Quick Gameplay Thoughts: November 7

RiotMeddler·Nov 7, 2018·1 votes·164,166 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 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

Reflecting on Odyssey

We've been looking back at Odyssey a bit recently and reflecting on how it went and what we can learn from it. A few thoughts from that:

There's clearly some interest in PVE within LoL as a substantially different experience, not just as an emulation of PVP play (Co-Op versus AI style). Being able to heavily modify a champion's capabilities and raid style encounters were called out in particular as a lot of the appeal.
Most people tried the mode, and a meaningful proportion put quite a lot of games into it. Digging into it both the mode's gameplay and the mode specific missions mattered quite a bit for people who engaged heavily.
Friction trying to find a team who wanted to do the same missions you did was the most common source of frustration reported by an enormous margin. We should avoid creating those sorts of conflicts again, via things like changing mission designs or helping players group together with common goals.
We'll keep an eye out for another opportunity to try more PVE like this at some point. It's not as inherently replayable as PVP is, but is certainly worth exploring in the future.

We should also have a dev blog that runs through some stats from Odyssey in the next month or two, covering things like popularity of the different champions, difficulty completion rates, augment usage etc.

Nexus Blitz

As we mentioned a few weeks back we're planning on bringing Nexus Blitz back for another test run from 8.24 onwards:

https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2018/10/dev-up-next-for-nexus-blitz/

We're now well into the work on that so wanted to share a few details about how it was going:

We've got a couple new events we're confident in, including one that's especially focused on smaller skirmishes rather than teamfights, in contrast to many of the existing events.
We'll be taking out Snowball Fight. While it had its moments, feedback on it was overall noticeably more negative than other events.
On the rewards side we'll be cutting a couple unsatisfying / frustrating ones like Blessing of Caitlyn and Cursed Minions,and adding some more fun and memorable replacements.
Reshaping of some of the map walls and jungle camp locations is looking promising, giving a bit more of a distinct laning phase and jungle path variety.
The map itself should also end up looking noticeably nicer/less like an early prototype. Not currently expecting it'll be as polished as something like SR for this test, but you should see a fair bit of upgrade aesthetics wise compared to the first version.

Preseason

Is still on track for patch 8.23. We're working on some final polish at the moment, including likely taking a bit of sustain out of the game overall to avoid laning phases becoming too defensive and safe. Also testing keeping minion spawn at its current time, rather than getting minions and the jungle onto the map earlier. Main point under discussion there is how to assess the value of that time for the invades and action it sometimes offers, which can be strong high moments, versus the larger number of games where it's unused time spent afk/alt tabbed until laning starts.

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

323 Comments

Buff Riven PlzNov 7, 20189 votes

Hey meddler any thoughts on changing that scaling cdr shard for preseason? I’m talking about the one that is 1-10% cdr from levels 1-18.

Øne Abøve allNov 7, 20188 votes

@Meddler,

Could we talk about how you guys want to address some problems that have been going on on the toplane? sure its actually a solo lane meta right now but i really would like to hear your opinion on for example Riven since she lacks the power to be even considered a viable pick for non OTP's or any1 in general because other toplane champions do exactly what she does but just better.

Also, i would like to know, if you guys are planing on taking the changes from BC back. You guys wanted champions like Darius and prob Fiora be a better pick with that item but most champions actually buy Triforce rather than BC and even garen does it sometimes for more dmg on his Q. I only see Aatrox and Gnar actually build it and Zed/lucian too. sure it would get more power on Lucian and MF again but yet again, the kindlegem change didnt really change the amount of champions that build that item.

Also something that concerns me, the current testing rune changes with the extra path. Is it possible to get maybe Flat CDR instead of scaling? It doesnt really benefit anyone that you get 1% on lvl 1 and just 10% on Level 18. most players will rather go for the offensive or defensive stats and the CDR path will just be ignored.

Hope you could answer these questions.

Much love, much respect, as always, keep up the good work.

