Boards›Dev Corner

Preseason Dev Update Number 2!

RiotRiot MapleNectar·9/28/2018, 5:11:16 PM·1 votes·240,267 views

Hey everyone! We’re still hard at work on this year’s preseason and I wanted to jump in with another update of our work in progress. If you missed the first update, it’s posted here

Our primary aim this preseason is to generally improve the quality of the time spent you spend in game. We want to keep you in striking distance of a comeback, but if you're really really far behind, the opposing team should be able to get you out of that lost game quicker. I Our four main goals are listed below with their corresponding changes.

Rune paths no longer dictate stat bonuses

https://i.imgur.com/uE92eDc.jpg

After a bunch of iterations and testing we’ve settled on a “pick 3” system for stats:

  • 1 slot is offensive stats only

  • 1 slot is defensive stats only

  • 1 slot is “free” choice of offense or defensive stats

The updated stats options we’re testing:

  • Offensive - Attack Damage, Ability Power, Attack Speed, Scaling Cooldown Reduction

  • Defensive - Armor, Magic Resist, Scaling Health

Stuff we’ve cut or are not currently considering

  • HP regen - this ends up making lanes where nobody ever dies

  • Flat CDR - In particular this option didn’t leave us any way to easily tune it. Any amount of CDR that isn't a multiple of 5 or 10 doesn’t integrate well into the other options you have from items/runes.

  • Scaling resists - These fall into a category where they aren’t bad design but when we overall want to limit each slot to ideally 3, maybe 4 choices these didn’t make the cut. By the late game these resists are overshadowed by items so the up front resists were more interesting.

Overall we’re pretty happy with how the system lets you build a well tailored set of stats that enhance your champion’s strengths without a lot of the deadweight that existed in the old system. Defensive choices allow you to make some strategic choices around your opponent/s. “Do I try to counter my lane opponent or prepare for the late game?” “Do I greed into double offense or play it safe with defense?”

Laning Phase is improved and slightly longer

https://i.imgur.com/yATsgHo.png

TLDR for those who didn’t read the last update - outer turrets will have a barricade in the early game that makes them more durable, but you can break off pieces of it for gold rewards.

Since we last updated, these barricades haven’t had any major directional shifts, and as we continue to polish them it’s feeling more and more like a natural part of the game flow. The goal here is that the power and balance of lane matchups are still similar, but turrets live longer and are more satisfying to interact with since there are multiple pieces to destroy and rewards to collect. We also want to reduce some of the feels bad cases of a turret falling at 7 minutes after one jungle gank when the lane was in a good position.

Comebacks are more achievable and satisfying

Integrating minion farm into bounties is still shaping up to be a promising change because it’s creating a more accurate reward for killing a player with more gold power than you. Additionally we’re continuing to tune the exact method and amount of gold this should contribute. Our rough estimate right now is that the average bounty of a fed champion should be 70% champion kill gold based and 30% minion/monster farm based. In our efforts to make comebacks more achievable we don’t want to push bounties so high that they just seem unreasonable. So the other tactic we’re taking is to reduce bounties for players when their team is overall behind (in gold). Bonus is that we’re softening a super bad feeling moment where you’ve been the only winning lane in a tough game, only to die and give up a ton of gold to the enemy when your team is already behind.

Decided games resolve faster

Scaling up minion health and turret damage resistance more in the late game continues to test well. This change has proven to help teams that are going to win do so faster, but not make it much harder for the behind team to fight back in matches that are still recoverable. Not a lot of new info to report here since last time. We’re also making a change to how minions scale their movement speed. We’re replacing the old system where minion movement speed scaled up based on how many turrets had been killed in that lane with a simpler mechanic of minions simply gaining MS over game time. This is a more neutral mechanic that allows teams that are behind in turrets to make a counter push if they can win a team fight.

Feedback so far

We’ve just recently completed some very informative player labs where we brought in a bunch of players from different skill levels and had them test these changes for a full weekend. As always this got us a ton of useful feedback to work on, and it also get us even more hyped and confident to put this stuff out for you all to see soon. We’re aiming to do a longer than normal PBE period for these changes so we can also make sure everything is working similarly to what we observed during internal testing. Expect our next round of info to be much closer to PBE, and you’ll see more details from the designers working closely with each feature.

