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We need a new Preseason

FancyKiddo·1/4/2018, 4:22:58 AM·2 votes·363 views

This new Preseason we've got, I'm pretty sure we can all agree just doesn't cut it. The game is now obviously in a state that's so out-of-whack with player desire that desperate measures are called for. Sweeping changes like one would expect to see in a Preseason. We need Preseason 8 v2. And it needs to address a lot of issues, with a very clear direction change. I fear for League if it doesn't happen.

Now, I know that posting suggestions or "this is what I would do to start fixing things" is in vain, but I just can't help myself. So let's do just that, addressing issues with the current game and suggesting fixes.

Preseason 8v2: Preseason Strikes Back

Hey players, lead producer FancyKiddo here. What we're about to introduce is a big change from our previous course, in response to player feedback. Our players have identified places where the overall design of League needs changes to bring the game back to the fun, exciting, compelling gaming experience that drew us all in in the first place. This is just a start of something bigger. What you see here are our first attempts to address the largest issues; we won't get some of this right the first time, and the game's going to be in turmoil for longer than a normal preseason. But these are changes that need to be made, so we're making them.

  • Start of Season 8 We're postponing the start of Season 8 while we get this right.

  • Lane power changes We've heard players loud and clear that bot lane has been the deciding factor of games for too long. The dominant strategy of 4v5 clown fiesta in the bot lane is fun for nobody. To increase the agency of all players in all positions, we think that one of the most important changes is deemphasizing the importance of a dominant bot lane.

    • Early dragons' damage and health increased In the current game, forcing the enemy bot lane to back often results in first tower and first dragon. Making it a larger risk to go for the dragon gives the enemy a larger window to respond to this default behavior.

  • Bottom Tier 1 Tower will no longer counts toward Tower First Blood The extra gold on taking the first tower, combined with the lowered armor on bottom tower, the natural pushers in that lane, and the presence of dragon nearby to further snowball, has resulted in the crowded bot lanes we see today. We're attempting to balance out the importance of early pressure in all lanes, and the extra gold on first tower is a good place to start.

  • Crit itemization increased in price Currently, the combination of tower first blood gold and cheap, powerful items is resulting in too much snowballing too early for whichever bot lane won the very early game. Increasing the price of items that ADCs are currently rushing provides more breathing room for everyone involved, and creates a larger window for early-game-focused ADCs to shine.

  • Lethality no longer applies to autoattacks Our attempt to stat-bind Lethality to caster-focused AD characters hasn't been successful yet. The stat is too powerful on champions who can benefit from it over and over again throughout a fight: ADCs. We're doubling-down on our original intent, both to reduce the effectiveness of it on ADCs (to prevent them from simply taking the place of crit-focused ADCs as that itemization becomes more expensive) and to give us a better balance handle on champions who are supposed to be using it.

    • We're finally fixing Ezreal so his Q doesn't ruin everything for everyone else

  • Game Pacing Changes We've all experienced it: we remember the games that lasted 55 minutes, where no one knew who was going to win until that last fateful teamfight around Baron. That excitement is what we live for. Though 55 minutes is too long for the average game, we're hoping to hit games between 30-35 minutes on average that are decided around the 30-minute mark, not the 25-minute games we have now that are decided 5 minutes in. This means the introduction of counter-snowball mechanics. We're not removing snowball mechanics, since we still want a team that is ahead to stay ahead if they continue to play well, but we're introducing ways for a behind team to get back into the game if they can manage to outplay their opponents.

  • Neutral objectives once more give gold, the amount of which increases as the game progresses Currently, neutral objectives are much more powerful for an ahead team than a behind team: they scale with the gold that a team can spend. Gold, however, is a reward that helps a behind team more than an ahead team. We're looking to make objectives the place where behind teams should make their last stands, and increasing their incentive as the game progresses should manage this.

  • Whichever team does not get Tower First Blood receives bonus gold on tower takedowns Tower first blood is currently too binary. It provides a bonus that lasts the whole game, that doesn't require any further investment to maintain. With this change, the value of tower first blood is now split between the taker's remaining towers, providing an extra little bonus every time the enemy team takes a tower. This changes Tower First Blood from a permanent advantage into a temporary one that the taker must defend to maintain.

  • Tower AI changed to be more consistent and helpful against poking enemies A major pain point for many champions and players is that a tower is not the defensive fortress that it's supposed to be. Many champions can poke away at a champion under tower free of care, just so long as they abuse the slow targeting mechanics of the tower. Towers now remember damage recently dealt to their allies, and will punish those who have dealt it even if it means quickly changing target.

  • Towers deal more damage to champions as games progress Currently, an ahead team can outscale tower damage very easily, taking away the option of even trying to stop the tower snowball from the enemy team. Combined with the previous change, this should punish tower diving more effectively through all stages of the game.

  • Matchmaking changes Okay, we done goofed. We trusted too much in our learning AI, but only now do we realize that we totally incentivized it to prefer the wrong thing: it's been trying to create 50% win rates, rather than balanced games. Sadly, while one might think that one is equal to the other, that's not so. Why, I got exactly a 50% winrate, because it placed me against bots half my games and 5 clones of Faker half my games... with feeders on my team!

    • Matchmaking is now based off of player MMR, without reference to the player's current win/loss streak

  • Jungle changes Now, you could make a joke about how it's never a Preseason without a Jungle overhaul, and apparently you'd be right: we thought we get away without changing anything for Season 8, but now we see that our current approach to the Jungle is definitely part of the problem. Currently, Junglers are too incentivized to spend most of their time ganking. Farming junglers and counterjunglers just don't get enough out of their playstyles to justify their inferior ganks. Now, we don't want to return to AFK farm Feral Flare Yi, but there's definitely a nice balance somewhere in here. Reducing the incentive to gank will slow down the early game and give laners a better sense of their own play defining how well they do.

