Tonight's red post collection includes the announcement for the Snowdown Shop returning to the client on 12/12, Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for December 8th, a /Dev on the visual design of the Leveling system, and more!
- Red Post Collection: Ask Riot, New Snowdown Merch, and More!
- 12/8 PBE Update: Even More Tentative Balance Changes
Table of Contents
- Your Snowdown Shop returns until January 8, 2018
- Quick Gameplay Thoughts: December 8th
- /Dev: The Visual Design of League Leveling
- Quick Hits
- Reminders
Your Snowdown Shop returns until January 8, 2018
Stock up on discounted champs and skins curated for you this Snowdown season, starting December 12, 2017 at 8:00 AM PT. Your Snowdown Shop features up to six unique champions or skins (excluding Legendary, Limited, Loot-exclusive, and Ultimate) released more than three months ago—all discounted at up to 70% off. Grab your favorites before doors close on January 8, 2018 at 11:59 PM PT.
Questions? Visit our FAQ."
Quick Gameplay Thoughts: December 8th
"Hi all,
Usual Disclaimers
These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get put delayed or even stopped.
If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler
Forbidden Idol
We're testing a nerf to Forbidden Idol, and items that build from it, where they give less Heal/Shield power. That's driven by the belief that too much of Enchanter power especially is coming from that stat, which was previously balanced at those numbers when Enchanters had less gold income and therefore weren't stacking the effect as much.
We feel pretty good about that nerf long term. A complicating factor though is that Enchanters aren't generally looking out of line at present. We're confident it's a good change overall, but not necessarily in the short term however. We're still discussing whether it's something we should ship now, and then adjust around it in following patches. Or whether we should hold it until we have other changes to go with it. Or until enchanter strength is high. Or at the least we until won't have as large a gap between patches as the upcoming holiday period, so if follow up is needed it's not as delayed.
Grasp of the Undying
We're also been testing out a possible change to Grasp of the Undying, where instead of giving bonus health permanently on hit it gives temporary, stacking, adaptive AP/AD. Primary goal of that testing has been to see whether we can better serve various fighters as well in the Resolve tree, without overly penalizing existing Grasp users. We've also got a secondary goal of seeing whether the permanent health gain on Grasp is ultimately a problematic mechanic, given how variable it can be game to game (e.g. amount you stack in a melee versus melee fight, versus amount you don't get to stack laning against a ranged opponent as melee).
If that revised version of Grasp doesn't work out we'll then most likely go back to existing Grasp and try testing a gradual stacking Adaptive AP/AD Resolve keystone at some point. Some of the interest there is that a ramping power/outlast your opponent approach potentially makes more sense being time based and in the tree about living longer (Resolve), compared to the previous infinite stacking of Press the Attack in the precision tree.
Resolve Style Bonus
And for our third thing in testing discussion - the resolve tree style bonus. We're going to be testing that as a mixture of HP and the stat from your other tree, rather than all HP. For people going resolve primary that should give a bit more early offensive power and, sometimes crucially, last hitting ability. For people going resolve secondary that should help deliver a bit more baseline defense, which is generally what we're seeing be wanted from Resolve as a secondary pick. We're hoping that proves to be particularly helpful for fighters feeling they can't at present get the right split of offense and defense.
This is still a pretty experimental change, that's barely been into any tests and may not hit the PBE for a while (or ever, if it fails initial testing hard enough). Really interested to hear people's thoughts about the concept though. At least for now other trees stat bonuses won't be getting split, this is just a change being tested for Resolve at present."
When asked for thought on Teemo and Ezreal, Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Hey Meddler! Teemo has been pretty oppressive in top lane, is the reduction to his base AD all that he's getting, and if so, do you think it will truly be enough to get him in line?
ALSO: Ezreal still seems strong. Opinion?We've been testing a reduction to Teemo's Health per level as well, thinking there being that base AD hit alone's probably not enough by itself. Having said that he's too strong, but not radically so, so don't want to hammer him too hard.
Ezreal does look a bit strong still. We've been talking about whether or not to nerf him in 7.24b or wait and see where he's at for 8.1. Last I heard the team had yet to come to a conclusion on that, in part since waiting for 8.1 lets us put that time into another champ instead and gives us a better understanding of what to hit/how hard."
Meddler provided context on the Yasuo MR changes that are in testing this PBE cycle:
"Quote:
I'm curious. I thought Yasuo had low MR growth precisely because of his frequent shield, which is the same reason that Kassadin has low MR growth (that and his magic damage reducing passive). So why is his MR growth being increased?We've kept Yasuo's (and Kassadin's) MR low historically because they've had sufficient defenses in the rest of their kit. All else being equal we'd standardize them to other melee. We discussed that in 7.9, but concluded it wasn't appropriate, given their survivability and power level at that time. Right now by contrast Yasuo's not performing that well, particularly in mid lane. We'd like to buff him more in mid than top, both because of that weaker performance there and because we believe he's generally got better counterplay in mid, hence the MR buff which is expected to provide more power generally there than top."
