Quick Gameplay Thoughts: October 13

RiotMeddler·Oct 13, 2017·1 votes·37,116 views

Hi all,

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

Health Bar Improvements

We've got some health bar improvements coming to the PBE in the next week or two. Some of the changes will be more subtle stuff like making it a bit easier to tell how much damage you just took/dealt based off how the bar updates. Other changes will be more explicit like adding a clearer visualization for champs with resurrection effects available (Zac, Anivia, GA etc) so that figuring out whether someone will respawn or not doesn't have to involve digging through a bunch of icons on the buffbar.

A lot more details about those changes to come from the team working on them once they're on PBE. We'll be continuing to work on them while they're on PBE, so feedback once they're there would be highly appreciated.

Item Tweaking in Pre-Season

In addition to base stat and ability adjustments we're trying out some item changes to also adjust for the impact of runes. We're buffing a range of items, primarily those that offer magic pen or lethality, to compensate for damage their users have otherwise lost. The particular items in question were chosen because they both generally offer anti champion power (what was lost, and we don't want to increase waveclear unnecessarily) and because they're pretty closely tied to champs who need a bit more help in the new runes world. We're still planning to look at AP items as well sometime early next year, it's likely a change or two we'd originally been considering for that package of work gets pulled forwards and done here though.

7.21 will be a really light patch

Just a quick reminder that there won't be much in 7.21 given there's so much coming in 7.22. A few small balance adjustments, but nothing too major. Most of it's on the PBE already, possible we get one or two more things depending on what time permits though (chance of Udyr buffs, Locket adjustments).

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

215 Comments

KennysDreamGirlOct 13, 201712 votes

i cant think of a question so im just gonna say hi

RiotMeddlerOct 13, 201715 votes

I can think of an answer: Hi!

DeadUnbornOct 14, 20174 votes

Hey since you are talking about improving health bars. Have you guys at Riot considered adding a counter on the health bars for stacking champions like Nasus, Sion, Kindred, Veigar, Bard, Rengar, Cho Gath and Thresh.

I think adding a counter to this champions would help a lot with clarity, since their power is related specifically to how many stacks they have (especially champions like Kindred and Bard who don't scale linearly). This would also help inexperienced players who could approach a character like Nasus and Veigar and not understand how they got one shotted.

RiotCrabDustOct 16, 20176 votes

I agree that we should better communicate scaling power for stacking champs, both before and after you've been one-shotted, but we are not planning to add this kind of info to the health bar above a champ's head.

The main reason is uptime. A number like that would be floating up there the entire game whether it was relevant or not. Other than basic resources like health and mana, we feel the healthbar space should be reserved for much more timely info or else you end up with a cluttered game-space pretty quickly.

Totally different scenario would be if those champs gained that enormous offensive power off a button press in-the-moment.

ThryaleOct 16, 20172 votes

why not display "milestones" graphically then? Like for veigar/nasus for ever 50 stacks you could put a small little graphic like a star or a notch or something to indicate the milestone has been reached, and improve or add more as more milestones are achieved. that way you can tell at a glance roughly how strong the champ is without it completely cluttering the HUD

RiotCrabDustOct 17, 20174 votes

For sure if we did something in game space we would need to use milestones rather than an exact number.

DeadUnbornOct 16, 20174 votes

While I understand your point, I still feel a counter or some other way of communicating what the power level of some champs like Nasus and Veigar -- which is directly tied to how many stacks they have -- is necessary to improve clarity in the game for inexperienced players.

Since the health bar is already used to communicate "the bounty target" in Garen's and Kindred's bounty system, I was under the impression that you were open to adding more communication tools to the health bar in the future. The next best solution I think would be to add in-game cues to the characters that scale with stacks, similar to how Cho Gath scales in size and Bard has more meeps

Rengar: Global Quote/Rawr to enemy champions whenever he gets a bounty stack
Kindred: Global Quote/Sound each time they achieve the next power level
Nasus and Veigar: Glowing particles on their model that gets more pronounced every 50 stacks or particles/effects that "scale" in another way
** Veigar 2:** His voice could be modified so that the more stacks he gets, the more "evil" he sounds (teaches inexperienced players they are getting more powerful)
Thresh: Lanterns gets brighter by X number of stacks
Bard: Global sound by X number of chimes collected
** Sion** you can look at his health bar already I guess, but his belly could glow briefly and make a sound by X number of stacks so inexperienced players know they are doing a good job

RiotCrabDustOct 17, 20173 votes

We haven't explored a solution, but I could see the scoreboard (TAB screen) being a really good fit for this kind of info. You're already tracking overall power of a champ through CS, KDA, items, etc. Veigar or Nasus stacks exists in the same kind of evaluation IMO. What do you think?

