Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

posting after nfd

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

posting before litodude

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

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Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

ur all fuckin trash !!!!!!!!!!!!

not even leftover bannaana

like straight up trash from uganda

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

ya but what uganda do about it ?

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

i'm loling at all the scrublords crying about "blue side has a camera/vision advantage" because theyre too shit to play on purple side !!

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

If anything I'm more annoyed about firstpick/firstban inequality and dragon/baron pit inequality than camera angle.

SR should be mirrored across a vertical axis like TT or Heroes of the Storm maps (which are balanced just naturally) instead of diagonally mirrored, Riot with the A+ design decisions.

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

this would either create very large unused sections of the map and UI or the map design would have to be completely changed

in terms of design, the shape and positioning of the map gives it a lot of room for positive features that promote healthy gameplay, and in this context outweighs the advantages for how it's oriented

unless riot sucks at coding and there's something unbalanced, camera angle doesn't mean jack shit unless there's significant obstruction, which is a fairly minor issue in league

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

Yeah the UI would have to be completely changed to accomodate the four small triangles at the side of the minimap that would be created.

I see absolutely no other issues with it. Positive features that promote healthy gameplay? Like red side having three natural entrances to the Baron area compared to blue's four? Like blue side's easy botlane access to a redbuff? And red side's much stronger bluebuff control with the dragon being right there next to it?

EDIT- I mean, unless you're making the argument that huge map imbalances are interesting, which I guess you could, imperfect balance and all that... But there's absolutely NO argument that it's competitively equal this way.

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

If you wanna go there, chess isn't competitively equal either. It's possible that either player could be able to force a win once the game is solved. So why is it not a problem? Because the game is far too complicated to be solved, so absolute balance is not relevant.

And that makes sense too. If you could achieve absolute balance and prove it, then you basically solved the game. A solved game isn't very competitive (or at least isn't strategically rich).

The case with camera angle is an example of this. Sure, it might give one side a slight edge, but unless we're finding out that in the competitive scene one side is really winning more often regardless of other factors, then it's not a problem.

Riot used to have tons of map issues. Remember when Baron was in the back of the pit? Remember when you could push the dragon around? All of the changes they made were meant to balance out the map.

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

Wow, they've changed so much, yay. Guess what, that's completely irrelevant to the argument because the problem still exists.
Nice red herring there m8

The fact a game is too complicated to be solved should not stop a designer from making a change that would bring it closer to absolute balance without reducing any strategic complexity. I mean, I'm really trying to understand this from your point of view here but I can't think of any meaningful strategic depth that would have been lost by rotating the map 45 degrees.

95 red side wins vs 129 blue side wins in the 2014 Spring LCS main season. Teams play equal numbers of times on both sides, so it's not that blue side got all the good players or something.
That's a 57.6% winrate for blue during the season, which went up to 61% in the playoffs.
In before complaining about sample size...
Try going back to the 2013 LCS. Similar numbers. Want more? Go back to August 2012 and we have this nice article from Krepo complaining about the same shit.

It's very fucking obvious that blue side is winning more in the competitive scene and it's laughable that you are even arguing that is not the case.


p.s. I'll agree with Razor that complaining to Riot isn't going to do much. Their game is already such a piece of shit in terms of coding that it's pretty far fetched to imagine them just magically implementing a way to rotate the camera without it breaking something and/or everything (despite the fact it kinda already works). The logical thing to do is just suck it up, know you have a disadvantage when you get red side, and learn to play better to overcome it instead of complaining.

But that doesn't mean we can't discuss why that's a terrible design decision with real effects on the game's competitiveness. My argument is that it was a poor initial design decision to have the map be mirrored diagonally, and I've yet to hear specifics on what additional meaningful strategic depth and healthy gameplay this design choice offered.

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

aion of strife was diagonally mirrored
so dota was diagonally mirrored
so hon was diagonally mirrored
so lol was diagonally mirrored

there really isnt much more to the issue than that

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

to me it just sounds like someone's mad because theyt aren't good at the game hehe

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

da dream

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

Remember that I said that absolute balance is not possible. My mentioning of these things is not to show that the map is now balanced, it's to explain that Riot is already aware of these issues and is taking measures to solve them. You seem to be very concerned with competitive balance, so I'm reassuring you that Riot is already doing the best they can and doing a good job.

Another point I didn't mention yet is that the amount of effort is takes to rotate the map plus other less significant (but still important) issues such as public relations makes it not worth doing because the advantages are so insignificant. Though I do realize you mention this later on yourself too. It's like running 80 miles for a dollar. Yeah, you're a dollar richer, but it's not worth the effort.

But again, absolute balance cannot be achieved and we don't know where it is. For most competitive games with rich strategic depth, balance comes from a Bayesian kind of analysis. You take the probabilities and payoffs of each strategy and weigh them appropriately. To achieve the best possible, most realistic balance, you want the expected payoff of each player to be as close to 0 as possible.

This means that a lot of social factors play into this, as flavor picks and strategies change the probability of other strategies, changing the expected payoff. Rock, paper, scissors is a game where you can outplay the opponent and read them perfectly and win by a large margin, but due to the probabilities the expected payoff for each player is always 0 (1/3 + 0 - 1/3), so the game is balanced.

I never said one side isn't balanced. I said that changing the camera angle doesn't fix this problem in this slightest.

Do you honestly think, realistically, that rotating this map by 45 degrees is going to even out or even significantly change that win ratio?


