Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Red Post Collection: Mid-Patch Updates, Quick Gameplay Thoughts: December 13, & More

Today's red post collection includes mid-patch updates for Patch 9.24, a quick gameplay thoughts for December 13 from Riot Scruffy, Zed Issue #2, and more!
Continue reading for more information!


Table of Contents


Mid-Patch Updates

A host of mid-patch updates went out in 9.24, check out the details here:
"12/17/2019 Aphelios Nerf, Diana and Elder Dragon Bugfixes 
Aphelios 
We're still giving Aphelios time to settle in before deciding on any bigger changes, but it's clear that some things landed a little too strong. In particular, his Infernum-empowered ultimate is too easily attainable (and a bit too strong when attained!) and Calibrum-empowered marks are a bit too punishing for how reliable they can be, so we're going to pull back on those for now. 
  • CALIBRUM BUGFIX Attacks that consume Calibrum marks no longer apply on-hit effects an additional time
  • CALIBRUM MARK DAMAGE RATIO 0.4 bonus attack damage ⇒ 0.3 bonus attack damage
  • INFERNUM-EMPOWERED ULTIMATE DAMAGE RATIO 0.4 bonus attack damage ⇒ 0.3 bonus attack damage
  • INFERNUM-EMPOWERED ULTIMATE EXPLOSION RADIUS 500 range ⇒ 400 range
Diana 
  • CONQUEROR BUGFIX Diana's basic attacks now gives her the proper amount of Conqueror stacks right after she casts R - Lunar Rush
Elder Dragon 
  • DEATH'S DANCE BUGFIX Aspect of the Dragon's burn damage no longer lasts longer than it should for enemies with Death's Dance equipped 
12/13/2019 Yuumi Bugfixes 
Yuumi 
  • W - YOU AND ME! COOLDOWN Yuumi's W no longer goes on cooldown when Yuumi or her ally attacks a Blast Plant that then knocks Yuumi off her ally
  • W - YOU AND ME! RESOURCE BAR Yuumi's secondary resource bar that indicates the duration of lockout on her W no longer displays incorrectly 
12/12/2019 Trinket Changes and Bugfixes 
Trinkets 
This change already went live with 9.24, but we didn't include them in the original patch notes (as some of you may have noticed). Explaining the mechanic and subsequent change below since it could be a little bit confusing! 
  • BANK ACCOUNT When you swap trinkets, the new cooldown is based on time since you last used any trinket. Any remaining Warding Totem ammo is converted into its value in cooldown for these purposes. 
Bugfixes 
  • PRESTIGE PULSEFIRE THRESH Pulsefire Thresh Prestige Edition now properly ends his channel animation after teleporting with Hexflash 
  • PRESENCE OF MIND MANA Now properly increases your maximum mana up to 500 or your energy to 50 in ARAM and Poro King"

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: December 13 


Here's Riot Scruffy with a quick gameplay thoughts post, covering patch 9.24b, preseason followup, champion release pace, and more:
"Hey all, 
It’s Riot Scruffy here and with Meddler out, I’m subbing in for some quick gameplay thoughts. With the holidays, this will probably be the last post of 2019, so we hope you all get some rest and stay cozy someplace warm. See you all in January. 
Patch 9.24b 
The end of year always presents some unique challenges with our patch schedule winding down and us wanting to get in as many tweaks as we can to tune preseason. Patch 9.24 is our last full patch of the year and just went live this week. We are planning to do a follow up “mini patch” next week with more champion and systems balance (but no major features or mechanics changes). 
Dragon Souls and Elder 
We’ve had enough time and data to do analysis on the impacts of dragon soul and elder dragon buff as end game objective rewards. In general both dragon souls and elder buff are stronger than we think they should be, but some individual buffs are more than others. Our plans for 9.24b are: 
  • Ocean Soul - big nerf
  • Infernal Soul - moderate nerf
  • Mountain Soul - moderate nerf
  • Elder buff - moderate nerf
  • Cloud Soul - no change 
Lethality items follow up 
Overall we’re seeing the updated Lethality items as a bit underpowered across the board. Our current approach is that we want to buff Serrated Dirk by 5 AD to make the build path a bit more powerful and create some more early threat. Additionally we also want to buff Edge of Night by that same 5 AD, so that buying it in the right games (mage / CC heavy) has a slightly higher payoff. Aside from that, the individual items are filling a unique set of contexts and roles well, so assassins now have a few more choices around how they want to focus their builds. 
Support items follow up 
The core concept of only having to buy the support once, and then immediately transitioning into the main item system has landed really well we think. It’s leading to more flexible build options for supports that feel more tailored to the champ you're playing. Another positive effect we’re seeing is a few more viable champs to the support role that would rather not have spent a lot of gold on the old items. 
We do however have two areas that we want to improve for 10.1. One is differentiating the stat lines more between the aggressive and defensive options. Relic Shield and Steel Shoulderguard will have some of their offensive stats pushed into health regen and Spectral Sickle and Spellthief’s Edge will have some of their health converted to mana regen for a more glass cannon build. Overall we think that by giving these items more defined stat profiles we can give the users a bit more of what they need. The second change we’re making for 10.1 is increasing the tier 3 quest goal so that we can remove the farming penalty once you reach tier 3. 
Sylas Mechanics Changes 
We have some Sylas work coming to PBE for patch 10.1. The core goal here is to shift his mechanics in a way that open up some weaknesses for him in very high level play while making him a viable champ for the majority of players (it’s a buff overall). We’re combining a set of strategies that we think will lead to this outcome: 
  • Less lane control, but significantly stronger late - having a safe, strong lane leads to being a strong option in all possible matchups. To counterbalance we’re buffing his late game across multiple axes (damage, tankiness, cooldowns)
  • Mid viability over jungle - Juggling multiple roles lead to an additional strength as a flex pick. We think we can get him to a healthier spot for mid lane if we don’t allow him to be a strong flex pick in jungle
  • Remove tools - E shield. Having a tool for every situation is something that can lead to this problem so we are going to remove the shield on E and give back the power in other places on the kit.
  • Lowering skill floor on passive and W - We want to soften a few of the optimizations that many players are struggling to access without pulling out the decisions and skills of experienced players entirely. 
New Champion Release Pace 
The end of this year leading into next year will have a flurry of new champions (Senna, Aphelios, Sett). We are as excited as you about this, but our current goal is not to speed up the pace of new champions and VGUs. The way that we develop focuses on getting it right over hitting perfect deadlines, so sometimes projects can cluster together like these three. Expect things to slow down a bit and 2020 should be fairly similar to 2019 in terms of champion releases. 
A related note is that Senna -> Aphelios -> Sett I think are a good representation of our overall approach to champion complexity and difficulty going forward. We want to have a wide range of simple, complex, accessible, and difficult offerings for players of all types so we’re aiming to balance that throughout our new champions and VGUs in 2020. 
-Scruffy"

