So League of Legends Season 3...

[Wingflier]

Well, I've gotta say that I'm very satisfied with the current state of LoL.

My biggest complaint (and a complaint I've had all along) is the rate at which they continue to add new champions.  How long are they going to keep going at this pace?  How can you possibly keep all of the champions relevant and useful when you're constantly adding new ones every two weeks?

I still see this practice as an undeniable money grab.  They could spend months balancing and improving the content they already have; there's no need to keep adding more at such an astonishing rate.  In the long-term, I think this method will make the game unsustainable from a balance and realistic standpoint.  What are you going to do once you breach 200+ heroes?  Just doesn't seem realistic, but I've seen no signs of stopping or even slowing down for that matter.

[Hearteater]

I'm guessing they follow the MtG route and make only X champions available for each Season in ranked, but all champions available in Normal.  But they can probably go another 1-2 years before that.  They currently have 110 champions (include Vi).  From Dec 2009 (Nidalee) until Vi is 3 years, and they've averaged 22.67 champions per year.  So 200 Champions is almost 4 years away.  In two years we'll hit 155 Champions.  They could easily go with something like "Most recent 100 Champions + 25 Retro Champions" per Season of Ranked.  But I feel they've got a few years to go at least.

[Wingflier]

But what a balancing catastrophe.

Are you only supposed to play the "newer" champions if you want to take the game seriously?  I mean obviously if they are only using the newest ~125 champions in Ranked, then those are going to be the primary balance concern.  Are all the other ones going to be chopped liver?

[Hearteater]

More champions don't break balance, since teams are only made up of 5.  The only danger of 5 champions is getting a degenerate combo that breaks the game, and LoL champs don't tend to have abilities crazy enough for that to become an issue.  If they do go the MtG route, in my example the 25 Retro champs would be selected by Riot each season from champs before the most recent 100.  So you could have Alister available in Season 7, not in Season 8, but show up again in Season 10.  At 22.67 champs per year, this would mean roughly 22 champions would fall off the Ranked rooster each year.  This would probably be desirable just from a eSport perspective in keeping things fresh.  After 10 years, if all champs are equally competitive, some teams are going to favor a fairly small pool of champs and it could get a little boring.

[Lancefighter]

I think riot doesnt want another repeat of 09's aoe meta...

And similarly, I'm actually kinda happy with dota's balance atthe moment. Except that drow/centaur/silencer/slark? are still locked out of captains mode.

Except I'm really not happy with the new exhaust at all. It punishes vayne far more than it punishes ezreal, graves, etc. Also murders anyone reliant on kiting (ie, ashe, cait to an extent), and attackspeed debuffs being multiplicative, it means that trist's q is amazingly useless. Not that it was more useful during old exhaust, i just hate new exhaust.

Also, I've been having surprising amounts of fun with zed lately. He actually feels really good, i just wish his ult didn't take so long.

[Wingflier]

The only frustrating thing about the way Riot balances (and it's only getting worse), is how certain champions just start completely overshadowing each other.

I mean think about it:

At one point, Kat was literally one of the best heroes in the game.  She was the best laner.  She infinite harass with shunpo and bouncing blades.  No mana was a big deal back then.  Her ult was pretty damn strong too.

However, as more heroes were added, she became overshadowed.  There were better assassins and better laners.  Whether or not you agree with me, Miss Fortune was superior to her in almost every way.  Akali was a better assassin, and had the similar "ult cooldown" mechanic after getting kills or assists.

Akali was actually really popular for awhile.  And while she doesn't have the exact same role as Kat, there were a lot of similarities.  After the Kat buff, Akali isn't used anymore.  They basically gave her everything Akali had and more!

She gained Akali's Mark of the Assassin skill (LOL).  She got something similar to Akali's Crescent Slash with her new W (Sinister Steel).  Sinister Steel is actually much better than Crescent Slash however, doing more damage and gaining speed if it hits.  Her Shunpo is similar to Akali's ult, except in some ways better since it gives the damage reduction passively now, which makes it much safer to initiate with, especially with her ultimate.  Her ultimate btw now gives the reduced healing debuff to 3 targets, which is huge.

And guess what?  You never see Akali anymore.  Ironically, you never see Miss Fortune anymore either.

Now you guys may say that these heroes actually have nothing in common, and that this is all just coincidence, but there is definitely a pattern here.  Riot is running out of ideas, and instead of creating something new, they have to simply rehash old abilities on new champions or remakes.  This is partly because they release so fast, but partly because they're not willing to add any "anti-fun" mechanics to the game.

Consider Rubick from DotA.  His ultimate is awesome, he can steal any spell in the game from an enemy and use it against them for a short time.  LoL will never have this.  Too many champions being added and too many abilities to fool with.  In fact it seems like the scope of spells and abilities Riot will add seems rather small.  How many different ways can you do a Garen ult?  How many different ways can we do the 1-hero-2-forms concept (Nidalee, Jayce, Elise, etc.)?  How many different temporary invis ults can we add (Vayne, Talon, Rengar, etc.)?