DarkSpiritslayerNov 7, 20185 votes

this guy is so right on all his points! u deserve a item 2010

high dmg toplane champs like feel pretty useless atm like: why go Riven top if you can just pick something WAY more tanky that still deals the same amount (or even more) of dmg? like and vs tanks its just a free lose anyways cause even a tiny bit of armor makes you completely uselss and they can burst you down in one combo (yes ... tanks that burst someone down ... so fun) - like or even something like tank oh! and lets not forget the abusive mages top that can build armor and still deal a shit ton of dmg - looking at you
ever since the changed and nerfs went from a pretty good item to a pretty shitty items it just took ppl quite a while to realize that even if you are a tanky champ - a champ where BC should be a core item - BC is kinda shit thats why even the BC-core users switched to BC just cant compete! TF is straight up better - and mainly because TF deals more dmg (ofc it does - Spellblade passive is busted and BC got 2 dmg nerfs ... less AD and less armor shred) also: why did tanky champs get another option for a 20%cdr item by taking away the option for dmg-champs? mages have 20% cdr options: Tanks have a 20% cdr option: 20% cdr options that are kinda champ specific / AS based: and tanky fighters have 20% cdr options: and high dmg fighters have no good 20% cdr option now (only if they can build ) just make BC a better offensive item again - and make it better for melee champs so ADCs cant abuse it
the scaling cdr shard is complete ass xD every shard gives you good stats even in the earlygame: AD/AP ( = the go to), AS ( = rly good for AA champs ofc), AR/MR ( = early resistances are RLY strong), HP ( = also scaling so early its not a lot but at least you have some bonus HP) 1% (! xD) cdr at lvl1 is basically not existent ... and you have to wait until LVL 18 to get 10%??? that is WAY to slow you probably wont even reach lvl 18 in most games so you have to wait the entire game so your stat shard actually does anything in the meantime everyone else has some bonus stats since lvl 1 if they dont buff it / make it flat early cdr then this stat shard it dead on arrival NO ONE will pick this shard! even champs like - a champ that is super dependent on cdr - wont pick it! she needs cdr AS FAST AS POSSIBLE - so why the hell would you pick a shard that kicks in at lvl 18?

DontTouchMyBallNov 7, 20185 votes

{quoted}

ever since the changed and nerfs went from a pretty good item to a pretty shitty items it just took ppl quite a while to realize that even if you are a tanky champ - a champ where BC should be a core item - BC is kinda shit thats why even the BC-core users switched to BC just cant compete! TF is straight up better - and mainly because TF deals more dmg (ofc it does - Spellblade passive is busted and BC got 2 dmg nerfs ... less AD and less armor shred) also: why did tanky champs get another option for a 20%cdr item by taking away the option for dmg-champs? mages have 20% cdr options: Tanks have a 20% cdr option: 20% cdr options that are kinda champ specific / AS based: and tanky fighters have 20% cdr options: and high dmg fighters have no good 20% cdr option now (only if they can build ) just make BC a better offensive item again - and make it better for melee champs so ADCs cant abuse it

I'd like to just add that Supports had 20% CDR on item 3174 . . . but it's been nerfed like almost all the things I enjoy about my main role.

I'm excited we might see some changes on the gold-generation item's buildpath.

DarkSpiritslayerNov 7, 20181 votes

oh sh*t ur right xD i forgot supports

and like you said: they actually got screwed over a bit cause item 3174 lost 10% cdr - so they have no 20% cdr item amt

(cooldowns on the support are very important cause thats what keeps the ADC alive in the earlygame - so early cdr is rly stong for supports but its still kinda weird / sad to see that they (mainly Enchanters) lost their 20% cdr item tho)

Daddy AntsNov 7, 20183 votes

{quoted}

oh sh*t ur right xD i forgot supports

and like you said: they actually got screwed over a bit cause lost 10% cdr - so they have no 20% cdr item amt

(cooldowns on the support are very important cause thats what keeps the ADC alive in the earlygame - so early cdr is rly stong for supports but its still kinda weird / sad to see that they (mainly Enchanters) lost their 20% cdr item tho)

And it still gives 30 AP when it builds out of a 35 AP item.

LUL

SpideraxeNov 7, 20187 votes

Hey Meddler can i ask for some of the context behind the Rageblade rework on PBE, can i also ask if we may see some EoN changes that captain Gameplay mentioned

warpenguin555Nov 7, 20183 votes

I really want to know this too. If anything, Rageblade marksmen were spiking way too soon compared to crit marksmen imo

RiotMeddlerNov 7, 20187 votes

Rageblade we're testing some changes to potentially:

Broaden its effective user pool
Create clearer distinction between it and crit paths (less overlap of items, more distinct power spikes)

Edge of Night:

Nothing major looking likely in the short term.

True GarenNov 10, 20183 votes

{quoted}

Rageblade we're testing some changes to potentially:

Broaden its effective user pool

Create clearer distinction between it and crit paths (less overlap of items, more distinct power spikes)

Edge of Night:

Nothing major looking likely in the short term.

Nobody noticed... you know how we were given 10s more in Champ select to adjust runes, when RR was introduced. They weren't given to TT or ARAM (even though you do have a lot of time for this in ARAM, unless you swap). For that matter, it's lacking from co-op mode.