EDIT: In addition to an in-game, on-model effect. Show that power curve.

ﬂooOct 17, 20171 votes

Kindred would be unfitting since she gets stacks from counterjungling and everyone already sees the marks. So everyone would know where she is once she gets a jungle stack

RiotCrabDustOct 17, 20172 votes

Could treat her stacks like items and jg cs and not show unless you have vision of her.

09 04 1336Oct 13, 201710 votes

Hi Meddler I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to ask this question but I really need a proper answer for this one. I main Fizz and have more than 3000 games with him, his rework feels bad and clunky and is too burst oriented. The guy that made the rework of Fizz even said that he fucked up, can you guys maybe revert the rework like Kog'Maw ? Or rework his kit ? /r/fizzmains is really unsatisfied with Fizz right now and how he works. He depends on his ult too much and feels too braindead to play.

Sw4deOct 13, 20179 votes

Has there been any talk on reverting the fizz rework? so many new issues, much lower skillcap and skill expression, just 1 of the issues being the kit of a melee assassin, all his basic abilities involve him being in melee range and fighting in melee range, yet his ult punishes you for fighting within the range of his kit, it really doesnt make sense, or the fact that he has easily one of the worst laning phases in the entire game and then spikes midgame and then falls off late game again thanks to the W change.

Sw4deOct 13, 20176 votes

Im honestly just sitting in this thread for most of the last hour refreshing and hoping for a response to pop up, its really discouraging the way riot has treated the entire assassin class for so many years, the entire assassin rework felt like a massive middle finger to them and then we were all told to enjoy the shit sandwhich we were left with.

Imagine playing league of legends for the first time, just enjoying learning the game, you come across a stream of a champion and you just fall in love, you play them happily for 4-5years, you play as much of this champion as every other champion combined in your ranked stats, practically a one trick pony, you climb all the way to diamond with it, absolute Euphoria, look how far ive come with my main, then one day riot announces a rework for the entire class, you think to yourself surely theres no reason to touch my favourite champion at all, he has a defined power curve, solid skill expression, pretty high skill cap, annoying to play against when fed sure but what champ isnt really, and a very very abusable laning phase, then you're served with riot's shit sandwhich, you see the feces spilling out between the slices, but you say that can't be right, let me give it a taste, let me try out this rework.

Then you're served with the realisation that it really was feces between that bread, theres no sauce, no spices, just bread filled with shit, just like fizz, left with no skill expression, no other combo's other than hitting a long range R, imagine being a full melee champion with no way to fight or farm from range at all, and then being punished for fighting in melee range, early game is still one of the most abusable in the game yet his power curve has been destroyed, hes strong for a short duration mid-game and then hes just as weak lategame as he is early game, but his 1 hit wonder combo was buffed, his skill floor raised so his winrate is higher, so riot brushes off all criticisms, players who've never mained the champion tell you hes strong, look at this 51% winrate, wow fizz never had that before, but then you pick up this shit sandwhich, and you just know its not tasty, you're not going to bite into it again, so you put it back down, and decide you've been forced to move on from the champion you once loved.

MidasRegalityOct 13, 20176 votes

Hi Meddler, thanks for doing this again. Anything new about Fizz?

DarkrownOct 13, 20175 votes

Hi Meddler! Anything planned for Quinn at the moment? She's kind of in a weird spot right now. I really like playing her but I'm not even sure which lane to take her anymore :/

Ars ArcánumOct 13, 20172 votes

if I take her top I'll just get quickly outscaled by a bruiser or a tank with bramble vest and tabis, and if I take her mid, I have no wave clear and become prone to crowd control lockdown by way of her E. I hate how the rework failed to address that.

I think it'd be a step in the right direction if they brought back bonus damage on Q based on missing health to minions/monsters only in exchange for the mechanic that renders creeps hit by Q unable to attack.

ZomsOct 13, 20175 votes

I've noticed that Rakan's ability Battle Dance stacks when cast on the same target. This seems to be something new for him. Is this an intended feature that wasn't mentioned in any patch notes or is it a bug?

RiotMeddlerOct 13, 20173 votes

I'm pretty sure that's no intentional, we'll follow up, see if someone failed to patch note/discuss it properly or if a bug courtesy of the shield changes in 7.20.

VekknaOct 13, 20175 votes

Yay, my favorite subject - magic pen!

