Boards›Dev Corner

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: February 1

RiotMeddler·2/1/2019, 4:28:53 PM·1 votes·144,487 views

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

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/6.24.1/img/champion/Ziggs.png

Rakan

We hit Rakan with a pretty substantial nerf to his W in 9.2, with the goal of reducing the reliability of his engage meaningfully. Looking at how that's gone it's probably hit him a bit too hard though. Current plan is to see how he performs in pro play, given the 9.2 changes were aimed at making him more balanceable between pro and regular play in part. Based off that and his solo queue performance we'll then either look at the best way to put some power back in general (outcome we think is likely) or at a way to give him power in solo queue without making him stronger in pro (less likely, but possible). That might include speeding his W up somewhat, since we erred on the large side with the change to make sure we got a meaningful difference but realize that comes at a meaningful feel hit for Rakan players. If that's not appropriate, or what we can do there's not enough by itself, other potential changes include an R buff (giving MS on button press towards enemies rather than on contact?) or Q buff (details TBD).

Jungle post 9.2

Wanted to share some initial observations and thoughts on how the 9.2 jungle changes have affected things so far. We're still digging into some of the data and the meta's still shifting a bit. These are preliminary current state of things notes as a result, rather than things we're certain will be the final stable state of the game

  • The XP changes seem to have put junglers on average at the intended levels by game time. While they can look large on paper, effect on total jungler XP hasn't been that dramatic given changes to XP scaling (not base), don't kick in immediately and junglers do get some other sources of XP.
  • We're seeing some junglers who rely on a strong power spike at 6 still doing fine, others struggling a bit. Need to look into those cases more.
  • Power changes for different types of jungler haven't been that large in most contexts. Really high MMR (high diamond and above) does stand out though, with the same patterns seen in average MMR but to significantly larger degrees. As you'd expect junglers who focus on heavy farming and getting ahead of the XP curve, particularly those who use Challenging Smite well, have lost out on the most power. Kha'Zix and Graves are good examples of that, both of whom we felt could do with a bit of a power down.

On the flip side of things we're seeing tanks performing somewhat better, again especially in high MMR. That's pretty expected, given tanks tend to perform better whenever a position shifts towards lower economy (XP and/or gold) states, given their contributions are less scaling dependent overall. Tanks in average MMRs by contrast haven't changed too much, though do seem to be benefiting a bit. We're keeping an eye on their performance in both contexts. Good to see some stronger tank performance overall, bit cautious about discrepancies between skill levels and organized play versus solo queue potentially leaving them too dominant in some contexts while being fine elsewhere, given that's a trend we've seen in the past.

More thoughts plus probably some statistics to dig through to come, potentially next week. We don't have any systemic tuning planned for the jungle in 9.3. Will assess again during the 9.4 development cycle though, see if any follow up's needed to the 9.2 changes beyond individual champ adjustments. We have been looking at level 2 ganking, with a pretty heavy hit to Camille in 9.3. Xin Zhao we don't think's such an issue by contrast, given he's got more meaningful weaknesses than she does, so makes a much heavier trade off for that early strength.

Ranked 2019 so far

In case you missed it we posted a run through earlier in the week of how the ranked season start has been going. TLDR is so far fairly smooth, looking into a few things with position ranks though (NA and KR). Image here summarizes our current plans with more details available in the links below. Given there have been some meaningful changes to ranked versus last year and that we've got ongoing work on the system too it's a topic we'll keep talking about quite a bit over the next few months too, try and give you folks as much insight as we can into what we're thinking, what we'll be doing, what feedback would be especially helpful etc.

https://imgur.com/AJEPJmn https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/8sVyEEQ5-ranked-2019-dev-update-1

Update since time of writing: We’ve been digging into some bugs/issues that have been affecting matchmaking for regions with position ranked. More on that at the link below, trying to get those addressed as soon as possible given how impactful this sort of stuff can be on your experience if you’re playing ranked.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/AnObL88Z-ranked-2019-dev-update-2

228 Comments

mihlu2/1/2019, 4:48:56 PM18 votes

you can´t ignore me forever Meddler! What´s your thoughts on Taliyah and do you have any plans for her in the near future?

DARPA2/1/2019, 6:22:00 PM10 votes

Rage blade needs to be looked at. Vayn and kaisa are having a blast with it and Imo vayme is unhealthy with it. And the item is garbage on melee.

