Hey, guys. Greg Street. I'm one of the designers of League of Legends.
Back to answer more questions about
our development philosophy, and how we think about League
and why we do some of the crazy things that we do.
We're out of pre-season now.
And a question a lot of you asked us was about
rate of change, and how much change does League need
and do we change the game too much or too fast
which is all super relevant and the kind of stuff that we talk about all the time.
So let me dig into that a little bit.
So going way back, like way before my time to the genesis of League of Legends.
Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck were talking about the kind of games they liked to play.
And how frustrated they got playing a competitive game
because that's the kind of games they play.
When the game would stop being updated like
the development team probably knew there was an exploit
and not even an exploit, just like a strategy that always trumps the other strategies.
And it felt like everyone is using this, the developers probably know about it
why don't they fix it?
And so they really wanted the game they made, which ultimately became League of Legends
to be a game that was curated
that was something that we constantly looked at and updated.
And if there was a pain point or frustration
or a strategy that couldn't be beat
or a strategy that was all anyone used
Riot would step in and try to fix that, so that players didn't have to go too long.
We know a lot of you guys play League maybe everyday, maybe several times a day.
And so, even though we do try to patch on a two-week cadence.
That could feel like a long time when there's a champ in the game that is really frustrating to deal with.
So overall that leads to our philosophy of "let's get in there and fix the stuff that is broken."
A lot of the changes we do are of this level of
fixing broken stuff / maintenance / updating.
To use a really simple example - our live balance patches...
patch notes are trying to get at the...
Camille came out a little bit strong.
It's always a challenge launching a new champion to get the balance just right.
Some of our champions lately have been a little weak.
She was a little strong and so we adjust some of the numbers.
Hopefully to get it to be a little bit less frustrating to play against her and make her not 100% banned.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is something like our Summoner's Rift update that we did a couple of years ago.
The map wasn't necessarily broken.
But it was definitely feeling old and creaky
And something that maybe was getting in the way of enjoyment.
So we had our artists work on a fantastic update that has been overall very well received.
And it brings the game a little more into the modern age.
We're doing the same thing with the League client right now.
Just updating an older system into something that will give us the potential to do cooler stuff
and have a game that feels a little newer for you guys as well.
A thing that we look at a lot is system problems
where it feels like the game is supposed to offer you a choice but there's not really a choice.
And a great example of that is item builds.
A lot of work we have done on the roster updates for things like
the older mage update was trying to make it
so that players didn't feel like they just have to buy the same old items every time.
At the very least, when you switch champions
maybe you can have a different build order.
And if we really deliver on it then
sometimes depending on the situation of that game, you may pick different items.
Maybe you need a tankier build. Maybe you need more magic resistance.
Maybe you need an earlier power spike. All that is the kind of stuff...
The reason we go in and change items and add new items
is to try to add more interesting choices to players and solve some these really fixed build order problems.
Now that is not to say that every change we make is out there to solve a problem.
We do add some changes that are just to add freshness.
I really want to make this distinction because most of the changes we do aren't for that reason.
Most of the changes are trying to solve specific problems.
We really try to stay away from tinkering.
League is a game about mastering, getting better at the game.
And that could be really frustrating when you feel like
the developers are just out there shaking the table all the time.
It's like why bother investing time to get better
when Riot's just going to change things anyway.
But I'll mention a couple examples of things we do
more or less just to add freshness and new levels of excitement.
The most obvious one is new champions.
Once in a while, we're adding a champion to try to solve a specific problem like
"all junglers play the same" could be an argument for why
to create someone as kind of wacky and out there as Ivern.
But for the most part, we add a lot of champions just because they are cool.
Maybe it will be somebody's new main.
Maybe it's just a fun reason to log in and play the game.
Another example, a totally different example is the rotating game modes.
They're there... We offer them largely as a diversion or a palette cleanser, if you will, of...
I've played a lot of Summoner's Rift, maybe I've played some really hectic ranked games.
And I still wanna play League, but I just need a little bit of a break.
The reason those game modes only last a week or two
is they may not have the depth to stand the test of time.
But they are a nice temporary diversion. Things like that.
And finally I want to acknowledge the very real situation that
the game evolves even if Riot does nothing.
Players develop new strategies.
They develop new counter strategies to those strategies.
Champions rise or fall sometimes depending on
if a pro picked them and did a particular flashy game with an odd pick.
And suddenly now everyone’s trying to use that champion.
Honestly, it’s a big challenge of this job to figure out
when is the community going to solve this on their own.
And probably they'll solve almost every problem on their own, given enough time.
When is the community going to solve this quickly enough that it's not frustrating
and when does Riot need to step in because it's starting to feel like
Oh, I'm going to see Lee Sin every single game.
Yeah, eventually a counter will arise.
But I would rather Riot just get in there and do something now.
So that my Thursday game is still fun to play.
So I've talked a little bit about why we might make a change
and what we're hoping that our changes accomplish in the game.
But I definitely want to talk about the fact that
there is a risk to change too.
There are bad things that we can do if we change the game too much.
I'll break those down into 3 or 4 categories.
