Perfect Imbalance - Why Unbalanced Design Creates Balanced Play - Extra Credits

Multiplayer games like League of Legends design content with specific strengths and weaknesses. When one strategy or "meta" becomes dominant, the counters to that strategy balance it out.
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(Original air date: July 18, 2012)
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[@UltraGamer902]

"Perfectly imbalanced, like some things should be."

[@mydogsfacelookslikeastockp8275]

Our 9.99$ DLC boy is the best! 10% chance to 1 hit anyone! Very balanced

[@ryangonzalez8121]

WHY IS THIS NOT PINNED?!!!

[@thaias9654]

Ryan Gonzalez 6 years to late...?

[@minecrafminecraft3824]

Thanos

[@bmbandit]

Bit of a funny story to go with this. One of the devs behind League of Legends once told a story in an online post. Basically Vladimir had low win rates, and was seeing very little play. So they proposed a buff, and they put it all together, but they messed up on release day. Basically they messed up and left the buff out of the rest of the updates, but still had it mentioned in the patch notes. Despite the fact that he was exactly the same, and it had only been claimed that he had been buffed, people started playing him more, his win rate increased, and people were talking about how much better he felt now that they had buffed him. Despite him having the exact same stats when everyone claimed he was bad, and he had poor win rates. Bit of a disclaimer, I think it was Vlad, but I could be wrong. It might have been another hero, but I know this definitely happened with some hero.

[@rayyanabdulla1342]

+Shayne Gordon i heard this too. it was vlad.

[@therhinomaster8880]

+Shayne Gordon That's the placebo effect. If you think a effectless pill is medicine, it suddenly becomes effective, for some reason.

[@BrianHuynhPersonal]

+TheRhinoMaster it was never in effective as all as the medicine was shaped by the illuminati (joke )

[@BrianHuynhPersonal]

+TheRhinoMaster it was never in effective as all as the medicine was swaped by the illuminati (joke )

[@Fernandoorellana2]

wlep that was placebo effect taking in action. The thing about legue of legend is that the more more you play a "champion ", not hero, the better you do. Idk if you have ever played a lot of LOL but the beautiful thing about it is that you can play anything in anyway as long it is countering what you are playing against in a eficiente way.

[@JoyousUnicorn]

So is Rock, Paper, Scissors an example of cyclical imbalance?

[@Jumbuck1151]

+JoyousUnicornGaming No, rock paper scissor is like throwing dice on the floor.

[@Zadamanim]

+JoyousUnicornGaming No, obviously scissors are broken. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@Zadamanim]

+Jared Stein That's not true, RPS is actually considered 100% yomi. www.underraid.org/img/devlog/yomi.png Here's a graphic to display the relationship. Yomi is the concept of predicting your opponent's moves or strategy and countering it. If you notice that every time you play RPS with someone, they always choose rock first, you can capitalize on this and choose paper. If you happen to be in a library and think this might make them think of paper, you can choose scissors. Yomi isn't guaranteed, but neither is skill (even pros mess up). Fighting games are generally designed with yomi in mind, where block beats strike, strike beats grab, and grab beats block. Yomi can also become more and more complicated the more you think about it, and sometimes going for the most obvious answer can confuse an opponent that is overthinking it (such as the infamous Daigo Shoryu).

[@evelynfinegan4687]

+JoyousUnicornGaming No, Rock Paper Scissors is a perfectly balanced game. Every hand has the same "stats" as every other one. Rock beats one thing, loses to one thing, and is a draw to one thing. Same as scissors and paper. The interesting play comes about from attempting to predict your opponent's next move, as +Zadamanim said, but the same is said of Chess.

[@Jumbuck1151]

Zadamanim That's just a figment of imagination. You can "predict" all you want, but the fact of the matter is nobody knows who's going to pick what.

[@briannab4770]

League of Legends wouldn't need this silly system of "cyclical imbalance" if the players weren't so shamefully fucking shallow. Most players pathetically abuse the power of the current flavor of the month champion, kicking ass in game by taking advantage of their broken power. Once the champion is rightfully nerfed, the players need to discover a new broken source of power to supplement the fact that they childishly refuse to excel in games by improving their play with a champion that actually resonates with their own personal playstyle, so they find the next most broken champion. The cycle continues because of the blatant shallowness that's so prevalent in the gaming community. This puts most players who're actually willing to play fairly at an undeniable disadvantage. The imbalance prohibits us from successfully playing champions that we actually WANT to play rather than choosing to shamefully stomp with a broken champion and being a sheep by perfectly emulating what the pros do. Cyclical imbalance is just a ridiculous perpetuation of the shallow teenage mentality of the players that engage in LoL. The system wouldn't be needed if... I don't know, here's a crazy idea: People actually played what they fucking wanted instead of abusing power and emulating the pros. The game will never be truly balanced, we will never see diversity. Players will always be shallow children who falsely climb the ranked ladder by abusing the power of the current "meta" champions. By all means, I'm not insinuating that you should AVOID playing champions that're too powerful, you should absolutely continue to play them if you truly enjoy their skillset and how they feel. I'm simply saying that it's shameful and childish to deliberately select a champion based on their power level, rather than choosing to perfect your technique with a champion that actually reflects your style. If people played whatever the hell they wanted, there would be no meta, there would be no endless cycle of the same damn 30 champions played over and over and over and OVER. So sad. Do you really feel a sense of achievement when you reach diamond just by abusing the imbalance of the system? "Yes! I did it! I reached diamond by stomping on players who picked less powerful champions than me. I'm so good." Nothing about skill, you simply climbed by champion-selection. Why not just buy an account on eBay and jump for joy that you're in diamond? What an achievement!

[@quincy7258]

Preach, please preach. This is spot on.

[@briannab4770]

Ha, thank you. I find it really sad that we have this heavily enforced meta and players prevalently abusing the most broken champions. Weren't things just so much more fun when we were new to the game and played what we wanted?

[@LoneSWarrior]

So basically, everyone follows the "Dominant Strategy" clause. If it's the best method, why change it? I mean, who wouldn't? Without this clause, everyone would still be using hand tools to do insane levels of construction work instead of electronic ones.

[@briannab4770]

LoneSWarrior It's very different that real life. When it comes to practical work, you want to find the most convenient method, and that has nothing to do with expressing your style or excelling in your own personal niche. In a GAME where it's predicated on having fun, it's no fun for anyone else when the majority of players choose to abuse the most broken champion purely based on the fact that they're wildly overpowered. We should all play who we want to play and truly climb the ranked ladder excelling at champions that resonate with our playstyle and ones that we find really fun. The game is fun with diversity and variety, but we'll NEVER have that as long as people continue to abuse the most broken champions based on their power-level. Just because something is wildly powerful, you don't HAVE to choose it. You ask "who wouldn't?" Umm, me. I would much prefer to play the champions that truly resonate with my style than the broken ones who don't, because I'm not shallow and looking to falsely climb the ranked ladder by abusing the imbalance of the game. I guarantee that half the high-level ranked players wouldn't be where they are today without abusing the system. It's not an achievement to deliberately pick who the most broken champion is, it's an achievement to excel at a champion you genuinely love.

[@LoneSWarrior]

Charley Victoria James Yes. But some people see games as something they need to "excell" at for the "reward" rather than just to have a fun satisfying experience. Unfortunately, this is the hive mind of corporations and people wanting to feel like their time isn't wasted on playing a game then leaving it because it wasn't found to be worth it due to the "Sunk Cost Fallacy". They don't want to have spent all this time learning all the mechanics without making use of realizing how the game works, and then leave it never to be touched again.

[@zoobMer]

I've heard this referred to as "asymmetrical balance."

[@Meroth33]

You guys do know League is a REALLY shitty example of this right? What League does is makes one supremely overpowered character, then waits a couple weeks and nerfs them hard. Or they buff someone to be stupidly overpowered then nerf them when they milk all the money out of the people who want a cheap champ. It is NOT perfectly imbalanced, it's broken. Irrefutably, undoubtedly, fundamentally broken.

[@wamakima5004]

But recently, the newest champ gnar and braum is not really op,

[@chrstnrrdnd]

"I lost a game to x champ, It's broken!"

[@OatmealTheCrazy]

Considering a 52% win rate is enough to throw champs into god tier. I think "Irrefutably, undoubtedly, fundamentally broken" is a heavy overstatement.

[@void735]

Leauge of Ledgends rule is simple. Every champ is broken, and when all champs are broken, noone is. and in case you diddint get the point of this video, ill explain in in lol terms. Remeber when nasus was broken? infinite stacks and slow with 80% everyone played him nonstop and people raged for it. then few weaks later people saw champs liek darius easly destroys nasus no challange. or when leona was insanly op and instantly won every bot lane? same story, same awnser with morgana black shield this time, or even alistar if youre skilled. Just thing a step outside whats" OP" at the momment. and raging at Riot for being greddy... a game free to play with constant update and improvments when they dont have to do anything if they dont want to. that is selfsih to say the are greedy when you fuking chose to give them money. adapt to the game play dont cry it over internet in hope to start a fight or whatever.

[@CellLord01]

Agreed, Dota2 would have been a better example.

[@johannes4123]

tf2 works with inbalanced balance, the classes aren't equally strong, but everyone have a strengh and weakness, giving every class a place where he shines

[@Vichola]

Unless is 5 cp

[@Chorismos]

@@Vichola Yup. "Specialists on last."

[@davidpt]

Came here because of stonewall Did not get disappointed.

[@Smithington_]

+David PT Came here because of stonewall. Had no idea that it would be extra credit. Was not disappointed. Cheers Leauge!

[@Sonicsuperking]

+David PT Came here for the same reason and as always extra credit explains it well, but were wrong on league being perfectly unbalanced as they state at 4:41 they tend to have champs that a times don't have weaknesses thus making them the "one true way to win" and (2:12) where it comes down to you play that or lose unless you are far better then the person you are playing against, like a rank higher then them (or more depending on the game in question).

[@minhthanh1994]

this video was like 3 year before your comment, a lot has change in league.

[@UnknownSpartan007]

"If it's the former, the players were probably right and something really was broken." *Gazes upon the hook of Roadhog*

[@UnknownSpartan007]

Roadhog's hook is absolutely broken and everyone knows it, despite the fact that it's "working as intended".

[@Zodiacman16]

Roadhog's hook is broken mechanically. Nothing to do with game balance. It's not like the hook has 0 counterplay.

[@paulallen2654]

They fixed it, and now the tank meta is going to disappear

[@ribena.drinker]

Paul Allen except the tank meta is because of ana, not roadhog.

[@Zodiacman16]

Ana is getting nerfed too from what I've heard.

