"Respect the veterans" and the drawbacks

On February 28 2014 10:27 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
I have no comments about the change, and you are trying to conflate a separate issue into one in some stupid attempt to "prove a point" (you don't have one), because you have no idea what you're talking about.

This change has absolutely nothing to do with balance. This change is the equivalent of saying "we made Veigar's Dark Matter hot pink instead of black, and this will really help us balance Veigar."

In reality, the Live Team tends to buff about as much as they nerf. A few factors lead to the perception that our balance is nerf heavy:

First, players trend toward playing overpowered champions, and tend to focus on champions they play when reading the patch notes. For example, Corki's playrate increased 8x within a 1 month period around September of last year (Trinity Force buffs made him very strong). It's only natural to focus on the champions you play when reading the patch notes and pay less attention to the (previously underpowered) champions you don't. That's why I don't fault you for missing the straight buffs to Corki, Ryze and Skarner in 4.3, despite the fact that it's written in clear English.

Second, players tend to read net neutral changes (buffs + nerfs) as nerfs. For example, community sentiment was largely that our recent changes to Kayle's Q ratio was a nerf, when in fact the buff to her W's movement speed made her about the same strength, if not more potent -- We reduced Kayle's burst while increasing her team utility and ability to deal sustained damage. Since players were used to bursting with Kayle, they focused on the reduction to their ability to 1 shot a dude over the gains. This isn't true of all players, mind you, but it happens to a lot of us (even Yours Truly).

Third, buffs are often hard to associate with a particular champion, but nerfs feel very specific. Returning to Corki, when we buffed Trinity Force before Worlds, very few players saw this as a dramatic gain for Corki on patch day. Nonetheless, he was immediately overpowered. When we made subsequent changes to Corki which resulted in a net decrease in power, everyone saw that as a dramatic loss for Corki. Again returning to 4.3, we expect all Tear of the Goddess and Spellthief's Edge users to be stronger in this patch. However, it will take a while for these buffs to be fully appreciated.

Finally, if you are posting here, you likely read posts here, and players are much more likely to write a forum post when they feel frustrated or aggrieved than when they feel content. Thus, all of the above is magnified because the "TLDR" of the patch notes often seems like a litany of nerfs because a huge portion of the posts on this forum are just players venting about specific nerfs to their favorite overpowered champion.

All of the champions you listed ["why is Fiora/Viktor/Brand/Heimer/my favorite champion still unviable/clunky/outdated/otherwise disadvantaged?"] are perfectly viable. Unfortunately, they do not feel viable (for a number of reasons specific to each).

Take Fiora. If you cannot win with Fiora, that's likely because you are playing her wrong.

I did not mean to imply everyone played champions for power, only that our more powerful champions on average tend to see more play than our less powerful champions.

I also agree with you that the major nerfs we did to Urgot (and Olaf) were unfortunate and tarnished our balance reputation. It is of course unfortunate that some champions are dramatically more powerful in the hands of a pro than our average player, as were Olaf and Urgot (who both saw/see success in competitive after we "destroyed" them). What we should have done was alter their underlying mechanics so that they could be relatively fun while still being unique and balanced at the highest levels of play.

Indeed, this is a lesson that the Live team has taken to heart. SmashGizmo did a phenomenal re-work on Olaf that retained his core identity (Berserker) while removing the competitive balance problems (massive true damage on a CC immune bruiser whose offensive itemization was full health/CDR). More recently, this patch's Twisted Fate changes, while they may seem minor, are designed to make him balanceable across the entire spectrum of players. The Kha'zix changes almost certainly reduce his overall power level, but they also help fulfill his identity as a hunter/assassin in the process. I actually enjoy playing this patch's version of Kha'Zix much more than the previous version -- I may not take Dragon/Baron as quickly, or annihilate underleveled targets instantly when I am ahead, but I can make game defining turn-around plays and can drop aggro in skirmishes when needed and move to isolated targets more effectively.

So while it is fair to be critical of the Urgot/Olaf approach, it is not fair to portray that as reflective of our current approach to game balance.