It's about time we bring back devoure in jungle. Blood razor is a master yi only item at this point. Rage blade needs to lose phantom hit passive. That one item equals two items worth of dps

Xyltin2/2/2019, 12:45:32 AM10 votes

The XP changes seem to have put junglers on average at the intended levels by game time. While they can look large on paper, effect on total jungler XP hasn't been that dramatic given changes to XP scaling (not base), don't kick in immediately and junglers do get some other sources of XP.

With todays pro games we have seen junglers being 1-3 lvls down to solo laners and even below the ADC only ahead of the support. Is that really intended? I mean, I can't see the solution for a role being to make them more into a second support again or an early game role only.

Right now the junglers have a lvl 3-6 XP hole (was there before) and then lack a bit of XP afterwards I would say. The problem of the junglers were not really the XP but the lvl 2 gank and that they had a bit too much time to gank early on.

I think you did go a bit too far and didn't actually solve the real problems of the jungle. For a lazy change it was ok, but it was still just a band-aid that didn't fix the jungle.

  1. lvl 2 ganks: speed up minion spawn from 1:10 to 1:00 to remove leashes. At the same time give the jungler 2 stacks of smite from the start. This way you can still clear fine with smite at your first camp but are slower. This delays lvl 2 ganks enough to give laners time to also get to lvl 2 or ward.

  2. Change jungle XP sclaling to a slightly curved one (more growth early, less later): camp lvl 2-9 gives 115/125/135/140/145/150/155/160 XP (still less than before 9.2). I also brought back a scaling with each lvl because it seems so strange to just add XP every 2 lvls. I added one more lvl of XP at the end to not give too much XP back too fast.

  3. If an ally now kills a camp while you are near you now gain the XP from the jungle item still. This is just a small QoL change when you give over buffs to allies. You give them already the camp XP, you should not also lose the item XP

  4. Rift Scutter reward: 120/130/140/150/160/170/180/190/200 XP (lvl 2-10; lvl 1 XP = lvl 2 XP) instead of 115-207 (lvl 1-9). Gold also down to 70-120

  5. Rift Scuttler Spawning: now spawns stacked. If both are alive and A dies, it has a 120 sec respawn timer. If A or B dies while the other one still has a respawn timer, its timer will not start till the first one respawned. Removes the RNG from the respawn and makes them spawn a bit more often.

Why?

  • junglers have a huge XP boost on their first camp but afterwards they are actually falling behind in XP pretty fast for a long time. This is why I made the XP not linear but a nice curve to increase XP at the second clear without increasing it even further on later clears. Wit the recent nerf they can still keep around till around lvl 3-4 but then fall behind decently fast (lvl 4 jungler vs lvl 6 solo laner). This gap needs to be reduced a bit.

  • Junglers after lvl 8+ fall off in XP so I added 2 more lvls of scaling for normal camps. They still don't each the old 172.5 XP at lvl 7 but at least 160 XP at lvl 9. It is still a nerf but gets them better into the mid/late game

  • Rift scuttler is mostly number clearing for clarity except for the respawn change. The respawn change also brings in more rift scuttlers so the reward was reduced a bit at the same time.

Adalvar2/1/2019, 4:36:49 PM9 votes

Hello Meddler.

Are Kayle and Morgana comming out in 9.3?

Also will you guys consider taking a look at item 3027 ? It's entire fantasy as a scaling item is not meeting the mark in anyway and even some of the core users of the item are dropping it. So will guys finally shift some weight around to get someone to take a look at it, since it's a very thematic item on paper atleast.

Señor Hot Buns2/1/2019, 4:35:42 PM9 votes

Hi Meddler, The Wukong VFX updates are really nice. Could you thank the VFX team for me as a jungle Monkey Main?

Chief Mayonnaise2/1/2019, 4:37:40 PM7 votes

Hey Meddler, any news about the conqueror replacement/new FoB rune that was teased earlier in the preseason? Also wondering if there are still plans to change adc base stats such as higher mr, or if that will wait until after the crit item changes are introduced.

AHeroNamedHawke2/1/2019, 4:49:22 PM7 votes

Are the Aatrox changes still going through on the PBE? Removing both his ammo system and most of his lane sustain at the same seems fairly drastic, especially since his w/r has already dropped a bit from the last round of nerfs.

If he does still need changes by 9.3, I think a look at his passive and W might be a better direction. As it stands W doesn't really matter for his damage, so shifting some from Q could encourage landing both parts and tone down his silly AoE.