Look, I'm not going to complain about having more mpen, but these changes are not tailored to address the problems with mages who stack flat pen or rely on piercing thoughts + DFT, but it's such a broad buff that low pen mages are coming out ahead.

We need changes that will address the issue of power curve and scaling for the first group without giving too much free pen to mages who are less dependent on pen for their scaling.

Revert changes to Sorcs and Void
Lower Guise pen to 10 (unique passive, not Eyes of Pain) and reduce cost
Liandry's keeps Guise's 10 flat pen (not Eyes of Pain) and gains 2% pen (or bonus MR pen?) per tick, doubled to 4% against movement impaired units (unique passive)
New item: Lost Chapter + Guise + Amp Tome (or Guise + Amp Tome + Catalyst) with Eyes of Pain (20 mpen)
Protobelt: Guise + Hextech Revolver with Eyes of Pain (20 mpen)

The idea is to smooth out power spikes by making pen components more accessible instead of just making pen spikes bigger. The Guise + Chapter (or Cata) item would be a great rush item; fill a distinct niche between Morello, ROA, and Archangel; and maintain the power curve for mages who need some early pen + Precision but don't necessarily stack pen. And it's usable by champs with no feet.

The point of the Liandry's change is to give pen-stacking and dot mages a flat pen component early that builds into % shred item to maintain scaling in late game. The % pen is mostly just replacing Piercing Thoughts and stacks over 3 seconds, making it unappealing to burst mages.

I'll spare you the math, but the True Damage threshold with this itemization is 1 MR away from live, and the power curve is more fair to mages and enemies alike. Don't believe me? Assuming max pen, here are the intervals:

Live: 22 at spawn > 37 at boots > 52 at 1 component > 52+35% at 2 items > 56 + 35% at lvl 18

Reforged: 0 at spawn > 15 at boots > 25 at first component > 35 at full item > 45 at item + component > 45 + 6-12% at two items > 45 + 51-57% at three items

Balance achieved.

TL;DR: This idea works, is more fair, and is more sustainable. Free pen on Sorcs and Void are not the right changes. These buffs are disproportionately strong in some fights (eg Syndra/Veigar vs. any squishy) and disproportionately weak in other fights (eg Cassio/Zyra vs. Galio, Vlad, etc).

DreamCrushedOct 13, 20174 votes

Hey, I am really happy I caught one of these early. I know this is unrelated to this particular QGT, but I've noticed a trend. Every time a champion gets a VGU, they are almost guaranteed an additional form of CC, especially if they are a fighter/bruiser/diver/tank.

So I have a question. Right now, one of the only fighters left without any CC (aside from like a .25 second knock back) is Shyvana. Is there any plans to add any form of CC to her that would give her a little more interact-ability outside of right clicking?

Also BTW, thanks for doing these Meddler, I read practically every one.

RiotMeddlerOct 13, 20178 votes

No plans on that for Shyv, though if we did a VGU would certainly be on the table as something to consider. I do think we should do a Shyv VGU someday, she's got fantastic potential we could do more with. That'd be years away though, she's in a much better state than many.

DreamCrushedOct 13, 20172 votes

Ya, agreed she's in a pretty good spot ATM, especially after the E changes on Dragon form. I was just curious. Thanks for the quick reply! [slayer-jinx-catface]

PennsOct 13, 20174 votes

Melee AP mid laners dont really buy item 3020 or item 3151 (there is no buff for that one yet anyway tho, will there be one like 15 -> 18?) Do you have anything planned for flat magic pen and them?

AaravosOct 13, 20179 votes

"We here at riot don't care about ap assasins".

TormentulaOct 13, 20173 votes

Will we likely see buffs to poorly preforming champions after the runes update?

I mean buffs that try to put stuff like Skarner Kindred back into the meta?

How's Evelynn looking so far on live even with the current runes and masteries?

RiotMeddlerOct 13, 20173 votes

Runes update will be a bit of a balance reset overall, so we'll be looking at the roster as a whole with fresh eyes.

Eve's performing fairly well in jungle for a champ with some learning curve, definitely doesn't seem out of line though. At one point in testing we saw her laning be really dominant via some really low counterplay stuff and we built a number of restrictions into her kit to avoid that being a problem. Looks like we did more than was necessary there though, so at the least we'll likely ease off on some stuff that'll help laning Eve out a bit/might buff jungle Eve slightly (e.g. Q having a lower CD, and lower refund on monsters, E rank 1 damage higher).