First, the more the game changes,
the harder it is for someone who's taking a break to come back to League.
And we know pretty regular play style is
I'm super engaged with League right now.
And then maybe another game comes out, I'm playing that for a while.
But I go back to League.
Hopefully the game is still recognizable at that point.
We know that the more we change, particularly dramatic changes like
champion select is totally different
or wards are different
or there is a different dragon model in the game.
We know that that creates a burden for returning players to figure out what's going on.
Now I also want to clarify that our first commitment is to
you guys who are super active who are playing the game now.
We don't want to dumb the game down just for the sake of
someone who may or may not come back to League after they have taken a break.
We really have to commit to making sure the game is fun for people who are actively enjoying it.
Now that said there are some things we could do
to make the game a little easier to return to for someone who's taking a break.
First of all, we've talked about how the initial onboarding experience of League
is one of those things that is outdated and something we desperately do need to improve.
And that goes for the returning experience as well.
We don't do a lot of explaining like
Oh, you've been away from the game for a while.
Let me tell you about--dragons are totally different now.
Let me tell you that this champion, you know, hey
Warwick plays pretty differently than the last game you may have played with Warwick.
I think there are ways to do that that aren’t just piles and piles of patch notes.
And then also, there are fundamentals of League that we want to stay the same.
If you log out today and you don't log back in until 2019
the beginning of the game should still probably start with everyone zoning in to the Nexus
and the game should probably end with you getting into the enemy base and doing some damage there.
Even if the champions change, the items you buy, the way you buy items... All that could change.
But enough of it will still feel like League of Legends.
So another cost of change is the amount of disruption it can have on players.
We do want League to be a competitive game.
And that goes from everyone playing ranked all the way up to professional esports.
We know that dramatic changes can have a huge impact on players
who have spent hundreds of hours perfecting certain plays or strategies.
We try to be very sensitive of that.
I'm sure a lot of you realize by now that
we try to focus the biggest changes to the game in pre-season and mid-season
precisely to minimize that impact as much as possible
and give you guys a chance to react to the changes
and give us feedback to get things in a good spot
before things really count.
It's also worth pointing out like I mentioned before that
we want adaptation to some degree to be an important skill for League of Legends
because the game is going to change, even if Riot doesn't step in.
And it's important that the execution is very important to being good at League.
So is just being able to shift as the game itself shifts.
Some amount of that we think is healthy.
And finally another cost of change is interrupting the mastery curve.
League is a game about getting better and better.
Every game you play, you learn something.
And you can see yourself improve.
And that's really satisfying.
And we know that if we step in too much, particularly if it's very disruptive
that players may just lose that desire to adapt.
It's like why bother trying to solve this problem
Riot's just going to get in and mess with it in a week or two anyway.
I've talked about this a little bit already, but what I really want to focus on
is how we try to mitigate those risks.
First of all, we aren't just going for incremental changes.
Like, if a designer has a pitch to make a champion 1% or 2% better on
whatever holistic scale you are measuring with.
That's not good enough.
We should strive for changes to make the game 10%, 30%, 200% better.
That's kind of the scale of how we hold ourselves accountable
to making sure we're making changes the game really needs.
Now, I know we don't always hit it.
We certainly sometimes break things with well-meaning changes.
But we do have a goal.
Furthermore, not only do we have a strategy but we try to have follow up too.
Even the best well-thought-of, beautiful designs sometimes don't stand a chance
once they get out there into the hands of millions of players.
So we realize, "Wow, we thought this was going to work
but we now have evidence that it doesn't, and we need to follow up."
That's where the 2 week patch cycle can really help
because then if we overshoot or we miss
or the idea was just terrible, we do have an opportunity to back it up
before things go on too long and maybe get worse and worse.
So in conclusion
I talked about how we think about change
and then I talked about some of the risks of change
and how we try to mitigate those risks.
But one of the points I originally posed was how much change is too much.
And there isn't a super simple answer to that
except to say it's an ongoing discussion.
For example, I've learned that as a developer I'm fairly risk-tolerant.
And the fact that we have the opportunity to follow up with patches
makes me feel a little safer with trying something that
we have confidence in but we don't 100% know what's going to happen.
But by contrast, Brandon Beck will raise the question of are we changing too much at once?
Are we making it hard for a player who doesn't study every single patch note
to really keep up with what's going on in the game.
And we're making it certainly hard for someone who hasn't been actively playing League lately
to keep up with everything that is going on.
My point is not that this is my call to make or this is Brandon's call to make.
More that, we talk about this kind of thing all the time.
And I don't think there is a right answer.
We have to keep challenging ourselves to figure out
what makes the most sense for you guys and for League overall.
We do make the designers or anyone making a change
make a case why that change is important and how they will follow up if it doesn't work out.
But honestly this is one of those points where I would love to bring players into the discussion a little more.
We would love to hear from you, like are we changing things too quickly
or do you think that we let stuff go too long sometimes before we step in.
So please let us know.
So that was a really long discussion.
Thanks so much for sticking with me up until now.
Really look forward to reading your thoughts on this topic.
Thank you.