GiantNooblordNov 12, 20183 votes

This change totally dumpsters AP on-hit builds.

The loss of the 0.1 AP ratio on-hit trashes AP on-hit scaling (and it's a double nerf accompanied by the loss of 15% AP).

That 0.1AP ratio was massive while Nashors has only 0.15AP and innate on.hits have about 0.3AP or less. We're talking about a nerf of ~0.5 down to ~0.4, which is a whopping 20%. The penetration is a 11% damage amp against targets with 200 Magic resistance, and ~4% damage amp against targets with 42 MR (and that's only once you are level 18...). Then throw in the 15% AP loss.

Did AP on-hit Varus, Nashors Kog'Maw, Kayle deserve to be removed from viability? In fact, most rarely went for the AP build, so why hit the Rageblade+Nashors+Rabadons build that hard? Doesn't that build has more distinct power spikes and the only item overlaps with the crit build are Rageblade and Runaans? If AP Kai'Sa was really a big problem, you could have just reduced her AP scaling on auto-attacks.

I understand wanting to separate Guinsoo's Rageblade from crit builds, but this shouldn't come at the cost of AP on-hit builds. If this change goes through, only BotRK or Bloodrazor users will still buy Rageblade, and I guess Kayle will remain the only legit Rageblade+Nashors+Rabadons user (while losing over 15% of her DPS).

WorstJunglerEUWNov 7, 20186 votes

So you are trying to remove situations like 4 guys having 2 augments and one has 5 to ruin everyones experience? Could there maybe be mission based que? so you could choose where to que and not fully random?

The23rdGamerNov 7, 20186 votes

Also testing keeping minion spawn at its current time, rather than getting minions and the jungle onto the map earlier. Main point under discussion there is how to assess the value of that time for the invades and action it sometimes offers, which can be strong high moments, versus the larger number of games where it's unused time spent afk/alt tabbed until laning starts.

Very strongly prefer the minion spawn times staying as they are for a variety of reasons^. Glad that's being reconsidered!!

^Just a few reasons:

Gives people with slower connections more time to connect / disconnect and reconnect if they are bugged.
Allows more time to read what your champion's abilities do. (Especially useful for newer players)
Doesn't break Shaco's and Maokai's usual jungle start (using their traps / saplings to take the first buff)
Allows more time for unorganized invades, casual chatter, and time to generally cool off from the previous game
Minimal downsides to waiting for an extra minute or so for the lanes to get some action going in comparison to the trade offs of cutting that extra minute (see first few reasons of list)

Mr PenguinNov 7, 20185 votes

How much time 'till we get to see the Kayle Rework ? And the new Champ? Also, I'm interested if there's any possibility to have a Wukong rework in the near future after Morgana .

LORD27MADNov 7, 20185 votes

how do you think the preseason changes would affect competitive play , i really liked worlds this year it was fun to watch so do you think these changes will lead to more highlights moments or back to korean smart safe style of play ?

RiotMeddlerNov 7, 201812 votes

We've been really happy with the pro meta recently, so aiming to stay fairly similar. If the preseason changes end up shifting things dramatically we'll do some follow up work on them most likely. In terms of safe versus aggressive play we're not trying to remove safe/scaling play from pro, but don't want it to be as dominant as it has been for a long time.

KazekibaNov 7, 20184 votes

When you say you're happy with the pro-meta, does this mean your push for diversity in champion picks is over and no longer a goal? Or are you referring to play styles, and not champion select? I know there's a lot of loud voices out there expressing their displeasure with 3 or 4 champions in literally every single game, or banned out completely.

shadowblade1χNov 7, 20184 votes

we get 8.23 next week with ranked sesason end?

DÉU DEL PATHINGNov 7, 20184 votes

Is the pre-season (8.23) patch coming the day that season ends or 2 weeks from today?

RiotMeddlerNov 7, 201813 votes

Two weeks from today.

Queen SèjuaniNov 7, 20184 votes

Do you think we can expect some work on Sejuani soon? Shes in an awful spot in normal play and feels really bad, worlds is over now, doesn't that mean she can get changes?

RiotMeddlerNov 7, 201813 votes

Yeah, we've just started taking a look at Sejuani. That's part of a look at tanks who've been challenges to balance for organized and regular play. Will get some more thoughts on that into Friday's post. Galio and Ornn are the other two we're also testing stuff for.

Moody PNov 7, 20184 votes

Would you be willing to talk to Sejuani players about where we can go with her? What might resurrect her dwindling playerbase and where to go to make her a long-term healthy champion?

