- Red Post Collection: /Dev: The Future of Clash, Versus Event Issues and Extension, & More
- Champion & Skin Sale: 7/6 - 7/9
- 7/5 PBE Update: More Tentative Balance Changes
Table of Contents
- Quick Gameplay Thoughts: July 4th
- Quick Gameplay Thoughts: July 6th
- ricklessabandon on Karma and Other Changes
- ARENA: Pigeon Rising
- Quick Hits
- Reminders
Quick Gameplay Thoughts: July 4th
"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
Icons collection page
It got a little bit overshadowed by other stuff going on at the time, so for anyone who missed it, there's now an icons collection page in the client. It includes information about how you unlocked an icon, what proportion of icons for each category you have (e.g. Harrowing or Game modes) and rarity values for icons (e.g. Ultimate for things like the Dominion 100+ games icon or top 500 in LoL Beta).
8.13 anti snowball changes
We've been digging into the effects of the 8.13 anti snowball changes and have seen a pretty decent reduction in early game snowball following them. Still a bit elevated, so not quite down to what's been standard historically standard yet, quite a bit better though thankfully. Likely we'll have some further smaller tweaks to reduce early game snowball at some point, any solutions that are really disruptive would wait until preseason though.
8.13b mini patch
At time of writing 8.13b (mini patch around halfway through the 8.13 three week cycle) is being finalized and should get patched out shortly. You've probably seen patch notes for it already, TLDR if not though is buffs to Stormrazor, Brawler's Gloves, Varus, Trist and Caitlyn, plus nerfs to Nocturne and Taliyah. We're using this mini patch to address things that we've changelists ready for that are clear enough issues they shouldn't have to wait until 8.14 itself. Goal with the marksmen side of things is to help the marksmen in the worst states, still with a goal of getting them all back to reasonable spots without pushing non marksmen entirely out of bot lane.
Fizz
Latest W changes for Fizz have been testing pretty well in terms of how the pattern plays and how the ability feels. Still working on final numbers, so those might or might not change. Likely, given 8.13-8.14 is a three week period, that we'll be able to get them into 8.14 as a result. We'd originally expected it to take a bit longer, but fairly optimistic at this point they'll be ready soon."
Meddler commented on how the Aatrox hotfixes were doing:
"We're starting to see Aatrox post hotfix buffs do fairly well in some circumstances. He certainly went out too weak, going to hold off on adding power to him beyond this point for a bit though, already got some caution we may have put enough (or in some respects possibly a bit too much) power in. Will see where he's at next week and assess again."
On ADC power after the anti-snowball changes, Meddler noted:
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Is there any worrying about adc power post compensation buffs if games become longer after snowballing is tuned down?There's some risk there certainly. Power of specific champions and classes will fluctuate somewhat as the overall state of the game changes. We feel some ADCs are too weak even accounting for that variation though, hence buffs to a number of them and some item paths. Possible we need to take a bit of power out again someday, but feel better to risk that than letting them sit in too poor a state."
On Garen, Meddler commented:
"I don't think we've got any room to buff Garen right now. Would certainly be interested in adding a bit more skill expression at some point. Not confident a burst of MS on the Q would so though, given it's a pretty reliable and consistent effect. Swapping to Slow immunity, instead of cleansing slows on cast, likely makes timing of Q press more forgiving while also adding noticeable power."
Quick Gameplay Thoughts: July 6th
"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
Impact of 8.13b
We've been looking at the impact of the mini patch from earlier this week (8.13b). Looking reasonable so far, with moderate amounts of power as hoped added to Trist, Cait and Varus. We're keeping an eye on Aatrox, since we're starting to see some really strong performances from him on players who've got passed the initial learning curve. Also watching a couple of ADCs who were doing well before the changes who've benefited a bit from the Stormrazor change (e.g. Draven). No immediate plans to make changes to them, but want to make sure we haven't over buffed.
Lissandra
As mentioned previously we've been testing a new Lissandra passive internally for a couple of weeks. It's been going fairly well, so figured I'd share a look at it as a result, despite some risk it still might not work out. Given this is still earlier in testing I've also omitted some numbers and those that are listed are more to give an example of how it works than because they're necessarily what could ship.
"Iceborn
When a champion Lissandra has damaged within the last 3 seconds dies they become a Frozen Statue. Frozen Statues slow nearby enemies by 30%. After 2.5 seconds Frozen Statues shatter, dealing X (+Y AP ratio) magic damage to nearby enemies."
Intent is to help Lissandra's contributions to multi enemy fights after she's used her initial CDs. Use cases include getting a zone of control after diving in and killing a backline target and helping zone enemies after killing enemy divers or other front line. Doesn't have as much impact early game, but has proven useful in some early 2v2s when both junglers show up and early objective fights. If going ahead with it would be paired with some mana cost reductions to her kit. Statues also count as terrain, so they'll both block pathing slightly and can be combo'd with things like Gnar ult, Poppy E etc.
