Quick Gameplay Thoughts: July 19

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

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9.14

As you've likely seen 9.14 has been pretty buggy, especially because we've had a couple of underlying issues that have caused issues with a range of champs, runes etc. We've got a lot of those dealt with at this point and are prioritizing hitting the rest. Apologies for how messy patch day especially was.

Bugs aside, we also knew this patch would be more volatile on the balance front given how many changes we made. We released a balance micropatch last night, details should be in the updated patch notes.

https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-914-notes

Ryze

Ryze's changes have been out for a bit now, have had some exposure to pro play and have had some follow up balance. Some thoughts below on how we're feeling about him as a result:

• Statistically we're cautiously optimistic this version of Ryze will be easier to keep in an ok spot for both pro and regular play at once. He's performing better in solo queue than previously without being overly dominant so far at least in pro.
• We're taking a cautious approach to buffs to him, given how challenging he's been in the past to balance. Might still have some room for a bit more power, really don't want to swing to hard though.
• We're seeing some frustration from people who liked Ryze's mechanical optimizations pre 9.12 at the degree they've been diminished. We do think this version of the kit should be one we can more consistently keep balanced, so so far think that removing some of those optimizations was an appropriate trade off to make. Do want to acknowledge that it came at a cost though and that that's tough for players who preferred his previous state.
• We discussed changes to Ryze's ult pre 9.12, given it heavily rewards coordination between team members in a way that's usually more accessible in pro/organized play. Our conclusion was that while it added some cost to balancing for different contexts it wasn't the primary cause of problems there. It also generates many of his high moments and adds a lot of distinctiveness relative to other champions.

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Looking at Prestige Points

We’ve been seeing a lot more feedback about some of the details of how Prestige Points and Prestige Skins work recently. We’re digging through that feedback and looking at possible plans to address it right now. We should have an update to share by the end of next week on what we’ll be doing.

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