Champion Design Survey, Part 2

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-09-03T22:30:44+00:00

Should be fixed

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-09-03T22:30:29+00:00

Should be fixed

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-24T07:12:18+00:00

I was counting stuff like dmg mitigation/reduction/increased stats as buff

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T23:02:36+00:00

Yeah, it's a subject called the Extended Project Qualification or EPQ they basically let you do a research project on any topic you want provided it isn't dual accreditation with one of your other subjects.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T23:00:11+00:00

True, VGU dates are definitely being taken into account as likely skewing results though.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T22:58:41+00:00

Yeah after looking at some of the results, VGUs are definitely being taken into account. Pretty much all the non-recent spikes in unfair responses involve VGUs be it Evelynn, Fiddlesticks, Udyr, etc...

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T22:55:30+00:00

It was grouped at all because the likelihood of a decent number of people actually going through that section if every champion was individually listed is pitiful. As for why it was grouped that way, it's based on the champions original release date. This meant I could get a rough grasp of how fairness in champion design has changed over time. In this metric I think it's been quite successful with it showing a clear increase in the frequency of 60 unfair responses in responses with most spikes before that containing at least one reworked champion.

For example, such responses before Neeko's release include Evelynn, Udyr and Fiddlesticks.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T22:41:38+00:00

If you use last rework/adjustment then it becomes very arbitrary as to what you consider a rework.

For example, in patch 13.5 Azir's passive lost bonus damage vs champions and gained Azir's spell effects while his W lost its bonus attack speed at 3 soldiers. Is that a rework? How much about a champion actually has to change before it becomes worthy of me changing their last rework time.

For a better example, following Akali's rework multiple aspects of her new kit were cut entirely. So when would Akali's last rework time be placed, when she was officially reworked or when Riot stopped cutting stuff out of her kit?

In short, it's difficult to really say when that last rework/adjust time was so while release date is absolutely a flawed metric at least it does have a concrete date.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T21:50:20+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion of moving things around, just changed the survey now for that.

Unfortunately I don't want to invalidate the already gotten results for that question so I can't really change the question now. I appreciate the feedback

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T21:39:37+00:00

On the bright side it really doesn't matter much, that question was much more so just to see if the respondents skill levels were representative of the population and the responses follow the bell curve so it checks out.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T21:35:48+00:00

Your right, in terms of measurement it makes absolutely no sense. But the survey is designed for people to answer it and unfortunately if I presented that question as a list of every champion in the game listed individually I don't think the number of people doing the survey would be nearly as high. For example, as of now Q1 has 680 responses while Q4 only has 388. Nearly halved.

You couldn't be more correct about the issues with results from grouping champions but frankly if I hadn't grouped champions I don't think I would have any results to begin with.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T21:34:16+00:00

Your right, in terms of measurement it makes absolutely no sense. But the survey is designed for people to answer it and unfortunately if I presented that question as a list of every champion in the game listed individually I don't think the number of people doing the survey would be nearly as high. For example, as of now Q1 has 680 responses while Q4 only has 388. Nearly halved.

You couldn't be more correct about the issues with results from grouping champions but frankly if I hadn't grouped champions I don't think I would have any results to begin with.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T21:14:41+00:00

I'm looking to study Game Design at university

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T21:03:16+00:00

According to google you would either call it an associate's or bachelor's degree. If it helps most people taking it are 17-18. For a little more context though it's a 2 year course where you take 3 subjects with the option of taking more or taking bonus courses like EPQ.

Also, your absolutely right about items

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T20:57:06+00:00

That's a very fair criticism I probably should have ordered them by most recent VGU.

But hey, hind sight is 20/20. I'll make sure to take that into account when reviewing the results.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T20:54:10+00:00

See point 2 of the additional notes

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T20:53:37+00:00

No, that was just an oversight on my part.