In terms of time frame, we'll probably have a clear enough read on whether the gameplay's solid pretty soon, so will likely make a call on whether or not to go ahead within a week or two. One of the downsides of changing abilities like this however is that, where it's a big departure from previous functionality, there's a need for a bunch of art and audio work. Not sure yet what the likely timeframe on that would be, would take a while though.
More 8.14 changes to hit the PBE today/next week
For anyone wondering why the PBE's been pretty quiet and where followup changes to various mages stuff's still coming. Should be some more balance changes to champions getting into the patch today and in the first half of next week. Since 8.13-8.14 is a 3 week patch we've been taking some time earlier in the cycle to work on other things, champ changes still coming though."
When asked about the Cursor update and if any more item icons would be updated, Meddler commented:
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How's the cursor update going?
Non-gameplay related, but think we might see some new button art for items soon? Always loved seeing those updates.Cursor work's pretty close to finished, both the new cursor and the legacy version for those who'd prefer to just stick with it. Likely it goes out in the next patch.
Items - we'll keep gradually replacing some of the old ones. When we've done a number at once we've got really strong negative feedback that it makes it really frustrating to try and tell at a glance on the scoreboard who's bought what. Icon updates are something we try to do gradually as a result."
Meddler provided context on the Teleport changes that went to the PBE in the 7/5 PBE update:
"Quote:
I feel awful asking again, because I know you're inundated by these requests every time you post, but did you land anywhere in particular on Syndra?
Additionally: the TP nerfs hit PBE yesterday. Those are big nerfs. Do you have some context? :)
And last but not least: do you think, if these Lissandra changes (which I like) are to ship, she'll have her mana costs tweaked a little?I don't have details on any mages yet. Still expecting we'll do some mage buffs that should hit PBE sometime next week.
TP's been something we've been concerned about for quite a few months, as some folks might recall from discussion earlier this year. At the time we held off on changes because, while it was having some negative effects (too hard to win lane against it, teams piling on into bot lane etc) top lane wasn't in the best of places and would be the primary lane affected. At this point it's both much wider spread and top's in a better state, so we're looking at changes again. What's on the PBE isn't necessarily final, still talking about what approach makes the most sense. Removing the refund for cancellation's looking like a pretty good approach though, given it doesn't penalize the 'get back to lane to try and catch up' safety net and it targets some of the least interesting uses of TP (the zoning TP you start to ward off aggression from the enemy team, then cancel, resulting in nothing actually happening and no real commitment)."
Meddler answered more questions about Lissandra's tentative new passive:
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Quick question about liss new passive: if an enemy ornn (or even ally) charges towards a frozen statue, does he destroy it or will he proc the shatter earlier and so taking damage (or pop damage on enemies if ally)?Right now, not honestly sure, it's a specific enough interaction I didn't feel the need to check before putting it into testing. Intent would be that enemy Ornn's destroy the statue which would cause the shatter/damage to happen early though."
Meddler continued:
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Also, how will liss passive work on sion?Statue happens if she's damaged him within 3s of his zombie mode expiring, instead of 3s of his regular death.
Funnily enough there was a Sion in the first playtest we put this in. I hadn't accounted for that interaction at the time, so the passive went off and a frozen Sion statue appeared. Because of the way it's scripted however that's basically a copy of the killed champion, with the real one hidden from view until they respawn (avoids a lot of bugs doing it that way). In this case Sion's passive still went off however, which meant there was a frozen Sion statue sitting there while an invisible zombie Sion beat people to death who were very confused by what was happening..."
He went on:
"Quote:
The Lissandra passive is impressive.
Holy this would make her so unique, she would be the teamfighting queen.W - been testing a somewhat higher base CD, with a significantly reduced CD if 3 or more targets are hit. Somewhat lukewarm on that change at present. Partial resets are sometimes noticed less, especially when they often still don't let you get another cast off during the same fight. Was looking for ways to incentivize more proactive casts, but not sure that's hitting the mark.
And it fits so perfectly omg. This needs to happen and I wanna try it ASAP. :)
You‘ve mentioned a few changes to W end E. Can we get some details?
Do you think it‘s possible to move some dmg from her E to her W?
Good Job! Honestly reading this made me happy.
E - Trying a decelerating missile, where the claw starts significantly faster than on Live, but moves slower than on Live by the end (takes same total time to get to the end position though). That's been testing quite well by contrast, with shorter casts feeling more useful but longer casts still valuable."
Finally, when asked about champion learning curves, Meddler replied:
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Is the learning curve of a champion still important in today champion design?Learning curve's something we put a lot of time into. Too low's bad, leaves champions unsatisfying, hard to balance across a range of skill levels usually, too consistent in their output. Too high's eventually bad too though, if it means people have to have miserable experiences until they've played an awful lot of games on the champion because we have to balance around the higher end too much."
ricklessabandon on Karma and Other Changes
ricklessabandon provided a changelist and context on some Karma changes that should be coming in the 8.14 cycle:
"putting together some karma buffs for 8.14 and still kind of figuring out what makes the most sense for right now (given that we'd still like to do a small update for her in the future)
currently considering things like this:"
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