Thursday, December 6, 2018

Red Post Collection: 12/5 Mid-Patch Update, Quick Gameplay Thoughts: 12/5, & More

Today's red post collection includes a mid-patch update for Heimerdinger, Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for December 5th, and more!
Continue reading for more information!



Table of Contents


12/5 Mid-Patch Update - Heimerdinger Hotfix

After some issues with Heimerdinger after the release of Patch 8.24, a hotfix went out to correct the problems:
"12/5/2018 Bugfixes 
Heimerdinger
This patch's work on Heimerdinger introduced new bugs. We're fixing some particularly big ones.
  • BUGFIX E - CH2-Electron Storm Grenade and UPGRADE!!!'d E - CH-3X Lightning Grenade stun durations have been fixed
  • BUGFIX Dying while Q - H-28 G Evolution Turret's third turret charge is stockpiling no longer allows Heimerdinger to get a fourth charge
  • BUGFIX UPGRADE!!!'d W - Hextech Rocket Swarm once again shares a cooldown with W - Hextech Micro-Rockets
  • BUGFIX Heimerdinger can no longer cast UPGRADE!!!'d E - CH-3X Lightning Grenade immediately after E - CH2-Electron Storm Grenade if timed exactly"

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: December 5 

Check out Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for December 5th, including details on the Snowdown pass and Nexus Blitz, tower stats and rewards, and more:
"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 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 
Snowdown pass and Nexus Blitz 
Both the Snowdown pass and Nexus Blitz will be going live tomorrow morning (6th of December). First, some pass details:
  • The Snowdown pass is an updated version of the Worlds pass. You now get tokens from winning games, with half as many for a loss. Champion mastery grades no longer have any effect on tokens earned. You can also get some tokens from first win of the day, from missions and from orbs.
  • Prestige Akali's available this time.
  • There will also be some unique rewards that only work on Nexus Blitz/ARAM during this event (special recall VFX/audio, finisher vfx/audio, a fire poro pet). You can unlock those via a second type of token that can only be earned on Nexus Blitz. Can also get them with RP if preferred.
  • Pass runs until the 7th of January. More details, numbers especially can be found on Riot Mort's Twitter
Plus a quick refresh on what's up with Nexus Blitz:
  • We've done a lot of work on Nexus Blitz since its first run, with significantly better map art, improved events and rewards, some changes to the map geo, bans in champion select and more. If you never checked it out previously, or gave it a shot but found it a bit too unpolished, highly recommend giving it a try!
  • If Nexus Blitz proves to be really popular throughout its run we'll be looking into making it a permanent mode that's always on. If it gets a decent amount of play, but not enough to break the needed threshold for permanence we'll look at bringing it back as an RGM regularly instead.
Tower stats and rewards post preseason 
So far tower stats and rewards are performing as we'd hoped. One of our key goals was to address cases where towers fell too quickly, cutting lane phase off too early. We didn't want to increase the length of longest laning phases by contrast, feeling those were already long enough. Looking at some stats:.
10th percentile (towers fall before this time only 10% of the time)
  • 8.22 = 9 minutes, 11 seconds
  • 8.23 = 11 minutes, 8 seconds
50th percentile (towers fall before this time 50% of the time)
  • 8.22 = 12 minutes, 17 seconds
  • 8.23 = 14 minutes, 1 second
90th percentile (towers fall before this time 90% of the time)
  • 8.22 = 15 minutes, 35 seconds
  • 8.23 = 15 minutes, 56 seconds 
These are stats from all MMR ranges combined. When looking at high MMR only all of the above values are about 1 minute faster, both in 8.22 and 8.23. 
Other goals were to make diving a bit more risky, via increased tower damage. We're still seeing a decent amount of diving going on, but with somewhat increased odds of a turnaround being possible, so that's also looking good so far. Still looking into data on the rewards side of things, will have that to share soonish. Also looks pretty appropriate though, with income up a bit but not dramatically, leading to champs more often leaving laning phase with their first big item completed as desired. 
Lane Swaps 
Lane Swaps are on our minds a bit given the changes to towers and game pacing. We don't want to see the game end up back in a state where early lanes are uncontested and champions just don't interact in organized play. We are open to early rotations or 1v2s as an occasional thing, though have some caution about how balance-able lane swapping as a more niche but viable option is, given it's been extremely frequent or missing entirely historically. Not concerned at present, given there are a lot of factors that should stop lane swaps being excessively powerful, or could be tuned to do so if needed. Plating gives more time to respond to towers going down. Plating rewards make it more costly to not defend your own towers. First tower gold, though smaller now, still exists as does tower fortification (50% reduced damage on top and mid outer towers in the first 5 minutes). 
Katarina changes on the PBE 
We've got a couple of changes to Kat's E hitting PBE I wanted to mention since they hard to spot or datamine and feedback on them would be useful:
  • Spell Buffering - Gunblade Active can now be buffered with all of Kat's spells. Should be particularly noticeable for higher ping players.
  • E - Cast time is now split into 0.075s before the blink and 0.075s after it, instead of 0.15s all up front. Should make E feel better when dodging incoming spells or picking up daggers."

When asked about ADC buffs, Meddler commented:
"Not yet, likely something on PBE late this week or early next week though."

On Akali's stealth, Meddler commented:
"We're looking at it. Opinion is split internally on whether supporting stealth under towers is the way to go or not. We're doing some experimentation with a set of changes internally right now. Update to follow once those have helped resolve which direction we'll go."
As for when we would see 8.24b hit live servers, Meddler replied:
"We're targeting December 18th."