They're not willing to add crazy game-breaking mechanics like DotA, which are fresh and completely different than anything that has been done before (such as a Champion which teleports mapwide for 12 seconds and takes an ally with him), and ironically are adding much faster than DotA is now (LoL has only been out for 3 years, and they've surpassed the number of heroes in a game that's been out for over 10).

From a balance standpoint, this is a nightmare.  In addition, it forces people to play the heroes that are currently "good".  Kat was good for a long time, then sucked (not because she was nerfed, because the new heroes were just plain better) and faded into obscurity, then got buffed and is good again.

I don't like that you can get attached to a hero, then that hero becomes subpar until they finally buff it again.  In DotA, every hero is good, they don't balance through obscurity like that, so if you get attached to someone you can keep using them without fear of them becoming obsolete one day.

In the end it's just personal preference I guess, it just bothers me to think that the game revolves around "flavor of the patch" balance, instead of an overall and intricate measure of each champion's strengths and weaknesses to one another.

[RCIX]

You had to know that if anything would drag me back here, it would be a LoL topic =p

Wait, you like LoL now? What the heck kinda drug did you get your hands on, because it sounds high quality! Anyway, hit me up in LoL for an invite sometime, I'd love to spam some dominion games or normals or something.


Kat and Akali really fill different niches - Akali is more closely comparable to Diana. On the surface, they look like they do similar things, but there are smaller crucial tweaks that end up making each champion's playstyle significanly different.

 * Kat has her ability reset on kill/assist; this means you should be holding back, executing guaranteed kills to maximize damage output. Akali gets spellvamp and an onhit, so she's encouraged to go right in as soon as it's safe and start laying down DPS
 * Kat has a fourth damage skill, Akali has a stealth shroud she can use to wait in for CDs and get bonus resistance out of
 * Kat is incredibly dependent on avoiding CC so her ult cast finishes; Akali can take a stun or two, especially if she's in shroud
 * Akali is really sticky, especially after Rylais. Kat has relatively minimal tools to stay on her target, and she needs someone to stay pretty still for ult channel

What I love about Riot is how they're able to make such different playstyles within a role from taking 2 largely the same sets of mechanics, substituting one or two, then just tweaking numbers and interactions. Riot doesn't have to bludgeon you over the head with how "new and different" character X is, they just are different.

Anyway, the reason Akali isn't played much is because of how noobstompy she is if she's reasonably powerful. That, and Diana fills the overall subrole without that problem as much (which is a far better discussion, but even then Diana is definitely different from Akali). <3 riot for keeping pubstomp champions in their place



P.S. Vi rocks. I don't think I'll ever see anything quite like her in Dota, which just adds to the list of things Riot has over Dota =p

[Hearteater]

Riot has indicated that the "ult stealing" ability is not in LoL for technical reasons, not because it is anti-fun.  Basically, their system isn't currently set up to be able to handle every ult being transferred to a new character.  Not only that, they'd also have to do custom animations to cover a lot of ults.  So this new champion would have a ton more animations.  You've got the leap animiations from Jarvan's ult, spinning from Kat, Galio's huddle.  They'd be able to cut corners, but they currently don't feel the need for that yet.  What about stealing Karma, Elise, Nidalee or Jayce's ults?  If they were un-stealable, then the enemy team could almost be made up of champions immune to your ult.  That would suck.

[Lancefighter]

to be fair, rubick steals any spell, not just ults - For instance, rubick can never steal quas/wex/exort/invoke from invoker, but could easily steal sunstrike, emp, etc.

as it stands, rubick doesnt even have a cast anim - i was watching merlini steam last night where he stole enchant totem; it literally just made his wand glow instantly.. (granted, without aftershock, enchant totem is pretty useless)

So yeah. You could not steal nida ult, but that wouldnt stop you from stealing pounce or her traps separately.

[Wingflier]

* Kat has her ability reset on kill/assist; this means you should be holding back,

Erm, Akali has this too.

But the problem is, even if Kat and Akali are slightly different, they have very similar roles, and one of them is going to fill the role better than the other; which is why Kat is near the top of Tier 1, and Akali is at the beginning of Tier 4.

Without Kat, would Akali be higher on the Tier list?  Most likely, because she would fill the role that Kat does now.  Also, if you're going to say that Akali snowballs in pubs, how can you deny that Kat snowballs?  Akali's ult hits one person, ONE PERSON.  Kat's ult does a ton of damage to 3 people, and if she gets a kill, she can do the whole thing again.  I've seen Kats absolutely destroy pubs, and with good reason.  She's an overall better hero.

Secondly, nerfing a hero because they are "pubstompers" is bad game design don't you think?

Let me give you an example:  What if Riot added a consumable item to LoL that made your entire team invisible for 60 seconds and gave them all a 15% movement speed bonus until you were basically on top of the enemy team.  This item would assist in making wards less useful, and making the game more gank-oriented and aggressive.

