[2022] Crit rework to remove randomness?

So to clear things up that is not the reason why we like randomness, it is possible that some Rioters like it for that reason and that it is 100% valid. But there are a number of reasons for random crits can be good.

First I want to define two terms that come into play here.

Post-Action Randomness - This refers to randomness that happens after an action is taken. The obvious example here being Crit chance like you are talking about. This is best used when you want to add variance to an otherwise "solved" situation. It creates drama and pushes players to react to what just happened. A great example is rolling a 1 or a 20 in D&D.

Pre-Action Randomness - This is randomness that the player is made aware of ahead of time, and asked to plan for. The obvious example here is the Dragons on Elemental Rift. You know ahead of time what one is going to spawn and are able to plan for that.

Both have their places and can be used poorly. But the existance of randomness is not bad for competition and in many ways is good for it. As it asks players to be tested and react to new situations.

Ok those are cool terms, we can all tell our families we learned something cool today, but why does Riot like random crit chance? Well, there are a few big reasons.

1- The primary reason that we like randomness is because it adds variance to combat that is otherwise "solved". Imagine two Ashe's attacking each other, the only difference being that one has 100 AD and the other has 80 AD, who wins? Obviously, the Ashe with more AD, note that does not mean the Ashe with more skill, or the better player. It means the Ashe who spent their gold most recently. Post Action random Crit being added to this adds variance to the combat, this can favor the worse player, however, the better player will come out ahead in repeated fights over the course of the game, and they are also more likely to have more crit chance by being ahead due to other actions.

Mages, for example, don't have access to random crit chance on their abilities because they should already have plenty of variance in combat. Their abilities are dodgeable, and/or high risk, and missing a key ability likely means they are going to lose the fight.

This is also a great system to hook other systems into for further variances, such as Trynd's fury generation, or Quickblades CD refund. It allows this variance to exist, but for players to build towards controlling that variance over the duration of the game.

2- Crits are hype, as others have pointed out most players don't feel the same way level of excitement about Ashe's crit system as they do about random crits that other champions have access to. Seeing that "crit" number is actually far more important and satisfying to people than you would think. Ashe does pay a bit of a "hype tax" for this predictability, even when she is very strong she is often seen as weak because she doesn't FEEL as strong as other marksmen. In fact, the only time I saw players agreeing she felt like she was in a fine spot was when she was the most powerful champion in her role by a healthy margin.

What about Jhin he doesn't have random crit, and his basics are hype? This is because Jhin has a specific attack cadence that builds to a crescendo. Whereas someone like Ashe has a steady pattern, and random crit has a variance of excitement, Jhin is building to a big moment. Here is a bad visualization if that is helpful.

• Ashe (-------------------------)
  • Really this should be (_____________), but I wanted to show the higher damage over another champion's non-crits.
• Jinx (___'_"_"_"___"_"_"_""_)
• Jhin (___"___"___"___"___")

3- It is great for protecting player's egos. If a I lose I can always blame the randomness, even if I would have lost purely from skill alone. For those that player card games, think of the number of times an opponent protected their ego by saying "you got a lucky draw" "The shuffler liked you more" "you're so lucky" this is all basically the same as getting a crit just at a much larger scale. Randomness in a game means that I as a player can blame it for my loss even if the outcome would have otherwise been exactly the same if there was no randomness. I'd argue it is important to provide this as a tool to players because this takes the blame off themselves. And if they want to blame Riot we'll take that.

4- This isn't so much an argument for random crits, but it is worth bringing up. Crit is a great multiplier for a class whose identity is so wrapped up in basic attacks and scaling. Marksmen have the highest number of damage multipliers (AS, Crit, AD, ARpen, on-hit) and this allows them to be the highest scaling class of champions. While I understand your argument isn't to simply remove it, I wanted to bring up that if we did simply remove it would mean they lose a key multiplier and that would make us all very sad.

It is true that assassins typically deal damage with their abilities, however, there have been instances where assassins would build crit because it was very reliable for them. Rengar with the original Solari Chargeblade is a great example of this. He does end up dealing a bulk of his damage through basic attacks, and the original Solari Chargeblade gave him enough crit chance to count on it when going for targets. Assassins tend to want reliability because they need to put themselves at major risk when going for a target.

So while most assassins tend to deal damage through abilities, there are plenty that could reasonably build some amount of crit chance if it was just a flat amp to their basic attacks, Rengar being the obvious example. But crit chance being random means that building it has much more inherent risk, and an assassination attempt where you don't crit likely means a failed assassination. Thus building for AD+ARpen is more reliable, helping to create different itemization for assassins vs marksmen/crit users.

Sorry for the delayed response, it's been an eventful weekend.