No offense, but this rework's left a really bad taste in my mouth, and the resulting slew of balance changes over the year following hasn't helped.

Gosh DarnNov 7, 20184 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, we've just started taking a look at Sejuani. That's part of a look at tanks who've been challenges to balance for organized and regular play. Will get some more thoughts on that into Friday's post. Galio and Ornn are the other two we're also testing stuff for.

Any chance of a revert for her? Her pre-rework form was pretty well-balanced for years. In her current state, she's way too reliable for pro play and hopelessly bad in standard play where she's weak and relies on perfect coordination from teammates.

Slightly off-topic slightly related. The jungle is disgustingly devoid of tanks right now, especially in standard play. Maokai might be the only reliable blind-pick jungler if these buffs actually help him enough. Removing the bonus drain from talisman if you had bonus hp really hurt.

TheSingularityNov 7, 20185 votes

What about zac who was nerfed for similar reasons? I feel zac and sej need partial reverts involving the removal of one of their new CC spells. If not comfortable with picking a spell, then a full revert potentially. Hell zac could get his cool ultimate back. Their increase in innate utility is what broke them. You gave sej the most CC in the game and replaced zacs soft cc with hard cc.

I know you guys almost never go back on a change. But I don't think you will ever have a feasible way to balance them between pro and casual play because, like shen they now have too much utility value. You will make them garbage in both becuase you seem to hate tanks in pro play.

Mysticman89Nov 7, 20184 votes

The minion/jungle spawn thing being earlier is something I hope doesn't happen.

People being alt tabbed/afk is frustrating when invade situations happen, but sometimes the extra minute lets people having issues connecting (or forget to buy initially but have someone point it out to them quickly) get to lane without repercussions. Often times when someone doesn't connect at the start I'm left hoping they don't connect at all so /remake can be used, but it feels (probably due to negativity bias) that people frequently do connect before 1:30, and so are still late to lane and hence handicap the team.

Theres also some champs like zyra/heimer/shaco who might want to use that early time to set up plants/turrets/boxes. Bard also might be inclined to get some favourable chime spawns, and probably a few other champs with pre-laning tasks I'm forgetting.

DodocateonNov 7, 20184 votes

I'm a bit too late to ask this but... a while back you talked about Miss Fortune Voice Over update and why she hasn't had it updated. I think I remember waaaaay longer ago you mentioning Varus aswell, probably not long after having their lore updated with the darkin.

Do you still consider updating their VO? Or is it at least still in on a "future to do list"?

Thank you!

RiotMeddlerNov 7, 20186 votes

Definitely future possibility list, nothing currently underway though.

DodocateonNov 7, 20183 votes

Thank you!

I'm pretty happy already with a "definitely future possibility"!

Mia KhalifaNov 8, 20184 votes

Where is RGM? im really dissapointed in the false promises you guys made with this. was such a good idea and i loved playing them, but i havent seen 90% of the modes for like a year.

RahambeNov 7, 20183 votes

Have you guys ever thought about putting Nexus Blitz during the downtime in which there is no roaring game mode?

ModWulf HelhammerNov 7, 201831 votes

If everything with Nexus Blitz turns out well, it’s eventually going to be a new permanent mode like ARAM. It’s not a rotating game mode.

paisyNov 7, 20182 votes

{quoted}

If everything with Nexus Blitz turns out well, it’s eventually going to be a new permanent mode like ARAM. It’s not a rotating game mode.

They actually said it could be a RGM. Probably if it isn't popular enough to be permanent.

RiotMeddlerNov 7, 201813 votes

Yeah, we'd consider an RGM if permanent doesn't make sense. Our focus with it right now though is on improving it as much as we can before the next test, see if we can get it to a state where it justifies being permanent. Will assess other options afterwards if that doesn't work out, don't want to take away time from getting ready for that test right now though.

Zok72Nov 7, 20182 votes

I was a big fan of dominion so I would like to ask what separates Nexus Blitz from dominion? The two modes have a lot of similarities including game length, fluid and poorly defined laning phases, distinct composition needs with a focus on roaming, and centralizing objectives to incentivize team fights. With this in mind, why does the riot team think nexus blitz will succeed without dominions problems and the problems inherent to multiple game modes (fracturing the player base, balance across modes, etc.)?

HäxelNov 8, 20181 votes

well dominions whole point of conquering towers and defending it was probleatic. I also liked the mode but probably dominion would jsut have succeded if the map would have been double as big. Like while taking a tower one should not be easy to move over the whole map in a few seconds (that btw is critc even old Lol Youtuber SivHd talked about Dominion ;)

Nexus Blitz by far towers paly like the least role as in any tower game mode. The focus here are really the events and the fighting. So far that at max time even the enxus fights and comes to you isntead of you having to walk to the nexus.