Meddler continued:
"Next year. 8.24b's not a regular patch that will require a download, but instead more like a whole bunch of low risk (simple numbers) hotfixes all at once. That means some things can't go into it."

When asked about Galio, Meddler commented:
"Need to see where Galio lands, follow up in 8.24b is certainly possible. Goal was to shift power around in a way that buffed him for regular play without adding power (or at least much power) for organized/pro. If he ends up weaker in regular play would want to add some power in, would be really hesitant to do ult CD though, given that spell offers more value in organized play. 
Taking power out of Shen ult and moving it elsewhere is possible. We do see regular games get a lot more value out of the shield on Shen ult than the DR on Galio though, given Shen ult can be used more reactively and less proactively so doesn't reward practice and coordination as a team as heavily. Not sure reducing defensive value from it would necessarily be the way to go as a result."

Miscellaneous

  • Check out a preview of new Project Team minis from All-Star 2018!
"Introduction 
Hello lovely people! So 2018 is coming to a close (holy Rammus that was fast) and I thought it'd be fun to look back at the stories that we got this year.
And pit them against each other in pseudo-deadly combat! 
There was a bunch released - but I'm only going to be considering main-universe Runeterra stories, written content only, and for the sake of brevity, I won't include champ bios. So no comics, skin-universe, etc. 
That leaves us, this year, with 25 contestants! 
I'll be pitting two stories against each other, every day at 1:30pm PST, until the 29th of December (if I don't get hit by a bus). Today, we begin with... 
FROZEN HEARTS vs AN EXPLORER'S JOURNEY (6th December) 
In Frozen Hearts, by David Slagle, little Nunu asks his mother a question and she tells him a story.
In An Explorer's Journey, by Matthew Dunn, we read Ezreal's handwritten account of the discovery of a vault beneath Zaun. 
Which of these stories spoke to you the most? Do you love snuggling by the fire listening to Nunu's mum telling you how the world works, or are you more of a fan of pomade and it's many (and unexpected) uses? Do you have criticisms of the characterization? Grammar? Were there things about these that made you happy or mad? Take this as an opportunity to revist these stories and identify what worked, or didn't, for you. It can be hard to get a discussion going on a story when it's no longer flavor of the month - so I'm hoping maybe this can be a second chance for us to air some opinions! 
If this post works, there should be an image showing the schedule for the upcoming lore matches, at the top and also linked HERE, but alternatively, here they all are written out:
  • 6th December: Frozen Hearts vs An Explorer's Journey
  • 7th December: The Black Powder Plot vs Human Blood
  • 8th December: The Girl Who Came Back vs At the Edge of the World
  • 9th December: Leaving Weh'Le vs Art is Life
  • 10th December: The Cage vs The Shadow Door
  • 11th December: Stone Cold vs Hunter of Shadows
  • 12th December: Stains on a Name vs The Monster of Kalduga Outpost
  • 13th December: The Dreaming Pool vs The Curator's Gambit
  • 14th December: Then, Teeth vs The True and Ghastly Tale of the Beast of Boleham Tower
  • 15th December: Confessions of a Broken Blade vs <winner from 6th December>
  • 16th December: <winner from 7th December> vs <winner from 8th December>
  • 17th December: Twilight of the Gods vs <winner from 9th December>
  • 18th December: The Eye in the Abyss vs <winner from 10th December>
  • 19th December: Where Icathia Once Stood vs <winner from 11th December>
  • 20th December: From the Ashes vs <winner from 12th December>
  • 21st December: Whom Does the Desert Know? vs <winner from 13th of December>
  • 22nd December: The Principles of Strength vs <winner from 14th December>
  • 23rd December: QUARTER FINAL: <winner from 15th December> vs <winner from 16th December>
  • 24th December: QUARTER FINAL: <winner from 17th December> vs <winner from 18th December>
  • 25th December: QUARTER FINAL: <winner from 19th December> vs <winner from 20th December>
  • 26th December: QUARTER FINAL: <winner from 21st December> vs <winner from 22nd December>
  • 27th December: SEMI-FINAL: <winner from 23rd December> vs <winner from 24th December>
  • 28th December: SEMI-FINAL: <winner from 25th December> vs <winner from 26th December>
  • 29th December: FINAL: <winner from 27th December> vs <winner from 28th December> 
Abbreviated image here:
I've posted this at 1:30pm PST, and I'll try to aim for that time for counting up the votes (this is daily!) and posting the next match! 
(Sorry, in advance, all you Red Name Tracker fans who aren't so into the lore. Yeah there's going to be a lot of this.)"
"Our team wanted to be a bit more transparent around server issues, as well as other information that the NA playerbase may want to hear about. This is 100% a work in progress, so feedback around what’s here, or what you might want to see, is highly appreciated! 
Your weekly dose of server problem-os, NA League news, and other! (Now moved to Thursday) 
Dark Harvest nerfs (wee, Rune Variation!), Snowdown and All-Star 2018 are arriving soon™, and a bunch of changes to ranked placements may make Pre-season a bit easier. But we broke a lot of things on the other hand... 
Server Stuff: 
  • Store config change caused content to be unavailable (12/3/18, ~2 hours). A config push to the store caused content and pricing to be incorrect. Corrections had to be made to fix both the missing content and the pricing. No NA players should be affected.
  • Sashimi Akali/Statue of Karthus mispriced in Store (separate from the

    from
    http://www.surrenderat20.net/2018/12/red-post-collection-125-mid-patch.html
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