Quick Gameplay Thoughts: October 31

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

A bit more preseason (8.23) context

Preseason's getting pretty close now. We've talked about the larger changes a fair bit, most recent update at the link below in case you missed. Wanted to run through some details on a few additional changes as well.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/NPBRPjqf-preseason-dev-update-number-3

• Jungle XP

Changes to the jungle earlier in the year, including the removal of the overlevelled xp penalty, mean junglers are often getting quite a bit more XP than they were previously, which can include them being highest or highest equal level on their team a bit more than we believe is appropriate. We're cutting the amount jungle XP scales over time back slightly as a result. Change we're testing involves camps giving the same amount of XP at game start, but scaling 5% slower over time.

• Value of dragons

We're bumping up the value of taking a bit, since at present it's not proving to be as much of a priority as intended early game. Current tactics in testing for that are having the first stack of each buff give more benefit than the following ones (e.g. Cloud at 3%, 4.5%, 6% versus 2%, 4%, 6%) and increasing gold/XP a bit, so trade off versus taking regular camps isn't unnecessarily punishing.

• Spear of Shojin

We're testing some modifications to Spear of Shojin with an eye to bringing it out in preseason. For anyone unfamiliar it's an item we had on the PBE around midseason that gave AD, health and defense based on your AD. Versions we're currently look at involve changing from flat DR to % DR (less abusive in certain cases, much clearer interactions with pen) and build path changes. Not currently planning to release Atma's Reckoning, which was the other item PBE'd during midseason, possible we end up merging some elements of it (some of its build path perhaps?) with the changes to Spear though.

• Control Wards

We're planning on decreasing the number of Control Wards that can be carried at once to 2, from its current 3. That's targeted at play where they're being used almost like consumable red trinket charges despite the cost, providing unintended amounts of vision denial. We're not trying to remove that entirely, but do want to increase opportunity cost of doing so somewhat, hence the lowered cap.

• Fleet Footwork's AP ratio

We're testing a reduction in Fleet Footwork's AP ratio at present. That's not driven by a desire to push AP users off Fleet Footwork, but instead due to the decoupling of stats from choice of rune tree. We've kept Fleet Footwork's AP ratio high until now because the cost of going into Precision for many AP champs was quite high, given they usually don't get as much benefit from Attack Speed. Now you'll be able to choose your stats on the other hand the tree's quite a bit more accessible to them, so pushing AP ratio so far above where it would normally be isn't needed as much.

---

8.22 context

We're trying a few tweaks right now as we come to the end of the 8.22 development window. Bit of context on some of those below:

• Maokai - Considering a few different buffs aimed primarily at buffing his jungling, given he's performing quite a bit weaker there than in lane.
• Nunu - Has never quite performed as well as we expected him to post update, even with optimal builds. Looks like we were a bit off in terms of how much power he'd get from learning curve. Giving him a bit more mid combat durability in particular as a result, with a stronger heal when he uses his Q on champions.
• Taliyah - Testing a change where Q deals reduced damage to monsters, but has a lower CD and mana cost. Somewhat experimental, so might not ship. Taliyah jungle is performing too well in high tier play, both solo queue and pro. Mid lane performance by contrast isn't out of line, so looking at solutions that target jungle primarily.
• Trundle - We hit him too hard with previous nerfs. Putting some damage back in, both base and ratio as a result.
• Viktor - After some more investigation we're probably going to take a bit of power out of tank Viktor builds while aiming to keep AP Viktor around his current power level. Still down to see some top lane Viktor, starting to see it perform really well when tanky even though a lot of players doing it aren't that experienced yet. Trying to tone it down a bit as a result without going so far as to remove it from being a good choice at least some of the time.

---

No second post this week

I'll be out of town for a couple of days, so no second post this week. Back to normal next week.

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