I remember a long time ago in a post I mentioned about letting the pros balance the game and people said nope, it would be imbalanced since each pro has their favorite heroes and will buff them to broken status. Now I realise one thing: the devs in the balancing department were once pro players but invited by SEMC to join in. No wonder why things are bad. Now I think SEMC should hire a proper balancing team to do the balancing.
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They are not all pro players, only zekent. The rest of them (FooJee, Shinkaigan…) are in the eSports department.
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The only problem is that SEMC think tat they should balance everything and at the same time. All they need is to make hotfixes that nerf only OP heroes. Also they should really nerf, not -0.00000001%
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PS: Foojee and Shinkaigan were once Proplayers.
Even FooJee was named one of the best VG players in the world in 2016-17(I forgot).
And Shinkaigan was a GOD Kestrel.
He is responsible for making Kestrel popular when she wasn’t in the beginning.
Just offering my knowledge.
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Niv and Zekent are pros. And they are the head of the balancing department
I didn’t say they weren’t, in fact, I used them as examples of exPro players that are now in SEMC.
The main difference here is that pros would be doing it in their own interests while employed people would be doing it as their job. If niv or shin decided to control the meta in their favor, they’d get fired and/or have lots of hate from beta testers. As a professional job, the balancing team cannot act selfishly unless they have loads of money and a guarenteed backup job of things go awry. Pros (or anyone else) have no restraint that prevents them from skewing the meta. They’ll act selfishly because the only consequence is that they would not be allowed to balance again.
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A large part of the problem with the game’s balance right now is that they are trying to balance heroes across two very different modes in 3v3 and 5v5. It’s plain to see that adjusting range to account for the larger map in 5v5 has made some heroes oppressive in 3v3, for example. It just seems crazy to me that they didn’t simply add a separate set of stats for 5v5 so as to leave 3v3 intact, but perhaps the engine isn’t designed for that.
Another source of frustration (at least for me) is that there was no explanation at all given for the balance adjustments in the last set of patch notes. Previously, with Zekent’s notes, we could at least see the rationale behind a change to a hero’s numbers. Now, we’re left guessing and frustrated because there’s no way to tell why they did what they did.
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That’s what they’re NOT doing. Celeste is absolutely dominant right now because her two main contenders in mid lane (Samuel and Skaarf) were nerfed and so were her main counters (Reza and Taka).
Being reliant on hot fixes is NOT a good thing. Firstly, it’s a sign of incompetence. It’s a particularly bad sign when a character gets a day 1 nerf.
Secondly, it’s harder to document. And SEMC already sucks at documenting their changes.
Thirdly, it’s going to mess with the balance mid patch, which is not a good thing. Since SoloQ is always slow to catch on, if the balance changes too often, SoloQers won’t ever be using the most effective tactics, which can prevent players from breaking into the pro scene.
If a character is literally completely dominant, then yes. I agree that a hotfix is in order. But using hotfixes should be the exception, not the standard.
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It’s not just heroes. Due to SEMCs efforts to reuse assets / keep things consistent between 3v3 and 5v5, many things don’t translate over very well, because that’s just how game design works. If you have a completely different map and game mode, things need to change. One big thing they haven’t touched is how easily jungle mobs die, particularly to laners.
I went into a little detail in
, but the point is
Vainglory can either choose one of these two things. Keeping 3v3 and 5v5 the same, compromising both modes for consistency, or keeping them seperate, making them more fun but increasing the learning curve. But considering this should be a competitive esport, this should be a no brainer.
Battlerite (I know you’re sick of this) has 2v2 and 3v3 modes, but it can be kept mostly balanced with the same numbers because the game is otherwise the same. Maps are the same, there aren’t any additional objectives. It’s just 2v2 and 3v3. This is the rare example of how balancing for both modes with the same numbers is possible, but that’s ONLY because of how similar they are. VG’s 3v3 and 5v5 are fundamentally different, so it’s not possible to balance without changing things between modes.