Ya Input/Output randomness is the same thing, just under different names (the games industry is bad at using consistent terms). In general Input randomness is going to be easier for players to receive and in a blanket statement like he was making there I would 100% agree that Input randomness is the preferred type. But like in most things a blanket statement tends to miss important details. It has been a long time since I saw that article, though I know what one you are referring to, I also wasn't at Riot at the time so take this all with a heap of salt, but I think I remember him saying that Riot didn't want to add more output randomness to the game, not that the plan was to strip it out or that any output randomness is inherently bad for a competitive game. I don't know LoLPC's current views/plans but I don't believe they see crits as a problem and given the ~6ish year since that article viewpoints can evolve/change. There are plenty of competitive games with varying level of output randomness.

I'll touch more on card games below, but randomness applies to games that people don't think of as being random, and it is more about what works for your game/playerbase. Many FPS's have some sort of "bullet spread" on their guns (particularly shotguns) this is inherently random, what teammates you get in a game has some level of randomness (though controlled by things like ELO, and who is online at a given time).

1. I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree here, you brought up bruisers and the reality is that most of League's early bruisers needed to be reworked to include more variance because they were all general low variance stat sticks. Yes, they did it in a different way, but that is because, as a class, they are MUCH less reliant on their basic attacks. ADCs as a class, are built around the idea that I can repeatedly attack a person at range and that those attacks will hit. If we were to change all basic attacks into skill shots we would likely get a level of variance that wouldn't necessitate crits (We call this Ezreal). But that isn't something that everyone in the ADC role is looking for, and is a narrow design space to put everything into. Yes it clearly does work, but it isn't the only thing that works, and how many Ezreal likes do we want for the game? Reliability is also important not just for a variety of experiences but for a variety of skill levels, and team comps.
   Supports do exist and add variance, but that just means that we are shifting the ADC's variance onto another position and that it puts more onto another player rather than onto the individual champion. That puts a larger burden on knowing what supports/ADC pair well together, and a lot more knowledge on them.
2. Yes, getting crit doesn't feel great, and you are right people tend to put more weight not negative experiences than positive ones. However, most people also tend to pay attention to themselves over others, meaning they are paying attention to their own numbers rather than what is hitting them. Obviously, there are exceptions and this isn't going to be all or nothing. Yes you are much more likely to see people complaining about missing crits or getting crit X times than someone happy their opponent didn't get crits or that they got X crits in a row, this is social media people complain.
   You are right that Ashe's problem isn't strictly because of the passive, sorry if I gave the impression that I was saying it was just because of her passive, if that was the case we would have changed it. Ashe is a utility champion and that tends to be difficult for the general playerbase to appreciate. However the passive is doing her any favors, and it decreases satisfaction for the champion while also being a fair bit trickier to understand.
3. Yes giving players tools to protect their egos is important. It is HIGHLY unlikely that a random crit is what lost you the game, if that were the case the game would need to be so perfectly balanced in a way that skill didn't matter and this RNG is really what decided things. However, we know that is not the case, because every 3rd thread I see is about X champion being strong/weak, and this is the first topic on crit/RNG that I have seen for Wild Rift. If you walk away from a fight saying "they got lucky" is it really luck or did they, though skill, put themselves into a situation where that could happen? That is you protecting your ego.
   Regarding card games, I'm not sure what bad habit you are referring to. Though I think there are sectors of the card game community that hate the RNG that many of those games tend to have, but if it was truly bad why haven't we seen a card game take off that removes the randomness of your deck's order? It wouldn't be difficult for someone like Magic to say "ok from now on instead of drawing from your deck you can choose what card you want" or "instead of shuffling your deck select the order you want to put your cards in" I have seen card games try this, (Shout out to Aeon's End being great) but they get their randomness/varity etc from other aspects of the game. I can't think of a single major card game that has worked out without some level of deck shuffle-style randomness. Instead, that is built into the game, and part of the fun is accounting for that randomness. IDK if you are MTG player but go ahead and try playing with one of those modifications. You'll find that things get boring and solve quickly. So while people love to complain about randomness it is doing exactly what it should be, providing variety, and giving players some other place to blame. Granted I think randomness in something like MTG has a MUCH larger impact than random crits in Wild Rift, but the fundamental point is the same.
4. On-hit is a tricky one because fundamentally if the problem is X needs to do damage then there isn't a choice of On-hit vs crit, it is really "does my champion scale better with on-hit or crit" build that. Your proposed crit change would effectively mean converting crit to on-hit. And while I do like On-hit as a system I think it should be doing something different than just damage. Keeping crit as its own thing, separate from on-hit, keeps that door open for whatever that could be.