[2] An analysis of game balancing (featuring LOL, HEROES, and DOTA)

 3. Riot Games' balancing problem

 A long description of a way of balancing and its directional nature in the earlier post is to talk about Riot's balancing problem. So many people say that 'nerfing' is the problem of Riot, but as I said before, my place of emphasis is a bit different. Riot's balancing problem come from a compulsion of making a lot of Champions being 'equal'.

 But it is known that LOL is a game that shares pretty much of an equality.

 There is a bit of difference, but each Champions share a pretty much similar movement speed, the maximum health that is not very different from other AOS games, and an exact same area of vision of Champions. But isn't that enough? League of Legends looks like it is excessively obsessed to an equality.

 And this kind of attitude derive a thougth that LOL is 'nerf-centered' and DOTA is 'buff-centered'.

R - Riftwalk

RANGE: 700 ⇒ 450

cost: 75 Mana ⇒ 60 Mana

 This is the recently most controversial skill, Kassadin's Riftwalk. It seems like that they reduced the mana cost to reduce the skill cost burden, but since they reduced the range of Kassadin's Ultimate, which used to be an extremely matchless skill, they trashed Riftwalk to be a useless skill.

 It was a restriction of mobility to equate the 'equality' or the 'statistical balance', but based on the reult it was a HUGE nerf and Kassadin has no longer have a chance to be played, resulting his win ratio to be 36% from the lower 50%.

 Theoretically, the balancing of Riot has no problem. Kassadin is a Champion who's always pressured by the mana cost of his skills. BECAUSE RIFTWALK IS A FREAKING OP SKILL! Therefore, for the equality between from other Champions from him, they reduced Kassadin's pressure from the mana cost, and it is reasonable to reduce his mobility for the sake of equality. Although the adjustment of the stat was too much and the outcome had become a nerf, but what if the stat was appropriate? New players would even feel that Kassadin's mana cost pressure is not that much, and would have an impression that it is 'fair' to paly against him.

 So what about Veigar?

W - Dark Matter

cost 70/80/90/100/110 mana ⇒ 70/75/80/85/90 mana

Cooldown 10 sseconds ⇒ 10/9.5/9/8.5/8 seconds

---

E - Event Horizon

NEWevent planning: Appears instantly ⇒ Now has a 0.75 second delay before appearing

cost 80/90/100/110/120 mana ⇒ 80/85/90/95/100 mana

Cooldown 20/19/18/17/16 seconds ⇒ 18/17/16/15/14 seconds

range: 650 ⇒ 700

 (Excluding Q that has been changed to a non-targeting skill) First, by looking at the stat changes, it looks like a buff, and a nerf of the 'non-interactive' skill, E, seems reasonable. Actually, Veigar's mana cost and cooldown is pretty high compared to other AP Mages, and his E's pretty notorious only among players who had played against him. (Especially when he's started being played as support, the presence of his E was drastically increasing.) However the 5.4 patch is definitely a failure of Riot's balancing, that they annihilated the 'characteristic' of Veigar, who 'suppress the opponent and burst one down at once'. Also the adjustment of the stats was inappropriate, so as a result, Veigar's no longer playable at any gamemode.

 Riot's balancing follows the stats or the theoretical balancing, but most of them caused a bad result, and annihilated Champions' 'characteristics' in the name of 'increasing uncertainty of a game'. A non-targetalization of Veigar's Q or even Ryze's skill is an element that increase an uncertainty of a game, but is a bad example that annihilates those Champion's own identity over the left.

 Then what about DOTA or HEROES' balancing?
 Consequentially speaking, these two games are not obessed to an 'equality' like Riot.

 First, here's an example of DOTA.

