Hello
everyone!
In this article, I would like to
talk about why map specific balance is necessary for game health, but also why
Riot has been hesitant to implement it in the past.
To be
clear about what I mean by map specific balance in case any of you are out of
the loop on what is going on, I am talking about champions on The Crystal Scar
and Twisted Treeline (perhaps eventually on the Howling Abyss map too) being
nerfed and buffed independently of Summoner's Rift and in some cases of each
other.
In the
past, champions for every map have been nerfed or buffed based on how they
perform on the Summoner's Rift. This caused some champions, such as ones that
are really strong in small skirmishes, to become dominant on these maps. Other
champions, such as Thresh who rely on different tools and play styles have
often dropped in power when transitioned to Dominion because of this.
At first,
this may not sound so bad to you; having idividualized balance across all maps/modes.
However, there are several reasons why this kind of balancing was never done in
the past, and I will talk about those next.
1: Map
specific balance makes the various League of Legends game modes feel like
different games, instead of all being part of the same game. What I mean by
this is that by changing things about champions on the different maps, it makes
Kassadin on Summoner's Rift not feel like Kassadin on The Crystal Scar,
splitting the game in two, at least for games involving that champion. This is
also why many MMO's such as World of Warcraft do not balance PvE and PvP
separately; it makes the two ways of playing feel like two games. However, the
developers want their games to feel like one solid game where every piece fits
together perfectly (in theory at least). This leads me to my next point.
2: Map
specific balance forces the players to memorize how abilities work on each map.
It can be really confusing, especially if you play a champion solely on one map
and then go to another. If you don't deal the damage that you should, or if
your abilities have different cooldowns than they did before, then the game can
be really confusing for you, and you can end up misplaying because you are
expecting a move to behave in a way different from what you are used to. For
The Crystal Scar or Twisted Treeline only players, map specific balance will
just feel like a normal buff or nerf, but players who enjoy playing across
different maps and modes will have to learn a completely new feel to every
champion affected by map specific balance, and adjust themselves based on the
map. This is doable, but will likely confuse and put off some players,
especially those new to League of Legends in general, or trying out the game
mode for one of their first times and playing on one of these affected
champions. I should note that changes to non-spammable ultimate cooldowns will
be the least likely offenders of this, because players are used to casting them
once and moving on, whereas with other abilities players are used to using
their cooldowns together and after certain amounts of time during fights.
3: The
next problem is the amount of extra work that this kind of balance puts on
Riot. Now this may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but it has already
proven difficult for Riot to give the Twisted Treeline and Crystal Scare the
love and support that they deserve. Most of Riot's balance team is already busy
on Summoner's Rift, where they have a lot of expectations to strive to meet and
maintain patch after patch. It has been made pretty clear already that people
separate from Riot's main live balance team for Summoner's Rift will be
handling Crystal Scar and Twisted Treeline balance from now on. However, as far
as we can tell via the forums, these teams of people are really small. Keeping
up with two maps changes, identifying more and more problems, and coming up
with high quality changes to make to champions on top of all of their other
work, such as itemization changes. This also leads to many more questions.
4. There
are several more questions that Riot will have to answer among themselves while
doing map specific balance including but not limited to if a champion is buffed
on one map, should that buff go through on all maps? Will that differ on a per
champion basis? Do we need to expand our live balance teams for these maps in
order to keep up with everything going on? If changes like Ultimate cooldowns
are not enough for a champion, what kind of other changes can we add in so that
players will not be confused? They will also have to worry about how changing
champions and items at the same time will all affect one another. Could a
simultaneous change to a champion and an item result in a much larger nerf or
buff than expected?
These are
all reasons why, up until recently, Riot has always stayed away from map
specific balance. It is why I call it an evil. Now I would like to go on to my
next topic: why map specific balance is a necessity.