Riot MapleNectar

Bonus Image! We just got the first models into game last night, Nunu & Willump have been hard at work...now they just need a paintjob (and a few more tweaks to the model).

https://i.imgur.com/Hv8ZswR.png

493 Comments

P0PPY THE HERO9/28/2018, 6:12:48 PM42 votes

Are turrets going to do damage now? Its way too easy to towerdive and most of the time your turret doesnt feel safe at all.

giantZorg9/28/2018, 5:51:29 PM20 votes

Did you try adding magic pen to the available stats?

DeadUnborn9/28/2018, 5:29:10 PM18 votes

Don't forget to remove the band aid mechanic you added to gold funneling for the jungle! I personally don't mind it much but it is very counter intuitive + not being easy accessible knowledge for new players

EyesOfTheFox9/28/2018, 5:46:11 PM14 votes

Oh man, a post in which I Riot admits to making changes that might actually help balance the game in a positive way....!?

RUN AWAY THE END IS NIGH!!!

~Seriously tho, good shit. Overall I feel this will address some of the problems the towers have had. Glad to see that adjustments to how the game is ACTUALLY won and lost is a priority.

HA I am Shaco HA9/28/2018, 6:13:41 PM14 votes

Will Shaco E ever be reverted back to magic damage to make Ap Shaco more useful?

Baris Kanik9/28/2018, 5:20:15 PM13 votes

Why are you putting Armor as Rune bonuses but leave Lethality out? Do you want assassins to be even more useless?

PandaNator439/28/2018, 5:23:23 PM13 votes

we overall want to limit each slot to ideally 3, maybe 4 choices

Whats the reasoning behind this?

In spirit of "pick your play style," I'd like to see more choices, specifically the choice between early (flat) vs late (scaling) power.

BBC4BBW9/29/2018, 3:29:29 AM13 votes

We need and please bring back death fire touch mastery, for champs that require it. Deathfire touch is the greatest keystone.

StarGuardianWeeb9/28/2018, 9:19:45 PM12 votes

Hey! I'm excited for these and showed them to friends that recently quit, they said they might return to see this themself! But, bit of Feedback that I hope you see:

  • We still need a Deathfire Touch replacement rune for DoT mages. Pretty please tell me that's being looked at.
  • Playing Mana anything in mid lane has been a struggle, a new item or Mana item adjustments are needed.
  • Up the towers Damage as well as it's defenses to prevent cheesy tower dives by 4 man ganks (usually in bot lane) as those will knock a tower down regardless of it's defenses usually.

PS - Rework Wukong. He looks super fun to play but i am intimidated by how "hit or miss" he seems every patch.

ModJango Mage9/28/2018, 5:26:07 PM12 votes

Any Twisted Treeline changes planned? This map could use some small updates.

Who Fed Ru9/28/2018, 5:22:02 PM11 votes

What are the current numbers on the defensive stats, or the stats in general?

How much Armor/mr/HP would you get from them?

Haggled Napsack9/28/2018, 7:56:06 PM10 votes

Why has magic pen been removed from all of the options? On brand and zyra is was very helpful early as they don’t scale so well.

its bop bop9/28/2018, 6:51:29 PM9 votes

going over the top with bounty changes. 2kills for bounty is already way too much, 90% of the playerbase doesn't even play with this in mind which leads to a ton of snowbally champs on your team diving in for kills but then just feeding over shutdown gold repeatedly.

DeathQuaDeath9/28/2018, 6:46:20 PM8 votes

Hey MapleNectar,

I think it was a couple months ago that a few rioters talked of a 'slowburn' project for ap bruiser itemization (though I can't find the thread atm). I'm curious if you know much about any of the ideas being thrown around and if the project is making any progress.

ty, a Diana loving silver noob

Black Cooki9/28/2018, 6:46:43 PM8 votes

Have you thaught about other things than a shield for the towers(only talking about visuals!)? Like improved armor (helmet, shoulder guards, etc.) And for each thing you take down it looses a part wich looks weaker. It would be a nice mixup to the tower visuals because they have looked the same for a long time.

Nakrast9/28/2018, 5:35:26 PM4 votes

How about making the turrent bonus hp a different color? Like for example, a yellow bar divided in 5 parts, and the red hp are shown once you damage the turret a bit.

Yi Wreck Shen9/28/2018, 6:11:43 PM2 votes

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