Hey folks,
Thread here for discussion around the mid-season follow up post that just went up:
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/state-season-mid-season-followup
I'll be here to chat about our thoughts on gameplay for the next hour or two, with some additional responses throughout the day where time permits.
Edit: Gotta head off to a meeting now, will be back later when time permits.
Malicious Metal8 votesCan we have a discussion on Mordekaiser and what people feel should be preserved in his VGU once you decide to start working on him^^ You had a similar type of discussion over Taric a while back
RiotMeddler7 votesI think it would be good to do one once we're in a position to consider feedback received. A Morde update's not planned for this year though and while he's a possibility for next year there are other strong candidates too (Urgot, Eve, Panth, Swain, Irelia, Morde being the first 6 that come to mind). Wouldn't want to do any form of official 'we're probably doing a Morde rework, let's chat about what's core to him' without at least some degree of expectation internally we'd be working on him moderately soon after such a chat.
RottedApples3 votesit seems weird to me that panth and irelia are on this list. I know their kits are starting to show some age but they don't seem that bad off compared to the others. I would argue cho'gath needs more love than those two, although i wouldn't mind seeing pantheon get an update as well.
RiotMeddler2 votesOh, agreed, Cho would be a good option too. That's not a fully comprehensive list, just the champions that came to mind while writing that post.
daemanic6 votes[deleted]
RiotMeddler11 votesWe also expect the Yorick update to come out this year before the end of the season. It's almost certain he won't be between 6.12 and 6.18 though, whereas Ryze likely will be.
daemanic3 votesSee add that to the last part then ive been a HUGE FAN OF YORICK and would go ballistic to see him be dropped like solo q i love this game and he was my first top champion and honestly ryze is just toxic and boring
EDIT : Gotta love the hate keep it coming you tools not enough downvotes yet
RiotMeddler9 votesYeah, we went back and forth a bit on how much to talk about longer term projects. Eventually concluded we were better off focusing on a specific upcoming period where we could talk with a bit more detail than usual. Beyond that about all we can say is 'there'll be new champs and some other stuff including a pre-season'. Yorick's an exception to that though agreed.
GenoXx3 votesCan I ask you a question? Why do you guys always result in putting E-sports over anything that actually need attention? Yorick hasn't been touched for years and the only logic i can get from u guys for choosing Ryze before him is that he is in pro play. So basically, to get this whole fiasco understood, you guys put pro-players over all other players because you beleive it will make more impact for your game? Such as getting new players and such?
I can't see why you guys can't wait and put Ryze AFTER Yorick for the sake of which champ actually needs it first. Ryze got a rework and now you want him to get another to impact pro play, Why not release Ryze for start of next season instead? It's not like he's suffering more than Yorick is- 1 skin, release skin and outdated models.
Jungle Lux God10 votesYorick needs a significantly greater amount of work than Ryze, and if I'm not mistaken there are also two different teams on the champion update. Yorick isn't getting delayed because of Ryze because one team is doing one rework.
I believe Ryze also was scheduled for a visual update, and the champ up team decided to piggyback kit changes on it.
RiotMeddler7 votesYorick needs a significantly greater amount of work than Ryze, and if I'm not mistaken there are also two different teams on the champion update. Yorick isn't getting delayed because of Ryze because one team is doing one rework.
I believe Ryze also was scheduled for a visual update, and the champ up team decided to piggyback kit changes on it.
This. It's a good question though certainly, given amount of time we've put into Ryze versus other champions. The Champ Update team's also got a quick dev blog that'll talk about 'Why Ryze' nearly ready that should get posted sometime in the next couple of weeks for anyone after more details.
RiotReav35 votesI would argue that Ryze is also a problem in non e-sports play right now. His winrate in a experienced players hands is pretty high. Like Meddler stated below I will be putting out a post on "Why Ryze again?" in the near future.
TerraRising2 votesWe also expect the Yorick update to come out this year before the end of the season. It's almost certain he won't be between 6.12 and 6.18 though, whereas Ryze likely will be.
A couple of weeks ago, when I asked about a possible Yorick release timeline, you said you "expected it before preseason."
However, 6.18 sounds like the end of this current season to me, given the schedule you posted in the blog.
So... which is it?
RiotReav34 votes6.18 is not the preseason patch. Not certain what patch it will be this year but it was 5.20 last year.
It was also a estimated time, not a exact time.
Teslalyte6 votesWe’ll also be investigating some form of universal ‘this champion is invulnerable and won’t take damage at present’ visual language at some point to make it easier to tell at a glance who’s currently immune to damage (Taric ult, Trynd ult, Kindred ult etc).
