Still no clear information on Lethality aka new armor pen
Im a big fan of conveying information to the player so they can have a clear understand how much impact a certain skill or mechanic has whether it be of its range, radius indicator, stats, and ect. However, with the new introduction to Lethality and their seemingly arbitrary formula, it is almost impossible to detect how much armor penetration you actually have and inflict. I see some people talk about how Riot is not a big fan of auras and old Poppy because of their "invisible" numbers, meaning they conveyed information poorly to the player to the point where decisions becomes a borderline guessing game. So after all of that, why introduce Lethality when it essentially falls the same definition of invisible numbers?
Here is the formula on how Lethality is calculated.
Lethality Lethality is a new statistic introduced in Season 2017. It grants flat armor penetration using the following formula: 1 LETHALITY = (0.4 + Enemy Level ÷ 30) Flat Armor Penetration
or from their patch notes
Lethality immediately grants 40% of its value as flat armor penetration. The remaining 60% scales linearly with enemy level. 10 lethality grants 4 flat armor penetration up front and 0.33 flat armor penetration per enemy level, capping at the full >10 once enemies are level 18.
So how is the player supposed to actively know ingame how much their Lethality stat is having an impact? Reminder that this is based on the enemy's level and not yours. So not only there is no meaningful information to the player how much value you're getting out of Lethality, but even if the player does figure it out, they would have to keep track of the rest of the teams level since they could all be different at one point or another which to me is insane. I dont know if im the only one but to me, this is the purest manifestation of the invisible numbers concept.
I hope Riot thinks of something that better tells how much this stat is impacting the game because currently, there is none aside from your "current lethality" aka maximum lethality potential. This who mechanic feels arbitrary because of the dependence of a factor you essentially have no control of. Why not have it instead scale with your level instead? That way it will not only be easier for Riot to convey the information, but it would also help players have a better understanding on how much its actually doing. They would know how much Lethality they current have right there and then. Balancing it with the changes would be a different topic.
Thoughts? Feelings?