- Red Post Collection: League Director & Replay API, Quick Gameplay Thoughts: Feb 8, & More
- Valentines Content now available!
- 2/11 PBE Update: More Tentative Balance Changes
- 2/12 PBE Update: Even More Tentative Balance Changes
- 2/13 PBE Update: More Tentative Balance Changes
- 2/14 PBE Update: Tentative Balance Changes and Reverts
Table of Contents
- Quick Gameplay Thoughts: February 13
- Quick Gameplay Thoughts: February 15
- Final Call: Golden Spatula Club
- Miscellaneous
- Reminders
Quick Gameplay Thoughts: February 13
"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
Support Item Restrictions
As you might have seen we've just hotfixed some changes to the Ancient Coin and Spellthief's items so that they require a nearby ally to generate gold coins and gold on damage procs respectively. That's in response to rapidly growing use of them in top lane that removes a lot of CSing skill test for the user while offering little counterplay to their opponent. Usually we'd prefer to let emergent strategies play out where we can. Our feeling in this case, as with gold funneling last year, was that the overall result is a less interesting and deep game though, hence the quick response.
Also as per gold funneling we're taking what's admittedly somewhat heavy handed action to quickly fix the problem. Plan is to then look at whether there's a better solution available in the moderate term. With the Monster Hunter debuff for gold funneling for example our initial take was sometimes pretty punishing on junglers who got ahead but didn't want to finish their jungle item. We then made an adjustment later that changed it to account for amount of gold taken from lane minions to target the debuff specifically at problem cases. Goal would be to take a similar approach here if we see unintended issues emerge.
Crit items, their users and marksmen in general post 9.3
We've been watching how things have settled post crit changes in 9.3 for a bit now. Feeling so far is that the changes have landed pretty well overall, without leaving most crit users too strong or too weak. Where we're up to on some specific cases:
- Still got Yasuo nerfs planned for 9.4. Current approach is reverting most of the buffs we gave him after midseason's Infinity Edge update since that update's mostly reverted.
- We'll also be bringing back the Lucian nerfs we held off on previously while we waited to see where 9.3 landed, in part given he was already strong and crit item buffs are sometimes further power positive for him at 3-4 items.
- Unlikely we do anything for Kai'Sa at this point, she seems to be doing pretty well with IE/Hurricane builds. Updating her recommended items so players stop rushing Stormrazor, though.
- Want to see where Ezreal sits after some more play before deciding whether he needs nerfs or not.
- Looking at a small buff to ER in 9.4, it's in the right ballpark but a bit weak relative to IE.
Spectator Bugs
We'e looking into a couple of categories of spectator bug that have been cropping up a lot recently. Should have more to share on that shortly. 9.4 should have fixes for some issues, still determining whether there's anything not covered by that work though."
When asked about Jhin, Meddler commented:
"Think he's slightly weaker post 9.3 item changes, though some of that just reflects that some of the people he's fighting are now in a better spot (power being relative and all). Think he's fine for now."
On AP/Bruiser items, Meddler responded:
"The AP bruiser explorations Phroxzon mentions there as slow burn work didn't work out as hoped so that particular project got shutdown. Still agree there's a bit of a hole in itemization for some champs there though. Hoping we get a chance to work on it sometime this year. In the meantime for champs like Sylas who don't have items as well tailored to their needs we'll keep giving them a bit more power in their kits so they're in an appropriate spot balance wise. While that doesn't give other benefits well tailored itemization does (satisfaction, bit more strategic depth etc) it does put them in effective spots at least."
On Lissandra, Meddler noted:
"Q mana and E rank up damage look like they had only light effect, which makes sense given they weren't substantial changes. Not sure yet whether the E visibility change will have a meaningful impact, somewhat harder to assess given impact's mainly expected in really high MMR games.
Her performance with Aftershock's a little better than with other alternatives (Electrocute being the closest from memory). We were confident we should go for the nerfs in 9.3 regardless of Aftershock related arguments in part because even looking at her Electrocute performance she was strong anyway.