SiachiOct 13, 20171 votes

On the topic of Evelynn, I recall hearing that you'd test 'Minion damage does not reset Demon Shade's cooldown' for Evelynn. Have you decided whether this would be an appropriate change for Evelynn, or are you worried it would overbuff Lane Eve (I admit, her passive seems like it'd be a pretty good way to say in lane if your opponent doesn't have the tools to burst you down quickly)?

RiotMeddlerOct 13, 20174 votes

Oh, yeah, we'll be trying that too, though I don't know how confident to be it'll ship or not yet though.

TantarboyOct 13, 20173 votes

Any update on the Galio anti mage/MR changes that you had mention a bit ago?

RiotMeddlerOct 13, 20173 votes

Galio work got delayed as we had to pull the designer on it onto other more urgent stuff. Probably looking at it again soonish though.

Off Meta ZileanOct 13, 20173 votes

Oh, Meddler - why are champions like Zilean who buy Lucidity Boots midlane not being compensated for the damage loss that other mages are getting back via Sorc Boots?

Jaycen bOrnnOct 13, 20172 votes

Hey Meddler,

Speaking about lethality and MPen, a while back Lord Dom’s and Mortal Reminder were added as upgrades to LW. Do you anticipate you might consider doing the same with void staff?

Cheers, JB

RiotMeddlerOct 13, 20174 votes

No plans to do so at the moment, I'd expect we'll consider it again as part of the AP item pass planning though. It certainly shares some of the problems of old LW, so could be a way to get a little more choice into the system. Would probably leave it at total pen though, given base MR's so much lower so the value of changing versus disruption cost isn't as meaningful.

Risk of FateOct 13, 20172 votes

[deleted]

RiotMeddlerOct 13, 201713 votes

We'll be patching regardless to put out bug fixes and, I'd imagine, a few skins if nothing else. If there's something we're confident is a good change that will still be applicable after pre-season hits (e.g. Sejuani being a bit strong, therefore getting nerfed) makes sense we feel to make that change quicker and get the benefit of it rather than waiting.

Gear5LuffyOct 13, 201715 votes

or you know twitch nerfs

SciFi ScrivenerOct 13, 20172 votes

Do you know what patch will contain the new Rune system? I'm guessing 7.23.

RiotMeddlerOct 13, 20177 votes

7.22

SciFi ScrivenerOct 13, 20174 votes

AWESOME!!! So looking forward to using the new system. Pass along a big thank you to the Riot team for all the hard work, we appreciate it. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Orochi YasuoOct 14, 20172 votes

I'm going to repost this since it's a good question:

"I have a genuine question that no rioter has seem to be able to answer yet. Why do assassins have larger windows of burst when mages and adc's don't? Why delay some champions but then leave others to delete people in .000001 seconds? Why is it only bad when certain assassins do it? Notice that assassin kayn has no delayed burst too.

I truly do think you guys should get rid of the delayed burst thing. It creates too large of a window for adc's to melt the class that's supposed to counter them."

RedesignatedOct 14, 20173 votes

The vast majority of assassins are hyper-mobile — they can get in and kill you, then almost immediately get out. Before their damage output had a more significant time delay added to it, they were excruciatingly frustrating to play against, especially if you couldn't match their mobility, or didn't rush a high-price, low-combat-efficiency defensive item; there would be significant chunks of time in a match where you had basically zero counterplay against instantly being killed as certain roles.

Conversely, most burst mages are immobile, slow, and have higher starting cooldowns that can be punished. Barring one or two (coughcoughSyndra), they also tend to be highly reliant on skillshots for bursting people instantly, meaning their damage can be dodged. Very few mages can exert strong roaming pressure like assassins can, as well.

ADCs, though, have been problematic for a while — not necessarily in terms of their general killing potential, but in how quickly they can achieve that killing potential, how that killing potential applies to not only champions but also turrets and Drake/Baron, and the added protection that they get because of their universal threat.

The strength and sheer variety in their item choices coupled with a "protect the ADC" meta have let even "scaling" builds powerspike really early. Someone standing there right-clicking you is going to kill you in about the same timeframe as an assassin given equal tools, which would be fine, but now top and jungle are usually expected to play secondary support to the ADC, and the primary support is forced into rushing their strongest ADC-enabling item because their other choices are terrible. ADCs will have an entire team backing them up, even more than they used to.

Yes, ADC is overpowered, but that doesn't mean assassins need buffs. People have been complaining about powercreep for years; we don't need to remove an important balancing factor to one role so that it can become broken, just to compete with another role that's already broken and needs nerfs.

Heavens KarmaOct 13, 20171 votes

Hello Meddler.