    • Minion tax... tax: Jungle items now reduce XP from enemy minions
    • Machete/Talisman : 30%
    • Smite upgrade Items: 15%
    • Completed Items: 0%

    Minion tax and leeched experience from lane minions is currently a large portion of XP for ganking junglers. We're reducing the effectiveness of this early game.

  • Reduced catchup XP Catchup XP is the other big contributor to ganking-jungler leveling. When a jungler can remain at an equal level even when only taking their buffs, there's not much incentive to spend time in the jungle doing any more than that.

  • Jungle timers down We've increased the respawn timer on Jungle camps over and over, to the point where there's now no reason to go with a champion who specializes in clearing: a champion with an okay clear and better ganks can clear, gank, and be back to the first camp when it respawns. Why take a faster-clearing champion with worse ganks? We're looking to fix this up, giving Junglers more to do in their jungle and therefore increasing the opportunity cost of spending all their time in lane.

    • Jungle XP reduced to compensate We're actually reducing XP more than enough to compensate. We don't want to encourage AFK jungle farming, so we're making another change to push junglers to leave their jungle to keep up with the team:

  • Neutral and Enemy Large Monsters grant bonus XP We hope to encourage counterjungling and more interaction between the two junglers, as one would expect to see in a lane. In order to keep up with the rest of their team XP-wise, Junglers will now need to venture from the safety of their side of the woods, taking objectives or enemy camps

Well, that's what we've got for you, so far. Remember, League is always evolving, and especially during a tumultuous time like Preseason (version 2) you're going to see a lot of changes, quickly. Things may be unbalanced. These changes might not be the best ways to achieve our goals. But we're listening, and we're hoping that you'll help us by playing and bringing your great passion to bare on this problem with us. Keep the feedback coming, and we'll keep the changes coming until we've made a game that we can all be proud of.

Until next time! FancyKiddo

3 Comments

Brutalitops011/4/2018, 4:40:09 AM2 votes

Lol "bottom lane turret no longer counts towards first blood" just isn't going to happen. You remember what Riot said as to WHY they introduced tower first blood (and made bot lane outer turret specifically a literal wet noodle at the same time) when they did it? Because, in pro play, bot lane was having literally nothing going on ever after they introduced Rift Herald, which was just 1000x better than a simple turret. They introduced turret first blood and made bot lane turret squishier than any other turret in the game specifically because they wanted pros to go bot lane more often. I personally believe that that entire change should be reverted, but that's just me. I actually prefer longer games, so I wouldn't mind slowing the game down a bit by removing the massive snowballing element of turret first blood.

Again, remember the "ADC in 2017 LUL" meme from this time last year? Remember when champions like Ziggs and Ryze were being played as bot lane carries because they could do an ADC's job, but better and earlier? That's why they reduced crit item's costs. And I don't think that anything needs to be done to them. Perhaps a slight increase, not to the level that they were previously, but higher than they are now, or perhaps slight nerfs to the stats, but again, any kind of messing around with bot lane itemization can have severe consequences on any ADC's ability to exist in the meta anywhere.

Edit, going a little bit more in-depth as to the ADC changes: ADCs should need their triple crit before they come online. Currently, they're getting their items so early, they come online with 2 crit items. Before, they were taking too long to get them and starting to be useful at full build and full build only, because tanks would be too tanky so now they need LDR and now they're taking too much damage so they need Bloodthirster to survive long enough to kill stuff. Right now, I can play Twitch into 2v3s, even with only a small lead, and still have my team come out on top despite the enemy team's numbers advantage. Why? Because I have my double crit before the enemy assassin has enough burst items to out-burst me. The other day, I made a HUGE mistake that no Twitch player should ever be able to get away with: I was behind (like 2/4 or something like that) and I walked (in stealth) ahead of my tanks, straight into their somewhat fed Zed and Nocturne, popped ult, and killed them both before they could even touch me when I was already well within range of them. I got a pentakill from that teamfight. That shouldn't happen, at all, ever. However, if you nerf ADC items TOO much, then we get "ADC in 2018 LUL" and that's no fun for me, either. I wanna be able to play my rat. But I don't want my rat to be so strong that I can make a mistake that should 100% of the time get me killed and instead walk away with a penta.

I actually agree with that change to turrets. Or perhaps an "enrage" mechanic: damaging an enemy champion who is sitting under turret automatically causes that turret to fire 2 quick volleys at you, regardless of your range from that turret (unless you're REALLY far away, like with the case of a Caitlyn, Jhin, or Xerath ultimate gunning down the last little bit of health from you. Players should be rewarded, not punished, for things like that).

Here's where I wanna talk about a bit of a more fun mechanic. I got this idea from Paragon, a third-person MOBA where the inhibitors and nexus (they aren't protected by turrets in that game, so this would carry over to the turrets in our game) deal significantly less damage per shot, but deal that damage to ALL enemy minions in their ranges. If they're shooting a champion, the damage is dealt to ALL champions in their ranges.

As for your jungle changes, I personally like them all. I absolutely hate playing someone like Shyvana or Ivern with a really fast clear to clear all my camps, back, and the first one still isn't going to be back up for another 30 seconds. But my ult is down because I ganked bot lane just before backing, so I have legitimately nothing I could do until it comes back or camps respawn. Guess it's time to try counterjungling, but that's so risky, if the enemy finds me, I'm probably dead.