen to Phreak. He's paid to be PR for Riot. Of course they release new/reworked champions in an OP state, of course it's for the money grab, this should be obvious to everyone.