Revelation VR: Red Post Collection: Quick Gameplay Thoughts: May 16, GDPR & Improved Data Security Worldwide & More

Today's red post collection includes Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for 5/16, including thoughts on true damage and feedback on Pyke, as well as updates on GPDR and what that means for League, and more!

Continue reading for more information!

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: May 16

Check out Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for May 16th:

"Hi folks,

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

True Damage

Since we've got a couple of new high profile sources of true damage (Conqueror and the upcoming IE change) figured it would be a good time to talk about our thinking around it.

Recap:

True Damage is damage that's not reduced by Armor or MR. No other effects increase or decrease it (damage amps like Press the Attack, Damage Reduction like Alistar ult etc). It can be blocked by shields/invulnerabilities. It's usually spell damage (e.g. Cho ult that applies things like spell vamp) or proc damage (doesn't trigger most effects).

Why we use it:

On paper, true damage sounds like it's just plain better than other damage and, point for point, that's almost always true. What true damage also does however is level the playing field a lot between how effective an ability or attack is against a tanky target versus a squishy one. Defensive heavy enemies can therefore take meaningful damage without the damage in question having to be so high it's excessive against everyone else.

To give an example, let's assume two targets, one with 80 armor and one with 240. Against a physical damage hit of 600 damage the 80 armor target takes 333 damage (44% reduction). The 240 armor target takes 150 damage (75% reduction). If that's the desired contrast in damage, perfect, physical damage makes sense. Things get trickier however if you need to offer more tank killing power. Let's say for arguments sake that 250 damage against tanks is needed here for the champ in question to be effective at fighting enemy front lines. To get that using physical damage alone we'd have to push damage against our squishy target up to 555. Using true damage by contrast we can drop damage against the squishy down to 250 if that's desirable, or use a partial true damage conversion if still after some difference.

Why not just use more Armor/Magic Pen?

Armor/Magic Pen also narrow that gap between squishy and tanky targets. We've got a lot of those effects in the game too as a result and they're particularly useful when you want a mid point between 'equal damage to everybody' and 'very large contrasts in how hard you hit people'.

For cases where you want complete equality, full true damage is the way to go. For things like Conqueror or IE though you could accomplish the same sorts of results using % pen, rather than a partial conversion to true damage. True Damage has the benefit of being easier to understand the impact of in game though, both for the user and the victim.

For the victim, seeing physical damage of 600 points for example might suggest you should build a lot of Armor. If that damage is ignoring most of your Armor already however (e.g. GP barrels stacked with % pen or shred) building health's often going to be the better defensive choice. A partial conversion to true damage makes it clearer that that's the case by contrast.

For the applier of the True Damage benefits are a mixture of satisfaction and better understanding of the power of the effect they've got.

But there's no counterplay to True Damage!

Item counterplay to True Damage is lower, that's true. Item options still exist though. Health and shields are the primary item responses. Depending on the circumstances though effects like Frozen Heart's Attack Speed Slow, Zhonya's invulnerability, QSS's ability to prevent getting locked down in the first place etc are still strong responses to True Damage threats.

Counterplay's also not just something that exists in the item system - there's more to it than just 'what item do I buy do beat this thing'. Less item counterplay does mean a heavier burden on other types of counterplay though certainly, which is why we'll often use true damage particularly on melee effects and/or sustained damage, rather than ranged burst for example.

Frequency of True Damage

We've been using True Damage more than launch LoL/early seasons did. That's due to a belief on our part that it's a valuable tool for helping balance the game that was underutilized.

Shouldn't expect a constant rush of new True Damage effects though. Post Conqueror and IE we don't have anything in the pipe, at least so far, that would offer True Damage to a wide audience. Likely it crops up on some individual kits over the next year of course. At present only one of the new champs/VGUs currently in development has True Damage on their kit, possible that number changes though certainly.

Pyke Feedback
Now that Pyke's on PBE feedback would be especially appreciated if you're playing him on a few things in particular:

How you find his performance as a support versus other positions. Pyke's got some tools (basic ability hard CCs) we don't normally allow assassins or assassin like kits. There's some risk that counterplay that's ok when he's on a lower XP and gold income as a support and needs an ally's help to get kills generally won't be appropriate if he's able to function solo

How you find the experience of playing alongside him as an ally. Particularly interested in things like whether you can understand his game plan plus how much he's roaming and how that feels.

Whether, even if he's not necessarily able to play like a true assassin, he captures the feeling of it, in particular for those of you who enjoy playing assassins and have at least some interest in playing support.

How his build paths feel, particularly given the HP to AD conversion on his passive.

Testing a change to tower regen

One change that's on the PBE at present that's harder to spot is that we're testing out a change to how inhib and nexus towers regenerate health.On Live those towers regenerate some health when damaged. What we're trying is having them only regenerate health up to the next 1/3 marker on them (signaled by notches on their health bars and the damaged tower animations). A tower that's at 79% health for example will still regen up to 100%. A tower at 50% would regen to 66%. And a tower at 32% would regen to 33% etc.