I don't know if you are the person to ask about this kind of thing, but there has been talks of a Karma gameplay update sometime in the future. My question is that there were 3 voice-lines for Traditional Karma that seem to be lost. I didn't start playing until long after Karma's first VGU, so I don't know if they were meant to be in her Traditional skin.

The voice lines were ones said by Karma when using Mantra with a specific spell, I think. Or perhaps it was added on to her current Mantra dialogue.

They were: "Lath Rian Oune Vi Phyla!" ("Weave the threads of Tranquility!") "Gaen Na Kyri Vi Jia!" ( "Reap the winds of Pain!") "Sae Eleisa Tera Vi Saera!" ("Discover the meaning of Magic!")

(Bold are the ones missing.)

When you eventually get to Karma, can these 3 lines be added back to Traditional Karma?

RiotMeddlerOct 13, 20173 votes

It's not my area of expertise, but that sounds like a pretty clear cut situation at least we can probably get an answer about fairly easily. I'll hit up one of our sound designers, see whether it's possible to restore those now or not.

RiotVonderhamzOct 13, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Heavens Karma,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=T9hRTMpZ,comment-id=0011,timestamp=2017-10-13T17:26:28.050+0000)

Hello Meddler.

I don't know if you are the person to ask about this kind of thing, but there has been talks of a Karma gameplay update sometime in the future. My question is that there were 3 voice-lines for Traditional Karma that seem to be lost. I didn't start playing until long after Karma's first VGU, so I don't know if they were meant to be in her Traditional skin.

The voice lines were ones said by Karma when using Mantra with a specific spell, I think. Or perhaps it was added on to her current Mantra dialogue.

They were: "Lath Rian Oune Vi Phyla!" ("Weave the threads of Tranquility!") "Gaen Na Kyri Vi Jia!" ( "Reap the winds of Pain!") "Sae Eleisa Tera Vi Saera!" ("Discover the meaning of Magic!")

(Bold are the ones missing.)

When you eventually get to Karma, can these 3 lines be added back to Traditional Karma?

Hey Heavens Karma,

I just went in a tested the skin and everything worked great for me. The only difference is the last word in all three of those Mantra phrases were not a part of the line. The Traditional Karma skin actually uses the VO from before her VGU, so it's a different voice actress saying the lines, so it does sound a bit different than base Karma.

Let me know if there's anyway I can clarify or if I'm not understanding fully!

Heavens KarmaOct 13, 20173 votes

Thank you for the reply, however I was just talking about the Traditional skin, not base Karma.

The 3 bold words were words old/traditional Karma said after using a Mantra'd ability. This was before her VGU however. I just wanted to know if it is at all possible to re-add them to the Traditional skin or if it was meant to be in the skin, since it was apart of her old self.

RiotVonderhamzOct 13, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Heavens Karma,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=T9hRTMpZ,comment-id=001100010000,timestamp=2017-10-13T18:16:01.964+0000)

Thank you for the reply, however I was just talking about the Traditional skin, not base Karma.

The 3 bold words were words old/traditional Karma said after using a Mantra'd ability. This was before her VGU however. I just wanted to know if it is at all possible to re-add them to the Traditional skin or if it was meant to be in the skin, since it was apart of her old self.

Got it! I was talking about Traditional Karma as well. All of the Mantra lines you had mentioned were a part of the skin and playing correctly when I went and checked by testing her ult. The last word of each phrase were not a part of the audio files, but each line did work, up to the word "Vi".

Solidair3Oct 13, 20171 votes

Yes, and so the question here is: can you add in those last words????

We know those lines are working UP TO THOSE WORDS, what we would like to hear is THOSE WORDS.

RiotVonderhamzOct 13, 20173 votes

{quoted}

Yes, and so the question here is: can you add in those last words????

We know those lines are working UP TO THOSE WORDS, what we would like to hear is THOSE WORDS.

Unfortunately, those words can't be added since they were never recorded. You can check it out for yourself at the end of the Traditional Karma Voice video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtRI6s7uIZE

Big Fella BombaOct 13, 20171 votes

i have a request since you guys are going to do a health bar improvements, can you please put a visual effect to the health bar (i am talking about the health bar below skills) that shows shields and shows the number of the shield, we can see the shield in the health bar above the champion but in the other one we can't see the shield and its value, this would be really helpful since i was looking to know how much the shield i gained from someone who gives shield like Morgana, Janna even those who give shield to themselves ex. Jarvan, Tahm and more.

RiotCrabDustOct 16, 20173 votes

Yes, we are planning on adding shields and ticks (those little black marks) to the health meter under your skills on the HUD. This will be post-launch though.