People would FREAK OUT.  OMG RIOT SO IMBA PLEASE NERF.  OMG MY MAP AWARENESS SUCKS BLAH BLAH BLAH.

But this exact item was added to DotA, a game without any kinds of cheap escape mechanisms like Ghost or Flash mind you, and guess what?  Pub players learned how to deal with it. 

Nobody complains about it anymore, it's part of the game.  If a hero craps on new players, they should learn to play against that hero.  Why should the game's balance suffer as a result of inexperience?  Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

P.S. Vi rocks. I don't think I'll ever see anything quite like her in Dota, which just adds to the list of things Riot has over Dota =p

I don't understand your argument here.  There's all kinds of neat heroes and abilities in DotA that don't exist in League.  Does that add to the list of things Valve has over LoL?

[Hearteater]

Pubstompers are changed, not nerfed, so they don't pubstomp anymore.  This is why Kat doesn't get extra gold on kills anymore.  Pubstomps make the game un-fun for casual players, and LoL has tens of millions of active casual players.  So Riot has opted to not allow such champions, and they have been pretty successful in tweaking champs that are too pub-stompy into non-stompy but balance choices.  Any time your game is hit an audience of millions of players, you've got to start making decisions backed with something more than just "deal with it, newb."

[Lancefighter]

I find it slightly odd that you consider akali to have a snowball mechanic as strong as kats - Kats entire burst (q/w/e) gets reset. Akali just gets the ability to become close to someone once more. Addtionally, kats entire burst getting reset means two fairly strong aoe abilities are available again, which is far more potent than akali's single spell (crescent slash is bad. Absolutely terrible.)

additionally, akali has received nothing but nerfs in the last year or so, compared to the full remake kat got

[Mánagarmr]

Any time your game is hit an audience of millions of players, you've got to start making decisions backed with something more than just "deal with it, newb."

This is quite true, but there's also the sentiment that you shouldn't cater to making the game dumber or easier because of it. This is where Tribes Ascend failed in turning casual players into potential comp players. Instead, the comp players were stuck with broken mechanics and eventually tired. It's still fun as heck in casual, but broken in comp.

[Wingflier]

DotA 1 is estimated to have over 10 million players, and their philosophy, as far as I can tell, has always been "deal with it newb".

Not to say that's right or wrong, it's just that if the game is good, people will rise to meet the challenge.

DotA 2 of course hasn't been released yet, so I guess we'll see how it works out in the end.

Even with LoL's disagreeable balance philosophy, I still like the game.  Ironically, maybe it's because I find it so easy compared to DotA as a result of the balance philosophy that draws me.

[RCIX]

* Kat has her ability reset on kill/assist; this means you should be holding back,

Erm, Akali has this too.

Akali gets another dash on kill or assist, all her spells don't come up. All it does is mean Akali should prioritize whoever is/needs to go down, so she can stay mobile.

But the problem is, even if Kat and Akali are slightly different, they have very similar roles, and one of them is going to fill the role better than the other; which is why Kat is near the top of Tier 1, and Akali is at the beginning of Tier 4.

They compete to fill the same role but do so in ways different enough that you'd pick each at different times. One's existence doesn't really interfere with the other.

Without Kat, would Akali be higher on the Tier list?  Most likely, because she would fill the role that Kat does now.  Also, if you're going to say that Akali snowballs in pubs, how can you deny that Kat snowballs?  Akali's ult hits one person, ONE PERSON.  Kat's ult does a ton of damage to 3 people, and if she gets a kill, she can do the whole thing again.  I've seen Kats absolutely destroy pubs, and with good reason.  She's an overall better hero.

I disagree. If anything, Diana supersedes Akali, and that's because Diana is better designed (and a touch OP right now). Kat achieves her assassiny role through different means and contributes to a fight in different ways.

Secondly, nerfing a hero because they are "pubstompers" is bad game design don't you think?

Look at it from the average player's perspective. If you have a bunch of champions that will wipe the floor with you explicitly and only because you don't know the precise means of countering them, why should you bother learning to play? It would be a better use of your time to play some other game that's just plain fun.

Nobody complains about it anymore, it's part of the game.  If a hero craps on new players, they should learn to play against that hero.  Why should the game's balance suffer as a result of inexperience?  Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I'll turn the question on its head: Why should many new player's game experiences suffer because designers can't be bothered to find ways to make characters work without inordinately punishing lack of knowledge? Because that's basically what a pubstomper is.

P.S. Vi rocks. I don't think I'll ever see anything quite like her in Dota, which just adds to the list of things Riot has over Dota =p

I don't understand your argument here.  There's all kinds of neat heroes and abilities in DotA that don't exist in League.  Does that add to the list of things Valve has over LoL?

Yes, there's things Dota has that League doesn't. I personally feel like Riot's character design is leaps and bounds above Dota's, and along with the extra modes they have and the overall style, it's a better choice. Others feel a different way though, and they're perfectly entitled to that opinion ^_^