Aftershock wise we've been discussing its state a bit. One path we're talking about right now is whether, now that rune stats aren't bound to trees, it still needs to have its AD/AP ratios at all (is it demanding sufficient damage trade off versus tankiness it offers)."
Quick Gameplay Thoughts: February 15
"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
Karma
Late last year we explored some changes to Karma that involved giving her a new W that reduced allied CDs amongst other things. That tested pretty well, though also raised some questions about whether Karma was the right fit for it. After some further testing and discussion while waiting on some code changes for it we've backed away from plans to put that on Karma. We'll likely explore it for another champion at some point instead though.
We don't have other changes currently underway for Karma. Something we'd like to try whenever we do next work on her though is an adjustment to her passive. That would involve giving it charges that get consumed whenever she deals damage that reduce her Mantra CD by a much larger amount than at present. Goal would be to allow spikier, clearer successes, rather than the more sustained Mantra tick down as at present. Curious how that sounds to those of you who play Karma?
Spectator Bugs
Brief update here. We've confirmed that some fixes (e.g. Sion weirdness) are good to go for 9.4 next week. Got some other bugs work's still underway on that should be addressed in 9.5.
Likely 9.5 balance targets
- Akali - Putting some simple power back in now we've had enough time to see where she stabilized after the 9.3 changes. Waiting a patch after large changes rather than doing immediate follow up is something we're planning on doing more often for champs who've been really challenging to balance.
- Neeko - E buff, aiming for power and potentially better clarity of gameplay.
- Aatrox and Rakan - Potentially simple power buffs, not as guaranteed as Neeko and Akali though.
- Urgot - Very unlikely he gets changes in 9.5. More likely we look at him in 9.6, given his nerfs are in 9.4 and as above we're aiming for a bit more observation time more often now."
When asked about any Nexus Blitz news, Meddler responded:
"Should be fairly soon, we're expecting the final data analysis this week or next after which we should be able to share where our heads are at."
As for the Vi changes in testing for the past few PBE cycles, Meddler noted:
"Probably in 9.4.
Edit: Ah, sounds like we had to push them to 9.5."
He continued:
"A few days ago at least they were too strong so that was being worked on. Not sure if any bugfixing's needed as well."
On Aatrox, Meddler commented:
"Likely just pretty simple buffs to things like base stats or ability numbers, rather than any mechanics changes."
On Azir, Meddler responded:
"Just the attack speed buff in 9.4 for now. He's someone we're really hesitant to buff too much at once, agree he needs a bit of help right now though."
When asked for any updates on Wukong work, Meddler replied:
"Not yet. Do have some early stuff in testing though, some of which shows promise some of which isn't working."
Final Call: Golden Spatula Club
"The Golden Spatula Club catapults out of the store soon! To make sure members have enough time to use their bonuses, Golden Spatula Club membership will not be purchasable after February 15, 2019 at 11:59 PM PT. Bonuses will be unaffected and will remain active until March 4, 2019 at 11:59 PM PT.
Golden Spatula Club
Available for this run of ARURF+ mode only
1250 RP
- 1 random individual skin boost every game
- 1 additional reroll (max allowed is still 2)
- 3 new randomized champion finishers (the more club members, the fancier the finishers)
- Special minion taunts"
Miscellaneous
"Your weekly dose of server problem-os, NA League news, and other!
With some expected changes (hello crit changes) and some unexpected (0 cs top laners) and some just plain ole weird (Hide and Seek with Kobe and Phreak), we’ve got a new week and only a few server issues!
Follow-Ups:
- None
Server Stuff:
- Some players unable to queue for ranked together (1/24 started, 2/6 noticed, 2/11 fixed, ~18 days)
- A combination of working as intended features and a bug caused players to be unable to queue for ranked properly together, due to a highest rank bug. After a fix and eventual redeploy to the party system, we fixed the bug between intended functionality and not. Those who should be able to play together now are able to!
- Game reconnects and player drops due to network changes (2/23, ~43 minutes)
- An early morning change to networking routes caused a spike in game re-connections and disconnects. After the change was rolled back, the spike disappeared. Said change will be reviewed and the problematic part fixed before being implemented.
Game Stuff:
- New articles not set correctly (2/11, ~14 minutes)
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