Miscellaneous

  • Zed issue #2 is now available on the Universe! - "In order to survive, Zed will be forced to confront his past sins and seek the aid of his most bitter enemy--the Eye of Twilight, Shen!"
  • Riot Mort provided some stats on 9.24 ARAM:
[1] ARAM - Looking at the results of 9.24 Changes and we seem to be in a pretty good spot. 57% to 42% range, every Nerfed champ is still above 50.5%, and every buffed champ is still below 49.5%. There are some small single champs I'd change, but overall quite good! Stats thread: 
[2] Top & Bottom Champs at all Elos:
1.) Teemo
2.) Maokai
3.) Caitlyn
4.) Swain
5.) Ziggs 
144.) Aatrox
145.) Kindred
146.) Rek'Sai
147.) Bard
148.) Azir 
[3] Top & Bottom Champs at high Elos:
1.) Maokai
2.) Janna
3.) Singed
4.) Volibear
5.) Trundle 
144.) Warwick
145.) Nocturne
146.) Tryndamere
147.) Vi
148.) Shyvana 
[4] Biggest Skill Gaps between Elos
1.) Rek'sai (+9.0%)
2.) Kha'Zix (+7.8%)
3.) Skarner (+6.3%)
4.) Ryze (+5.9%)
5.) Ivern (+5.4%) 
144.) Miss Fortune (-5.0%)
145.) Warwick (-7.7%)
146.) Teemo (-8.7%)
147.) Vi (-9.7%)
148.) Shyvana (-10.1%) 
[5] This will likely be my last ARAM update. It's been a fun year and I hope the mode feels better after these changes. I will likely be handing the mode off to the official Modes team next year!
"I have more news that should make collectors like you happy for next year’s Prestige borders: if you get a 2020 Event Prestige skin via a re-roll or drop WHILE THE EVENT IS LIVE, you will also get the icon and border for the Prestige skin. You won’t need to get tokens."
"Your semi-weekly dose of server problem-os, NA League news, and other! 
Clash was here, and there it went! End of the year patch is incoming, the pre-season is shaking out (for better or worse) and All-Stars is over. Also here’s some problems that happened… 
Follow-Ups:
  • Mac voice still not working properly Bug grouped with other Mac bugs. More .plist fun (I personally know nothing about Macs, so basically Greek to me).
Ongoing
  • None
Server Stuff:
  • Riot Direct router reboots(12/2, ~10 minutes) Automated alerting notifies the NOC that there are a lot of game alerts going off for no discernable reason. Several minutes later, the network recovers without external influences. Post-problem investigation finds that a router decided to reboot (not the TV show, which was cool back in the day) on its own.
  • Core service flatlines, causing problems(12/2, ~66 minutes) Automated alerts notifies the NOC that a core service is reporting 0 processing power. The noc escalates to the on-call LP as Compensation mode is enabled. Engineers restart the affected service and verify the correct processing power is allocated to it after the reboot. Comp mode is then disabled as the service stabilizes.
  • All-Star page not loading in LCU(12/4, ~42 minutes) A Rioter reports to the NOC that the All-Stars tab within the client isn’t loading. NOC verifies they can’t open it either, and pings the proper team. Before the team gets knee-deep in coding a fix, the problem disappears as all affected parties are able to access the tab without issue.
  • Preferences not resetting(12/7, ~4 hours) Automated alerting notifies the NOC that one core process isn’t completing a self-loop properly. Escalation and investigation shows that one of two core machines are causing the overall problems. Engineers reboot both machines and watch to see if the self-loop finishes properly (which it eventually does).
  • Disabled Practice Tool(12/7, ~205 minutes) NOC is notified by automated alerting that CPU usage across game servers is approaching warning limits. To ensure the limit isn’t exceeded, the NOC disables practice tool games briefly, alleviating the load slightly. Once the CPU usage falls back to normal levels, the NOC re-enables practice tool and removes all ticker updates.
  • Loot Outage(12/7, ~222 minutes

    from
    http://www.surrenderat20.net/2019/12/red-post-collection-mid-patch-updates.html
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