Player perception is something we talk about frequently when we’re working on champions (particularly polarizing champs like Zoe, Yasuo, Zed, etc.), though very rarely does it influence whether we take action on a champ in a vacuum. A very common statement that we’ll hear is “X champion is frustrating to play against,” which is a pretty vague statement that could refer to any number of in-game experiences: Is it that counterplay doesn’t feel obvious despite having faced the champion many times? Is it that you die very quickly when the champion executes their combo well? Is it that they have high mobility and are very hard to hit with skillshots? Is it that you feel like you can’t walk into Fog of War to follow them if they’re roaming?

All of the above impact your perception of a champion, but not all of them are indicative of a problem. If Zed takes you from 100% hp to 0% by hitting all his shurikens + ult + duskblade + ignite, should we nerf that? As an assassin it means he did his job, and nerfing him so he couldn’t kill you would remove him from ever being considered a viable champion. What we should do is make sure you have tools at your disposal to help you handle these situations (in this case, building armor or getting a GA or Zhonya’s), but our response to the perception that “Zed is frustrating” should not just be to nerf him.

Another thing we consider is that the perception around specific champions or the meta varies drastically depending on MMR, region, position played, etc. While something may feel like an issue to a very specific set of players, oftentimes (but not always) that perception does not impact the rest of the playerbase. What might be a problem in NA at high MMR may not be an issue in KR, what’s an issue in Brazil in low MMR might not be an issue in Vietnam, and so on. We try our best to design with a global perspective.

To summarize—we utilize player perception as flags for potential problems that we need to dig into, but they aren’t necessarily an immediate call to action that something needs to be done.