Riot Games analysts do some of the toughest and most reluctant work in League of Legends. They barely know the public and don’t get much praise when things are going well. If a player remembers it, it’s just to discredit their favorite champion or a new character for being nervous about breaking too much. But most of them don’t even know what they’re doing. To resolve this situation, an employee of the company in this position tried to explain what his job was.
What does this work consist of?
In a nutshell, we can define analytics teamwork as supporting key developers for all new game-related content. The team should try in every way to anticipate how the new mechanic/stabilizer might affect the rest of League of Legends and try to integrate them seamlessly into the game. In a very interesting metaphor, Riot GalaxySmash said they looked like an umbrella resting on designers’ shoulders. The mainstay of the gaming operation would hardly exist without it.
For more specific topics, be aware that most of the work of this team is done before the publication of the news. It is true that there are cases where they participate or affect the competitive balance of the game, but the staff of this department consider their other functions to be more important. The goal is to see the idea through to the end, to work with the main designers. They help build a theoretical prototype by giving instructions on how to work with the rest of the game.
A very interesting example that illustrates a non-IG balancing aspect is the creation of a broken queen crown. At this point, the analysts started their mission with the reference that “goods must fit a large number of champions” to avoid problems. In this case, they were responsible for helping developers add nuances to prevent the item from descending instead of permanently freezing it as a “protective” item in the build. Achieving this nuance so that the two objects are not in direct competition in each structure, but that each corresponds to a particular idea testifies to the success of the team of analysts.
Do you have to be well qualified to be an analyst?
The analyst is not just a game, and not as enviable as it seems. If they spend long hours on Summoner’s Rift, they will spend at least as much on a less fun “video game”: Excel. They must compile spreadsheets that collect all types of data and combine numerical (quantitative) analysis with contextual (qualitative) analysis. How much damage does Kiana need to do to be a good killer? What percentage of damage does he need to drop to the peak to compensate for damage in certain enchantment areas? These are some of the questions the analysis team must answer. Their good performance in this area will make champions as balanced (at least statistically) as other players.
Finally, they explained that a high-level game like Mortdog has no position requirement. While Riot Games’ analytics team currently has a large number of employees who are MMR masters or above, others are not highly rated. After all, it’s a job that requires you to start League of Legends hours before it starts and won’t let you give up. However, it is not exactly an elite institution, and while there are sometimes specific vacancy assessment requirements, any player can submit their CV for the next vacancy.
Source : Millenium