Ataraxas2/1/2019, 6:56:03 PM6 votes

??? Jungle is NOT in an ok state. You nerfed the exp way too hard, revert it.

Powerfarming barely keeps you on par with solo laners. If you're giving up early game influence for late game power you should come out with a level or two ahead, not barely on par. That's bs.

Blood Teller2/1/2019, 5:23:28 PM6 votes

Thoughts on Taliyah Taliyah ? She is barely played both mid and jungle now after the last changes hit her.

Solari Fortune2/1/2019, 4:46:17 PM5 votes

Hey Meddler, What Marksmen are the team going to be keeping an eye on the most for next patch when all the crit changes come through

m4n4l3ssdr3dge2/1/2019, 4:37:29 PM5 votes

Hey meddler,

Is there a philosophical reason that almost all items with actives are AP or tank based rather than AD?

So for example, Ap users have the whole hextech tree, twin shadows, banshees, serephs, hour glass, spell binder, shurelias, etc. tanks have a ton as well.

Lethality users have two, ghost blade and edge. And just plane old AD users have only Botrk and Tiamat. But ranged AD builders don’t even have Tiamat and just get Botrk.

What’s the logic for giving AD users few active items? Plan or coincidence?

Frosted Tips2/1/2019, 7:10:07 PM5 votes

So is there any update on the AP Bruiser Itemization that PhRoXz0n is working on? They are really missing out on proper itemization unlike their AD counterparts.

Proxyminers19862/1/2019, 11:43:13 PM5 votes

I wanted to discuss the terrible Rank system. The real issue is that people will exploit any complex system that you make.

  1. The most common is the duo que with swap. Since your system wants to discourage lane swaps to a more favorable match up, Duos que up with their partners role and swap. Lowering the games MMR to give favorable matches of a Plat top main vs a silver top laner.

  2. If you're at 100 LP in your main, get Autofilled to a secondary and lose, you are removed from 100 lp in your main, forcing you to win again for 3 LP.

Here is an example of a real rank system with no flaws.

  1. Keep our tiers (iron, bronze, silver, gold, etc.).

  2. Keep our 4 divisions in their tiers (4, 3, 2, 1).

  3. Make Promotional games only for going up in a tier (silver to gold aka silver 1 to gold 4).

  4. Remove LP and make the system a win and loss system that increases the number of wins needed to go up a division, based on your tier bracket. For example, Silver needs 5 wins for each division and on the 5th win, you go up a division rank. But if you lose a game, it takes 1 more win to move up. Simple and straight forward, most importantly, gets rid of those rage tilt moments when you climb and get shafted by 1 LP like your current system does regularly.

  5. Keep the MMR as the match making system, but let the players see their MMR in the game hub under their account tab. I find it very stupid that you hide our MMR from us and don't let us see the real value of our time in your game. You say sites like OP.GG are wrong, but until we see it from you, I cannot believe your MMR system isn't rigged to punish players in mid to low elos that are climbing, i remember last season i got an S- but got just 14 LP and a loss was 19 LP. My example of your system punishing me for doing a good job.

KronBobon2/1/2019, 5:42:01 PM5 votes

Hey Meddler,

I'm here for the Taliyah question again. Mains dislike her both in the jungle and especially mid (where she belongs!!!!)

Would love some words about her, thanks man

Corey Grim2/1/2019, 9:32:49 PM5 votes

Well, I did stop playing jungle after year maining it. The xp + scuttle has made it so that only very agressive or tank junglers are viable. My champion pool is not "regular junglers" so for me it is simply no fun to play jungle anymore. I maintained positive winrate in there, but I am just tired of being totally dependant on IF laners will rotate or not to help out or create lane priority. So until jungle is changed to allow others than Kha'zix and xin type of junglers, I am staying out of there.

Salvor Hardın2/1/2019, 4:31:47 PM4 votes

Hi Meddler! What happened to the Renekton buff announced for 9.3? Any plans for Rek´Sai?