[@jsjw2]

champion A is a axe, B is a sword, and C is not a lance, no love for Fire Emblem I see. :p great episode though.

[@carbon6111]

Champion C is a hammer. EDIT: I just reread your comment...I feel silly now...

[@tenedria]

I noticed when you give different character abilities to choose from, some veteran players like to play with weaker abilities for more challenge or do unexpected things.

[@tylermcfluffbut9872]

A great example of it done well is Pokémon, they constantly update the meta game and there is never a 'Correct Team' I mean look at the Pacharisu from the last world tournament.

[@slanax97]

Speaking of which, ten bucks say Talonflame becomes more standard again with the release of Contrary Serperior.

[@tylermcfluffbut9872]

Wouldn't be surprised if you're right.

[@slanax97]

Little do they know, mine carries HP Rock and an anti-Flying berry >:D

[@tylermcfluffbut9872]

Genius...

[@slanax97]

Ramde Saeed Dugtrio still has one advantage over Groudon. It pairs up better with Water types in Double Battles because Groudon weakens/nulls (in Primal) their STAB.

[@Blackwingsss]

LOL isnt in perfect imbalance at all. 99% of the time People change champions not because they find counters, but just because champions are always getting nerfed/buffed.

[@SmedbySG]

Low MMR-Player spotted

[@samasoku]

SmedbySG hes actually correct and im plat 2. :^)

[@CountCocofang]

Samasoku Anything below higher Diamond is generally considered irrelevant/low elo.

[@samasoku]

Count Cocofang ive heard stupid sht but this is next level. so youre saying that basically 99% of the players/their way of playing is irrelevant? alright. see you in diamond then

[@PaintyMainy]

Do you know how I play lol? I play games with my favorite champs(unless I have to play some role I'm not good at). I don't care if they nerf or buff my favorite champs, I just like play with them(Lore makes me care, really).

[@KingStix]

If age of empires was a pimp, then starcraft would be its bitch

[@Kuebel350]

+KingStix *its

[@Sina-dv1eg]

What's a pimp?

[@Kuebel350]

Noah Grün Basically, a prostitute's manager.

[@appelpower1]

+Noah Grün And thus, a 'bitch' is pimp slang for a prostitute. +KingStix As someone who has immense nostalgia for AOE2 (even though I'm an intense noob at it), I cannot agree more.

[@bstjules]

+KingStix StarCraft is King, AoE may kneel before it, at best.

[@Handle423]

I love how your Voice sounds just a tiny bit cracked, I can't really explain that, but I like it. And if possible, don't change it ;)

[@LexiLunarpaw]

I'm from the Future... They changed it....

[@viincentlim]

Perfectly imbalanced, as all things should be

[@isei8388]

I miss these EC episodes. Can't believe it's been 7 years, learnt so much about game design and decisions.

[@InnoSang]

League of legends is great, but there is one broken thing that could not be nerfed nor countred: EUW server. FIX. THIS. SHIT.

[@billyskib116]

***** LOL , are u kidding me? Eu servers suffer every 2 days, and now u had 2 or 3 issues? You server is fine, Your teams suck.

[@SuiyoDawg]

Billy Coreman Actually, my unusually friendly and civil friend, a lot of NA ISP are having huge issues due to wide-spread DDOS. There have been hundreds (Conservative estimate) of dropped games on the Server's Side as well as crippling lag, to the point where for a while Riot switched the games to no-loss mode. Our Server is having tons of issues now as well.

[@dLzzzgaming]

Since the EUW players are so skilled, if they could play all the time they would beat NA players by a large margin, so they nerfed our servers. That balance team =D *btw it's a joke*

[@MrPerlew]

Riot is setting up a brand new server stasion for EUW. Then we'll have two and way less lag :)

[@dLzzzgaming]

The only "Broken" shit in this game are koreans. You fucker

[@Preistley]

"Your axe is no match for my sword!" "Well your sword is no match for my mallet!"

[@hedgehogchicken2030]

Preistley “Your mallet is no match for my extendo arrow”

[@baboon_baboon_baboon]

Should have used Pokemon as a example for metagames instead of League...

[@StefanLopuszanski]

So true. While LoL is a very good game, it has a lot of problems that keeps the actual meta game fairly stagnate.

[@kamerondamaska9624]

Stefan Lopuszanski I disagree, take the recent 3.15. Shyvana, Mundo, Rengar, and Renekton immediately became "the picks" top lane. The effect this had was the smarter players develop a counter'strategy and running champs like Trundle and Warwick for their % damage and scaling off the opponents tankiness. Without any patch changes, champions once seemed unviable are brought into the game for their unique skill set that counters the current popular metagame.

[@MyMiguelonn]

Kameron Damaska The smartest player like sOAZ or Darien ;)

[@RuneKatashima]

Kameron Damaska Except that never happened and those champs just recently got nerfed.

[@StefanLopuszanski]

Uh, everyone hates Smogon? That's news. Smogon is amazing and awesome and fixes the game more than anything else.

[@Nesetroll]

This mey be why I like Team Fortress 2 so much. If you look at the pure DPS, the Spy is the clear winner, doing around 600 damage on backstabs. His counter? Look behind you. The Demoman can do massive damage, but his pipe bombs are difficult to aim, and sticky traps can be avoided, so just keep moving and he shouldn't be a problem. Each class has a skillset that makes them able to be the most powerful person on the battlefield, but with clear strategies for taking them down, so when adding new items, Valve just have to make the new stuff balanced with the weapon slot it's occupying, rather than thinking what the counters should be.

[@ArchaicStigma]

Trust demo is kinda OP especially when defending objectives in games with more players

[@Xidnaf]

Am I the only one who found this episode comparatively difficult to follow?

[@boredom1312]

oh hey I know you

[@zero132132]

Isn't a game still balanced if any setup can have different weaknesses and strengths, each of which can be exploited/countered by another setup? It seems to me that you're talking about symmetrical gameplay (where each setup has an equal chance of beating any other setup) rather than imbalanced gameplay, so long as there's an element of chance available in who you'll be facing. I could be wrong. I'm not an expert on this by any means. Just seems that this is an argument against symmetrical balance rather than balance in a general sense.

[@revimfadli4666]

Yea there seemed to be a mix-up between asymmetry vs imbalance

[@AokiZeto]

why not making a rock-paper-cisor system instead? ouo'

[@60b1in]

Instead of Perfect imbalance, this phenomena should be named as "Balanced asymetry". This is a great show, but every time they come out with a terminus technicus, i find it rather distracting at best. :D Note that the theory of game design is the first teaching in the world, that can positively name the difference between symetry and balance (The skepticism, post-modern and zen-buddhism are all fundamentally negative in this way).

[@elchasqui6986]

Came here literally just to say this. Amazing that so few people seem to know how to properly explain the concept

[@DracoAvian]

Asymmetric balance was the term I always used. It is widely present in strategy games. And while sometimes 'meta-builds' do emerge and re-emerge and balance themselves, it does seem like most of the time there is a single aspect of the game, be it a unit or a character, that causes the imbalance. In Wargame: ALB there have been multiple specific unit changes and unit class changes. T-55s were too effective for their cost, which led to highly effective T-55 rushes. LAVs + US Marines were too effective for their cost, which led to highly effective LAV rushes. BMPTs had an interesting weapon combination which allowed them to beat tanks quadruple their cost in single combat. Transport helicopter crashes were very survivable, which led to the tactic of flying them over enemy air defenses only to have the majority of the infantry climb out and eliminate the offending air defense. All of these things have been patched by the developer, not worked around by the players. Meta-builds in strategy games seem to be more exploitative than innovative unless carefully steered by the developers.

[@dragoncrystal24]

Asymmetric balance is a really good term to use. In Starcraft 2, each race has their own imbalances. Marines are really versatile, stalker blink is insanely useful, and Mutas are fast at everything (to give a few examples). It's all just a matter of being able to beat that sort of strategy

[@nehabje]

Woooh! Another Wargame player! :D (Yes, I know that this statement has nothing to add to this discussion :))

[@DracoAvian]

I ain't even mad. :P

[@shadoninja]

Very interesting video, but I honestly don't recall many "extremely OP" champions just disappearing over time. The vast majority of the time, the game gets patched or that champion gets a direct nerf. The reason LoL is staying so popular is because Riot is constantly nerfing the things that need nerfing and buffing the things that need buffing. It isn't an "invisible hand" making things better over time.

[@Frikgeek]

Mundo and Shyvana were kinda crap 3-4 months ago(as toplaners, shyv was a meh jungler), and they're God tier now. While you could argue it's because of how broken the S4 defense masteries are(and this is a lot more true for Mundo than Shyvana), tings like Singed which were very popular in S3 are falling out of favour now. Mundo, Shyvana, and Singed haven't received any nerfs or buffs from s3 to now(excluding 4.1 where shyv was nerfed). Abusive ranged toplaners(Jayce, Kennen, Elise), which were gods in s3 got nerfed, as well as 2v1 strats, so now we see the rise of melee dueling-type toplaners. So yes, extremely obvious OP stuff(like Riven, S2 black cleaver, release Zed, etc.) and items that are too cost efficient(Like relic shield, spirit Visage, heart of gold) get nerfed, but a lot of the meta just evolves without being touched directly.

[@shadoninja]

Frikgeek Singed received heavy nerfs after Azubu was successful with him in the tournament scene. After those nerfs, singed's popularity dropped consistently as his win rate fell to roughly a 50%. Mundo undoubtedly became popular purely because of the defensive mastery tree buffs. Shyvana is iffy, but, at the very least, didn't receive attention until the buff to her projectile. Aside from your small comment on Singed, who was also directly nerfed, your entire post consists of the Riot balance team causing every shift in the meta.

[@popsicleman8816]

A good example of these extremely OP champions disappearing over time could be anivia, karthus or kogmaw. These champions lost popularity not because they were directly nerfed but because they became less relevant in the meta. When the assassins ruled LoL, there just wasn't a room for a slow, exposed hyper carry. They weren't nerfed but they couldn't survive in the environment. Riot fixes things that have little to no counterplay. A reason why they swear that should Poppy become popular or strong, they'll immediately nerf her, as she is the epitome of no counter play. If poppy ults someone other than you, you are immediately useless against her. Even if she charges in 1v5, you are impotent, with only the option of fleeing in terror. Whereas someone like Kog'maw (though he was never really that popular) had a direct counter like nocturne, someone who a slow and extremely long range couldn't stop from getting on top of you. So had Kog'maw become prevalent, Nocturne would in turn have become popular. Had poppy become prevalent, riot would nerf. And that's why LoL is a good balance of both. They keep things that people can work around and improve the game with but remove the factors that prevents the situations of "follow the meta or do badly". P.S. That's part of the reason behind the joke of better nerf Irelia. Irelia has not real identity in League. She's a jack of all trades and basically just a block of numbers and coding. She doesn't have specific counters or doesn't counter things specifically because that's all she is, a bunch of numbers. If her numbers are bigger than yours, you lose and if yours is bigger than hers, you win. That's why riot doesn't like this hero to be strong. There's no counterplay, no strategy, no evolution when people play irelia all the time.