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Very good point.
Did you know posts must be 30 characters?
The fact that Skaarf’s ULT with Spillfire can proc Mortal Wounds on your whole team! They might as well delete Fountain of Renewal in the next patch at this point. This applies to all aoe mages.
Vainglory also changed the definition of “A hero having a stronger late game” where usually you’d have to play passive and maintain a high creep score to get desired benefit in late game. You play as baron and do garbage all game and you’ll still carry your team. So you just do nothing and wait . That’s “VG late game”.
Usually if a MOBA , let’s take LoL for example , goes absolutely crazy over a winrate above 50% . If your Champion has a winrate above 50% , the Champion is broken. Here in VG we have Heroes exceeding a winrate of 50% by far (Celeste 64% last month) and you’ll still have people saying they’re not broken. A 64% percent winrate is like them winning almost 2 out of every 3 games.
Whoever is balancing is doing an awful job at it. Better fire them all and hire a kindergartener and he’ll still do a better job at balancing . There’s a good chance he might release the most balanced patch of all times even ,without exaggeration.
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I also want to go as far and say that Malene is not OP at all. All the midlaners complaining about her being OP are just confused at how a frontline midlaner that requires skills can do as much good as their own hero that’s literally tapping A 200 times per second while sitting in the back for 20 min. Their reactions are evidence to the fact mid has never just never faced a challenge before because the game has always favoured their specific lane and hero class(backline spam is the name of this class) the whole time.
But there is so so so much wrong to address here. OK here goes.
Firstly Zekent was a pro League of Legends player not a pro VG player. His skill level is probably at Pro player level in VG though. I gather he is involved in gameplay etc so indirectly impacts on balance at a meta/map design level, rather than at a hero balance level.
Shinkaigan was a pro VG player - I don’t believe he is involved directly in balancing though (I am not actually sure what Shin’s role is beyond making the hero spotlight videos). He sometimes comes to playtesting, and no doubt talks to folks but thats it.
FooJee was a pro VG player - he is the lead on esports and has nothing to do with balancing other than coming to playtesting sometimes and of course talking to folk.
Ciderhelm was never a pro VG player - he was a League player but I think he was a well known streamer rather than a pro player. He is the lead on new hero designs and have a silky smooth voice that can compell anyone to listen to him.
Nivmett was never a pro VG player, I believe the highest he has been is VG bronze, though I could be wrong. I think he could grind to VG silver if he could be bothered - I don’t think he has the mechanical skill to hit VG gold without a team though. He is the primary lead on hero balance now.
Balance was obviously put out of whack by the introduction of 5v5. It was always going to be and we spent about 4 months beforehand trying to take as much of the edge off that in the PBE and I think largely succeeded.
Its actually not bad right now for 5v5 (I agree 3v3 balance is off and that that is only solvable by seperate balance changes). You can see this by the fact that in the VPL preseason across NA and EU 32/38 heroes have been used. You can also see this with the winrate variance from VGPro where the highest winrate is Fortress at 54% and the lowest is Churnwalker at 47%. Thats a variance of just 7%. League of Legends right now the highest winrate hero is at 54% and the lowest is at 44% so thats a much wider variance.
Classically SEMC has considered a hero balanced if their winrate is between 55-45% that should probably tighten a bit in 5v5 because individual heroes are less impactful, but even so balance right now is pretty good.
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Well she’s banned in every pro game I’ve seen because her kit is loaded, barriers, slows, roots, invulnerability and a tonne of DMG!
Sure she has a high skill cap, but at the higher end of the game she’s banned because she’s just OP.
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Taka has a 42.13% WR
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And pretty much every thing this guy had was nerfed. Stormclown ,aftershock , his perk mainly and his A. Spillfire could be built to make up for his perk nerf but still what was the point. Like 50 gold scout trap counters Taka more than anything.
Whoops you are quite right I completely blanked him out. The general point remains - balance isn’t bad at the moment.
I’m really not sure . you most probably have a better idea than I do