Quick Gameplay Thoughts: March 14

RiotMeddler·Mar 14, 2018·1 votes·37,584 views

Hey 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

Surveys

We do a lot of surveying each week to help us understand what's on players' minds. It's not something we talk about that much though, so figured it would be good to give anyone interested some more details. The surveys we do range from really simple (one or two boxes to tick after the game), to collecting general feedback (couple of questions and a box to type open feedback into) to quite lengthy (a link to an external website with a comprehensive set of questions about a range of topics). Over the last couple of weeks so some of topics we've been asking about include:

How important players feel the Honor system is or isn't
What players feel are are appropriate and inappropriate summoner names
Perceptions of queue time
The state of game Balance and what players feel needs buffing or nerfing
Attitudes to voice chat
Which champions people are excited to see interact in future stories (e.g. Swain/Darius, Ornn/Voli/Anivia, Garen/Kat, GP/MF etc, with a big list of possible combinations to chose from)
Perceptions of Swain. We ask about all new champs and VGUs, plus many of the smaller updates, both to players playing the champ in question and other in game with them. We survey just after their release and then again at least once a while later once things have settled down balance and perception wise.
Kai'Sa surveying, including thoughts about the release process too (what do people think about the teaser, reveal, comic, spotlight etc)

When conducting these surveys we want to get as accurate a reflection of the player base, or a targeted subset of it (e.g. ARAM players, or junglers) as possible. That means random selection from accounts within that target population and ensuring we're also getting a representative mix of accounts in terms of factors like what time of day someone normally plays or their MMR, assuming those aren't part of the initial targeting process (e.g. new players only, or Diamond plus players only). We'll also do surveying across a range of different regions to try and get as good a handle as possible on global player feelings. Lot of risk of unintentionally biasing towards feedback from English speaking regions otherwise, given we can read a lot of player feedback in it online easily ourselves.

Because of that need for randomized surveying to get a representative result we don't usually do opt in surveys for whoever's interested. Definitely understand the desire a number of people have to contribute to surveying on stuff about the game. The issue though is that people actively looking to take part in surveys tend to be non representative of the larger group you're trying to build up an understanding of. That most commonly means they're much more invested in the subject in question, which will lead to results that show much higher than accurate amounts of caring, positivity, negativity, engagement (or past engagement) with the game etc. One thing we might be able to do however for anyone interested in the survey side of things is posting more of the data we gather. If there are particular things you'd be interested in seeing survey results for let me know and I'll chat with our data folks about what's possible. I expect there'll be some things we can't share (probably some commercially sensitive data for example at a guess), but should also be some things we can post and talk about more.

Hiding Healthbars

Small thing, but following up on it since it was asked about in one of these threads a while back. We've got a change in for 8.6 where, if you've got hide healthbars turned on, it'll also hide them even when you mouseover the unit in question. Goal there is to make it a bit easier for video creators who want to hide health bars to make content.

On My Way Pings

We're also doing some work at the moment on the 'On my way' pings to try and make it so they convey some information about how far away the person coming is when they ping (e.g. Nocturne is coming from very far away versus Malphite is nearly there). Looking at things like somewhat different sounds, visual effects and chat messages to communicate that. It'll be a bit before that's ready for PBE still because it's being worked on by a few folks from Champion team in the gaps in their schedule between champion work.

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

306 Comments

Emo TwinkMar 14, 201814 votes

Anything on Lissandra? I miss my ice queen.

RiotMeddlerMar 14, 20189 votes

Nothing new since last week. Still refining that current direction at present.

1nsan1tyyMar 14, 201814 votes

Any word or Nautilus buffs/rework? He currently sits at a 46% winrate both support and top, a mini re-work akin to Ekko in the jungle would suit him really well

MAGA MAN X 2020Mar 14, 20182 votes

I don't care about him being viable in the jungle, I just miss playing my main. Nowdays you have to invest so much in mana that you're too squishy to be playable.

Mono HeartedMar 14, 201812 votes

Hey Meddler, what do you think about shifting ADCs back into a more "sustained damage" role compared to a burst damage role in the late game? In past season where I played, probably s3-6, that seemed to be the case, but the advent of the energizer/crit-rush build made it so that marksmen were dishing out huge amounts of damage in 1-3 auto attacks, which I personally believe is why the meta is so marksmen-focused currently.

I remember there were nerfs a while back making IE a worse first buy, I believe through nerfing crit chance on it and shifting it to the zeal items, but the energizer meta seems to make it still the best choice most of the time. Any thoughts on this?