[@StormJaw]

Morde.. Karthus.. Nerfed to hell... Back when I used to play anyway... Atleast Karthus is still kinda OP.. Morde just plain sucks now.

[@popsicleman8816]

Eh, I would say morde was never that strong or op. People just plain didn't know how to play around him. (it's not sitting next to the creeps so he can hit 5 target e and get max shield). Also, the patches to karthus hit around june~october 2012 (time of the season 2 world series). He was being first or second picked despite the nerfs and was still doing fantastic. Only after ad assassins became popular in mid with release of zed in november of 2012 did karthus use fall off hard.

[@Ghost1170]

I like League and Dota, but isn't dota the better of the two when talking about the "better" imbalance? At least in terms of base abilities and heroes/champs/sameshit, there are very hard counters. There's so many heroes/champs/sameshit that dome get left out, just due to the fact there are champions that have literally the same roles without anything that gives them an actual edge in certain circumstances. Maybe Im wrong here, but I feel having too many heroes dilutes this perfect imbalance. Not that Dota has heroes that arent played as much, but ALL heroes have seen some meta at some point without being nerfed to total and utter shit.

[@theboojahideen3551]

Dota 2 didn't come out for nearly a year after this video. And back then, League had more variety. The League example this video presents doesn't hold up with current League

[@Ghost1170]

Logan Grimnar Dota and Dota 2 are pretty similar, so my point still stands. I think dota 1 was still more balanced than league back in the day.

[@ChannelYumYum]

I don't think Dota 2 was actually super relevant in the time of the release of this video. Currently League of Legends really doesn't follow the perfect imbalance formula to the point of being a good example, but Dota 2 does. While League of Legends may have champion counters, it isn't as in depth as Dota 2, Dota 2 has it where one hero can make another hero straight up useless. For example, Pugna is an exceptional hero at countering those who rely on spells heavily with high mana cost, Skywrath Mage suffering the absolute worst from this, while Pugna himself suffers from those who aren't very reliant on spells and have built in ways to stop him from fleeing or to stop his ult. Move on and you even have items. Eul's and Halberd counter Legion Commander because they both disable her capability of fighting in a duel. BKB counters many heroes that are reliant on spells to deal damage. MKB counters those with built in evasion, it goes on and on, this makes it where the game pretty much follows a formula of rock, paper, scissors, while hard counters exist, sometimes matchups actually happen to be pretty even. There's also a case of heroes being incredibly weak early on to become nearly unbeatable later on. Example include Spectre, Medusa, Slark, Faceless Void, and other hard carries.

[@MaximusCactus]

Dota 2 was in beta WAY before this video came out though.

[@cragnog]

Dota 2 is and always was relevant!

[@Dr.Barber]

Hearthstone had this kind of thing going on until Dr.Boom was added Dr.Boom is a ridiculously good card and was being put in every deck so all decks also started running Big Game Hunter which could instantly kill Dr.Boom, but Boom is so good because of extra effects that even with the rise of BGHs, Boom is still put in every deck. So now there alot of cards that can't even be played or considered playable because they will die to the BGH, effectively putting a strangle hold on the meta

[@madmangogaming]

I've got the beast in my sights

[@Angel33Demon666]

+Dr. Barber Ysera, Malygos, Chromaggus anyone? That great dragon priest though...

[@Dr.Barber]

Angel33Demon666 The comment was ,made before dragon priest and how do Ysera and Malygos apply to this?

[@Angel33Demon666]

***** Ysera, Malygos, Chromaggus are great cards which don't get BGH'ed. Dragon Priest can use Ysera and Chromaggus.

[@Dr.Barber]

Angel33Demon666 I made this comment back when Dr.Balanced was the uncontested king of the meta and the goal of the game was get your boom out first

[@TDeadlyFork]

from someone who plays the pokemon metagame... yes to all of this

[@TDeadlyFork]

*smogon play (the regular game only updates on hardware updates so there is some of this that just doesn't apply as readily as it does with smogon)

[@DamienGranz]

I know this one is like 2 years old, but it kinda bothers me a bit. The premise is that a game is imbalanced in a way that people will constantly find new strategies to do well. But it's not that the game exists in a static state and the metagame constantly evolves. It's really that the game is constantly changing and thus the static metagame, the one 'solution' to the game, is constantly being rediscovered due to those constant changes and additions. If Chess added new pieces every week, I'm sure that its 'metagame' would change too, even if those pieces were added directly to each side. Need proof? Go into a match with random strangers who care about their W/L/D score and pick people that aren't suited to the metagame of the week. You will be reported as a griefer. The metagame is often very static, if just because once the 'solution' to the game is found (whether or not it's the best) people stick straight to it. Or are called casuals. Thus it splits the game up, like Chess, between Ultra Hardcore and Casuals, with little middle ground. Games like LoL or DOTA2's metagames change, again, because the game itself constantly changes.

[@MossoDaBanana]

i agree and disagree at the same time. True, moba's have a kind of static metagame (in terms of what can be done with a hero) but who makes it this way is not the developer, is the player and it's easy to see why. Almost everytime that you try a different build or diferent lanes with strangers in the team they can't trust that you'll make it work because they simply never saw you playing before. The only times that you see those changes happening is on games wich you are on a party with friends or people that already know your playstyle or on games that contain famous players for the same reason as before.

[@DamienGranz]

MossoDaBanana Your own argument though is a bit self destructive. You're saying that players are driving the strategy changes by refusing to change strategy. That don't really make a lot of sense. If anything that kinda proves that it's outside factors driving strategy changes (like changes in patches or high level tournament play) and not the meat and potatoes player. Because they are, as you're admitting yourself, refusing to do anything but the flavor of the month meta-game. Ironically though such adherence to the meta-game is, to me, why I hate these games and think of them specifically as unbalanced. A really great balanced game is one where nobody at all can even begin to agree on what's the best meta-game.

[@MossoDaBanana]

well, i didn't say that actually.

[@DamienGranz]

Then sorry if I misunderstood.

[@MossoDaBanana]

that's fine man, i wont get mad or anything unless you're disrespetcfull but you're actually really polite so thanks for sharing your opinion too :D

[@hylianzeldafan]

this works with pokemon aswell

[@superrayquasa]

+MonthyPyton only real thing is that with pokemon they have the problems they listed with chess and starcraft where they list off all the counters to each pokemon using the same stock sets. and they like to ban pokemon as well, but i guess that's just smogon for you. even still, it's entirely possible to create your own sets to counter the enemies you face. so i guess pokemon is a little bit of both actually (and it can go to pretty large extremes too. dig in a bit and you'd be surprised how flexible even pokemon with limited movesets can be)

[@BudCharlesUnderVlogs]

TheGlaswegianGlalie Most pokemon will probably never be useful, they've really only achieved perfect imbalance for the top 100 or so and the rest are wildly too underpowered and are only used once due to some crazy loophole or are not used at all.

[@topichu970]

I think Pokemon is the perfect example.

[@TheRobotDevilInside]

5:29 Point 1,2 and 3 no longer apply to LoL T_T

[@Azure8Note]

Why?!?!?!?! Extra Credits missed an opportunity to use a Fire emblem reference... Spears beat swords...

[@kassh]

So you're saying that Olaf was OP, so people started playing Garen, then Garen got OP so people started playing Jayce(?).

[@Slowpokedu]

happens literallay 100% of the time. NA picked up morganato combat leona and thresh, karma was picked up in korea because of the new changes to spellthiefs

[@SuperBobbydj]

Morgana was picked up for a number of reasons and people were already playing this way back for counters to them but then with the spelltheif, ap supports like morgana are op.

[@nocivolive]

dukes onuchu europe did before. Team roccat before was cool.

[@DefQuake]

dukes onuchu Unforunately Riot has to do something, as there is little to no counter to the stale top meta atm.

[@MrPerlew]

John Tree The meta is not stuck. Ryze risently went top and there you have champion B, now wait for the meta to move along in other lanes and we'll have a group of champion C ;).

[@rockstar450]

The flaw in this video is that a balanced game can do all the things he said. He’s confused this with game “complexity” by using a deeply explored game like chess as an example. Having elements with huge risk for that reward is great, which is what he’s confused with here. The reality is true imbalance is when there is low risk high reward. THAT is what imbalance is, not the learning experience.

[@wechselderg8438]

I guess the perfect Imbalance is then to find in a game of rock paper siccors. With an element of randomness of course.

[@sirsalty9516]

You always would have 33% chance of winning. BUT most people prefer Rock so you would have a chance of 66% to win if you dont use the Rock. I know everyone plays different and many People dont take Rock because they thing that the opponent knows that but Rock is still the most prefered.

[@wechselderg8438]

really? As far as I have seen it, siccors where always the prefered choice :)

[@sirsalty9516]

wechsel derg mabye, but not here in germany ^^

[@wechselderg8438]

SirKhaan funny enough, schließlich bin ich auch aus Deutschland ;P

[@sirsalty9516]

wechsel derg hätte ich mir bei dem Namen eigentlich denken müssen ^^

[@astrogecko1650]

Pokemon is also a good example of perfect inbalance, although it does have a couple of broken mons.

[@Banana_Zach]

I'm sure you mean Garchomp, Khan, Talonflame, ect. These certainly are some of the stronger team members, but them being so common makes their counters stronger. As a high ranking Battle Spot player I can tell you that my anti-meta team will win against any of those teams 80% of the time.

[@astrogecko1650]

Garchomp and talonflame aren't really broken. But stuff like kyogre, lugia, mewtwo, darkri etc are

[@ignaeon]

shellsamurai so legendaries are stronger. however, it is much more difficult to obtain them with perfect ivs.

[@Banana_Zach]

shellsamurai In competitive play legendaries are not allowed. The only time you use legendaries is on your playthrough through the gyms and elite four.

