Current Champion Concepts and Creation Problems

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This glorious reply.... Q_Q tears of joy

-bows-

{quoted}Thank you so much for your answer - I really appreciate this answer.

Any time! I love this sort of conversation.

I just think that it takes much fun out of each champions if you nerf them- and riot nerfed more champions than the ones you described.

In the past three patches Riot has nerfed the following champions:

• Gangplank
• Kalista (debatable)
• Miss Fortune
• Trundle
• Mundo
• Elise
• Kindred
• Tahm Kench
• Rengar (debatable)
• Alistar
• Corki
• Graves
• Jax
• Poppy
• Ryze
• Zed

My previous list of buffs ALSO had 16 champions on it, and two of these nerfs are actually debatable nerfs, as they were more power adjustments than outright nerfs. So the list is pretty even. Almost identical, in fact.

Of these, Zed was tuned around an item that benefits him hugely, and several of the others got only light love taps.

Like LB silence, talon silence is gone.

Silence is not a fun or skillful mechanic though -- it's a "no, you don't get to play" mechanic that oppresses the skill of your opponent. Both of those were auto-silence mechanics, with no way to counterplay them, on characters who can kill you outright within that window. There's no skill involved: just speed of button mashing.

Fiora's field is so short now. Ryze passive has now hard cap. Jinx attack speed so much slower. Kat less damage overall. etc. Without these nerfs it would be much more fun to play the game, and also to spectate games.

Here's where we have to disagree. Fiora's new kit has a lot more skill involved (although her baseline skill requirement for moderate success is definitely lower since she's a little more durable) -- you have multiple moves that rely on positioning and timing. Kat has less burst, but is still a MONSTER in skilled hands in the right team -- she may not 100-0 you, but a good Kat will show off just how good she is by murdering your ENTIRE TEAM. Jinx's nerf was necessary to keep her from being THE dominant carry in both the early and late game. Ryze has severe mechanical and kit issues that extend beyond him being over / under powered, and this is (as Riot has said) more of a placeholder than a long-term fix.

I personally believe that the a team of 3 weak players and 2 incredible one SHOULD be able to defeat the team whose members merely do good teamwork.

I disagree here as well. A team of average players with above-average teamwork should be able to systematically demolish a team of mixed skill players with worse teamwork, and should, in fact, have a good chance of winning against a team of BETTER players with worse teamwork. Team composition and strategy should be more important than individual player or champion strength -- I shouldn't pick Kog'Maw because he's strong and can single-handedly carry the game on my skill alone: I should pick him because my team is Amumu / Janna / Orianna / Xin Zhao, and I know I'll have the front line I need to become a monstrous carry.

Otherwise player mechanical skill trumps teamwork, and then there's no reason to do anything but play the game to gain as much power for yourself as possible.

See, the issue is that even League's most complex champions are, at the end of the day, relatively simple compared to the mechanics of many other game genres. There's only so much gameplay depth an individual champion can have. The REAL heart of League of Legends IS that teamwork -- how champions interact with each other in teamfights, what strategies they allow your team to utilize, how they handle objectives, when their moments of strength and weaknesses are...that's the deep game of League.

You want this game to be in depth right? Making Ryze's passive to have a hard cap takes so much away from experienced players - game is now shallow.

It really doesn't -- it just pushes the game to one of "when do I pop this" instead of "how quickly can I spam buttons?" Ryze didn't have SKILLFUL play -- he had rote memory mastery play of "what combo gets me the most spells, and how quickly can I do it?" That's not a good pattern to have.

It's also not depth -- it's just practice. It's like memorizing the algorithms to solve a Rubik's Cube quickly instead of being able to look at the cube and figure out the best way to solve it organically. One is basically just muscle memory, and the other shows a mastery of the puzzle at hand.

IN CONCLUSION Skill, depth, and mastery don't become evident from adding more champion power. Skill and mastery become evident from having champions with very clear moments of strength and weakness -- it's far easier to show how good a Katarina player you are, for example, when a BAD Katarina can't kill anything and dies instantly. Then when you hit the fight and pin-point target all the wounded targets, scoring an easy Pentakill, it's much more obvious that it's because you're a boss Katarina player.

If Graves can out-duel anyone at any range, being a good Graves isn't rewarding -- anyone can do it. When Graves can out-duel anyone at CLOSE range it's much easier to show your skill: your positioning is such that you can always be near the targets you want to be near, while the bad Graves on the enemy team can't even get a shot off where he wants it.

This is where depth comes in. Depth is mostly about emergent gameplay -- HOW you use a kit and WHEN you use a kit, not how perfectly you can do Ryze's combo or the fact that you could land every Alistar Q+E combo. It's about WHEN and WHERE and on WHO you use that combo.

THAT SAID, I'd be interested in hearing your argument for the opposing side. Why do you think an individual player's mechanical skill should be so dramatically rewarded? Should having good players matter MORE than having good teamwork? Why?