Why not just make the health bars of the invuln champions turn Zhonya's Gold? Maybe even make them shimmer with the same particles?
Just seems like the simplest and most readable way to show an enemy (or ally) is immune through all the gameplay clutter.
HowPlayGAEM4 votes[deleted]
RiotMeddler15 votesCould see something like that working, only catch is that it then has to compete for space with all the other effects that also go on champion models. What we're currently exploring, that I'm pretty hopeful about, is a modification to the healthbar for a champion that's invulnerable. Something like a golden, glowing border (think Zhonya's, Kayle Ult, Bard Ult) for champions that can't take damage.
Sharjo1 votesYou guys thought about straight up making the health bar itself a different colour too, like gold or purple? Or does that have too many readability issues?
RiotMeddler4 votesHealth bar color's one of the strongest enemy versus ally signals for many champions. We'd like to keep that constant as a result.
the Anarchit3cht6 votesI honestly think the best thing to do would be something similar to Olaf ult but in a different color, such as gold. Seems simple and effective without even cluttering anything. I personally don't think a healthbar border is going to help too insanely much because a lot of the context is on the actual champion model.
blackfootedfox4 votesUpvoted just because you posted a cuttlefish.
hopeful43 votesAre you planning on releasing more items which are defined by their actives like Protobelt? Its the only way to truly increase item diversity and you know it. Also it makes the game more fun to play, making games feel different from each other and increase the individual skill ceiling. Honestly there are so many benefits that im really baffled why you have yet to take this apporach (proven succeful by other MOBAs already)
RiotMeddler11 votesWe'll do more active items certainly. Have to disagree with you that item diversity can't also be improved through non active items though. Really distinct passive effects like Catalyst's Healing, Tear's stacking off spell casts, the Spellblade line, Rapid Fire-Cannon etc offer distinct playstyles and effects versus purely stat based items for example.
Kyunsei3 votes@Meddler
You told us that after the end of the World 2016 you'll prolly work on another class update, have you settle down on which one ? Which champion would you see on the top protagonist for a diver/skirmisher class update ?
Thanks for answering.
RiotMeddler9 votesWe think we've identified which class we should work on and we're doing some prototyping at the moment to try and make sure. Should be ready to talk about which class and what our goals would be in a couple of weeks (not necessarily at the individual champion level though).
If updating Divers I'd be inclined to start by looking at Rengar, Diana and Aatrox, all of whom have some issues and noticeable diver elements (though end result wouldn't necessarily be that they should be divers). Probably Trynd if Skirmishers.
OneSmoothDude2 votesHey Meddler I'd just like to say that I was extremely happy with the Mid Year Mage Update, and I hope you guys will replicate some of how that update went for your next class update. :)
It was announced really far in advance. Telling us that you guys had plans and you'd learned from the Juggernaut update, and a great start to the transparency that followed.
The single champion update posts were amazing. Laying out a general idea, which abilities you guys liked or thought might need to change, identifying and expanding on the reasons why players like those champions... All good to hear. Really enjoyed those and they came out at a good speed.
Not only did it come out on time...I think it was early, actually, right? IIRC when you guys announced it you said it would come out June-July most likely, but it actually dropped the first week of May! Freaking awesome. Shoulda been the Before Mid Year Mage Update tbh.
The balance was reasonable. Sure maybe Malz released a little strong (but mostly in the Jungle...which was only possible cuz you guys listened to players saying they wanted Jungle Malz to stay, so ty) and Swain and Cass and Vlad were a little weak...that's fantastic, actually. Only a small handful of unbalanced champs when you guys reworked or introduced ENTIRE SYSTEMS (items, champs, dragons, red/blue buff, Rift Harold change). And they were hotfixed and things were mostly evened out a week or two after 6.9. Bravo. Clear progress since not only Worlds last year, but also the ridiculousness that Graves, MF, and Quinn brought with the Marksmen update.
Piggybacking off the above, new itemization was really good too. I'll be honest, I don't play many mages, but from what I've heard the new itemization is good. Community freaked out about the Protobelt...and just like Duskblade, you guys said it would probably be alright, and it was. Again, nice job. Looks like you set out your goals and dodged a lot of landmines.
Really looking forward to hearing about the next class update. :)
For what it's worth, my vote goes for Skirmishers. Tryndamere (more specifically, his reliance on crit) is just awful.