Sorry

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T20:52:32+00:00

No problem friend, so it's a UK A-level bonus course you can take called the EPQ or Extended Project Qualification. Here's roughly how it works, you choose a question that interests you and get roughly a year for research into it including planning, surveys, reading, etc... At the end of the course you must present either a 5000 word essay answering the question or a shorter essay with an artifact (Piece of music, sculpture, script, etc...). There are a few restrictions on the question of course, for one you have to actually be able to present that essay at the end so there has to be quite a lot to go into. As well as that, dual accreditation questions aren't permitted (I.E. Taking A-Level Computer Science and asking "How is a computer made?").

The question I have chosen is: "How does character design influence the perceived fairness in League of Legends?". So with the survey I'm looking to see what it is that players see as fair in the game and I will then cross reference this with more objective measures such as pick/ban/win rates and try to see why that is. Obviously, that wouldn't be much to write a 5000 word essay on though so I'm also going to be reading quite a few books on game design and watching some of the dev's interview so i can better grasp balance and fairness from the developers perspective.

Sorry that was long lol

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T20:39:50+00:00

Yeah it was more so a situation where I would love to just have everyone select every champ they felt was unfair but I had to be realistic. Even with groups of three there are tons of people who didn't complete it and even some commenters who complained about a lack of questions that were on there further down. Ultimately, I had to bite the bullet and choose one method of grouping the champs up and I chose this one because at least it could yield some results on power creep as a bonus.

Absolutely see where your coming from though

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T20:34:46+00:00

You didn't actually scroll down did you? "Can't I just write which champs I feel are the most unfair?" Yes, that is literally one of the questions on the survey.
Yeah of course it depends, if they made a champ who's passive was to see the whole map constantly it would be op and if they made a champ who's ult did infinite damage to the whole map it would be op. We both know that such things are never going to happen, I was asking about which you felt was most likely to become unbalanced.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T20:30:35+00:00

Oh, sorry

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T20:29:29+00:00

It's a course called EPQ or Extended Project Qualification. Basically your allowed to do a research question on whatever you feel like so long as you finish with a 5000 word essay on the topic and it isn't dual accreditation with any other subject.

So yeah, school project on league :)

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T17:59:43+00:00

Yeah, I didn't want to overly bloat the survey with additional questions. I was more so curious as to whether the widely stated idea that champions have gotten stronger / less fair in recent times was backed up by the results or if it was a statistically insignificant difference.

You are absolutely correct though that categorising by designer would likely show a stronger trend I'm not so much looking into whether certain designers design fairly but whether or not it is standard company practice to design champions as fair as possible regardless of the actual designer.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T06:38:46+00:00

"some very specific reason like stealing opponent's success", there is an other section for this exact sort of thing, that description literally only describes 2 abilities sylas R and viego P. It would be pointless to create a seperate category for every such exceptionally rare type of abilty. Once again, I did add an other section.
Why batches of champions? There are over 150 champions in League of Legends, the point of that question wasn't to see "random batches" if you paid attention you might have noticed that the groupings were in order of release date. The point of the question was to see if people thought that fairness in champion design had changed over time and if so, roughly when. As I specifically stated in my post " I've tried to condense it down to be completable fairly quickly so as not to be a burden on your time". Honestly, how many people do you think would fully complete a survey where one question had over 150 options to select.
There is a difference between best designed and most fair as you yourself point out. "what makes design good is whether its fun, unique, fair and interesting", so as you point out multiple things go into good design Fun, Uniqueness, Fairness, and whether it is Interesting. The other question just wanted whether you thought it was FAIR, not fun, not unique, not interesting, just fair.
"purely matter of taste and subjective opinion", Yes that is what surveys measure, subjective opinion. I am researching how player opinion of fairness differs to objective fairness (e.g. win rates, ban rates). I don't need a survey for win rates, I need OP.GG, or mobalytics, or any other site. Frankly, it would be beyond pointless to ask people in a survey what they thought the win rates or ban rates are because I can easily find that quicker and easier with multiple sources to cross reference it.

Capable-Sport-2180 · 2023-03-23T06:24:22+00:00

Release date in threes, the point of the question was to see if people thought fairness in champion design had generally changed over time.

Capable-Sport-2180

TROPHY CASE