How the LCS has Improved Game Balance

The LCS has undoubtedly done wonders for Riot, League of Legends, and the game’s players. How Riot has dramatically improved the legitimacy of E-Sports and pro gamers, along with bringing many new players to their game are constantly discussed topics. One rarely discussed topic though, is how the LCS has improved League of Legends itself. While the money and popularity the LCS brings will definitely help Riot in improving the game, by itself the frequency of LCS games has helped Riot bring rapid and significant improvement to possibly the most important part of the game: balance.

 

The Old System and Its Flaws

Riot often says they focus on balancing characters and overall gameplay in League of Legends at the top level. If a character, mechanic or strategy is far too powerful in professional games, it probably needs to be toned down. Unfortunately, before the LCS, bringing out the “nerf-bat” was often ALL Riot could do, and buffs for underplayed and underpowered champions were rare.

Why? Because Riot had little data on these champions at a top-level. When the only professional League activity was a tournament every couple of months, Riot typically got to see only a handful of champions. One of the last major tournaments before the LCS, IPL5, saw Rengar and Diana picked or banned in almost every game, and subsequently nerfed to the ground. This was a terrible system in which some champions were picked or banned for a whole tournament, and then promptly brought back down, only for new champions to appear and dominate the pro scene in the next tournament.

 

What the LCS Brings

The first advantage of the LCS vs. Tournaments is obvious, champions that are picked or banned constantly can be toned down, but if their pick/ban rate drops to zero, they can be rebalanced a bit to hopefully bring them back into the competitive scene. The LCS enables this because the results of the changes to a champion can immediately be observed in the pro scene. Unlike before, Riot will not have to wait until the next large tournament to see if those champions have fallen completely out of favor or need more nerfs.

The second advantage the LCS brings to balance is a bit more subtle. Riot is also getting data on what champions aren’t being played. In tournaments, because every match was so important and teams typically only prepared a few strategies, every team had a few of their own champion picks coupled with whoever was popular at the time. In the LCS teams have been reaching out further to try new strategies and a huge number of champions have been played; only about one quarter of the champions available were not played in the Spring Split. This gives Riot’s content design team more information on which underplayed champions are niche picks, and which are just not being played.

 

Overplayed vs. Overpowered

The first point I touched on above is champions who are played a lot vs. champions who are too powerful. Often these go hand in hand, but there are examples of champions who have a high pick rate and haven’t been nerfed. Jarvan IV and Ezreal, who haven’t been nerfed since the beginning of the Spring Split and Season 3 respectively, have remained popular picks throughout the summer season. Meanwhile, Jayce, Elise and Twisted Fate have received tweaking throughout the Summer, as Riot has had the freedom to watch the effect of each change without needing to beat the champion into the ground. Rumble, Kennen, and Diana are examples of champions who received these incremental nerfs (though Diana’s were a bit more turbulent because of her popularity in IPL5) and are no longer 100% picks or bans, but still find their way into the LCS now and again.

 

Niche vs. Underpowered

The flip side of that situation is champions who are dramatically underplayed. These champions were a lot harder for Riot to recognize with the tournament system, because many tournaments saw only a handful of champions played. With so many champions making an appearance in the LCS, Riot can more easily distinguish champions who are niche and champions who are simply underpowered.

Niche champions are those who fill a very specific role. Because they lack utility or a diverse kit, they are often overlooked, but are not necessarily weak. Xerath and Yorick are excellent examples of this; champions who are outstanding at sieging and lane bullying, respectively, but lack many tools outside of those situations. Thanks to the vast number of team compositions that have been run in the LCS, both champions have made their way into games and proven to serve their purpose. In fact, while Riot has chosen to rework Xerath due to his low pick rate, they have specified that they want to keep his power level where it is as he has shown to be a highly effective champion in the right team compositions.

Unfortunately, some champions are simply underpowered. Sion, Poppy, and Sejuani are a few champions who were completely absent from the Spring Split. This allowed Riot to identify these and other champions as truly weak, and accelerate work on their reworks. Sejuani and Trundle have both had reworks that boosted their popularity, and both have made their way into the Summer Split.

 

Abusive or Obtuse Gameplay

There is one final classification of champions that, though rare, have cropped up a few times in the LCS. These champions don’t fit into the above categories perfectly, because their power lies in strange places that contradict their champion design. Muramana Jayce is one example, as he gains a lot of power from his Hyper Charge. The worst offender was Master Yi. Almost completely unpicked in the pro scene, Scarra proved how powerful Master Yi could be by building Ability Power and using his AD steroid from his Wuju Style/Double Strike for a huge burst of early damage. Both this burst and an AP build were not his intended playstyle. Although this build was previously believed to be best in Arams or in low-level games, his appearance at MLG showed Riot that this odd case had to be removed. Master Yi’s rework was quickly accelerated and released to remove this abuse case.

It would be unrealistic to think there will be a point where all champions are picked equally; the professional players will constantly be finding new and powerful characters and play styles. However, the LCS has dramatically improved Riot’s ability to identify and fix both overpowered and underpowered champions, bringing the champions a bit closer in power and widening the number of champions and play styles we see at the highest level.