How do we know if the game is balanced?

billbob43·4/30/2014, 11:50:39 PM·1 votes·300 views

My friend always argues that the game is getting more unbalanced, and I'm not sure if its true or not, but the stats person in me wants to know how we would gauge that.

What does a balanced league of legends look like? Is every champ at a 50% win rate? Is there some way that we can measure whether the game is healthier now than it was last patch? Are certain meta's inherently less balanced than others? Are we better off than we were last season or before that?

4 Comments

hawkman58795/1/2014, 12:16:52 AM1 votes

I really don't know how to answer this. In League there has always been one or two champions that are a bit stronger/easier to use and do well with then the rest.

Sir ArmaMalum5/1/2014, 12:20:00 AM1 votes

There is actually intended imbalance in a game like League (more info here) so numbers can't truly define whether there is balance. Win ratio's are a good window to generic trends, but overall it comes down to game design experience on the Game Design red team.

Certain outliers will always stand out (i.e. Feral Flare) and mistakes will naturally be made of course, so I think it's really only achievable within the frame of certain game assets and not the game as a whole.

SirTezla5/1/2014, 1:20:20 AM1 votes

Win rate is how Rito decides to nerf or buff champions. If said champion is above 50% win rate, then they nerf them. If a champion has a really low win rate then they buff them. As far as I know, they also use ban rate to decide on who to buff/nerf.

CaptainWednesday5/1/2014, 1:42:37 PM1 votes

The game can never be perfectly balanced. The game should never be perfectly balanced. Truth is: League is unbalanced, will always be that way, because that is what makes the game interesting. The only way to achieve perfect balancing is to make every champion the exact same. You will stagnate the game by balancing it. I point you to Starcraft 1 where the game because so balanced each class was nearly the same thing and it was not fun. Riot tries their best, I'm sure of it, to balance League enough to where we don't have Season 2 Olaf again or Pre-Rework Kassasin, but its these things that make us want to play.

I would much rather say, "Oh, LeBlanc seems pretty strong, I should play her." rather than "Oh, everyone is the same. It doesn't matter who I play."