What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy!
The introduction of Camille has made a lot of players pretty nervous, because it’s
evidence that once again Riot are tinkering with abilities that are pretty much the definition
of unhealthy.
This is of course referring to her Ultimate and it’s lack of counterplay, essentially
there's nothing you can do if you get ulted by her unless your champion can knock her
out of the radius.
Fortunately Riot have given it a lot of thought, so today we wanted to break down their thought
process when designing unhealthy or broken mechanics, and why it’s actually pretty
important when it comes to champion development.
And if you enjoy the video definitely hit that like button because if this video hits,
let’s say ratings, then I’m gonna .
As far as concerned players go, it’s mostly the ADC mains who are more than a little concerned
at the introduction of Camille’s ultimate, simply because it lacks counterplay in most
scenarios players will find themselves in.
For those of you not familiar with the ability yet, it’s called Hextech Ultimatum and it
works like a gap-closer towards a target champion.
Once Camille reaches them, it imprisons them inside a zone and knocks away their allies.
While the Ultimate is still active, the enemy can’t leave the area by any means, so they
are stuck inside until it expires or Camille leaves the zone early.
On top of that, Camille gains bonus magic damage while inside it, so it essentially
puts you and Camille into a fight to the death inside the zone, so if you aren’t fed or
playing a duellist champion you could have a really hard time and find it super frustrating
since often times it’s going to be a guaranteed kill for Camille.
So from a design perspective, the ability seems nuts, and it’s quite confusing to
a lot of players who have seen Riot mostly reworking champions in order to make them
less unhealthy in general.
It seems kinda strange that while on one hand they are introducing loads of counterplay
through reworks, they are also developing broken mechanics like this and being totally
fine with it.
It doesn’t just stop there either, it’s also looking like similar unhealthy mechanics
are going to be included on future champions too.
The community was getting pretty worked up over this, which prompted a response from
Riot Jag, who stepped in to share a bit of Riot’s perspective and design philosophy
to justify why they are okay with developing things that may end up causing frustration
for players in the game.
The quote that Riot Jag shared was actually from Riot August, and the argument he makes
is that every champion needs to have something that will feel frustrating for opponents,
or it’s not a champion worth playing.
He continued and essentially said that a champion is only going to be fun to play if it can
do something powerful that the whole game will take notice of.
When you break down the quote and think about other champions in the game, the ones that
really stand out in your mind are the champions players enjoy playing the most overall - and
they all have situations where they are insanely powerful and get to do something pretty broken.
They don’t have to be overpowered all the time, or have every ability driving your enemies
insane, but they should at least have one specific mechanic or combo they can use that
is both satisfying to pull off, and really scary for the enemy team.
The real important thing here is to make sure that whatever mechanics Riot introduces, they
make sure they are unique and line up well with a champion’s identity - because that
one annoying thing they can do will become associated with that champion, and that’s
an important part of making a champion compelling and iconic.
It wouldn’t be much good if there was only one type of annoying mechanic in the game,
and a bunch of champions had to essentially share the same ability - since then there
would be not much reason to play one over the other, you’d just pick whichever one
was the stronger champion overall.
The same goes for champions that don’t have their own powerful mechanics - without them
they are just left as a pretty boring, uninteresting mess of a character that has too much counterplay
to ever be useful, and gets outclassed by all of its competitors.
The broken mechanic you give to a champion is often what gives people a reason to play
them - something that makes them competitive and really brings the champion to life as
much as the rest of the champion’s design.
It might be frustrating to deal with those mechanics, but unfortunately for people in
the receiving end, those payoff moments are what makes the champion’s gameplay worthwhile,
so as long as it’s not happening too frequently, Riot will continue to design unhealthy mechanics
as long as they fit the champion.
The question a lot of people will be asking at this point is where you draw the line on
what makes a mechanic too broken to remain in the game.
That can be pretty weird to answer since Riot reworks abilities for being unhealthy all
the time.
If they are constantly nerfing and revamping abilities because they are broken or unhealthy,
it makes you wonder why it’s okay for broken mechanics to exist at all.
The main balancing factor in play here is the question of fun to play vs frustrating
to play against.
If a champion is constantly annoying players while using their normal abilities - let’s
say, a LeBlanc before her rework just jumping in and destroying the squishies, then repeating
it 10 seconds later - then the fun to play vs frustrating to play against is heavily
against the existence of that gameplay.
Compare than to something like Warwick’s Ultimate, where he can jump on someone with
a point and click that stops them doing anything and deals a ton of damage - super frustrating
to play against, but at least there’s things you can do to stay outside his range, and
he can only do it on a pretty long cooldown.
It’s a really iconic ability, and it’s not that frustrating to play against because
it’s quite limited, so although it’s a pretty broken ability if you think about it,
it’s allowed to exist because it’s not more frustrating than it is fun.
It’s also important for Riot to make sure that there is at least some inconsistency
or variance to the ability - something you can use to outplay it or counterplay the mechanic.
It might be way easier to do use the broken mechanic than it is to play against it, but
giving players at least some control over what is happening can stop an ability becoming
100% broken in every single situation it’s used.
Going back to our previous example of Warwick's Infinite Duress can be avoided by staying
outside the required range for Warwick to use it, and he’s just as fragile as you
are while pouncing so your team can help kill him before he kills you.
It might still be weighted in Warwick’s favor since he’s getting to use this broken
ass mechanic, but there is still something you can do to fight it.
Having faults like that don’t take anything away from the overpowered nature of the ability
- and it’s still awesome to just devour someone on the spot, so it still stays relatively
balanced even though the ability itself is insane on paper.
A lot of the time those different faults with an ability can actually increase the fun factor
of using the abilities, because they become even more rewarding when you pull them off.
Take skillshot abilities as a good example of this, like Jinx’s Ultimate for example.
If it was a targeted ability, it wouldn’t be all that fun to destroy a team with because
you’re almost never going to miss it unless it gets absorbed by a Windwall or something.
The fact that it’s a skillshot actually makes it even more satisfying to use, so even
though it can be really frustrating to die randomly halfway across the map to a global
Jinx rocket, even the person on the receiving end will think like ‘, that was awesome’
if only for a second.
A global execute with a huge hitbox is really broken - but it’s so awesome when it happens,
that it’s worth keeping in the game just because it gives people a cool reason to play
Jinx, and it sparks really positive reactions when you pull it off.
Players can spend time learning how to make the most of their champion’s particular
broken mechanic, and it turns into a pretty compelling game experience where you are picking
champions while being excited that you’ll get the chance to use those abilities.
As a result of that, you are left with a broken mechanic, that not only is allowed to exist,
but also functions quite well in the practical sense of the game.
Anyway that’s all we’ve got for you today on why Riot are keeping broken mechanics around
on old and future champions, always remember that even though it’s frustrating to die
to things that seem overpowered when they hit you, it’s the same for everyone else
when you use your own broken mechanic on the enemy team.
Riot have done a pretty good job of using these mechanics sparingly, and most champions
that are just flat out annoying to play against 100% of the time will keep getting reworks
until the balance between fun to play and frustrating to play against is struck.
Make sure you leave us a comment anyway, and let us know what your favorite broken ass
ability in the game to use is, and what your most hated abilities to play against are too!
And it looks like that’s gonna be it from me, if you enjoyed the video drop a like,
subscribe if you want, thanks for watching, and I’ll see you guys next time!