We're making that change in part to open up the ways you can approach taking down a base. The full regen model makes partial sieges much lower value unless you're coming back soon. It also means split pushing against an inhib tower tends to be an all or nothing thing a lot of the time. Giving partial success cases (cool, got it below 33% even if we didn't kill it) should help out those as alternative strategies to usually just blowing through the whole tower in one go, usually as a full team."

When asked about the execute marker on Pyke's ult, Meddler noted:

"Quote:

Pyke is the first champ to have a notch on enemy healthbars to show when you can execute them, could this be added to other execute champs like urgot?
Maybe. It's a bit of a test to see how it goes, in particular whether making it so players can more consistently use execute ults effectively results in more interesting gameplay (clear tension and trade offs) or a flatter experience (removal of skill test and chance for failure)."

When asked about Hail of Blades, Meddler commented:

"Quote:

Will Hail of blades return ?
Really looking up to this rune for Tryndamere in the jungle.
Yep, it's still coming. Plan is still to have it in 8.11."

On Pyke and AD items, Meddler replied:

"Quote:

Do you feel Pyke will need itemization support that may open up more AD based support items? Besides Cleaver there’s very few items that have team utility and give AD. Do you thinking items to fill those niches would open up more champs for the support position like Ashe, Poppy, or Trundle who have AD ratios and deal physical damage?
More AD item support's a possibility yeah. We did do a little bit of testing of AD support items, but concluded pretty quickly we needed to focus on other midseason changes rather than splitting our focus so much. Would like to get back to it though, hopefully sometime this year, with champs like Ashe, MF, Trundle etc also potential users."

As for his thoughts on AD supports, Meddler commented:

"Quote:

Hey meddler question about Pyke, how do you feel about the designs of AD supports since SolCrushed mentioned it's unlikely you guys do one because they usually have an imbalanced power budget due to aD buffings autos
I don't think there's anything that blocks us from designing/supporting AD supports. Auto attack scaling's something to account for, but as a sustained source of damage that's potentially easier if anything to design around. Certainly changes how you'll be able to spend power on their kit, since there'll be a solid AA baseline, but that's just a constraint to work with, not a blocker."

When asked about using percent health damage vs. true damage, Meddler commented:

"Quote:

Why not use percent health damage rather than true damage? I'm sure there is an obvious answer, but it escapes me.
Because a lot of the time the difference in mitigation (Armor/MR) between the targets we're trying to equalize is much larger than the difference in health pools. % health damage is a really useful tool too though certainly."

Meddler also noted:

"Thoughts on jungle changes, AP junglers included, either in Friday's post and/or first one of next week. Since those changes went out just hours ago we haven't had a chance yet to assess where they're landed, how that compares to what we were targeting, unintended consequences etc."

GDPR & Improved Data Security Worldwide

Here's Riot Ruin3d with an update on the GPDR and what it means for League of Legends:

"Greetings summoners,

If you live in Europe, you may have heard about GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). If not, here’s the tldr: The EU recently passed new data privacy laws that will require some changes to how companies like Riot store and manage your data.

So what do you need to know?

Not much will noticeably change for the majority of players, even within Europe.

On the backend, companies will add new processes and security to better protect your information, and you now have the ability to better control some of the ways companies handle your personal data (like requesting that a company remove personal data it has stored about you).

The changes are targeted to the European Union, but Riot is committed to maintaining player trust worldwide, so we’re taking this opportunity to assess and improve many of the ways we manage player information in all regions.

One of the ways GDPR seeks to better protect personal data is increasing the minimum age of consent to process personal data to 16 years old in many EU member states. It also allows member states to pass local laws to set the age of consent at a lower age -- which some have done -- as long as it isn’t lower than 13 years old. To help ensure we’re addressing these changes, we’re verifying that players are of the legal age (for their countries) by asking for parental permission first. More on that below.

How do I know if I am impacted by the age requirement changes?

If you are not in the EU and/or are over the age of 16, you will not be required to do anything and can play as normal.

If you are under 16 and in the EU, we may seek to get permission from your parent or guardian to play League of Legends. The age required varies from country to country, so check the player support article here to see what the requirements are for your location.

How will it work?

After May 25th, we’ll need to suspend accounts for players who fall under the legally required age for their region until parental permission is received.

If your account is one of those requiring parental permission, you will receive in-client warnings about a week before the changes go live. You will be directed to a website to unlock your account once that is available. If you are not impacted, you won’t see the notification and don’t need to take any further action.

Is there a place I can find out more about GDPR?

Yes, please check out the player support article for additional questions and answers."

Quick Hits

As noted in the Patch 8.10 notes, normal gemstone chests will be swapped out for Masterwork chests. This change should go in effect soon per Riot Mortdog:

"Nope. Should be by Noon though!"

Reminders

To round out this red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events!

MSI 2018 kicks off May 3rd! Check our MSI 2018 Hits the Rift coverage for a look at in-game content such the new Conqueror Varus OR head on over to [LoL Esports] for streams & more!