RiotMeddlerMar 14, 201828 votes

I'd agree ADC damage is too frontloaded and arguably too anti squishy (hard to coexist near a late game ADC as someone who isn't tanky long enough to use your pattern). Shiv nerfs in 8.6 should bring that down a bit, expect we'll do more in or around midseason as well though.

F3EDfromDesIr3Mar 14, 20182 votes

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I Love RosesMar 14, 201821 votes

dude literally only 3 other champs that are not adc uses shiv all the time, one is yasuo (the pd is argue some what better), one is tryndamere and one is yi, sometimes on xin....

F3EDfromDesIr3Mar 14, 20181 votes

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HäxelMar 14, 201813 votes

what is your point exactly? it is not like these champions are realy weak. They have their own insane waveclear too. Also they have pd as an alternative too (would have seen gp as a 4th champ, him higher as yi. )

SalterinoKMar 14, 20186 votes

"it is not like these champions are really weak" MasterYi item 3070

Sun Wu RyuumokuMar 14, 20188 votes

Anything for item 3814 ??

any nerf pllaned for item 3047 ?

Frosted TipsMar 14, 20187 votes

Honestly how have item 3047 existed in this near must buy in every situation state for so long. Last boot like that was item 3009 and that only lasted like 2 months if I'm not mistaken.

Hexs FortuneMar 14, 20184 votes

{quoted}

Honestly how have existed in this near must buy in every situation state for so long. Last boot like that was and that only lasted like 2 months if I'm not mistaken.

item 3111 are always the true must buy. CC feels bad without em.

RiotMeddlerMar 14, 201811 votes

We're talking about Tabi at the moment. Should have some thoughts to share on Friday about them. Lot of that conversation's focused on how much of the issue is them being too strong versus being always a good choice (related issues, but not the same one).

SteelflameMar 14, 201817 votes

Could you also consider the fact that they are one of the VERY few "release valves" against ADCs in their current state as well?

Perhaps push them more into being that release valve, and less into "general anti AD" by doing something like -15 armor to them, but increasing the auto damage reduction?

Regardless, ADCs flat out are doing too much damage from too early in the game, and as such people have to react from as early as possible to do so, and your boots upgrade is one of the fastest ways to react to an opposing AD threat (And they are pretty much the main threat 85%+ of the time). It's fine that they are a ramping threat (to a point) but it should be starting to really kick in at 2.5-3 items, not 1.5 items.

DeathBurstMar 14, 20184 votes

A potential problem with your suggestion is that a lot of Toplaners/Junglers who are not Marksfolks are still basic attack reliant. Darius would be glad, but Tryndamere or Yi would feel very bad about that change, for instance.

SteelflameMar 14, 20183 votes

The main thing is it works good on both AD casters and auto attack based champs. Nerfing the armor but buffing the auto damage reduction makes it a net power loss while still keeping it as a good anti-auto item, and not decent/good armor item that also is good anti-auto item.

DeathBurstMar 14, 20182 votes

Yeah, I understood the first time. But buffing the anti-attack side as a release valve to marksfolks means you have a 1100 gold super efficient hard counter for a number of top/jungle champs like Aatrox, Xin, Yi, Yasuo, Trynda, etc. Right now, Tabi is probably too generally good, but after your suggestion, Tabi will be worth against some champs (Darius, Renekton, Pantheon, etc.), but simply buying this cheap item will almost be an instant win against a number of other melee champs. And I'm not sure that's a desirable state of the game, even though I agree we need a release valve against marksfolks. I think Thornmail and Randuin work better as release valve, and Tabi shouldn't be too much of a hard-counter, because it's too cheap to allow that.

SteelflameMar 14, 20184 votes

Remember that the reduced armor is also a factor. It keeps it more net neutral than you think.

If we assume 60 base armor before tabis, and 100 damage autos, lets look at the numbers. At this listed number, we are doing 62.5 damage per auto.

90 armor, 10% reduction = 47.3 damage. 75 armor, 15% reduction = 48.5 damage.

The new tabis, even with the stronger %reduction, wasn't as impactful as old in this instance.

Lets assume +50 armor from a Chain Vest and levels added into this, and 200 damage autos.

140 armor, 10% reduction = 75.6 damage. 125 armor, 15% reduction = 75.5 damage.

The difference isn't even notable with 200 AD on a target who has Tabis and Chain Vest, BUT now AD spells are stronger in trade.

