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United States47024 Posts
On October 09 2013 06:12 wei2coolman wrote: I'm okay with the lack of "complexity" tbh. One of the key things that I really liked about LoL, especially in pro scene is the ready adaption of players from solo queue. I think that's something Riot wants to keep. So definitely that's the parity issue, that any format that changes for pro-scene needs to adapted to solo queue. As far as Ketara's sentiment goes, there is a very different thought process going to banning front end, and phased. I just don't see too much added benefits from changing to phased, at least so far as LoL is concerned. At least off of 3-bans per team. If expanded to 5 per team, I would agree, phased would be better/necessary. I thought that was a given.
My point is that going from 3->5 1st phase bans would have comparatively little impact compared to going from 3 first phase bans to some mix of 5 1st/2nd phase bans.
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On October 09 2013 06:17 xes wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2013 06:12 wei2coolman wrote: I'm okay with the lack of "complexity" tbh. One of the key things that I really liked about LoL, especially in pro scene is the ready adaption of players from solo queue. You specifically mentioned Riven vz Zed. Faker had a hilarious winrate in SoloQ playing Riven and even Riven matchups vs Zed but could not replicate that success on the world stage. The parity between soloQ and the competitive scene is a farce. What? riven pick was fine. If you watched the game, game 1 he got first blooded and put behind, but was still able to deal with zed to a pretty good degree (much better than almost any other mid lane champion).
That point aside, the lack of parity hurts the scene imo. Even if the game is played on a different plane.
On October 09 2013 06:17 Slusher wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2013 06:12 wei2coolman wrote: I'm okay with the lack of "complexity" tbh. One of the key things that I really liked about LoL, especially in pro scene is the ready adaption of players from solo queue. I think that's something Riot wants to keep. So definitely that's the parity issue, that any format that changes for pro-scene needs to adapted to solo queue. As far as Ketara's sentiment goes, there is a very different thought process going to banning front end, and phased. I just don't see too much added benefits from changing to phased, at least so far as LoL is concerned. At least off of 3-bans per team. If expanded to 5 per team, I would agree, phased would be better/necessary. so you are saying adding phased bans will not increase the 23 "priority" champions as explained in the OP outside of the obvious +number of bans to this list? If it was still 3 bans, phased in rather than front loaded, I don't think it would increase or change scene too dramatically, at least in the highest tier of play.
On October 09 2013 06:19 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2013 06:12 wei2coolman wrote: I'm okay with the lack of "complexity" tbh. One of the key things that I really liked about LoL, especially in pro scene is the ready adaption of players from solo queue. I think that's something Riot wants to keep. So definitely that's the parity issue, that any format that changes for pro-scene needs to adapted to solo queue. As far as Ketara's sentiment goes, there is a very different thought process going to banning front end, and phased. I just don't see too much added benefits from changing to phased, at least so far as LoL is concerned. At least off of 3-bans per team. If expanded to 5 per team, I would agree, phased would be better/necessary. I thought that was a given. My point is that going from 3->5 1st phase bans would have comparatively little impact compared to going from 3 first phase bans to some mix of 5 1st/2nd phase bans. mmk, seems like we're on the same page then.
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you know full well I didn't mean 3 bans, but even so, I'd take 1-1-2-2-2-2-3-3 in that argument.
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I think 3 bans is still a good # of bans imo. Will have to take a lot more champ releases til we need 4 or 5 bans per team.
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in addition to just bans, another source of "narrow picks" has to do with role variety. With regard to supports, the reason that there were few champions for each role is that the champions themselves are often "strictly better" instead of being dynamically asymmetric to other champions. Why would anybody want to pick something like Khazix or Talon when Zed is available? Similarily, Shen is a top pick because of his unique ult and playstyle while every other top laner was more or less eclipsed by Renekton as the best "supertank" toplaner and Jax in the best "Carry" toplaner.
Think about the champs that stood out because of unique things they did and how that changes the game, Riot needs to get to a point where they're willing to deviate from the generate formulas for the champs for each of the roles instead of generic typecasts where the one with the highest QWER ratios becomes picked over every other champ of the role. Give us more champs with drastic drawbacks for what unique impact they give (ala annie), more champs with abilities and themes that affect the overall game in a dynamic way (ala Shen or TF) and less champs that just do everything and have "better numbers".
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That seems to be Riots argument at least, that they can increase diversity simply with champion balance and don't need to look into adding drafting complexity to force diversity.
Looking at the stats in the OP seem to argue against that, though. In an entire year of balancing, champion diversity did not increase, and may have even gone down.
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not to mention one of the things they claimed to be protecting, "signature champions" are actually being pushed out by the lack of protective bans.
