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Quick Gameplay Thoughts: May 30

RiotMeddler·5/30/2018, 3:56:35 PM·1 votes·53,638 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 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

Why the PBE's not good for judging balance

A question we see crop up pretty regularly is 'why don’t you balance off PBE testing more?'. We'd love to get a better read on balance changes while they're still on PBE so we can catch more things before they're live. PBE's not a good representation of normal LoL play though unfortunately.

To dig into that a bit more though let's take a look at some data that compares impact of balance changes on the PBE versus those same changes later on the regular servers. The Live servers are the top set of data here, PBE the lower. Champs listed are those we made changes to in 8.9. The Live data's from just after the patch went out, the PBE data's from most of the PBE patch cycle. Win rate differences listed are relative to where champs were during the previous cycle for the respective servers (e.g. PBE Mundo in 8.9 is being compared to PBE Mundo in 8.8, not Live Mundo in 8.8). Apologies these aren’t the easiest to read graphs, they’re just slightly modified screenshots from one of our tools.

https://imgur.com/a/QroQ5Ij

As you can see in some cases impact of a change is pretty similar in the data sets (e.g. Talon at +1.5% PBE and +2% Live). Most changes however are pretty different, sometimes extremely so (Shyvana, Mundo, Leona, Rammus etc show very different changes on PBE here versus Live).

That difference between PBE and Live performance is due to a range of factors:

  • PBE has a lot of people trying weird stuff, not trying to win, lots of afking etc
  • PBE has low quality matchmaking (very large skill discrepancies between players). That's due to both a low server population and lack of match history for most players to accurately gauge their skill.
  • Even if people are trying and are appropriately matched there just aren't enough games on most champs for a good sample size. With a couple of hundred games for a champion margin of error is really large, even more so if a lot of those games come from one or two players spamming that champ.
  • We also see a lot of people trying things for the first time (e.g. AP Shyvana in this example)
  • Etc

That's not to say PBE isn't really helpful. What's it's good for though is generally not balance related though. Things like:

  • Identifying and reproducing bugs
  • Generating perception feedback on changes, both from people who've tried it in game and those who've read about it elsewhere (sites like Boards, Reddit, Surrender@20 etc)
  • Assessing intuitiveness and usability that aren't dependent on the actions of other players much. Does this ability feel smooth to cast? Is this tooltip intuitive?

Yorick

We’ve got a change going into 8.12 where Yorick’s summons will update their stats as Yorick’s stats update. In particular that means things that give/remove AD post cast (Sterak’s, Conqueror, Mocking Shout etc) will be more relevant.

Early Game Snowball

We’ve seen an increase in early game snowball over recent patches, both statistically and in player feedback. We’ll be looking at that as one of our highest gameplay priorities for a while as a result. Some preliminary details about what we’re thinking later in the week. One of the challenges there will be managing both an increase in solo carry potential (another goal) with reducing early game snowball, given things that do one will often clash with the other.

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

263 Comments

Shaian5/30/2018, 4:51:27 PM9 votes

Did the Zyraplantchanges make it for 8.11? I havent seen anything related to that.

Another question about the meleechamp interaction. Do you think its ok, if Champions like Irelia or Yasuo can use them as a free gapcloser/reset on their dashes and oneshotting the plants at the same time?

fabfan5/30/2018, 3:57:23 PM7 votes

Hi @Meddler, I have a question, if a post on the forum or Reddit is made to ask you to help Garen and it gets many many votes, will you listen to his players and do some change on him? If yes, how many votes do you need on the post and what specific content do you want on it, to take it seriously?

Quality Content5/30/2018, 4:47:21 PM3 votes

Now that Pyke is about to released what is the timeline for Aatrox looking like? How soon can you guys start talking about him?

dome0255/30/2018, 4:09:14 PM3 votes

@Hi Meddler

Just wanna hear your thoughts about what if crit would give a chance to deal true damage instead of higher damage? This wouldn´t make crit as much as a problem to squishies and with the new infinity edge you are using a slightly similar approach. Sorry if you spoke about this in a previous gameplay thoughts post.

And another aspect. What do you think about increasing variety and conditions of shields?

First example: A shield which is granted to all allies in the targeted area. But all allies would use the same shield -> for example: maximum shield value is 500, sona uses it for 50 damage and now the shield value goes down for everyone to 450.

Second example: A shield which could be cast like Viktor´s ult. It´s a missile which gives the nearest ally a shield and the user needs to follow his ally with the missile otherwise it doesn´t shield his ally anymore.

BP SmL5/30/2018, 4:10:34 PM3 votes

@Meddler

Hi! Do you have any changes for Shen planned? He is not really in a great spot for SoloQ right now.

Reign of Squid5/30/2018, 4:16:21 PM3 votes

I remember you talked about Karma lore and gameplay update. What's new about that ?

Spideraxe5/30/2018, 4:02:05 PM3 votes

Hey Meddler, can I ask for your thoughts on Predator now that it's starting to gain traction amongst Olaf and Skarner

Ninetales5/30/2018, 4:36:23 PM3 votes

Hey Meddler,

Is there any talk about the future of yorick now that steraks is being gutted of its trinity combination?

He loses out on roughly 100-190 damage every 1.5 seconds with that change, and as he has no bonus AD scalings, the changes do not benefit him in any way.

Solari Fortune5/30/2018, 4:03:15 PM3 votes

Whats your guys thoughts on this whole funneling strat that has been popping up lately in that a jungler gives all their camps to a laner with smite leading to the laner being far ahead of everyone in the game, or the reverse of a support laner giving all their farm to the jungler and following them around while they can freely invade because they are often 3+ levels up on the enemy jungler

Also any thoughts for Rek'Sai? You think she in an OK spot atm?

MurderousMonarch5/30/2018, 4:55:58 PM2 votes

Hey Meddler. Anything on Evelynn ? She seems very weak after the scuttler meta rolled in and while the change to Runic Echo's will surely help, It feels like she could use a bit more love.

atlıkarınca5/30/2018, 4:17:47 PM2 votes

I'd like to see something about Lissandra at PBE today.

Salson5/30/2018, 4:46:37 PM2 votes

What can we expect from Atma and Spear of Shoujin is the next PBE patch? Same things or maybe some adjustments?

catjug5/30/2018, 4:48:38 PM2 votes

You previously talked about Kindred and how there may be buffs to her, any news about that?

WindLord70705/30/2018, 4:42:57 PM1 votes

Any news on lane nidalee getting help?

Gurdi5/30/2018, 4:32:46 PM1 votes

One of the challenges there will be managing both an increase in solo carry potential (another goal) with reducing early game snowball, given things that do one will often clash with the other.

I would really like to get more information on how you guys want to increase solo carry potential with respect to snowballing being tightly linked to that in the current system. Are you looking for champion, items or other game mechanic changes to increase solo carry potential while reducing snowballing?