Balancing for the Spectator

By now it is common knowledge that Riot Games wants League of Legends to become a mainstream spectator sport. Take the spectator client; all the money they have poured into Seasons 1 to 3 and the new Teamfight UI as examples. They have devoted tonnes of damage, time, money and manpower towards this end and honestly, it’s hard to argue that they haven’t been succeeding. Season 3 Worlds were HUGE and the amount of media attention towards the game is growing rapidly.

The one thing that I haven’t seen much evidence of Riot doing, however, is aiming their gameplay and balance changes towards the spectator. I’m not saying that the state of the metagame isn’t fun to watch, I’m just saying that there are ways it could be better.

What do people actually like to watch?

Well a lot of it is a matter of opinion; some people simple enjoy different things. There is also the problem of what is fun to watch for whom. A lot of viewers will fall into two groups. There will be the “Hardcore” viewers who watch to keep up with the metagame and to see the latest strategies and the “Casual” viewers who watch for fun or to pass the time. Note that these are massive overgeneralisations for the purpose of keeping this concise.

Hardcore viewers will likely enjoy tense battles with complex opposing strategies more than a casual viewer would. On the other hand a casual viewer may prefer constant action in the form of ganks, skirmishes and teamfights. While action and strategy aren’t always mutually exclusive there won’t always be both in a match. This creates the problem of no matter what happens, one of the groups of viewers will be left behind.

So what should Riot do about it?

Well, the question of “Casual” versus “Hardcore” is a question that plagues gaming companies everywhere. I’m not going to go into it in much detail here but for the game to continue to grow Riot needs to tap into the huge pool of casual gamers throughout the world and what better way than through their eSports coverage. As discussed above, the casual viewership is more likely to prefer constant action and faster paced games. So Riot just needs to aim for that, simple right?

The problem is that Riot can’t simply just throw in a tonne of changes to make the gameplay more fun to watch, it needs to stay balanced to play. The best method would be for Riot to have an overall goal and for their balance changes to work towards this goal. At the same time the changes need to conform to all of Riot’s current design goals. All gameplay elements need to be rewarding to play whilst including intuitive counterplay being one example.

What about the current metagame?

The current metagame includes aspects that are imbalanced but good for the spectator and vice versa. I’m now just going to list out a few examples in the current meta and how they apply to the spectator experience. A note of warning, from now on is largely my own opinion…

 ~ The assassin meta in mid lane. The entire purpose of these champions is to make plays and kill people. Their high kill pressure in the laning phase makes what is largely considered to be the most boring part of the game more interesting. For the spectator this is good, however this is bad for players because it severely limits the champion pool for mid lane.

 ~ Tanks. Far too often there is tank versus tank in top lane. These lanes are virtually ungankable and have no kill potential. Even more so than previously, top lane is just a completely separate game until the laning phase ends. It’s not that fun to play or watch, as can be gathered from the frequent comments from the casters. I’ll be honest; in this case I miss the bruisers.

 ~ Vision. Vision is king right now. Early game it is strong enough that for a jungler to get effective ganks he needs to be one of the top early-ganking junglers in the game (Jarvan and Lee Sin spring to mind). Later in the game the team which is ahead gains a vision monopoly which just forces the team that's behind to turtle. These are both bad for the spectator and the players.

 ~ The laning phase itself. Since last season it is now much shorter, gone are the 30 minute farming games. Then there’s the chaotic nature of 2v1 which means that the laning phase is now far more varied, making it shorter and with more variety. It’s definitely better for the spectator, but is it better for the player?

Nearly every aspect of the metagame can be considered from the player’s and the spectator’s point of view. Those above are just a few of the more important examples but there are plenty more. Do you have any more ideas? If you do (or even if you don’t) feel free to discuss and suggest them.

I’m just going to use this little space at the end here to thank Team Dignitas for the chance to write for them. As usual constructive criticism is welcomed and if you’ve found this article to be informative you can find me on Twitter @Seraei.

~Aez