[@kevinmiddleton5182]

I'm not sure about the newer games, but any of us who played the original Red and Blue know that Psychic type essentially had no weaknesses, and was super effective against Poison and Fighting type Pokemon. In addition, Alakazam had enough Speed and Special to one shot most Pokemon with Psychic, regardless of their type. A Pokemon like Alakazam was clearly superior to the vast majority of fully evolved Pokemon. At first I thought that was unfair, but the more I played the more I discovered that this imbalance had some interesting results. If Alakazam was naturally superior to most other Pokemon, that meant any Pokemon that could beat him would be valuable. After much experimentation and thought I was able to come up with several Pokemon that could clobber Alakazam with ease: Aerodactyl with Earthquake or Hyper beam, Jolteon with Thunderbolt or Thunder Wave (Pin Missle never seemed worth it IMO), Dugtrio with Earthquake, Snorelax with Hyperbeam or Body Slam, Chancey with Double Edge or Blizzard/Fire Blast/Thunder...each one of these Pokemon were suddenly more valuable to me due to the "meta game" of the day. The wonderful thing about a healthy dose of imbalance is that my friends slowly caught on and began designing teams to counter my counters to Alakazam, and I designed counters to their counters to my counters, ect.

[@sirgavanator8794]

It's really amazing how much my perspective has changed on games today after watching this. I can now say without a doubt that Destiny is a horribly balanced game, and For Honor is one of the best balanced games to date. Of course this is arguable, but in my opinion, the last 2 minutes of your video sums up exactly what Ubisoft was trying to accomplish, and what Bungie appears to have never attempted with Destiny. I could go into greater detail on Bungoe and Ubiflop, but all in all... It was a great video, and it really sings to the profundity of your video when it can still be found relevant almost 5 years later. I'm late to the channel, but a huge fan nonetheless.

[@thechilledquagsire5512]

I feel like the Smash 4 has this. More and more techs are being discovered every day and the tier list is even less of a representative of which characters are "good".

[@silverrain530]

TheChilledQuagsire I agree

[@zak9399]

It's pretty amazing how irrelevant Smash4 became the instant Ultimate dropped.

[@chrisrockett5897]

@@zak9399 Yeah. People whined about Bayo and Cloud so much that they just left.

[@amanofnoreputation2164]

Chess isn't perfectly balanced: white always moves first and thus gains a teeny tiny advantage over black in every game.

[@raindox447]

#Chessracism

[@mrjaxmen8059]

+Shiningleaf X #BlackPiecesMatter

[@zacharymorris3775]

+Locutus Borg actaully i would argure that black has the advantage because they can react to what white does, and will counter what white does

[@Meloncov]

+Zachary Morris No, white definitely has an advantage; being forced to react limits your options. In tournament play, white wins about two percent more often.

[@alexandermcpherson4116]

+Kevin Baker Actually it's a bigger advantage than that. At high level play, white wins 37-40% of the time (depending on what database you look at). However, because draws are common at a high level, black only wins about 30% of the time, with the remaining ~30% being drawn. This means that white wins almost 25% more often than black. However, because of the way games are scored - with a draw being worth half a win - white's scoring advantage is indeed 2-6%. EDIT: I got that a little wrong. On average white will score around 0.52 to 0.56 points per game. Because the points per game add to 1, this means black scores 0.44-0.48 on average, which is more like an 8% to 27% scoring advantage for white.

[@Aundros]

Thanks to this episode, i learned why so many people can play the same map over and over in league of legends. I never understood it before now.

[@solsystem1342]

Well, I mean. Unless you've played many hundreds of matches you probably have only played a couple games with any particular matchup in lane-ing. Or maybe a dozen times for the most popular champions. Personally League never "clicked" for me. I'm sure there's interesting stuff in there but I was honestly more interested in the characters than the game 🤷‍♀️

[@Gameknight2169]

The sword may be stronger than the axe *BUT THE SQUARE PAN IS ETERNAL*

[@ManintheArmor]

One issue with some action games isn't so much about balancing builds through their numbers, but how players utilize those builds, as well as the mechanics that can nullify the numerical balances. First, it's important to consider the cerebral variations in players. Outside of initiates and novices, reaction time can vary. Some players are much more reactive than others, working through sheer reaction time. Others aren't so fast, compensating with schemes and trickery. Then you have the guys who just have persistence, lacking in speed or brains but excelling in the mental endurance required to carry on very tedious, yet effective, strategies. There may be more, of course. Second, think in terms of 3s at minimum, using rock-paper-scissors (plus lizard and Spock if you want more) as the usual template, or some other means to prevent games from turning into overly balanced chess matches and the usual Red vs. Blue scenario. A third factor must be present with the ability to turn the tide of the conflict, while remaining vulnerable itself. Then place factors within those factors to triple the choices and extremes. The game should be made where no single mental process on its own overpowers the rest. We don't solely want guys with faster fingers, larger memory, or denser heads. We want all three, all extremes, and the variations in between, in a cyclical threesome.

[@humanzerohumanzero4825]

This point was clearly designed around League of Legends and not proper strategy games

[@amadexi]

Chess in not balance: there is an inherent advantage for the first player.

[@mark1A100]

not true because while the first player is able to move earlier they also have to reveal their plan first which allows the second player to predict ahead and gain the advantage,

[@amadexi]

P. V.C Actually it's the opposite: the white player knows what will be the first move and can anticipate with this data. It's a well known fact in the chess comunity (especially considered by top level players), or just google "first move advantage". Some text: The art of chess-play: a new treatise on the game of chess (1846) page 33: archive.org/details/artofchessplayne00walk Some statistics: computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/opening_report_by_eco.html web.archive.org/web/20130217074950/web.archive.org/web/20080317104159/http:/www.chessgames.com/chessstats.html

[@mark1A100]

amadexi but there are also argument for the opposit. not saying that being white is not advantageous but its not an absolute advantage.

[@amadexi]

P. V.C Yes it's not absolute, no one said it was, the game would't be played otherwise, but it's enough to be considered. For the opposite, i doubt it, the white has a significant statistical advantage. It's not even a "guess" it's a well known fact in chess.

[@jsteel89]

P. V.C white does have an absolute adv at the start of the game.

[@VincentV465]

This holds up as one of my favorite Extra Credit videos

[@HeroponMan]

Super Smash Brothers Sixty-Four for the Nintendo Sixty-Four console, Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo Gamecube console, Super Smash Brothers Brawl for the Nintendo Wii console, Super Smash Brothers for the Nintendo Three-Dimensional Double-Screen handheld, and Super Smash Brothers for the Nintendo Wii U console are all very dumb games.

[@lojocoats]

Dumb as in you aren't very good at them?

[@GhastlytheTinkerer]

I agree with League of Legends as an example, but I disagree with the description. 'When one strategy or meta becomes dominant, the counters to that strategy balance it out.' Riot patches the game and tweaks stats so often that this doesn't end up happening as often as it should. For example, months ago Sivir was reworked because she wasn't played very often, and it was objectively a nerf. She was actually reduced in power (with one convenience change). Despite this, her win rate climbed because the rework made people want to play her, and the most popular ADC at the time was Caitlyn, someone Sivir has a surprisingly easy time in lane against. Before the meta-game could shift to something that more easily counters Sivir, Riot nerfed her three patches in a row in the span of two weeks. That's one of the three or four reasons I stopped playing League. I love how meta-games shift, but Riot doesn't give their game the chance for that to happen. They want to dictate the meta-game to the players.

[@TheRayny]

+GrandDracolich ehr, i was present and she was not nerfed at all. She got her W changed, losing burst damage in exchange of waveclear power. That same waveclear became one of her strongest points to consider while picking her or not, while at the same time losing a thing ( burst ) that was already very very common on many champions.

[@GhastlytheTinkerer]

+Enrico Boccardi Her ultimate was also changed, it used to affect minions as well, it granted attack speed to everyone nearby, and the speed bonus didn't decay slowly. The change to her W also reduced the speed of the ricocheting projectile by a lot, so the only utility that ability has is the bonus attack speed.

[@TheRayny]

GrandDracolich But now the W can apply multiple times, since more than one attack can benefit from that ( while before was just a single quick attack ), effectively pushing better the lane and giving her more aoe damage while ina teamfight. About her ult, now has not a cast time making it far less clunky to use and more effective, and her attack speed bonus now applies to W so it applies more frequently in short bursts. She doe snot provide anymore as boost in aoe, but that was not her intended niche since it can empower too much or too few certain compos ( not everyone benefit the same way for as ) and those kind of aura effect are being removed aniway, while MS is still strong and impactful.

[@cosmicsans67]

imperfectly balanced: Smash4 there are clear better characters for each skill level, give a new player Sheik and they'll probably kill themselves by accident. give them a slower, harder hitting, and heavier character like say, Ganondorf, and they'll do a bit better because they won't jump right off the map broken: Brawl in my whole time playing Brawl I knew Meta Knight was the best for noobs: he's fast and he can jump a lot so he can get back on stage if you fall off for pro's, well, that's the reason MK's banned at most Brawl tournaments

[@TheTraveler980]

+Soda POP 67 You got the idea.

[@helloworld2848]

What about Kirby, king of the Noobs.

[@Trinexx42]

I think that Red Orchestra 2 did this very well. The Russian guns do a lot of damage, and shoot very fast like the PPsh, but are worthless at long range due to recoil, while the Nazi guns like the MP40 shoot slower, but have very low recoil, allowing for long range combat with an assault rifle. So in a close range map, the Russians would have an advantage, due to the higher DPS, but the Russians are screwed in a long range encounter, because of the accuracy of the Nazi guns. And in the Rising Storm expansion, the Japanese have horrible guns, while the Americans have guns that outclass them in almost every way. But the Japanese have certain abilities that allow them to use strategies that the Americans might no be able to overcome, like banzai charging and mortar strikes, as well as turning grenades into landmines. So depending on the map, one side might have an advantage over another.

[@tatguy]

its the one reason i bought the game

[@DracoAvian]

I actually preferred some of the Japanese weapons, although they do seem less versatile than the American counterparts. Other than that, often times it seems like Japan has a superior map position to compensate for their arsenal's shortcomings.

[@fingerboxes]

There was a local chess club that met at the food court in the mall near the house I grew up in. I tried playing them a few times (mostly because my mom forced me to because she wanted to wander off and do her own thing), but they were the kinds of people who had put tons of hours in learning all the different strategies. I got so annoyed at this one guy pointing out the mistakes and bad strategies I was using that I just started doing random moves with no strategy at all (I wasn't going to win anyway, might as well confuse him). After a few moves he asked what my strategy was...I was like "well why don't you tell me, you've told me the last dozen or so times", and after a few more moves he figured out that I was making randomized plays, at which point it stopped being fun. But I have to admit, it was fun having him genuinely stumped for a while. Definitely more fun than the actual chess games I'd played against him.

