Quick Gameplay Thoughts: August 22
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
Ongoing Nexus Blitz Development
As some of you will have seen we've made some changes to Nexus Blitz after its initial launch via a couple of micro patches. Full details can be found here:
TLDR is:
- A new event called Scuttle racing (you race Scuttles)
- A new event reward (brief stealth after walking through a brush)
- A range of balance changes, bringing mages down especially
Normally with micro patches we only make smaller changes, rather than adding new things to the game. In this case we're able to do so for a couple of reasons. The first is that both the new event and new reward were nearly finished when we shipped the 8.16 patch, though with some issues to iron out (bugs and balance, rather than art changes that would require a new download). The second is that, given Nexus Blitz is an alpha test, we feel it's appropriate to accept a somewhat higher risk of bugs in order to keep prototyping and testing quickly. Our goal's still to figure out within four weeks whether Nexus Blitz should at some point return as a permanent mode. We want to make the most of the available time as a result, rather than waiting for the next regular patch like we normally would. Likely we'll have some meaningful changes in a micro patch a bit after 8.17 goes out too, take full advantage of that patch cycle as well.
Goals for patches 8.17, 8.18 and 8.19
8.17 - A regular patch, focused on smaller scope champion balance. Should be a decent number of changes in it, many of which will have hit the PBE yesterday or today. Right now balance changes will tend to show up later in a patch cycle since the earlier half's being spent on preseason work.
8.18 - While it's not the Worlds patch (that's 8.19) it is the one where we'll do most of the remaining World's focused work. Not expecting any major changes, do want to leave ourselves one followup patch though just in case anything hits much harder than expected or a problem needs further work. Will also have some non pro focused work too of course.
8.19 - The patch Worlds will be played on. This one's likely to be fairly small, with just followup on 8.18 plus changes for regular play that aren't a pro risk. LIkely some changes get worked on for regular play that end up getting shifted to 8.20 instead.
Some 8.17 Context
One thing we're looking at with a lot of our 8.17 changes is adding power to champs who already have decent damage but are still under performing. We've looking instead to add power in other ways, with possibilities being things like sustained damage (Attack Speed on Wukong), defense (Meditate CD and DR on Yi) or extended mobility (longer durations on Kayn E, shorter CD on Rengar R). That will potentially be paired with adjustments aimed at shifting some power on Stormrazor and Duskblade to slightly less bursty patterns (less AD and more AS on SR, less proc damage and more AD on DB).
http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/6.24.1/img/champion/Ziggs.png
nerf that hit the PBE yesterday?
while 
and
.
? The once great magic resistance item has lost a lot of use now that it no longer builds into 
or 
, and the four items it currently builds into are generally niche purchases after the last set of changes to 
.