LegendarySaiyanG2/1/2019, 4:42:09 PM4 votes

Hey Meddler speaking of level 6 spike junglers, do you think evelynn was hit bit too much requiring a buff of some kind or is she fine in your opinion? Just wanted your thoughts on her

Shahamut2/1/2019, 9:25:36 PM4 votes

item 3070 Skarner item 3070

Mega Cμm Load2/1/2019, 6:32:38 PM3 votes

hello Meddler any plans for taliyah she's been weak for a long time now i was a big taliyah player and played around 300 games last year but i got her on arurf game and boy it feels so bad that a 2 items taliyah Q cant shove a wave of 3 minnions

Ałice2/1/2019, 6:15:56 PM3 votes

Is Zac included among the "tanks"? I only see his death rate increasing after the jg nerf and he's powerless when counterjungled. Zac

smexxyhex2/1/2019, 11:19:51 PM3 votes

Balance team needs to take a serious look at Sona and it's disheartening how forgotten she is. Why can Riot have champs like Lucian and Thresh be viable forever while Sona gets hit hard the moment she sees a speck of competitive play?

Ascended Shadow2/5/2019, 3:36:03 PM3 votes

Karma pls senpai [vlad-salute]

Small Boobs Ahri2/1/2019, 4:35:01 PM3 votes

Hello Meddler I saw that Riven Olaf Kennen and Wukong will receive new VFX, will there be more planned?

Will they have their icon update too ?

RekSai CoffeeCo2/2/2019, 12:03:26 PM3 votes

{quoted}

Jungle post 9.2

Wanted to share some initial observations and thoughts on how the 9.2 jungle changes have affected things so far. We're still digging into some of the data and the meta's still shifting a bit. These are preliminary current state of things notes as a result, rather than things we're certain will be the final stable state of the game

  • The XP changes seem to have put junglers on average at the intended levels by game time. While they can look large on paper, effect on total jungler XP hasn't been that dramatic given changes to XP scaling (not base), don't kick in immediately and junglers do get some other sources of XP.
  • We're seeing some junglers who rely on a strong power spike at 6 still doing fine, others struggling a bit. Need to look into those cases more.
  • Power changes for different types of jungler haven't been that large in most contexts. Really high MMR (high diamond and above) does stand out though, with the same patterns seen in average MMR but to significantly larger degrees. As you'd expect junglers who focus on heavy farming and getting ahead of the XP curve, particularly those who use Challenging Smite well, have lost out on the most power. Kha'Zix and Graves are good examples of that, both of whom we felt could do with a bit of a power down.

On the flip side of things we're seeing tanks performing somewhat better, again especially in high MMR. That's pretty expected, given tanks tend to perform better whenever a position shifts towards lower economy (XP and/or gold) states, given their contributions are less scaling dependent overall. Tanks in average MMRs by contrast haven't changed too much, though do seem to be benefiting a bit. We're keeping an eye on their performance in both contexts. Good to see some stronger tank performance overall, bit cautious about discrepancies between skill levels and organized play versus solo queue potentially leaving them too dominant in some contexts while being fine elsewhere, given that's a trend we've seen in the past.

More thoughts plus probably some statistics to dig through to come, potentially next week. We don't have any systemic tuning planned for the jungle in 9.3. Will assess again during the 9.4 development cycle though, see if any follow up's needed to the 9.2 changes beyond individual champ adjustments. We have been looking at level 2 ganking, with a pretty heavy hit to Camille in 9.3. Xin Zhao we don't think's such an issue by contrast, given he's got more meaningful weaknesses than she does, so makes a much heavier trade off for that early strength.

Going to need to see the full stats because of right now it is all double speak as any amount of replays show otherwise and your selective hearing is avoiding all the threads and comments pointing otherwise of what you said above.

Scuttle needs to go for diversity sake.

igracek fousac2/4/2019, 4:17:20 PM3 votes

Hello Meddler I have a question: Does Udyr have a guaranteed rework for 2019 and can you give us more information about Udyr rework ? Have a nice day -Igracek Udyr

SAMASAL2/4/2019, 7:15:36 PM3 votes

Any love for Shyvana? she needs some serious buffs.

Bisaknosp2/4/2019, 9:49:54 PM3 votes

xd? kha zix needs some direct nerfs can you actually do something about this cancer?

Padoµch2/5/2019, 10:45:20 AM3 votes

Hi Meddler, Are you planning on doing anything with Zyra mid? She lost 75% of her early game dmg with magic pene runes out of the game + ap item changes. I would love to my loved main viable again in the role she needs to be in.

Thanks.

Sergioshi12/1/2019, 5:31:07 PM1 votes

Finally some opinions on the unfair nerf for my main the vastayan charmer. You've been nerfing his base stats all past year and 9.2 too, even if he still was weak enough already. [slayer-jinx-unamused] Decided not to play him anymore until he's not back to a good state. Literally unplayable in soloq, stop killing champions due to pro play because otherwise that will end up killing the game.