• Attack projectile speed from 900 to 1000
  
• Dragon Slave damage increased from 100/170/230/280 to 110/180/250/320
  
• Dragon Slave mana cost increased from 90/105/125/140 to 100/115/130/145
  
• Light Strike Array damage rescaled from 90/150/210/280 to 120/160/200/240
  
• Light Strike Array mana cost increased from 90/100/110/125 to 100/110/120/130
  
• Light Strike Array stun duration increased from 1.6/1.8/2/2.2 to 1.6/1.9/2.2/2.5
  
• Fiery Soul duration increased from 9 to 10

 Lina is a Champion who has a distinguished characteristics, such as a strong push ability with her Q (just like Xerath's Q) and a ranged stun ability with her W (just like Veigar's W).
 She's already such a strong Champion when you look at the base damage of her skills, but her damage of Q is increased and the duration of W is increased.

 Pretty strange, isn't it? They nerfed the disadvantage and buffed the advantage? DOTA's balancing looks unreasonable when you compare it to the Riot's, the nerf of Fiddlesticks's in the past that Fear's duration was decreased and its mana cost was also decreased generally. They buffed the disadvantage and nerfed the advantage.

 So what about HEROES?

 Heroes of Storm has no specific tendency for a detailed balancing, since they're in a beta testing period. Nerfs and buffs are mixed every time, so it is pretty hard to understand if they're trying to spare the characteristics or promoting an equality. But the decisive design that plots the difference between a concept and an actual use can't be seen as it's focusing on the feature itself.

 This is getting too complex, so I'll explain with an example.
 - Abathur in HEROES does not participate in the fight at all, from the beginning to the end of game.
 - The Lost Vikings is a Hero that should be able to control 3 Champions simultaneously.
 - Also an unconventional design or a rework of Champions makes HEROES to emboss the characteristics of a lot of stats except for a movement speed.

  Now let's take a look at HEROES's characteristic rework.

LI LI

• Li Li has received a major overhaul.
• Protective Shield (Talent) removed
• Envenom (Talent) removed
• Stoneskin (Talent) removed
• New Talent (Level 20): Kung Fu Hustle
  • Abilities recharge 3 times as fast when Fast Feet is active.
• Basic Attack
  • Starting damage increased from 20 to 25
• Fast Feet (Trait)
  • Movement speed bonus decreased from 15% to 10%
  • New Talent (Level 7): Shake It Off
    • Reduces the duration of the next Stun or Root by 75%. Can only trigger once every 15 seconds.
  • New Talent (Level 16): Safety Sprint
    • Increases Fast Feet’s Movement Speed bonus 10% to 20% while Li Li is under 50% Health.
• Healing Brew (Q)
  • New Talent (Level 1): Pro Toss
    • Increases Healing Brew’s range by 30%
  • New Talent (Level 7): Pitch Perfect
    • After casting Healing Brew, its cost is reduced by 10 Mana for 6 seconds. This effect does not stack.
  • The Good Stuff (Talent) functionality has changed
    • Healing Brew now heals for an additional 30% over 6 seconds. Multiple heals extend the duration of this heal over time.
  • Two For One (Talent) functionality has changed
    • No longer increases Healing Brew’s Mana cost
    • Now increases Healing Brew’s cooldown from 3 to 4.5 seconds
  • Herbal Cleanse (Talent)
    • Movement Speed bonus duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds
  • Scaling heal decreased from 20 to 18
• Cloud Serpent (W)
  • Cloud Serpent functionality has changed.
    • Cloud Serpent now automatically attacks nearby enemies.  Only 1 Cloud Serpent can be active on a Hero at a time.
  • Cost decreased from 40 to 30 Mana
  • Starting damage increased from 15 to 20
  • Timeless Creature (Talent) moved from Level 16 to Level 1
  • Lightning Serpent (Talent)
    • Damage dealt to targets after the first increased from 25% to 50%
    • Search range increased by 20%
  • New Talent (Level 4) : Mending Serpent
    • Cloud Serpent heals its host each time it attacks.
  • New Talent (Level 16): Serpent Sidekick
    • Li Li gains her own Cloud Serpent after casting Cloud Serpent on an ally.
• Blinding Wind (E)
  • Number of Basic Attacks missed increased from 1 to 2
  • Cost decreased from 50 to 40 Mana
  • Starting damage decreased from 50 to 30
  • Scaling damage increased from 12 to 13 damage
  • Gale Force (Talent)
    • Damage bonus increased from 25% to 50%
  • Mass Vortex (Talent) moved from Level 1 to Level 4
  • Lingering Blind (Talent)
    • Increases the number of Basic Attacks missed from 2 to 3
  • New Talent (Level 13): Surging Winds
    • Li Li gains 5% Ability Power for 8 seconds per target hit by Blinding Wind. Additional enemies hit refresh the buff duration and further increase Ability Power. Stacks up to 4 times.
• Jug of 1,000 Cups (R)
  • Cooldown increased from 60 to 70 seconds
  • Initial heal amount decreased from 35 to 20
  • Scaling heal increased from 4 to 6.5
• Water Dragon (R)
  • Starting damage increased from 130 to 200
  • Scaling damage increased from 13 to 20
  • Slow amount increased from 40% to 70%

