Towards a better balancing paradigm
Riot has a problem with balancing. No, they don't nerf too much, no they don't over buff your most hated champion. It has nothing to do with any of that.
No, Riot has a problem with the structure of the play season and what it means to their players, for their e-sports, and for the evolving game. The problem, specifically, is that there isn't any cohesiveness about when balance changes occur and why they do.
What this means for players is that individual success often can be superseded by mid season balance changes. Players can play or refuse to play the FoTM and many times their success is determined by that. Players will spend a lot of time becoming proficient on champions only to see them removed from the competitive balance by a patch, or catapulted into OP status by a change that wasn't foreseen. This isn't good for players because they hate to see their favorite champions nerfed or counters buffed until they're unplayable. It also makes people feel like the innovation that they have during the season, to find things like Alistar or Maokai top, or to pick an interesting support which fills an unfilled niche will be punished rather than rewarded. Additionally, without a clear structure to the seasons, players are never sure when or why their achievements are going to be rewarded. In this regard, certainty is always better
This carries on to e-sports; though in e-sports the consequences are much larger. When a core champion to a mid laners pool is weakened it is as if riot specifically reduced the viability of that team. Now, while its true that professional teams need to adapt, it is also true that mid season balance changes, which professional teams may or may not be able to predict, introduce a variability into the season which is not ideal for a competitive league. Teams spend a lot of time working with the meta only to see it changed drastically. The worst example of this we have is probably the buffs to triforce right before Season 3 World Finals last year. The buffs were really large and changed the entire character of bottom lane and by extension the meta of the rest of the game. Who won games could be an exercise in who guessed right with regards to how the meta would change, rather than who had the best analysis and mastery of the game to that point.
The third problem that it creates is that the game itself often doesn't have a way to be defined in terms of Seasons. We are coming up on Season 5 here and while there were clear changes to Season 4, we can't talk about it as whether it was the season of the carry junglers or the season of the mobile ADC's or the ascendency of supports(tank or damage) because the game has changed so radically over the course of the season that all of those things have been true at various points. This point isn't nearly as important as the aspects with regards to how it effects e-sports and how it effects players. But the lack of structure of seasons still hurts the game itself in this manner. It also gives me three points to talk about and three is one of those magical numbers that makes talking about things look and feel better.
So what is the solution to this problem?
- Define the seasonal structure around which types of game changes can take place.
- Tie that seasonal structure around how season benefits and rankings are awarded
- Tie the seasonal structure to the E-Sports season.
So what an example of this look like?
Preseason: From precisely 1 week after the World Championship Final to the start of the LCS. The goal of preseason is to have players test large scale changes and figure out the coming season. In preseason MMR changes so that matchmaking is even but rankings are disabled/inconsequential/you just see your MMR. There a soft MMR reset.
Patches can have large balance changes; rune changes, mastery changes, champion reworks, large scale item reworks are all on the table. The goal is to become relatively idea and number stable by the end of Preseason. Patches that swing the meta in large amounts are entirely reasonable, patches that remove/add champions wholesale from the competitive balance are on the table. Everything is, more or less, on the table. The severity of changes should wind down towards the end of the preseason as the game gets ready to be in a more or less stable state for the seasonal competition.
Regular Season: From the Start of the LCS to the day before the World Championships. The goal of the Regular Season is to have a stable play environment for ranking and e-sports. MMR carried over from the preseason but only at the start of the regular season do you see/get ranking. At the end of the regular season your MMR is recorded for rewards and for next preseasons soft reset.
Patches are restricted to numbers changes rather than structure changes. Number changes should be minor and incremental. Its better to have to nerf the same ability or item 4 times than it is to have to nerf them and buff them in the same patch or nerf them one patch and buff them the next. The "nerf but give compensating buffs" structure is entirely off the table. New champions can be released but they should either be prohibited from ranked play until their numbers are right or until the end of the Season. If, at the end of the preseason, something is overtuned then tough cookies it will stay overtuned and you'll just have to ban it.
Post Season: The point in-between the large scale changes of the preseason and the stability of the regular season. This is a cooldown period to watch the finals, revel in how well you did, and play casual games which don't mean much. If champions have been disabled for any reason they're opened up. Balance changes aren't off the table but there isn't really a reason to do anything with them. If Riot wants to put in fun game modes or modify the game in wacky and unexpected ways (heck, even without telling anyone) this is the time its done. MMR either doesn't change or MMR changes have no effect on your preseason reset point.
What benefits does this have for Riot as a company? Well it ties the E-sports season into the game in a concrete way, giving players points when they can figure things out and giving players points when they can focus on mastery, and giving players an analogue to follow by way of the LCS, and tying the E-sports scene into the "ranked ladder" scene. It also ensures a measure of stability throughout the e-sports season, which gives the championship for each season more weight. Additionally it gives a clear structure for when things need to be completed and a clear prioritization for actions. More or less, Deadlines work and saying "if its not done by this point its not going in till next year" is a big incentive to get things right.
What benefit does this have to players? It stabilizes the season and rankings in a way that makes it easy to determine what goals they should have during their play. It ensures that season rankings depend more on mastery and not gaming the MMR system to get a high ranking during a period when your champion is FOTM(I.E. it makes seasonal rankings and rewards seem more fair). It ensures that players who take time away from the game do not need to learn multiple large meta-shifts, but rather only one.
What benefit does this have for professionals? All the same benefits for players with the added benefit of participating in a more stable competitive environment. They get to focus on mastery instead of guessing what the next patch will bring, and whether or not they have to guess what will be strong coming into the most important tournaments.
Right now we get almost none of these benefits. Preseason starts whenever and doesn't really mean anything except MMR hasn't been reset yet. The Season ends whenever so players working for a rating by the end don't have a concrete point to shoot for. Balancing is done haphazardly during the season causing large meta shifts and potentially turning the fates for professional players. Core gameplay changes like runes and large itemization changes et all aren't ready by the time they're released but are still half implemented at various points in the season. There is no cooldown point or clear warm up point for players. And of course, nothing ties the LCS season to the season that regular ranked players are playing.
Defining a structure in a way that ties all of this together would be really good for League as a whole. It would fix a lot of the problems with balancing for e-sports. Give everyone clear timetables and expectations. Make players achievements feel less subject to the whims of fate. And it would set a professional tone for the game as a whole.
