A Long Journey

With humble beginnings in 2009, Riot Games has turned into an internationally known gaming company with arguably the most successful game of all time, League of Legends. But, the question is, how were they able to do this? As with all success stories, there are many factors that contribute to the continued growth of League of Legends. Ranging from small visual improvements made behind the scenes, to the free to play model, each and every aspect of the game has contributed to its success in some way.

I believe that above all else though, the ability of Riot to keep players interested in the game over the span of years is what keeps the game growing. By consistently updating the game with patches and visual improvements, Riot keeps the game exciting, even to players that have played since the beginning. Most of these changes have helped make League of Legends a more balanced and healthy game, but there are also times that it seems as if Riot makes changes just for the sake changing something, in order to make the game feel new again.

And you though Jax was OP in Season 3?

I have personally played the game of League of Legends since late 2010, right around the time Trundle was released. At the time, the game specifically, and the MOBA genre in general, was completely new to me. I did not really think about team composition specific strategies and the effect that patch changes had on the game. After all, I was still learning the importance of basic concepts such as last hitting and individual champion abilities. As a new player, I was enthralled at the multitude of champions, and to be honest, with the stylized graphics of the game. It wasn't until later that I started to really think about the game and the changes that were being made to it on a regular basis.

Growth Through Balance

At first I saw these changes simply as progress in the right direction, balance changes that needed to be made in order to reach equilibrium. The example above of Jax is a good, albeit, impractical example of an extremely broken mechanic that needed to be nerfed. Another more well known example of a champion that needed balancing was Ryze when he was initially reworked in early 2011. As arguably the most over powered champion in League of Legends history, Ryze could build a Frozen Heart and Banshee's Veil as his first two items and still deal a ridiculous amount of area of effect damage. He could feed for the first 15 minutes and, if given 15 minutes to breathe, could come back and carry the game with little to no effort. In cases like these, Riot absolutely had to nerf the champion because of how they dominated every game they were in. He was, for all intents and purposes, a high damage tank.

Uh oh...

Thanks to Riot's regular analysis of game balance, they were able to slowly tune Ryze to a more manageable level, though he was still considered a top tier pick up until recently. These consistent balance changes are important in maintaining a fair game, and with it, a player base, but it can only do so much in the long run. The time in between seasons is a time that Riot Games uses to make more drastic changes to the game that they wouldn't be able to do while leagues and tournaments were going on.

This ranges from a rework of the masteries to the introduction of new items. Two such changes that were necessary and changed the game for the better were the gold item changes and the introduction of the Sightstone during Preseason 4 and 3 respectively. No longer were supports stuck in the play style of passive gold generation and no longer did they feel as if they were half a champion. Instead supports became more interactive in the way they obtained their gold as well as being able to carry the game thanks to the extra resources they had available to them. Some more recent significant changes to the game were the graphical update and the jungle changes.

The graphical update was met with mixed reviews while the jungle changes provided for a variety of early game strategies to junglers. It also opened the door for less common jungle picks and increased their viability with the new smite mechanics. These types of alterations fundamentally changed the way the game was to be played and it gave the game a new lease on life. If it had not been for these consistent changes, the game would quickly become stale.

The Volatility of Riot Games' Policy

The problem occurs when changes are made to the game that are not necessary to maintain a balanced game but more so to introduce new mechanics and play styles. More often than not, these are not harmful but on occasion they completely shut out certain strategies and champions. There are two very recent examples of this, the first of which is the removal of Deathfire Grasp. One of the reasons for removing Deathfire was because, as Riot put it, the item "really amps up that 'woah what happened to me' moment". That is all fine as champions like Ahri and LeBlanc can multiply their already high burst kit with more burst. The same could be said for Ahri's Charm mechanic and the amplification that it gives her.

The problem lies in the fact that while removing this mechanic from Deathfire and Charm, they added it onto Fizz's ultimate. At the same time, they nerfed both his Q and W in the same patch. As a champion that already has a tough time in the competitive scene if he doesn't get ahead, it seems very odd to make this type of change. This forces him to hit his ultimate on his target much like it forced Ahri to hit her Charm to get the same type of burst she used to have before her nerfs.

Fizz was already hurt by the removal of Deathfire; it made no sense to nerf the rest of his abilities. As a mid laner, you do not pick Fizz because of his great wave clear or team fight damage, he either gets ahead and is able to delete a target or doesn't and is useless. By removing the item and changing his abilities they want players to think of Fizz in a different way, but different isn't always better. Now that he has damage amplification on his ultimate, he has even less options if it doesn't hit the target he needs to.

By trying to diversify item paths and create new styles of play, they completely forget that game changes can have unforeseen consequences. The contradictory nature of this patch is exactly why I believe Riot makes changes to the game not only to balance it, but to also keep the new and exciting feeling of the game from month to month. More often than not this leads to new and exciting strategies but it can also hurt the game in other ways.