![]() ![]() We decided to release new champs and VGUs that perform on-par with the rest of the champion pool for a few reasons: Avoid New Champs Seeming Unplayably Weak (And in Neeko’s case, there was even a pronounced “playing against the champion” learning curve, where we actually saw her start to lose win rate after her first week as people learned how her passive and other abilities worked.) For some champions-like Mordekaiser and Neeko-this was pretty reasonable, as they don’t have massive mastery curves. The Old Way: Win Rates on Par With Other Champsįor a while now, we’ve released new champions such that their win rates were on par with other champs once they’d been live for two weeks. Let’s dig a little deeper into our previous approach and why we decided to change it. This means they’ll likely seem weaker at first while players learn new mechanics and builds, but they won’t have to undergo nearly as many nerf cycles or mechanics adjustments following release. A couple months ago, we decided to change this approach: We now release new champions and VGUs at what we believe to be their long-term balance state. Most of the time, that learning curve extends for many games beyond 15, so players learning new champions will sometimes continue to see growth up to (or beyond) their 100th game-champions like Yasuo, Katarina, and Nidalee all have a long tail of continued mastery.īecause we know that a player’s win rate on a champion is going to improve with games played, we have a difficult balance decision to make: Do we release new champions at what we believe to be their long-term balanced power level, leaving them weaker than the rest of the pack while players progress along their mastery curve? Or do we release them artificially powered up for short-term balance, and then nerf accordingly as players master them over time?įor the last couple years, our approach was to release champions that were balanced for the short-term. Yuumi), the harder the champion is to learn.Įven an easy-to-learn champion with a low mastery curve will likely increase in win rate by 4% over the first ~15 games played. Neeko), the fewer games it takes for players to reach stable performance-meaning the champion is easier to learn. They look like this: The closer to vertical the initial curve is (ex. Mastery curves are a way of looking at how much more effective a player becomes on a champion as they play them more, as represented by how much their win rate increases over games played. We use a champion’s projected mastery curve to help set balance targets for new releases. This means that a champion’s early win rate alone doesn’t necessarily reflect their “real” power level. Tracking patch-over-patch win rates takes time, and during this window, players are still learning the ins and outs of the champion. New champion releases and VGUs are unique because, unlike general champion balance, we don’t have millions of games worth of data indicating how strong a champion is.
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