Champions
in League of Legends have always been balanced around Summoner's Rift 5v5. They
are each balanced to have an early game, mid game, and late game. Each one of
these champions also has strengths and weaknesses on Summoner's Rift, often
depending on whether it is early, mid, or late game. Since the champions are balanced
around that map, champion’s strengths and weaknesses are allowed to be visible,
exploited, and overcame depending on player skill on that map.
This is
where the problem lies. The champion's strengths and weaknesses specifically
are designed to be balanced on Summoner's Rift. However, The Crystal Scar and
Twisted Treeline are much smaller maps, which involve lots of skirmishes, and
generally have shorter games. So what does this mean? Mobility is insanely
powerful (e.g. Kassadin on dominion), tanky dps champions are really strong
because they are harder to kill, while still being able to kill carries just as
well, champions with weak early games but strong mid-late games get out of
their weak phase of the game sooner, and champions who have a critical mass
point in the late game (Hypercarries) can struggle to deal the damage they need
because they won't get the items that they need until it is too late and there
is not much time left (on The Crystal Scar, at least).
In other
words, some champions’ weaknesses have been removed, or have become less
relevant to the game, while other champions weaknesses are more prevalent. The
same is true for strengths in that some champions are able to be at their
strongest relative point more often than on Summoner's Rift, while others are
at that point for less time. For example, Singed's weakness is getting cc'd
down and blown up because he has to run around the enemy team or be chased to do
anything. On Twisted Treeline, there are two less people to damage, cc, and slow
him, turning him into a monster that was one of the first victims of map
specific balance.
Let's
also take a champion like Thresh, for instance. One of Thresh's main strengths is
setting up kills in the middle of the
jungle for his team, and sometimes under towers but that is often dangerous. However,
on The Crystal Scar he spends much less time in the jungle, and diving the
turret as a support against 4 enemies is even more dangerous that it would be
on the Summoner's Rift. Furthermore, Thresh has really high cooldowns on most
of his abilities, which is a direct result of necessity on Summoner's Rift
because of just how strong his utility is. On dominion though, his utility is
much less powerful and game changing, and Thresh has received nothing in return
to compensate for this loss in power that he has on The Crystal Scar.
To
compare this to another support not hurt by changing maps, take Nunu for
example. Nunu's strengths rely around a single target buff, a single target
nuke with a slow, a minion/monster nuke that heals him and is, for the most
part, not part of his team fighting, and an AoE ability that can obliterate a
team if caught in it. Not a single one of these abilities are actually hurt by
being on The Crystal Scar or Twisted Treeline. His Q is actually probably
stronger on The Crystal Scar if he is playing in the bottom lane, since he will
stay in a 1v1 spot to munch down on minions and heal for the whole game instead
of only for the first phase or two of the game. Not a single one of Nunu's
strengths are hurt by playing on one of the other maps, and he actually get's
relatively tankier since there are less enemies to attack him generally now,
making him stronger than before (compared to a lane Nunu, at least).
The main
point that I am trying to make here is that something has to be done on these
maps to balance out champions’ strengths and weaknesses for that individual
map. Riot has tried a few techniques before, such as changing up itemization,
and introducing and changing the global aura on Crystal Scar. However,
champions have proven to be too diverse for changes that are that general to be
effective in nerfing OP champions or buffing UP champions while not hurting the
balance of others somewhere else. The only real way I see to have such a
specific kind of balance that the maps need to balance champions without
affecting one another is to have map specific balance.
As said
above though, map specific balance comes with its own set of problems, likely
some that I have not yet thought of. Riot is well aware of these problems, and
I believe that is why they have never implemented map specific balance before.
They have tried to come up with ideas to balance this map without making this
drastic of a change, but as we all know that has not worked out, leaving map
specific balance as the only real solution in sight. Whether or not this
necessary evil will end up being better for League of Legends or not, we will
have to see. I really hope that it is.
Until
next time!
"The
Crystal Scar is weeping"
-Rikukun
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