Tankus3 votesCan you make an adjustment to the random factor of ARAM, so that both teams have an equal chance of winning based on champion winrates? Because in some games you already know you gonna lose with 5 meele dudes against Varus, Xerath etc
RiotMeddler12 votesWe could, approximately at least. I'd worry that removes a lot of the variation that makes ARAM appealing to a lot of players though, in terms of variety of team comps you see and the need to adapt game to game to some really different situations. Random champ select can sometimes be statistically pretty unfair to one team, I'd argue that that enables a lot of what makes ARAM engaging though and that smoothing out the experience risks it just getting too flat and samey game after game.
DELI MEATS22 votesAny chance of unlocking all champs in ARAM?
AMYS GRAVE4 votesThis would do a lot of good in not seeing varus, sona, and nid every game.
Rilea3 votesHow will Support's XP be changed; something similar to the past mastery where being near an ally grants XP? :)
RiotMeddler4 votesStill exploring some options. Possibilities include:
Hige2 votesuhm don't you think this will affect everyone equally? there's a lot of junglers who kill wards as well not to mention dying on ganks.
I mean it will work for supports of course but everyone will have more XP throughout the game leaving supports behind once again ._.
RiotMeddler5 votesJunglers are the ones likely to benefit the most of the other positions. We do seem junglers sometimes fall into the same XP deficit though so that's potentially pretty beneficial.
In terms of ward kills from memory we tend to see supports kill around twice as many wards as most other positions, so there's a noticeable difference there. We're not looking to increase XP gain for other positions however, so might need to filter a small amount out elsewhere to compensate or just increase the amount of XP needed for the higher levels slightly.
EROTIC RAID BOSS6 votesHonestly I don't really like the idea of ward kill experience. It's very dependant on you being good at finding wards and killing them and that also depends on the other team placing them, not to mention the support scanning the right areas. For lower elo especially this wouldn't help supports as much.
I also think it's very unintuitive to players who don't know know every hidden mechanic, like new players especially. And it does have the potential for weird interactions with other roles, etc.
Why not just add an experience rubberbanding effect to the bandit mastery or support items, like if you're the lowest level on your team you gain bonus exp, until you're caught up to the next lowest, usually the adc? I can't see mid laners abusing that since they're generally the highest level player
Edit: and what if the correct play is to scan a specific brush you need to not have vision in, compared to knowing they placed a ward somewhere not that useful, them you have a choice between the wrong play to get exp and the right one. There's a lot I don't like about it
Blackquill2 votes^completely this. I would rather have it that Sightstone gets +X% XP gain as a stat (means that even new players can read it on the tooltip). With this you would not have to worry that other lanes would be abusing it because they would have to throw 800 gold out of the window for an item they dont want because it delays their power.
Also this would make you not rely on your ability to find wards before they run out after 2.5 minutes and especially it would not hurt mage supports as they really cannot go on a solo ward sweeping mission because they will get caught out and die on the spot, making them - you guessed it - fall behind in XP even further.
Garrotte1 votesOn point 2, would this in any way be more punishing for 1-1 towerdive trades? Not that this would be a bad thing, just wondering if thats included.
RiotMeddler2 votesThat's one of the big risk points, yeah. We wouldn't want to discourage early aggression by reducing the rewards for those sort of plays. Might need to compensate in other ways if going down that route (increased bonus gold for first blood?).
Selegun2 votesI dont like this because it punishes late game champs that want to build for late game by sacrificing early to build harder as the game goes on. If you do up the gold for first blood give us the counterplay of maxing the bounty level for the champ that takes first blood. Give the underdogs a way back into the game!
AMYS GRAVE2 votesIf you do up first blood gold then could you also accelerate the bounty on their heads by one kill, that way shutting them down shortly after they get first blood would mean a more even game.
Veraska2 votesIs my vel'koz getting nerfed?
RiotMeddler7 votesIf we nerf Vel'Koz we'll nerf everybody's Vel'Koz, not just yours.
After the recent buffs it does look like he might be too strong. No immediate plans to make changes to him, certainly possible we might need to in a couple of patches though. Need to watch him for a bit longer, gather more data on his performance, research how he's doing over time.
Alüe1 votes
is there any plans for urgod in the future? i feel that his kit is needed in this meta, with all of the high mobility going on. Auto lock abilities would be nice ._.
RiotMeddler6 votesNo plans for changes to his current kit at least at present. Likely candidate for a full Sion/Poppy style update next year.
Toby Fox1 votesAny chance that the Yorick rework will be released in 2016? Man I feel bad for the poor champion. 