LárxeneMar 14, 20182 votes

Thank you that item's passive is a plague and literally neuters auto attack reliant champs without % damage in their kits like Quinn along with other marksmen.

DarkSpiritslayerMar 14, 201810 votes

ADCs buy crit and item 3031 so they multiply their AD by 2.5 even with item 3047 they hit for 2.25x their AD which is still op af

Sun Wu RyuumokuMar 14, 20189 votes

its mainly c*ckblock ADcaster (assassins/divers) and dps fighters.

DarkSpiritslayerMar 15, 20183 votes

y Fighters are mostly AA based and they get screwed over big times by the Tabi passive ADCs with Infinity just blast through armor and the tabi passive

ArchmagnanceMar 14, 20181 votes

That is only true if the Auto Attacker has 100% crit and the defender has 0 effective armour, which I think is impossible.

The passive from tabis is multiplicative on your reduction from armour. If you have 50% reduction from armour an ADC is doing 1.25x their AD if they have 100% crit. With tabis it is 1.125x their AD with 100% crit and IE.

Tabi's is most effective early game when they cost 1100 gold for movement speed, 30 armour, and the 10% reduction. This reduces auto attacks by a lot more than 10% (.9xAD) and it makes it hard to get or extend a lead based on matchup alone unless the attacker is absurdly ahead.

DarkSpiritslayerMar 15, 20182 votes

y sure item 3047 stack on top of armor so we cant just ignore the armor

but the thing is every champ has armor and every champ is affected by the armor dmg reduction

so yeah sure an ADC with item 3031 (and 100% crit) vs a target with 50% dmg reduction only deals 1.125x their AD as dmg but the thing is: Champs / non ADCs (with some exceptions ofc Yasuo Tryndamere ) get affected too so they deal only 0.45x their AD as dmg and that is waaay worse! x0,45 vs x1.125

its just that item 3031 just gives such a huge dmg multiplier (x2.5) - its actually insane

for example: a Garen with item 3068 item 3742 item 3075 item 3047 has about ~350 Armor that gives him 78% dmg reduction so he takes only 22% AD dmg

if a champ (without crit) hits this Garen: they deal only 0.198x their AD on hit (0.22x without Tabi passive)
if an ADC with Infinity hits this Garen: they still deal 0.495x their AD on hit (0.55x without Tabi passive)

so Garen has 405 effective Armor vs targets witout Infinity (effective Armor is higher than his 350 Armor cause of Tabi passive) but vs targets with Infinity ... He only has 102 effective Armor!! (after including the Tabi passive!) so basically Infinity reduces the effective Armor Garen has by 303 Armor! that is just beyond op tbh

btw even item 3035 AND a fully stacked item 3071 would reduce his effective armor to 233 Armor (for not Infinity users) so Infinity alone "reduces/ignores" 131 MORE armor then Last Whisper and Black Cleaver together ... thats absurd

mybe they tried to balance the Tabi passive around ADCs crit -> the passive is pretty strong but this makes it even worse for othere AA based champs (Fighters and all that stuff) because the dmg multiplier ADCs get from crit alone - and even worse: from Infinity - is just to high and that multiplicative dmg increase is the real problem here

AMYS GRAVEMar 14, 20183 votes

As long as there is always an adc on every team tabis will always be a good choice.

BelharionMar 14, 20183 votes

I think one of the main problems with Ninja Tabi is how its passive is so generically strong. Compared to say, Randuin's Omen, with a passive that reduces critical hit damage, Tabi just reduces damage from every auto attack period making it good against literally every AD champ in the game (and minion and monster auto attack damage to boot). I think the current passive needs to be more focused to help in specific instances rather than being generally good.

Bonus: It's been bothering me lately how melee assassins and bruisers don't have a good offensive boot choice. Perhaps Ninja Tabi could get a Lethality passive (Or the rarely bought boots of swiftness)? That idea could be terrible I'm not sure.

Potato JesusMar 14, 20182 votes

Swap the passives from Randiuns and Tabi's, so that tabi's has the same weakness as merc treads, being good against all AP champs statwise, but a unique passive that isn't strong against all AP champs (eg. Morde vs Viegar). Tabi's is straight up good against all AD champs because all ad champs rely on auto attack damage, on top of the 30 armor basically halves auto damage, especially early on. It should be a more niche choice rather than deciding if the enemy has more than one ad champ on their team.

Lil Homie bustaMar 14, 20182 votes

Make the AA DR decrease against melees and increase against ranged:

Reduces 7% of basic attack damage, 15% for ranged basic attacks.