Just to reiterate what I said before, Game design mechanics go further than just strategy. You also have to think about what is beneficial to the player, in terms of what makes playing the game easier to understand, more transparent, what is more fun to the player, etc. My whole point this entire time is that camera angle is an insignificant factor to competitive balance, so the choice of camera angle should be determined by these other factors.

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

So because something has been shit for years past, that means we're forced to have it be shit in the future? Gr8 thinking there.
That's why I said they should have gone with horizontal mirror as an initial design decision. I agree, it's way too late to change it now, that's why I NEVER SAID they should go about changing it now.
I brought it up saying the map should be that way, not that they should change it now. I'm talking about the value of the design decision, not something Riot should do tomorrow.
Yes, very much so.
Even on one for all mirror mode on Howling Abyss, blue side has a much higher win rate. That's been the key insight recently that has caused all this discussion.
Since champion picks are all equal, pick/ban phase is perfectly equal, objective placement on the map is perfectly equal, literally all that remains to cause the observed imbalance is camera angle.
Therefore, changing the camera angle should have a positive effect on game balance.
I mean, you make my argument for me right here:
It is not beneficial to the player to have the UI and foreground elements in the way.
There is no meaningful strategic depth created by putting the UI in the way.
It is harder to understand what is going on when the UI and foreground elements are in the way and your field of vision on the lane is smaller.
Game is less fun when a key move you could have made was interrupted by having the UI in the way.
You can shrink the UI all you want, it's still more in the way when you are playing red side than blue, along with the field of view being suboptimal for red side. Thus the imbalance in win rates. Simple as that.
I would not be surprised if over half your post count was this exact post.

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

Yeah it's really easy to imagine how much impact camera angle would have on a third-person overhead MOBA game. Clearly they should've figured this out while they were designing the game from the beginning.
Even if you were right, hindsight is 20/20.

I guess we'll agree to disagree here then. Correlation does not imply causation.

Champion picks are certainly not equal, as every champion has VERY different mechanics. Pick/ban phase is not perfectly equal too in the same way that chess isn't perfectly equal; someone gets first pick, someone gets first ban, and you can't pick the same champion twice. Objective placement isn't equal either, since the map isn't symmetrical.


Gonna make quick bullets to each point.

"It is not beneficial to the player to have the UI and foreground elements in the way."
No matter what camera angle you use there is always going to be something in the way.

"There is no meaningful strategic depth created by putting the UI in the way."
I generally agree. But you don't increase strategic depth by getting it out of the way either.

"It is harder to understand what is going on when the UI and foreground elements are in the way and your field of vision on the lane is smaller. Game is less fun when a key move you could have made was interrupted by having the UI in the way."
I also generally agree.

"You can shrink the UI all you want, it's still more in the way when you are playing red side than blue, along with the field of view being suboptimal for red side. Thus the imbalance in win rates. Simple as that."
Correlation does not imply causation. How do you know this isn't because baron opening is facing blue side? I could say that just because baron opening is facing blue side, it makes it easier for blue side to choose when to engage baron, giving them the advantage and therefore causing imbalance in win rates. I could just as well say the same thing for dragon, but dragon is more important since it allows one team to gain early leads, giving red/purple side higher win rates. What method are we using to determine which of these statements hold water?

Which is why you ignore him. lol
I wonder if this is gonna bait him into saying something stupid hehe

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

Please actually read my post before you say something stupid.
Players have noticed how big a difference camera angle makes on red side since beta.
Hell, players have noticed how big a difference camera angle makes on scourge side since original dota (though it was way less pronounced in the WC3 engine, in my opinion)
Blizzard noticed this, and made their third-person overhead MOBA game mirrored left/right. Their game is objectively more balanced for having made that decision.
The issue is not that the UI is in the way, it's that the UI is significantly more in the way if you are on red side. If the map is split into left/right, then having the UI on the bottom means it's equally in the way for both teams, which is better for balance.
So no net change to strategic depth, but an increase to competitive balance. I fail to see how that's anything but a recommendation for having the map be split left/right.
That's why we take one for all mirror mode on howling abyss as an experimental case. This mode completely equalizes:
champion picks
pick/ban phase inequality
objective placement

leaving only camera angle as a remaining variable between the teams. Lo and behold blue side still wins significantly more, so we now have causation.

Re: League of Legends [v2]
 

First of all, you didn't actually present data to demonstrate your claims. I didn't necessarily not believe you, but until I'm sufficiently convinced, I choose not to assume it.

Secondly, a lot of what I'm saying is addressing the way you're presenting your points, not the point itself. See:

I was replying to "There is no meaningful strategic depth created by putting the UI in the way." If strategic depth is not relevant, what was the point of that statement?

What about matchmaking?
Champions aren't symmetrical left to right either (Blitz hooks with right hand, Diana's Q, possibly certain bounce/directional patterns, etc.), and neither is the map (brush is left on blue, right on purple).
Does this phenomenon happen only at particular levels of play? Particular regions?
What is the actual margin between the two sides? 51/49? 70/30? Is it possible it's just an accident?
Did social stigma influence one side to have an advantage? If we had this mode before anyone brought up the issue, would this still happen?
Could your data be biased in the first place?

There are different degrees to which I think each of these factors play a part, as well as their influence on win rate relative to the issue of camera angle. I'm not saying that I know I'm right, but I'm still not convinced camera angle significantly influences competitive balance.