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On October 09 2013 06:34 Ketara wrote: That seems to be Riots argument at least, that they can increase diversity simply with champion balance and don't need to look into adding drafting complexity to force diversity.
Looking at the stats in the OP seem to argue against that, though. In an entire year of balancing, champion diversity did not increase, and may have even gone down. The stats in the OP actually pretty solid for diversity, despite the OP claiming otherwise. Half the champion pool seen in 55 ("serious") games, by 14 teams? Remember that players also have to practice a champion pool. Not everyone is Faker with a 10+ champion pool ready for tournament play at all times. And even then, picking unorthodox picks can easily just hand your opponents exactly what they want. Why pick an unorthodox mid when it means you're passing Ahri to the opposing team, knowing that they're comfortable on her?
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United States47024 Posts
On October 09 2013 07:45 sylverfyre wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2013 06:34 Ketara wrote: That seems to be Riots argument at least, that they can increase diversity simply with champion balance and don't need to look into adding drafting complexity to force diversity.
Looking at the stats in the OP seem to argue against that, though. In an entire year of balancing, champion diversity did not increase, and may have even gone down. The stats in the OP actually pretty solid for diversity, despite the OP claiming otherwise. Half the champion pool seen in 55 ("serious") games, by 14 teams? Remember that players also have to practice a champion pool. Not everyone is Faker with a 10+ champion pool ready for tournament play at all times. And even then, picking unorthodox picks can easily just hand your opponents exactly what they want. Why pick an unorthodox mid when it means you're passing Ahri to the opposing team, knowing that they're comfortable on her? That's the thing though. Even in a theoretical "perfectly balanced version", the tendency of players and teams is toward the least possible amount of diversity, not the greatest.
The nature of practice is such that if you want to practice and learn a new champion, you have to sacrifice practice on other champions to learn it. In order to learn a new teamcomp, your team has to sacrifice practice on their existing teamcomps and possibly alter their team dynamic to suit the new one. Unless the system itself gives teams the tools to push each other out of their comfort zone, teams will try to stay within their comfort zone because it maximizes their performance.
Furthermore, metagame factors tend to push TEAMS toward similar champ pools, rather than each just playing their own niche. The strongest teams might play whats comfortable to them, but the *perception* that their playstyle is the strongest because they are winning pushes mid level teams to try and emulate the stronger teams. Furthermore, teams within a region gravitate toward similar champ pools because playing against one another demands an understanding of how one another play, which means they tend to learn one another's champions.
This is all *irrespective* of balance. These factors all still exist even in a "perfectly balanced" version of the game. In order to get more diversity, the system itself has to actively encourage it via a more complex/diversified ban/pick phase because champ balance alone does not alter any of these issues.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
describing gameplay as stale while not mentioning s2's farm karthus for 40 minutes meta seems rather heavyhanded.
about bans, phased bans look better mainly because it makes b/p more interesting. with 5 bans dota ban phase is just too long and boring for an entertainment media format. dota's diversity comes from what kupo referred to as assymetric imbalance, that is to say situational and combination dependent picks are way more viable in dota. addressing this aspect is really the crucial discussion rather than bans, because at hte end of the day, bans is content denial and you can't rely on that forever.
lol's strict ordering of hero balance makes a phased ban system less impactful than it is in dota.
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Assymetric Imabalance is any game where bot sides don't share the same peices SC2 and LoL also both follow this premise, so I'm not really sure what you are trying to imply isn't being addressed.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
not saying lol does not have assymetric balance, but it is a matter of degree. compared to lol, dota has a lot of heroes that are combo dependent, only work in specific lineups, or as counters themselves. there's a lot more strategic play with information in dota at the overall game strategy level, while lol seems to be mostly limited to lane match up counters.
not saying there are no synergies in lol. there are various jungler + top combos, shen + other globals etc. the dominant meta itself is basically a strong combination strategy, whether it is poke deathball, assassin + disengage splitpush etc. but the problem is that for a given combination strategy you have maybe 10 to 15 champs that can do the work, separating themselves only in raw ability factors, which lends itself to a strict ordering of rankings.
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More complex ban phase also means more emphasis on the ban/pick phase rather than the game itself. Games can be over at the pick screen, and this would only exacerbate the problem.
It's a trade off, but I don't really mind where the game is at right now. People like Yango will disagree with me, as I think he prefers more complex game strategies and diversity, but I think game strategy between regions was really good this year, and that incoming patches ensure we don't see the same champions over and over in the competitive scene. One tournament might have the same champion pool, but enduring that for 1 tournament isn't a big deal to me. I mean, just look at how much the champion pool has changed since all stars to around OGN summer.