ShínyMar 14, 20188 votes

Was the "OMW" ping progression dropped or is riot still working on it ?

https://youtu.be/lbAUu5vJr5E

RiotMeddlerMar 14, 20185 votes

I believe we decided to do pings that communicated distance instead of the stacking ping progression we'd previously talked about. Issue there was that the ways we wanted to communicate distance were the same things that the stacking omw pings also modified and the two combined made it extremely hard to understand quickly what was being communicated.

DeathBurstMar 14, 20181 votes

Can you elaborate on why the distance was deemed more important/useful than the team agreement?

RiotMeddlerMar 14, 20185 votes

Being able to quickly tell how far away someone is coming from impacts your play significantly (e.g. engage quickly as the jungler is really near versus stall until your team mate can make it from near base to near Baron pit). Recognizing team coordination/agreement by contrast has some good feels to it, and helps reinforce positive teamplay, but is more about recognition than enabling more effective play.

Votable JesterMar 14, 20185 votes

Could you make it so the OMW ping starts from base if you're dead? I think I've confused players sometimes when I ping it right before I revive and it shows it going from my corpse.

ClonieMorMar 14, 20185 votes

Hi, Meddler!

Any plans for Caitlyn or Sivir (adjusts or buffs)?

Any news about Karma?

HappyNessieMar 14, 20184 votes

{quoted}

Hi, Meddler!

Any plans for Caitlyn or Sivir (adjusts or buffs)?

Any news about Karma?

I'm not meddler but cait is already in too good a spot imho... She needs the shiv nerfs more than almost any other adc because of her range. And i say that as someone who enjoys caitlyn a lot.

Also with the upcoming shiv nerfs i think that's somewhat a buff for sivir as now other marksman will have a harder time waveclearing and therefore sivir rises up a bit in power level.

meteorbreakerMar 14, 20185 votes

Hello Meddler) Again about Zyra ;) The change in ap items did not have a positive effect on Zyra. Are there plans to help on the solo lane?

Rathar DashingMar 14, 20184 votes

How's Zoe looking after the buffs?

RiotMeddlerMar 14, 201810 votes

Fingers crossed she might be in an ok spot? Power's probably about right and a number of gameplay issues look better. Need to give changes quite a bit more time to settle before getting too optimistic there though.

Magic SerwynMar 14, 20182 votes

Still seems quite weak, the buffs where small. She even lost base damages on Q. The slight range increase ad W ratio buff clearly aren't enough imho so that she's worth picking compared to most midlaners.

BadrickMar 14, 20185 votes

Any chance on getting the old interaction with QQR back? I feel that it adds a lot of smoothness to gameplay without too much power. Having a Paddle Star fizzle early because Zoe still had her big toe on the other side of the portal feels really bad.

I know it's my fault for not timing it correctly, but I think the old timing felt so much more satisfying.

armatsuMar 14, 20183 votes

What is your opinion about Quinn right now? Will she get buffs in 8.6 or later? Did you think about reverting her rework(with valor)?

RiotMeddlerMar 14, 20187 votes

She's got a significant number of changes in 8.6. Those are on the PBE at present if you want to check them out. Our expectation is they'll probably be slight buffs, but focus is more on feel than power.

In terms of a revert we don't think that's a useful approach here. Unlike LB and Rengar Quinn has a much more split playerbase in terms of what people want from her and her prior state had at least as many issues.

Hardstuck HeroMar 14, 20183 votes

Thoughts on Viktor after the buffs? I still feel like he could use a bit more love.

Said the SkyMar 14, 20183 votes

Any update on Irelia? Hopefully if you guys follow the same schedule she'll be announced monday/tues fingers crossed

cocacolalipsMar 14, 20183 votes

Toughts on Azir? Seems like the rework didn't quite hit the mark, the champion is right back with a terrible win rate in solo queue while still being pick/ban in pro play.

lukkasnqnMar 14, 20181 votes

hi meddler, how r u doing! what are your toughts on udyr lore and kit?

lore wise, should he be paired to targon story line, rather like being like certain special monk who controls the 4 elements?
what are the problems about his kits that pops more often inside riot office talks? (maybe being too generalist, poor skill expression, stance implementation, etc)
what happened with last udyr work? would u consider giving him a jump/dash or spellshield?
this is a more specific call: as for a smaller work, could be a good idea to give his spells a 6th rank (jayce like) and unlock a feature at rank 3 and/or 6 (syndra like)? so he could go 6-6-6-0 or 6-6-3-3 e.g.