Meddler continued:
"Quote:
But better against tank tops no? Since they are mostly magic based.Yeah, it'll be a buff in some circumstances top too of course, and post laning phase generally. He's a bit weak top as well though, so we've got some room for that."
On Morgana. Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Why Morgana's HP growth got nerfed? Is it a compensation for the reworked passive? Doesn't support Morgana get hurt by this because she doesn't get as much AP as in mid?
I feel like there's heavy balancing around base stats for the last several months. Any details on that?Because we overbuffed Morgana across the board (not just mid, even if that was the strongest case) and wanted to bring her power back down. HP/level was chosen there to reduce her safety somewhat.
We have been making quite a few base stat adjustments recently. That's in large part due to the move from old runes/mastery to new runes, which has thrown stat baselines around a bit leaving us needing to do quite a bit of polish."
When asked for updated on Volibear, Meddler replied:
"Quote:
whats now with volibear, i still dont see any buffs on pbe XD. Was the buff postponedDelayed until probably 8.1. We want to look at some broader options beyond just the AS buff on W previously tested, conclusion was that wasn't hitting the mark."
When asked about champions he had a hand in designing, Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Hey Meddler wanted ask for your thoughts on several of your own champs
Curious as to why Ziggs seems to be the favorite of all the you've designed
Do you regret designing Lissandra's passive the way you did since it hasn't aged well
What role would you say Elise is since she doesn't really behave like most other DiversZiggs will probably always hold a place in my heart simply because he was the first champ I got to do most of the design work on. A secondary benefit is that I still really enjoy his personality.
Yeah, Lissandra's passive doesn't deliver well enough. I'm pretty happy with the rest of the kit, the passive's a product of the much more limited design time per champ we had back then, with Lissandra's design time getting squeezed between late Elise changes and the Sejuani update work.
I think Elise is closest to a diver still, though there some assassin and pick mage elements in there too."
Riot Popc0rner also popped in to comment on Lethal Tempo being disabled in URF:
"Quote:
Sorry if someone asked it already but why is lethal tempo banned in urf? I know it would be extreamly broken but isnt nerfing it a bit for the gamemode only a more fun option?Runes were hot off the presses when we were working on Snow Battle ARURF -- we didn't really have enough time to adjust all the ones that didn't play nice with URF's rules. I totally agree that disabling some runes feels pretty bad; hopefully we'll be able to dream up a more balanced version of Lethal Tempo for next time."
Meddler commented on long term goals for the Runes system:
"Quote:
long term, is the goal to stay at a low number of runes like now and focus on fine adjustments to optimize the current runes or a higher number and focus on letting different champions have more divergent rune paths?We'll likely add a moderate number more (around 4 per slot instead of 3 eventually maybe)."
On Ornn, Meddler replied:
"Quote:
Any plans to nerf Ornn since every region and every elo think he's too strong?Just nerfed him this week in 7.24, open to hitting him again in 7.24b or 8.1 depending on how latest changes affect him."
Meddler commented more on the changes in testing for the Sorcery line of runes:
"Quote:
If Sorcery is getting nerfed to target some of the marksmen using comet, then why it's AP getting nerfed too?Not sure at this point if we'll necessarily hit Comet. Sorcery's looking strong in general though, relative to other trees, with amount of start of game AP/AD it offers being a large part of that, hence we're looking at bringing its path bonus down so it's only slightly higher than Domination's."
/Dev: The Visual Design of League Leveling
Check out this week's new /Dev, covering the visual design of the uncapped leveling system:
"Hey guys, we’re Riot_Mort and SpicyMemeDreamz, here to talk about some of the key design elements behind League’s new leveling system.
With the uncapped leveling system, our goal was to recognize and reward you for playing League regardless of your playstyle or skill level. We also wanted to give you the ability to progressively show off your dedication to the game in the years to come.
UNCAPPING LEAGUE’S LEVELING
Since our intention was to build an uncapped leveling system that could grow with you, we had to think early about how the visual language could scale with those conventions. In plain speak, how do we make you look cooler as you level up? We looked at a lot of systems in other games (and in real life) to see how progression feels across them all, and found that there seems to always be a point where visual representations of progression go overboard. Whether it’s an adornment of stars or additional medals and materials tacking onto the sides, a visual representation of progression always runs the risk of looking the same (or unintelligible) after a certain point.
 |
| Various sketch explorations looking to define the overall look of the progression system |
LEVERAGING CURRENT SYSTEMS
For League’s system, we looked for an expression of progression that would continually feel fresh for you, but also had clear points of distinction when you were comparing your progress against that of others. To accomplish that, we first examined our existing progressions systems. We wanted strong design elements we could leverage into something new, while still maintaining a sense of familiarity. It was also a big focus of ours to provide you with goals, or checkpoints, as you level, to give you that awesome feeling of accomplishment. Being able to reach meaningful thresholds allows everyone to feel like they’re working towards an achievable goal instead of grinding to infinity.
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