Wild Rift Balance Framework: How Riot handles champion updates

Since its initial announcement several months ago, Riot Games has been committed to making Wild Rift one of the most complete experiences in terms of competitiveness, availability and matchmaking, compared to other mobile MOBAs such as Arena of Valor or Mobile Legends.

For this, the development team led by Jonathan “JCM1117” Chao, Gameplay and Balance Lead on Wild Rift, has been in charge of creating and perfecting a balance framework, based on the data that Riot has collected since the alpha and beta tests of the game.

Wild Rift Balance Framework: Handling the balance according to skill and position

(Picture: Riot Games)

The rules that make up this framework has been revealed in a recent developer blog post, acting as a guideline for the developers to help determine which champions should receive buffs, nerfs, or balance updates.

According to Chao, the balance team takes two metrics mainly, being compared through different MMRs to identify possibilities for change and improvement for all the champions of the game.

Starting with stats based on ability, this allows to control whether a champion has a better chance of victory in different MMRs, which will end in an emergency fix. On the other hand, if a champion presents a low win rate in all possible elos, it will be buffed.

Win percentage determined for skill (Picture: Riot Games)

Moving onto the statistics according to the position, this is usually more unstable because the metagame evolves as each patch comes out, so allowing an adequate balance for the game using this method is not usually very fair for everyone.

If anything, for position-focused changes, the MMR issue is put aside and more focused on whether a champion, out of his usual position, has had too much of an impact on the game for ranked queue players.

Win percentage determined by position (Picture: Riot Games)

However, this balance approach will not be as effective for champions who are used in more than two positions, because hitting a skill or statistics of them can affect their performance in all their preferred roles.

Chao also revealed that the balance framework will change in the future. “The framework will get a rework in the future, and we will give you guys an updated version once we incorporate 2 new aspects - pro play and champion bans."

"Furthermore, as we release more champions, the pick rate benchmarks we use in the framework will also change.”