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That's almost completely due to the direct result of Riot buffing and nerfing direct numbers in a symmetric game, which logically leads to gravitation towards whatever has the highest available numbers
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
riot's way of dealing with diversity is through frequent patch changes. this is okayish, because they do maintain an action heavy, fast style of play. the focus of the game should not be too heavily tilted towards picks and bans, which can happen when you have hard counters at play too much.
long time viewers though may get tired of the same pattern repeating itself, but i think league's core competitive play is at a pretty good place right now. although you have picks and bans uniformity, the actual plays matter more in deciding a game.
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On October 09 2013 07:51 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2013 07:45 sylverfyre wrote:On October 09 2013 06:34 Ketara wrote: That seems to be Riots argument at least, that they can increase diversity simply with champion balance and don't need to look into adding drafting complexity to force diversity.
Looking at the stats in the OP seem to argue against that, though. In an entire year of balancing, champion diversity did not increase, and may have even gone down. The stats in the OP actually pretty solid for diversity, despite the OP claiming otherwise. Half the champion pool seen in 55 ("serious") games, by 14 teams? Remember that players also have to practice a champion pool. Not everyone is Faker with a 10+ champion pool ready for tournament play at all times. And even then, picking unorthodox picks can easily just hand your opponents exactly what they want. Why pick an unorthodox mid when it means you're passing Ahri to the opposing team, knowing that they're comfortable on her? That's the thing though. Even in a theoretical "perfectly balanced version", the tendency of players and teams is toward the least possible amount of diversity, not the greatest. The nature of practice is such that if you want to practice and learn a new champion, you have to sacrifice practice on other champions to learn it. In order to learn a new teamcomp, your team has to sacrifice practice on their existing teamcomps and possibly alter their team dynamic to suit the new one. Unless the system itself gives teams the tools to push each other out of their comfort zone, teams will try to stay within their comfort zone because it maximizes their performance. Furthermore, metagame factors tend to push TEAMS toward similar champ pools, rather than each just playing their own niche. The strongest teams might play whats comfortable to them, but the *perception* that their playstyle is the strongest because they are winning pushes mid level teams to try and emulate the stronger teams. Furthermore, teams within a region gravitate toward similar champ pools because playing against one another demands an understanding of how one another play, which means they tend to learn one another's champions. This is all *irrespective* of balance. These factors all still exist even in a "perfectly balanced" version of the game. In order to get more diversity, the system itself has to actively encourage it via a more complex/diversified ban/pick phase because champ balance alone does not alter any of these issues.
I think the problem is further exacerbated by the "need" to know OP champs, because even if you get Really good at an unconventional pick, then that just gets banned and leaves 1 more OP on the board...which you have to know.
Like, if Froggen's Anivia was actually dominant still, and a must ban, that is irrelevant because then you just ban it, and he needs to be able to play all the OP champions anyways, otherwise you give up power plays for the other team.
EX: Imagine Froggen plays Anivia at a higher level than Faker plays Zed/Orianna, but to be that good at Anivia he is less good at playing one of Zed/Orianna/Ahri. Even though SKTT1 has to ban Anivia, EG has to ban an extra one of those "OP" midlaners, because otherwise Faker gets that champ. So signature champs have no real value in champion select.
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"Oh my god Faker is unstoppable, this game needs more bans so we can shut down Faker. The best player being on top because he's the best and players beating him by being better is anti-fun." --> LoL community logic.
Now I'll admit I don't know anywhere near as much about DotA as you do Yango but I've always found that heroes have much more unique effects in DotA. A 2nd round of drafting works there because you can take away key effects your opponents were relying on. In LoL however champions all fit categories rather than their own unique abilities, if you ban one away they can just move on to another similar champ.
I am a pretty firm advocate of if you removed bans entirely you would dramatically increase champion diversity. The sole purpose of bans is to catch broken shit in solo-queue before Riot patches it out.
Oh also there was plenty of diversity at worlds. 100% is neither attainable nor desirable. ~50% is perfect. I will admit I'd like to see more mages in mid lane though.
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the thing is that zed wasn't even the champion faker was known best for in Korea but it was just so op that he had to be picked and mastered
if you removed bans diversity would likely be reduced instead of the converse since every game will essentially just be the 2 best champs of each role
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Can we all just agree that Faker is a god and he would beat people if the only champ he was given was a checker piece
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United States47024 Posts
There's also a corollary benefit to multi-phase ban/pick which is that a multi-phase ban/pick that shifts advantage away from the first pick helps the 1st pick advantage issue.
IIRC this was actually one of the original reasons Icefrog implemented multi-phase bans in the first place (and later further revised the system to attempt to further even 1st pick/2nd pick imbalance).
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