MinardeNov 9, 20182 votes

I disagree. Dominion's small map size was a strength, not a flaw. For one thing, larger map sizes have a strong emphasis towards slower, more methodical gameplay with "setup -> payoff" flow. With smaller maps, there's more opportunities for faster-paced, reactive gameplay, since a player's sphere of influence/effective range covers a larger percentage of the map. Granted, being able to cover too much of the map is definitely problematic (e.g. pre-nerf Kassadin). Furthermore, enlarging the map could have made it feel empty. Skirmishing and clashing with the enemy team is significantly more difficult if neither team can find each other.

Regardless, mode gameplay specifics aren't the focus here. It's the meta, "out-of-game" stuff that's in question. "Having more game modes fractures the overall League playerbase" was frequently brought up before. Is that not applicable to Nexus Blitz? Similarly, Riot has historically ignored or avoided balance considerations in non-SR modes. Will that be the same for Blitz, and if not, why? Yet another issue is the question of recognition/reward for skilled and dedicated players that Dominion struggled, and ARAM currently still struggles, with. It's all stuff that's important for the future of all alternate game modes, but Riot doesn't seem to have addressed it yet.

DragonscuriNov 7, 20183 votes

Honestly, I would love Nexus Blitz as a permanent game mode, it's fun, it's refreshing, and it's guaranteed to be short, not like where you have thirty minutes to maybe finish an ARAM, you'll guaranteed be done with the Blitz before that. I wouldn't be disappointed by RGM Blitz, because I'll still spam the hell out of it, but permanent Blitz would be a great addition for me. Also, Odyssey Kayn was a fantastic skin and ~~Dark Star~~ Odyssey Rhaast is super sick

Mia KhalifaNov 8, 20186 votes

except you guys never give us RGM and its upsetting as hell. with 'sporadic schedule' i didnt think you meant 1 mode in 6 months(and these are always new modes, rather than repeats of RGM's)

Daddy ZerniiNov 7, 20183 votes

Hey Meddler, So, the delay to Lissandra passive hitting PBE was caused that she had a skin in the works, and skin team had to change it to new passive aswell when you finished testing that spell? Or it was just coincidental thing?

RiotMeddlerNov 7, 201821 votes

The two are related, though not in the ways you might think. Some of the team working on the new skin actually helped out with some of the art for the new passive for the other skins as well. We weren't on track to ship the passive change for 8.23 otherwise, so really grateful they jumped in even though it's not their area of responsibility and they've got a lot of other work to do too.

ZaghyrNov 7, 20186 votes

Why are the passive effects for Blade Queen and Program not green?

VekknaNov 7, 201813 votes

I know it's not your area, but you guys should be really proud of that Coven Liss skin and the theme overall. Knocked it out of the fucking park.

RiotMeddlerNov 7, 201816 votes

Agreed, the folks working on that skin nailed it IMO.

Phiddy CentNov 7, 20183 votes

Hey Meddler,

Any thoughts on Pantheon VGU. His character looks terrible and outdated. Was thinking he would get an update because a bunch of other champs are getting updated.

RiotMeddlerNov 7, 20188 votes

He's fairly high on our list of VGU candidates. Not absolute top of the list, but in the top tier.

Dope SoloNov 7, 20183 votes

A couple of posts have gone out about the client and it's multiple takeovers of your computer while matches are loading up. It makes alt-tabbing to do anything else during the wait fairly tedious. Could you fix that soon please?

DjinnDrainNov 7, 20183 votes

Can you give us insight on what you guys actually want to achieve with the changes on PBE for Galio? Because while the mana buff for Q is good(130 was really absurd) the other changes effect him as an AP mage. And if you want him to he a tank again he will need a lot more work

MariosaurusRexNov 7, 20181 votes

Since you nerfed AP Galio and thanks to the base damage Q buff Tank Galio might come back, once pro players start to play it and becomes meta, will you nerf it again leaving him in an even worse state than ever? Also was the nerf on R necessary since it's very hard to make use of it and it can be useful when you pull it off?

pepetecabalgaNov 7, 20184 votes

Tank galio cant come back because his w was adjusted to ap, his E has lower base damage and the Q still misses that base tornado damage that tank galio had. Also abyssal mask had the range heavily nerfed, and galio base stats were improved in preseason 8 to have better health scaling like mages and no base armor increased like tanks did.