[@kangalio]

Doesn't "balance" mean that most possible playstyles have equal chances, and there is no single best option that beats any other option? What the video talks about sounds more like strategic randomness to keep games from getting deterministic

[@ciCCapROSTi]

Starcraft is not figured out because it is balanced. It is figured out because 1) you payed a couple thousand Koreans to do it 2) the game's possible actions are very limited. It's not a strategically deep game, no matter what anyone say, because the UI limits your choices tremendously. Counterexample: Supreme Commander. It's an RTS, but so much freedoms are given and the UI helps you so much that you really can make the strategic decisions. On all level.

[@TheMagmaCubed]

I love supreme commander. Its so easy to learn as a first rts but such a high learning curve.

[@bluemeltedpopsicle]

And that's why Yu-Gi-Oh isn't dead.

[@kevinmiddleton5182]

Well...isn't it though? I don't play at a high enough level to be an expert, but I had a tournament level deck with Mirror Force, Dark Hole, Goblin Attack Force, ect. and I stopped playing for a while. Since I returned to the game, even in casual games with my friends I get destroyed every time. Let's say Yu-Gi-Oh! is "perfectly" unbalanced. That doesn't change the fact that it suffers from Power Creep. Each new year cards are released that are clearly superior to everything that existed before, and all of the time and money we spent assembling tournament level decks are wasted. We might as well not have bought them because these cards are effectively useless. In fact, rather than provide counters for the best cards, Konami just bans them from tournament play. "You know that card that is the cornerstone to your 300 dollar deck? You know how we limited it to 1 per deck? Well, we're banning it, so...yeah. Later!" You can't even trade these cards back, because no one else wants them either. The company has the audacity to print thousands of rare cards and sell them for huge profits, and then flip the bird to all their loyal customers by banning them. Congrats, you spent hundreds of dollars on something you can't use. Yu-Gi-Oh may be the most popular CCG, but that's because of the TV Show, not the game itself. It's a zombie: it acts as if it were alive and well, but it's already beginning to decay.

[@bluemeltedpopsicle]

Kevin Middleton Honestly though, I use an Earthbound Immortal deck that was popular and really good back in 2011-2012. I then started to lose because of new decks getting really powerful and people making strategies for them. But as new cards are introduced, old cards can be brought back to new decks because of strategic loopholes. It's really interesting to see how one day, you're getting destroyed and you have to play a new deck to win. And then, cards come back and work really well. It just takes some patience.

[@kevinmiddleton5182]

***** I guess. As I said, Yu-Gi-Oh! may be a good example of perfect imbalance, but it still suffers from power creep IMO. In case you were wondering how I've adapted, I now use YGO Pro which is a Yu-Gi-Oh! simulator with a system that automatically applies the effects of the cards you activate (no arguing over rulings) in which all the cards are free :-) Also, in all of my experiments no deck wins more consistently against a variety of decks than Exodia decks. That probably encourages players to build side decks with cards that attack the hand or deck, but I wouldn't call that a meta game. It's more of a "Oh, you use that deck? Well I'm going to surrender and then change my deck so I have 5 cards that defeat you every time."

[@bluemeltedpopsicle]

Kevin Middleton Yup I use DevPro only because it seems to have more server stability.

[@kevinmiddleton5182]

***** nice

[@BlackSmithWolf2014]

I'm I the only one who has some kind of Chinese subtitles on the screen?

[@kaizerheimer7947]

Arabic

[@saintshing]

you can choose the language of the subtitle, just click the cc button

[@ARSP333]

I frequently get Polish

[@pathlastname9278]

mine switches between like 5 different languages

[@theletters9623]

cyclical imbalance.... just LOL.... ..... see what I did there?

[@ShadowWolfTJC]

Super Smash Bros 4 seems to have encountered an example of perfect imbalance. In this case, it was Little Mac, who was so dominant with ground-based, center-taking gameplay, which just so happened to be one of the biggest goals of combat, that, for a time, he was the most widely-used playable character in online matches. However, as Little Mac had some glaring weaknesses, such as a lack of aerial combat and recovery prowess, players began to choose characters that could capitalize on that weakness, resulting in Little Mac having the lowest win rate of the Super Smash Bros. 4 roster.

[@jayreese8522]

Yush. Cyclical imbalance at work.

[@NeonBloo25]

This was such a useful lesson, but i wish to know if it could apply to simpler games and how, as in, is there perfect imbalance to Super Mario Bros. and if so, how or where is it used there?

[@ThePeytonCox]

Dota 2

[@TheDominionOfElites]

Yeah, Dota 2 is a way better example for this theory than LoL is as well, considering LoL is actually way more symmetrical and balanced in comparison to the crazy meta of dota.

[@tommyvo4933]

@@TheDominionOfElites 6 years later we have akali and aatrox...

[@ryukishifan0396]

1:20 to 1:50 Starcraft 2 in a nutshell

[@Darlisk]

I think you are trying to justify imbalance instead of seeing how important perfect balance is

[@Angel-bz5jm]

The section on cyclical imbalance is basically just competitive pokemon in a nutshell

[@reynardpachulski6879]

I saw unbalanced design and thought: "Well, certain maps favor defense or offense, so the players feel alot better about winning a difficult fight against an opponent who has the higher ground"

[@Recon011a]

"lets look at league of legends" *gives no actual example*

[@AnimusPrime87]

Does anybody else smile when they see the Fire Emblem reference at 4:42?

[@sporemaster9108]

With the whole weapon type mechanic?

[@AnimusPrime87]

Commandant Obvious FTW!

[@trym197]

Vir Animus would they not make champion C a lance in that case?

[@xrenynthemusicmage6422]

I think One Way Heroics + (also Mystery Chronicles) have the perfect imbalance: The weapons that output the greatest damage are also the ones with the lowest accurity and combo and the highest weight making item management harder. And the most lightweight weapons have a high chance of performing combos and critical hits but they do almost nothing to objects and well-armed enemies and break faster because of the additional combos. There is even a glass armor that basically protects the player from anything but it is extremely heavy and gets shatterd after just a few strikes. Bows and Crossbows are ranged weapons and can deal little damage without the risk of taking damage, but when an enemy is close to the player he will get hit one more time if he wants to change to a melee weapon. Plus, Arrows cannot damage objects. But Force - also called magic - features the greatest imbalance in the whole game: With some strong spells Magicians can easily defeat any enemy no matter what - but using these spells requires energy that can only be recovered by eating food that the player has stored in his inventory. But since the inventory has a weight limit the Force-using player cannot carry some great weapons and a lifetime supply of food at the same time. He needs to decide what kinds of strategy he uses to survive, since a Force user cannot do great damage without using the force but if he runs out of food in a dangerous biom his death will only be a matter of time. But since the player can also decide about his character's stats and abilities by selecting a class and applying perk points to boost their stats it is completely up to him in which way he wants to play the game. And I guess this is the one and only reason I have nearly put 200 hours into this series, and still enjoy setteling on a new adventure over and over and over again: Because I am always trying something new.

[@ΙΩΑΝΝΗΣ-ΠΑΥΛΟΣΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΑΚΑΤΟΣ]

"This is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits" SPIFF

[@Panzerkuchen]

Stop me if im wrong, but doesn't the same thing happen in Starcraft. We're you ofcourse have numerous builds, but the races themselves are already not completely balanced. Also if 1 tactic becomes dominant & easy (like for instance 6-pool) A lot of people start 6-pooling and alot of others try to think of ways to counter it, for instance by closing of your base or w/e. I would say Starcraft is a good example of imbalance tbh.

[@KungKras]

Yes! Finally someone mentions that! Starcraft is NOT CHESS!

[@bayasgalantsogtgerel3346]

you can not expect a perfect balanced game like chess(technically speaking chess does have some imbalance, if you take an extreme example of the two sides making the best moves possible the white set piece will have the advantage, due to the fact they make the first move), and all the races in SC have completely different play styles, and build orders, thus it is implausible to balance the game perfectly, but Blizzard has been doing a damn good job at balancing the game(if we don't consider SkyToss vs Zerg composition), and if you have trouble countering certain builds, you're just lacking in skills, which has little matter with the games balance system.

[@naegimaggu3499]

I've watched a couple of Extra Credits episodes and all your other videos have been good, but I have some problems with this one. Imbalance is a good thing, but It's not the imbalance that makes different styles being valid or make the game an "evolving problem to think about" it's the fact that because the game is constantly patched people don't have the great length of time that is required to find out what strategies are truly above others and this is why chess and Starcraft have such well established strategies. Starcraft didn't start out a balanced game at all the imbalanced races created interesting strategies based on their and opponents strengths and weaknesses, balancing of Starcraft has largely been done with map design, leaving the slight imbalances of the races intact. So it's in fact a very good example of imbalance creating interesting gameplay. I agree that this "perfect imbalance" creates new strategies and so on, but it's completely wrong to say that the lack of it created the state of chess or starcraft. If you have a deep game with a lot of strategic options it will keep people interested in it and they will keep figuring out better strategies and eventually it will have a strategic layer so thick that it takes a lot of time to learn, if you have a deep game you can't avoid that, it's not about the imbalance or balance. Imbalance is only a thing that can help a game get to that point. You just have to give the game some time, but if you keep patching it yeah sure it will stay more newbie friendly because nobody has enough time to figure it out completely. This video has a great point about slight imbalances creating interesting dynamics and I'm sorry to piss on your bonfire, but the factor making the game newbie friendly is the lack of time and/or lack of depth in some cases, not the "perfect imbalance". I would also disagree with newbie friendliness being something to strive for, but that is a completely different topic.

[@DarkThomy]

This, is indubitably an amazing video !.. Wish I watched it years before to throw it to so much people crying for nerfs..

[@EvanNagao]

indubitably.

[@Adventurer32]

I've actually made a 2 player strategy game which utilizes this concept. Here's a link to it if anyone is interested. scratch.mit.edu/projects/179497371/

[@GamingPenis]

Competetive melee isn't balanced at all but the top 8 characters have a constantly evolving metagame of imbalances

[@simivb]

I think you get it all wrong and here is why: What you discribe as imbalance is simly a rock-paper-sissors system. And the reason that League of Legends is evolving is not because its imbalance works, but because of updates. If you left lol in the same state for the next 10 years, there would also be definitive strategies. And this is exactly what happened to starcraft. They use the exact same approach of balance, but one changes, the other one does not. In other words: if starcraft gained a unit every 6 months, there would be no definitive strategies. As much as I enjoy your videos, this one is simply wrong in my opinion.