(Source: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/17345414/heroes-closed-beta-patch-notes-january-13-2015-1-13-2015)

 This, is pretty strange. Logically thinking, Riot's method of statistical balancing that pursue 'equality' should be the best way, but as I experienced by playing games and checking the reaction of each communities, the most illogical balancers, 'DOTA', had the highest satisfaction to the patches.

 So, why?

 DOTA buffs the advantage and nerfs the disadvantage of a Hero, so that he'll kind of be picky on the environment, but emphasize the characteristic. So the Hero would be dependant on the team composition or an environment, but the moment when players feel that something is balanced is when the Heroes' advantage and the environment that the advantages shine are prominent.

 For example, it makes the player to feel that his ability to react against something lacks, while playing Champion A and lost against Champion B, not that it's just because of the stupid patch that makes Champion B OP. The player would feel like 'if I've made a different environement/situation...' or 'if I've used him in a different way...', therefore not getting dissatisfied by the balancing iteself.

 HEROES is actually pretty similar to LOL. Even when designers tries to emphasize a characteristic, there are dis/advantages between Heroes- and frequently, there are some Annoying Oranges. But HEROES has a relatively faster game speed and is designed to be 'teamfight-centered', so something like 'lane phase' that a drastic dis/advantages between Heroes are shown is minimized, so the differences between Heroes are not as on the surface as LOL.

 But how about LOL? They plotted the equality between the Champions so the difference between them are decreasing, but if the statistical difference happens, the fight between them would be rough to be considered as it's 'equal'. If Kassadin players now feel 'equal' when they're playing against Ahri players? NOPE. Also Kassadin has no longer a prominent advantage available, so it'll be hard for him to provide an equal and an enjoyable fight against any Champions. But if Riot decides to keep him in the track by buff his other skills rather than his Ultimate, then he will no longer be Kassadin.

 Repeatedly saying, but Riot's balancing is excessively focused on the 'stats', 'equality', and a 'theory', so they're dragging the player satisfaction down. Players wants to play with 100 different Champions that all have a significant characteristics, but not the ones that have 100 different stats.

4. Conclusion

 Riot's balancing does not have to follow the ones of DOTA and HEROES. But if they get rid of advantages of Champions for equality which leads to a method of Final Fantasy, would they even need that much of Champions?

 Balancing can't be defined and its way can't be specified, but there must be a reason why DOTA player's satisfaction to their game is pretty higher than any other AOS genre games.

 Since players are expecting a fight between a lot of Champions with different characteristics, I hope Riot's balancing gets solid and solid as the time goes on.



This is the end of a two-part series of my analogy of game balancing.
There are a lot of sources that I looked at, but the majority of the idea adopted by myself were in the columns in http://lol.inven.co.kr. Shoutout to Inven for an excellent information.
Feel free to comment, tackle, and question at any time.
Thanks for reading and have a good day!