Musing: Fun Should NEVER be Sacrificed For “Balance”

As some of you might know, I have been playing League of Legends for about two months now. In those months I haven’t been playing ranked games (for those who don’t know to play in Ranked matches you must be Level 30 and as of this post I’m Level 15) but I have been feeling the overall effect of the changes made to them for the sake of “balance”. Why do I use “balance” in such a condescending way? I do so because it’s very hard to do no matter how you set the game up from the beginning.

Let’s take Pokémon for example. Sure, I would LOVE to see my Jigglypuff stomp the face of Legendary Pokémon but statistics state that it’s impossible in higher levels of play because the numbers don’t support it because they just have too great a curb in power between them. Sure there are some examples where true balance can be attained, but these are so few they are pretty much the stuff of legends (Chess and Go are the best example I can think of, and from what I hear Starcraft 2, but since I never played that game I cannot comment on that facet). Gamefreak wouldn’t want to put in the work, otherwise we would be talking about another programming change so drastic that our Pokémon couldn’t be transferred to the next game (or so I hear, don’t quote me on that) thus alienating a large batch of its player base, so Weedle will NEVER be able to defeat Zapdos, but let’s get back to the point I was trying to make.

As I was saying earlier I felt the effect of these changes even though I had not played in the upper levels in League of Legends and have no desire to play at such a level because I hear they can ban Champions, and God help me if the three the opposing team bans are the only once I feel I’m really good with, then I become a liability to my team! I felt the effects with the re-works of Champions I had gotten the hang of (it was a SLOW process). Annie’s damage was nerfed all around, Sona won’t really be healing much after the next patch and the Support role is becoming more “action packed” while still leaving them too squishy for this to work. So in a short amount of time, Riot has basically told me to go fuck myself three times in two months while wearing a shit eating grin (Annie & Sona were the first Champions I felt good with and I liked playing the Support role), and I found out WHY Riot had decided to do this. I would like to quote a Summoner named Quantumprophecy because he or she said it in a way that hit me.

“Before I begin let me say, this will be fairly long and there will not be a TLDR. If you aren't here to read a well thought critique of Riot's design philosophy then go somewhere else please.


The Normalization of Champion Power Curves

In the last few months we have seen a fast growing trend in Riot's champ design. We can see it in both the new champs released and the reworks and/or buffs of old champs. What is this design philosophy? It's the normalization of champion power curves. And believe it or not, this philosophy is one of the contributers to many of the other problems we are seeing in the game at the moment. Junglers being to strong in lane, support+AD bot, and many other problems are either directly or indirectly being caused by this.

Now before I go further, let me clarify what a champion's power curve is. A champion's power curve is a term to decide how strong a champion is at different points in the game. Champion's such as pre-rework Tryn would have a low power curve early game, and a much higher one late game. Leblanc on the other hand would have a very high curve early game, and lower later. It's important to realize though that this is all very general. It's not like there are power levels or numbers associated with it. It's all very general and relative.

So where's the problem you may be asking? Well Riot seems to be moving away from varying power curves on champs and normalizing them across the board, with copious amounts of proof to support this. Consider practically all new champs released, regardless of OP or UP. Yorick, Leona, Wukong, Skarner, all incredibly normalized curves. They don't excel at any point in the game, or blow at any other. Now consider champs such as Vayne. Her primary role is meant to be that of a carry, a role characterized by having a bad early game in exchange for much stronger late game scaling. Vayne doesn't fit that definition at all. Vayne is incredibly easy to do well with early game, while being an extremely viable carry come late game.

We can see even more evidence in many of the reworks Riot has put out. Looking back at Annie's rework, one of the reason's given for having it in the first place was to make Annie more viable late game. Look at Allistar and Gangplank. Do either of them have weak points throughout the game? Consider Kayle's rework as well. Another case where one reason given for the rework was to strengthen her early game in exchange for less power early game. Similar reason's were given for Tryn's rework. Even looking into the future, there has been minor talk about Poppy getting nerfs, with reasons behind it being that her late game carrying ability is to high, and in exchange (again) she will have her early game buffed some.

So you might be asking, how is this philosophy destroying the game? Well beyond the obvious fact that it's creating less interesting features between champions, it's also part of the reason we are seeing support+AD bot all over the place. Ranged AD champs will almost always be necessary. But what lane are we to put them in? They can't solo top. They will get demolished by a whole slew of tanky dps with normalized curves, excellent early games coupled with fairly high carry potential late game, such as Jarvin and Irelia. Mid? Nope, can't do that either because of AP carries all with normalized curves. Brand and Annie? Incredible lane presence early, monster burst late game. So that leaves 1 place. Bot lane. But how do you keep the enemy team from sending a strong duo lane against them? Conveniently enough, you make their lane mate a support champ, in a sense helping to strengthen the Ad champs early game.

Another thing this philosophy has brought about, is the laning of great jungle champs. The need for strong laners has become so great that people have started bringing junglers out to lanes in an attempt to dominate early game.

So the final question to ask ourselves is, why is Riot doing this? Well, Riot is actively seeking to make the game more action packed(!) and in their eyes, playing a carry who doesn't start to do anything till late game, or an AP champ that dies off late game, isn't very fun. Okay, I can understand that. Maybe not agree with it, but understand it.


So that it's. My own personal critique on Riot's new favorite design philosophy. I'm not looking for upvotes. I'm not looking for red responses. I'm not even looking to start a discussion. I just like writing things like this up and getting them out to the community to hopefully open peoples eyes a bit about where this game is actually going.

Enjoy and thanks for reading.”

Click here if you want to see the entire thread (assuming it’s still there)

Homogenization (third meaning) is the word of the day, readers. While I can understand the need for it I can’t help but feel that “balance” wants to kill my fun to death. In Chess, it works because all the pieces are the same and it comes down to who’s smatter/luckier/more arrogant/short sighted, but in games like League of Legends or fighting games PEROID the characters are designed differently because they all fight differently, they effect the game differently. Some cases can be so outrageous that they MUST be bought into line somehow (Akuma, anyone?) while others stem from bad choices, ignorance of the character or just plain vindictive nature of people (Example: “I hate Annie, so I’m going to convince the Riot staff that she’s busted so I can stomp her more easily because I can’t suck she’s just busted! Never mind the fact she’s designed to be able to hit like a truck yet be squishy enough to die in under three seconds!”).

So because of the completive set I and those like me have to suffer for it. But they don’t care, and they never will because to a good deal of them think the “casual player” is a subspecies that doesn’t matter. Then you have the vocal minority that sounds louder than it is complaining on the forums about these things, and the egomaniacs on the site who flash drag there high ELO rating into the mess or your low or non-existent ELO rating into things in an attempt to discredit you just because you don’t spend as much time as he does trying to make his ELO rating big to compensate for his small dick. Even if you got a valid point it gets washed away in the mess produced by the circle jerking.

This is not helped by how Riot plans to just club Support to death. My idea of fun in this game is not to get killed repeatedly (but it tends to happen anyway if my Tank gets killed), so I pick support mostly so I can affect the tide of battle WITHOUT having to start fights, but my role is being made obsolete because of homicidal, psychopathic easily bored sociopaths that get pissed off if what they attack doesn’t die in less than five seconds. You want that kind of instant death gratification where Healers can’t stave death? Join the Army. I assure you that no Healer can sustain someone who got there head blown off by a sniper round.

I’m sorry if this seemed all over the place but it just came to me tonight after browsing the League of Legends forums. Anyway, feel free to post your thoughts on this.