[@ButtTrauma]

+simivb Wait I don't understand. You're basically saying what he said in different wording. In Chess where the game hasn't changed, definitive strategies have been formed. This is what LoL tries to combat by making changes. If you leave the game in a state no matter what it is then the most optimal strategies will emerge. This is what he was trying to get at in the video.

[@simivb]

+lzn60 Ok I had to rewatch the video because I didn't remeber everything :D, but I think that my point still stands: He talks about Balance vs. Imbalance. How Chess and Starcraft are balanced, and LOL is not (to a certain degree), and how that is the reason why LOL dosen't have definitive strategies. Im talkin about Changes vs. no changes, which is something completly different. I claim that LOL and Starcraft have the EXACT same approach to balancing, by using a rock paper scissor system, whereas he doesn't. And he doesn't even take updates into account, besides at the very beginning. He doesn't say at any point, that the constant changes made to LOL are the reason for it not being stale, instead he thinks it is that "imbalance". And "cyclic Imbalance" is one of the worst descriptions for the thing. It is just plain rock paper scissors: A gets beaten by B, but C can beat B. This is the exact definition of rock paper scissors. Rock paper scissors itsself is perfectly balanced. Therefore "cyclic Imbalance" = "perfect balance" ????!?!?!? And if you take a closer look at starcraft now, where you have the same thing with the classes of the units, you can't possibly clame, that LOL and Starcraft have a different approach to balancing. Therefore I think this video is complete bullshit. Love the other ones though :D

[@SeantommyE]

+simivb The part you're missing is that one "build" shouldn't be able to be good at everything. In Starcraft, the reason there is rock-paper-scissors balance is because every unit in any given race has specific counters in the other races, so (as long as you are scouting well) the game just comes down to finding out what the opponent is doing and doing *the* thing that counters that. In essence, every race can do everything well. On the flip side, in LoL (at least as presented in the video, I don't know because I don't play it) any given hero has weaknesses they can't overcome, meaning that if they come into popular use, other heroes who are good at exploiting that weakness will become more effective in the current meta. There is no way to counter this with the first hero, so the effective strategy is to switch to a different hero. This provides a situation where new players don't have to know everything to be competitive (as they do in Starcraft), they just have to settle on a hero who does well in the current meta, drastically reducing the barrier to entry for competitive play. Meanwhile, more experienced players have more to think through by looking at ALL the heroes they're seeing in play commonly and deciding which hero they think will be the strongest overall and potentially driving the meta in a new direction. I don't know how cleanly it works. I don't play LoL, and I don't know if LoL executes it well. But that's the design EC is talking about, and seem to believe LoL does better than many other games. The major issue with it that I see is that it means some playstyles are simply worse in any given meta, meaning personal preference can become a handicap, which is not ideal. It even leads to new players hitting a (different) brick wall, where they find heroes they like but just can't seem to do well because of the state of the meta.

[@simivb]

+Sean Tommy Firstly, I want to clarify that I feel a bit different about the definitive strategies than the video: There are no definitive strategies in starcraft (like strategie A is not beatable), but definitive counters (if strategie A is playes strategie B is the best answer). I think this definition might aid the discussion. Now to your comment: You basically say that starcraft is balanced, because every race can counter every unit of every other race and that lol is not(or cyclic or whatever) because not all heroes can counter all other heroes if they just changed ther strategie or something like that. I think that you are comparing oranges to apples: A better analogy would be: starcraft is balanced because every race can beat every unit of every other race, and lol is balanced, because every team can have champions that beat every champion of the enemy team (combined, so each one can beat another, therefore -> whole team can beat whole other team). So I would compare Race to Teams and Champions to Units instead of Champions to races, as you did. And when you look at it this way, you see that having a champion who has weaknesses he cant overcome is not an imbalance. His weakness makes him lose against certain champions, just like a unit loses against certain other units. No difference here. Now: the comparison Team -> Race is still not exactly apples to apples: I wrote "every team can have champions that beat every champion of the enemy team" and the "can" is important: you can fuck up the picking phase, so that you end up with a team that loses against the enemy team, because you didnt pick champions that counter the enemy's chammpions. An analogy here would be that you picked 10 units before every starcraft match. So not exactly apples to apples. BUT: At the pro-level (and we are talking about pros, because in sc2 silver, there are no definitive strategies :D) you can always ensure to have such a team by picking intelligently. And the meta is really just changing because champions are imbalanced (which is not a contradiction to what I said! :D) by each update: to use the rock paper scissors analogy again: it would be like before the update rock beat scissors and paper, and after it would be beaten by both. Champions are to strong/weak to be countered by others/counter others as they should be, and thats just beacuse it would take many iterations to get it right, and since there are new champions coming all the time you dont get that many iterations. Now to your last statement about new players: I don't really disagree, but i dont think that you are onto something either: The definitive starcraft strategies dont apply to new sc2 players because they cant execute them , and the counter champions dont apply to new lol players because they cant use them propperly. So if you say its harder for new players to get into sc2 beacuse there are definitive strategies, but in lol there are not, i have to say: No, because they will play against people who dont know either. Its like letting 2 children play chess. They dont know shit, therefore they will both make mistakes and have fun. And I think we can agree that chess is the most stale game here :D

[@SeantommyE]

I appreciate the detailed response :) To address the last, and imo most important, issue you mentioned first, the issue doesn't have to do with people at the very bottom or very top. It's not about what two children do when playing chess. The question is what has to be done to move from the bottom into the middle tiers. In any system, the player has to learn strategies that are effective in order to get better. In an ideal unbalanced game, the amount of strategies the player has to learn to see improvement is much smaller, because anyone can be effective if they get good at a strategy that works well in the current meta. Moving from the mid-tier to top tier then involves learning lots of strategies for lots of metas, rather than simply knowing one or two. In Starcraft (or chess), however, learning a single strategy doesn't get you very far, because the opposition is guaranteed to have an answer to your strategy if they know what they're doing. There's no give and take, there's just a brick wall of strategy to learn before you can be "competitive" in any sense. And then the difference between mid-tier and top-tier becomes a matter not of knowing more strategies, but of knowing the strategies more intimately. Thus, mid-tier is closer to top-tier than it is to bottom-tier, making it difficult to get into competitive play. That's the issue with purely balanced strategy games from a beginner's standpoint. From an expert's standpoint, it becomes an issue of static vs. dynamic play. Purely balanced games provide a problem for top-tier players that doesn't evolve: they know all the strategies and all the units involved stay the same, so they only have new information to think through when someone (maybe them) comes up with a new strategy that doesn't suck, which becomes less and less common as a game ages. In an unbalanced game, there's a constant give-and-take based on the current meta, because in a complex system multiple different options will be popular at any given time, creating a large, organic variety of possible playing fields for top players to think through. If champions B, K, and M are popular, that's a different field than if champions B, D, and G are popular, which means individual counters aren't the only consideration, and you have to balance the pros and cons of champions who are good against, say, B but not K, or D but not B. Now, to address the teams vs champions idea. I didn't think about that before, I admit. As I said, I'm not too familiar with LoL. That particular mechanic makes me feel like, on a strategic level, low-level players aren't even playing the same game as high-level players. When you can't count on your team, the game becomes more of a single-player, or even random, affair, where your teammates will win or lose games for you regardless of your own performance, so you're more concerned with personal progress and finding ways to exploit enemy weaknesses on your own. Teamwork and large-scale strategy don't come into play much until you are at a level where teammates can be relied upon. Just spitballing really, and I guess the real point is that maybe LoL isn't a great example for perfect imbalance because of the team dynamics aspect. Also, I get your point about LoL being unbalanced as a result of patches rather than original design. I'm speaking from a more idealogical design standpoint, and can't attest to whether or not you are correct about that, so taking you at your word leaves me simply reiterating that LoL may not be the best example of this idea of perfect imbalance.

[@ThePathOfDawn]

I disagree, and always will disagree with this (justified imbalance). As it may seem like a nice trick to keep players interested, it is more of a manipulation. At least that's the way I feel. Also, you are thinking way too mathematically. Consider that a player likes to play a champion (or a small number of champions simply because of the flavor or, perhaps, lore) in LoL and RIOT decides that they will buff a champion that is a counter to the named champion. What should a player do? Simply abandon the loved champion cause it is a need generated by this "perfect imbalance" created by a game developer? It happened to me a lots of times and it seems to me that the developer (RIOT) couldn't care less about a fair and balanced game. In the end it all comes back to profit. And personally, I condemn that. There are ways to keep players interested, and this option should be the last on the list (if on the list at all). You could simply add new champions, or add some new changes, or anything... But NEVER, EVER, DO NOT ON PURPOSE CREATE IMBALANCE IN A COMPETITIVE GAME THAT IS EVEN CONSIDERED AN E-SPORT. That's even another argument why it shouldn't be called a "sport". I feel kind of disappointed that you approve of this.

[@voltekka47]

+Lovro Perić ok

[@rampantsarcasm2220]

+Lovro Perić Cool story bro

[@psinjo]

+Lovro Perić as a long time league player, sure sometimes i need to give x favorite champ a break because some things changed, but there's times when skill and adaptation can overcome bad matchups, whether it be by playing the same champ differently, a different build, or different strategy such as lane swapping. the whole point of 'justified imbalance' as you put it is in the form of incomperables, darius has a 700 hp true damage execute, but malphite can knock up an entire team if he plays just right. Braum can stop any damage from hitting a low health carry, and leblanc can blink dash/blink 4-5 times in fewer seconds. if everyone was 'balanced' then there would be no value in having different champions with different skills. the riot devs are far from perfect, and stuff like leblanc being released so powerful she had to be hotfixed overnight, or rengar literally coming out with a bug that had a 1 second delay before he could bush jump are never fun, but it's hard to say 'all they are doing is trying to profit' when the game is not only completely free to play, they've now added in methods to get almost ANY skin in THE ENTIRE GAME (including a lot of ones you CAN NOT EVEN BUY anymore) completely free, as well, if they were doing it 'just for money' why would they take the time to go back and rework old champs like poppy, karma, trundle, fiora, etc... there's 8~ older mages getting updates in a few weeks. keeping things updated is one of the best ways to keep players interested. no one can deny the 'everyone go tank' meta is aggrivating, so they're taking some steps to change that. also, in recent times they've come a long way from just 'nerf this champion to suck' and changing the allocation of power, for example 'ekko is too strong as a tank, so nerfing his base damages, but increasing some ratios to make sure that ekko as a whole isn't just gutted'

[@Yamyatos]

Nobody stops you from playing what you want to have fun. Imbalance just creates better choices. Having an edge over other players. However, generally this edge is not big. Maybe 5% difference in whatever stat you look at. You can overcome that by skill for example. You'd just be 5% better if you instead picked the other champion (and were just as skilled with it than with the other champion you wanted to play).

[@bobbyferg9173]

Starcraft the original/brood war had strategy and you had to think about what you were going to do. Starcraft 2 is just a battle to get as much units as possible Witt little strategy involved.

[@kapilk1644]

Bobby ferg I respectfully disagree.. actually Starcraft 2 is more of a strategy game than BW, in that there are more hard counters and less ability to micro out of a situation (which was easier in Brood War)

[@kapilk1644]

thus you must plan your strategy to incorporate hard counters whereas in broodwar, you would get soft counters and focus more on microing out of bad situations.

[@ABCWarrior]

Wait lol has strategy!?! I just pick a cool, free assasin or marksman and kill everything... that's why I've never won a match (I'm kidding - I just use assasins)

[@SirLukHipolito]

guys the insights you give are great

[@Shardfenix]

Except they're wrong. They come up with fakey made-up controversial ideas to get views. They can't pay the bills if they tell the truth and say most modern competitive games are shit.

[@Ban_Usury_Worldwide]

META in LoL hasn't really changed for a long time, unless you consider META which champs are tier 1 and which champs are not. LoL makes their new champs better to get people to buy them, it's that simple and unfair to look into any further. The only savior of that concept is that all champs have counters. This doesn't say anything about balance, it says a lot about capitalism though. Your example of chess doesn't really apply to complex games like LoL or really any MMO in existence right now because the MMOs today are not symmetrical. Moving around in realtime alone makes things way more dynamic. Look at a game like planetside 2. Balance is about tradeoffs, if you can melee me for 5 damage I can shoot you for 2. If I want to buff a weapon to have more splash area then I have to make it do less damage than the weapon that has less splash. I don't think you have to look too far into this stuff, it's pretty common sense.

[@Ban_Usury_Worldwide]

Techtronos Any strategic aspect of a game or competition can be considered META.

[@Marpfie]

Techtronos They are not. Take Braum for example, this is a ridiculous champ that ruins the enemy team without real counters. Hes not strong because of any meta, hes strong because riot is too fuckin stupid to design reasonable champs

[@TacNuke951]

xKarpfen really because without any significant nerfs braum is rarely played in LoL now and he has many counters that you are clearly unable to see

[@Noobie2k7]

Scott Wilder exactly, if Braum is so good then that's totally why he's barely played anymore.

[@PlanetVyctory]

TL;DR: rock paper scissors

[@dragoonsunite]

I was always curious why developers didn't attach the values that control the potency of various aspects of their game mechanics directly to floating averages of kills / deaths, alphas, detections, or various other mechanics so that the mechanics they wanted to fall within a certain rate auto-corrected... I'd LOVE to hear this idea addressed, though perhaps its a little bit technical for these sorts of videos...

[@TisTheWay]

If only you would know what League of Legends would become, or character design of adding every ability on to the newest character and calling them perfectly balanced

[@connorschmidt4175]

In chess, perfectly balanced, symmetrical positions tend to be draws. For players that desire more (and are ready to risk more) than a draw, they intentionally introduce imbalances. The most common form of imbalance in chess is either the knight-for-bishop exchange (so that now one player has 2 bishops and a knight and the other has two knights and a bishop) or a pawn structure imbalance, where one player may have more pawns on one side but fewer on the other. These imbalances are taking a disadvantage somewhere to create an advantage elsewhere, and attempting to use the advantage better than the disadvantage hurts you. If you're right you win, if you're wrong you lose. I find this to be an interesting element of chess.

[@FirdornLP]

ok...

[@wearenumbooone8434]

Perfectly Balanced As all thing should be.

[@henrybayer2856]

I’m watching this in 2024

[@MatireX666]

except riot is now freezing meta game in league of legends.... for example, if any support champion is played on solo lane(which makes sense because of their safe play and sustain), riot does everything to get them back on the bottom lane with ad carry everytime something game changing shows up, riot nerfs it down to the ground, or redesing so it can serve purpose they want it to do

[@smashmonkey6304]

Ahh, Extra Credit. Game design advice from people who know nothing about making a good game. So many problems with this video. 1)Metagames exist in ALL games. LoL is not unique in this regard. 2)The best strategies will happen in every game. 3)Chess has been around for hundreds of years. You'd be better off understanding why it's good rather than finding faults. 4)The whole "B counters A" is the result of metagame but usually is unintentional. It's not one character made to be better but due to players not understanding the game. You shouldn't make one character better "just cause." The issue is that balanced game are boring as to make a perfectly balanced game is to make everyone the same. Since all the elements are different, there is going to be imbalances. You miss this so the rest of your analysis falls apart. Making an imbalanced game is stupid. You should make all the elements and then deal with balance once everything is laid out. A designer or programmer should make the elements fun and interesting and deal with balance afterwards.

[@smashmonkey6304]

***** A)Metagame exist in any game. Go look it up en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming B)"You didn't understand it. Clearly I wont tell you where you went wrong and just continue to say your wrong as to not reveal I'm full of bullshit." Extra Credit has the worst fans. I guess they have to to feed you all obvious or retarded ideas.

[@TheMr.Logan9]

Smash Monkey Yes metagames exist in any game, because you can't control what the person playing your game has experienced in the past and what strategies they learned from other games to use in your game. What he is talking about in the video is a crafted metagame by developers that is made to be constantly changing. Best strategy in every game can be altered in different environments. Such as TF2, the most common strategy is giving the uber to a heavy to kill many people. Heavy can't easily take down sentries so you usually uber a demoman to take down sentries. With the new short circuit, uber demo can't as easily take down sentries leaving an opening in the Meta-game to have the player control. What separates good games from bad ones is finding the perfect strategies and trying to limit their use or use the perfect strategy in the meta game to engage the player. That is what they are trying to convey in the video.

[@smashmonkey6304]

Hayden Logan You can not create a metagame, you can only alter it. This is because, by definition, the players make the metagame. Balance patches effect the metagame but this is only after the game has come out and is done to make a game closer to perfectly balanced, not imperfect balance like the video said. The video didn't convey anything helpful. You can look at my original post to see the problems with the video. The nature of balance and fun. In order to have something be perfectly balanced, all the elements have to be the same or you create rock-paper-scissors. What that means is to make a game perfectly balanced, you have to remove the interesting part of the elements and make the game very dull. EC missed this critical point and the rest of their analysis falls flat. You don't make an unbalanced game. You make the elements and then balance them as best you can. It's better to listen to actual experts and not EC. Sakurai (the creator of Smash Bros) has had some articles on balance which address these points far better than EC could. Seeing as how Sakurai is a successful producer, you'd be better off listening to him.

[@TheMr.Logan9]

Smash Monkey The thing is Smash Monkey with enough play time and good development you can see the metagame from the developmental phase, and create tweaks and balances to it. I don't know why in your head only players can create the metagame, when good developers test the game enough to understand as a player. Sakurai is a successful producer, but it doesn't show that extra credits doesn't know what they are talking about because they are not as successful as one of the biggest directors in the world. They were saying that you develop certain tweaks in the game in order to keep it from being to balanced to have advance players create there own metagame from a base established advance tactics, this really can only happen in games where skill gap is so large like in multiplayer games. He is saying that making games with a tweaked balance that allows players who have mastered the game still lose from time to time. In Smash Bros. they have this as a core idea with beginning players of Smash Bros. because they will play with items on allowing them to win even against their friends who played longer than them. This encourages the beginner to keep on playing, and keeps the advance players on their toes. Beginner players in these matches can see the tactics used against them, and eventually overcome their crutch to have items on or keep on playing their own way. This is the perfect imbalance that extra credits said in the video that makes game more fun for all players, not only advance ones. Look at fighting games in general and you can see why smash bros. is so radically different than any other fighting game. In other fighting games you must learn combos, and moves even before you play against other more experienced players. What niche Smash Bros. fills is the simple fighting game that allows advance and beginning players all have the ability to play, and more fun. Comparing that to a beginner in Virtual fighter getting crushed every single time against an experienced player, its not fun for the beginner to lose every time. So, the player either quits or learns the tactics from the advance player. Only then can you create your own strategy to defeat opponents.

[@jus7addwater]

Hayden Logan Fundamentally that all is meaningless because in the competitive world very few games have a self life of more then 2 years.

[@ameliebernard2838]

One of my firends made me view this video in an argument about LoL balance and i can say it didn't convince me at all. I play LoL with friends, but i can't stand how some champs are, by far, better than others. I understand that every champs has a counter, but I'm not a pro player. I don't get to pick and counter my opponents, I play with the champs I like and wanna play with. I don't want a game to force me into playing a way I don't want. With a pool of champs this big, I was hoping, when i first played the game, that every hero would have been equally viable in any situation, but no one can deny that they're not. (and don't get me started on runes) Tl;Dr: This game will be forever inbalanced, because of the meta around the more viable champs. P.S. Sorry if my english is poor, it's not my main language.

[@nubbbot2319]

Well. Since there's been a big celebration here, I'll call this... Extra Credits - 1ST MILESTONE ACHIEVEMENT COLLECTED ON: July 18, 2008...

[@revimfadli4666]

Great points about the benefits of ever-evolving meta and interesting asymmetry(especially cyclical ones) However, I disagree on the balance of Chess being the source of its defined strategies. You can get a similar body of fixed opening theory in asymmetric, fixed setup, deterministic games as well. The latter two traits seem to be much more significant in causing the "issue" of fixed openings. That's why Bobby Fischer's proposed solution was to instead randomize the starting positions, but keep them symmetric and balanced(though there's still turn order asymmetry)

[@GrumpyOrang]

Change "League of Legends" to "Dota" and you have a perfect video, especially since Dota takes far more strategy vs League.

[@Big-Papa-Smurf]

This didn't age well. He says countering champ A encourages people to play champ B. What he did not account for is champs and builds with zero counterplay. Or when champ A sells more skins than champ B, so they buff champ A and disorder the meta.

[@aozf05]

I think Dota is a much better example than League for what he's trying to explain

[@wellguesswhatIthink]

"It keeps the game from feeling stale, and keeps players from ever feeling they've mastered the game" This is exactly the problem with arbitrary imbalance, there are no goals. You know what happens if I study Chess for a decade? I become really fucking good at Chess. If I did the same with LoL or Magic it wouldn't matter in the same way. Games should aspire to do as well they can, as should we. Perfect imbalance is just an obstacle to that

[@yurisonovab3892]

This show is written for game designers. The goal of this particular discussion is to create a multiplayer experience for your customer base that they will continue to be engaged in. As a business, making it so there is a right strategic choice in any given situation does in fact allow you to become 'really fucking good at' the game, but it also means that only people who are willing to make the time investment to become really fucking good will continue to play. Meanwhile, creating a shifting meta that is more unpredictable keeps a broader player base willing and interesting in your product. It's all about $$$$.

[@wellguesswhatIthink]

Starcraft never had to do this. In Starcraft you got to silver or platinum league or w/e, and were proud of how far you got. And there is something else almost all multiplayer games have, ranked and casual mode. There are other things you could do for the casuals than unbalancing the game: like having overpowered recovery items for when they make mistakes, limited grenade weapons, randomly spawning power-ups to warrant exploration, punishing out-performing players by like revealing where they are, or even temporary safe zones on the map Use training wheels, don't cripple your core mechanics

[@yurisonovab3892]

League is successful. This is the only counter point I need to your argument. There is more than one way to design a game.

[@wellguesswhatIthink]

Yuri Sonovab I just want you to recognize that League's success isn't thanks to un-balancing, but simply despite it. Because un-balancing is a cop-out.

[@ultimategmer]

have no idea why they used league as an example of "cyclical imbalance" because its the exact opposite. the only time the meta ever changes in league is when riot fucks with the balance and makes mordekaiser an ADC or buffs all the marksmen and their items in the same patch. they deliberately do this to shake up the game and keep it fresh, because they know that the meta would stagnate otherwise. there's no natural cycle like this video suggests. its all completely contrived.

[@Maishyn]

IMO patches are one of the most important thing in LoL's dynamics. The mechanics you told about would look differently without all these buffs and nerfs. From what I've seen in LoL (had played it a lot in 2011-2013) there was such a scheme ocurring almost every patch. A new champion came in and it was a bit overpowered. Lots of players bought it, others thought about counters etc. On the next patch it got nerfed, new champ became OP. At the end - players were constantly seeking for new builds and strategies. I am pretty sure that without all these changes the game would become stale after few months. And about chess. Of course, there is a lot of schematic approaches to strategy that a player has to learn to became competetive. But it's not necessarily a good comparison between chess, SC and LoL. Chess strategy was developed for hundreds of years. And chess as a game didn't get "patched" in that time:) (except some tournament structures and time limits). Anyway, interesting video, however i would call this "perfect imbalance" concept as "smart rebalancing".

[@matthewbischoff4497]

league of legends is a horrible example of game balance. in short, with the vast majority of champs locked behind a playwall, you will rarely have access to that champion B to stay relevant in the meta, unless you've spent thousands of hours in game or worse HUNDREDS of dollars to unlock core aspects of the competitive meta. dota 2? all heroes, free, instantly. all the available imbalance is accessible by the player from their very first game. jump in, learn the basics, and you're able to start counterpicking, learn which heroes are currently + or even +++ in the patch you're playing. you will never be at a disadvantage to someone because they have purchased exceptionally strong heroes who aren't available to the rest of the community or because of their B.S AP advantage (which is when the exact same heroes with exact same item builds aren't as strong as their counterpart because of the monetary investment one has made in AP). no you'll only be disadvantaged by your own skill level. how do you really create good imbalance? make a game based around unique individual skill, don't lock off CORE FEATURES OF THE GAME behind a paywall, and let the individual skill levels create the imbalance. Exceptionally strong rat-style players will often. e able to beat players of higher individual skill. a team of five tryhards who communicate better than five who don't communicate will usually come out the winner, given better team coordination. game balance doesn't stem from exploiting hero inbalance, this creates ForM heroes who arguably ruin the game experience, until the next month when another Champion is suddenly meta. game balance stems from equal access to all parts of a game and letting individual skill and playstyle create game balance and imbalance. maybe this won't make sense to someone who doesn't play dota 2 and play LoP instead. but the dota format has had a much longer period of established success than any other competitive game, space counter strike and some tabletop games. millions of dollars and millions of players flow thru it's system of balance/imbalance. tldr league is a bad example of this for game balance, as well as your FTP monetization scheme video. look into the work and success valve is having with Dota 2 and how MASSIVE it's competitive scene has become.

[@Kserijaro]

LoL's meta is so stale, that this clip looks like a joke.

[@SusloNick]

Fail logic, fail examples. 1) Disbalance leads to only few easily findable winning strategies, creating a much more limited shallow game. 2) Chess took centuries to develop all the set strategies and they only work in the limited early-mid game. 3) Huge-variety games like Dota clones need to be constantly re-balanced or else the imba strat is discovered and abused and game becomes limited and shallow. Thus these games are slowly moving towards 'prefectly balanced', despite balance is being drown in variety and randomness (to some extent)

[@ArtArtisian]

you have some interesting statements here, but no logic to support them. so? "Fail logic, fail examples" to you too?

[@MossoDaBanana]

hmm, actually had a good logic and the examples are good. In point 3 and 1 he put his logic and example really well. He's saying that disbalance leads to easily findable strategies and that mobas get rebalanced everytime because of it. You want to see ANOTHER example? When i used to play LoL there were a lot of heroes being released but what happened is that all the new heroes were too strong and everyone rushed to buy them, after one week or so the hero got nerfed because it was a easy findable winning strategy to pick those heroes.

[@ArtArtisian]

It's rather difficult to logically prove the statement "chess strategies only work in the limited early-mid game". I personally know 4-5 solved end games, and I know there are thousands more, we also have 0 reason to believe chess strategy development has stopped (slowed perhaps, no computer can compute all positions for another few dozen decades). I also completely disagree with point 1, and see no reason given to believe it. I can easily imagine a marginally imbalanced system with a counter cycle of arbitrary length, aka: as many strategies as a game can contain could be marginally imbalanced into the cycle. Consider a game with exactly 12 possible 'strategic choices', suppose each is exactly balanced against 10 other choices (self included), under powered against 1, and over powered against another. Keep these OP and UP choices unique, and the game ends up with all 12 'strategies' in the metagame loop. This can be extended arbitrarily, you could even apply this logic to each 'strategic choice' given to a player per second, and have a literally unsolvable metagame. It's infinitely easy to make a poorly imbalanced system, but perfectly imbalanced systems can also obviously exist, and there's no reason to believe this reduction to shallowness is inevitable. You've added no logic to this point, just an example of a less perfect system.

[@MossoDaBanana]

sorry for answering before reading it all, but there's something you said that i need to respond to. There's a simple reason to believe in his statement 1, and a good example is what happens in mobas in general. Almost every time a hero is released everyone plays with it because it's OP but then the company have to BALANCE the hero to make it work on the game. Why that proves what he said? Simple, when a hero is OP everyone pick it to have a easy path to victory, that is not a good thing at all because players that goes against these heroes get killed all the time and ragequit but to FIX this they have to BALANCE the hero to people be able to beat them. The extra credits logic just fail at one point and that is that heroes get countered because they get nerfed. A good example is when earth spirit was released on dota he made every team fight umbearable to the other team so they had to rebalance him changing the way that the skill works so that the hero became BALANCED enough to be used in competitions and etc, but even though that happened the hero had it's counters and etc and he was just a little unbalanced (believe me it was actually easy to counter him) but every tf was lost because the opposing team had to focus earth spirit while the other heroes whooped their ass and if they didn't do it they would have even less chance to win a tf.

[@MossoDaBanana]

the reason that i don't play lol and dota anymore is that in lol i have to play like others want on these ADC go bot, Magic damage go mid and etc was really annoing and dota because the game was simplily not balanced enough at the point that they have to make updates that change the game in such a way that makes it look like you're playing a new moba every update. And the worst, these updates were meant to be balanced but they actually just make the game unbalanced in a different way O.o EDIT: now i readed all your comment and i have to say that i'm not talking about lol or dota i'm talking about MOBAS in general, and yes it is not this way everytime, it happens that some game have a good imbalance but there's certain kinds of game that it don't work that right.

[@Ralathar44]

Must disagree on League of Legends. Outside of characters that are actually definitively imbalanced League of Legends is pretty rote 95% of the time. The problem with your example is that people discover the picks and counter picks quickly and then it becomes rote again. Also, League of Legends is actually pretty criminal in it's monetization. No way to ever buy the full game without spending hundreds and just to get a small dozen champion stable of characters and associated runes would take thousands of hours. That's doable by some, but alot of people cannot spend 40 hours a week on a game. DOTA 2 is a way better example of monetization and Smite allows you to actually just full out buy the game as well as having a similar free to play option. Also neither one of those makes you use runes you have to purchase with hours and hours AND hours of grind or real money JUST to be competitive on any champion. Don't even get me started on their "upgrade" system for runes and purchases of runes before you know what you need (because you are a new player). Bad choice, bad choice indeed.

[@ShawFujikawa]

Why dedicate so much towards disproving an offhanded comment that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the video or LoL's validity as an example of perfect imbalance?

[@Ralathar44]

Shaw Fujikawa Considering that League of Legends was used as a flagship example of the idea I'd honestly say it has everything to do with it. The idea of perfect imbalance doesn't really exist in League of Legends, certainly not in the pro scene. If it exists anywhere it all it's in limited amounts in normal games outside of league/pro play. Even if we perfect imbalance exists in League of Legends however it would be a vehicle to exploit the player for money due to the design of LoL's monetization system.

[@ShawFujikawa]

***** I don't disagree that LoL is not the best example of perfect imbalance. I'm only asking why go into such detail explaining what is wrong with the monetary system when it is tangentially related at best to the topic.

[@Ralathar44]

Because he mentioned it directly and the balance of that game is directly tied to the monetary system. It drives it. With the amount of hours required to get into it as new players you will be essentially "wasting" many many hours and dollars trying to follow the changing balance. He also stated they did free to play in a way that is a win for everyone involved, but if you actually crunch the numbers it utterly hoses anyone without insane amounts of free time. Free time needed on top of the already large difficulty curve. It takes literally hundreds of hours of play to get a tiny stable of champions outfitted with runes so that you can actually play well even if banned. I don't begrudge them of the idea of money = saved time. But they've taken it too far in the money direction. Fortunately for them the majority of their player base, and I myself at one time, is stupid in regards to this and many have spent in excess of $100 on the game where a full priced computer game costs $50-$60. The kicker? Those players still only own a fraction of the game. Then you look at DOTA 2 which is legitly free to play and Smite which allows you a full game buy in for $30. LoL is a complete rip-off that uses it's cyclical imbalance to make money and the idea of perfect imbalance is completely destroyed by that goal.

[@Mincecroft]

Ralathar Renares the problem is with your argument is that lol does perfect imbalance well and the continuous shift in meta game keeps the game fun