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Everyone always misses the point of reworks.

HateDaddy··137 votes·4,982 views

It's not about making them stronger or weaker. It's about changing unhealthy play styles or generic kits that do everything. On a grander scale, for class reworks, it's about changing a large pool of champions that suffer from abusive interactions with itemization, weak synergies in need of updating, infrequent niches and various other reasons to name a few examples.

When these reworks happen, the initial goal isn't to gut a champion, to make them stronger or anything like that. It's to make it so Riot can make broad changes without fear of certain champions abusing said changes. People talk about all the class reworks being a failure and maybe some of them have yielded some less than desirable results for certain champions. In those cases, that's probably a good thing because it just shows those champions required isolated attention. In the larger scheme though, those changes produced better itemization, healthier gameplay and stronger diversity.

People will likely go nuts and point to "failures" such as Malz, Morde, etc. To which I'll point to you Darius, Vlad (who I initially hated but once I played and got familiar with playing against I love), Swain, etc. More importantly, black cleaver became a staple item across the board in the juggernaut patch. AP itemization has greatly diversified since the mage update as opposed to stack as much AP/CDR as you can, assassins got their own items. ADCs overall got more diverse and less generic right clickers. In the big picture, these updates made the game better. Yes, some cases sucked and some will need to be looked at but riot isn't perfect - neither are you. But for those that are "weak" from these reworks, guess what riot can finally do now? Buff them without fear of breaking them.

Tanks might be good, they might be bad - I don't know. It's going to take a few patches before we know for sure. But by the end of the season, I can promise you that overall, once Riot figured it out, tanks will definitely be healthier and better overall. And that's the ultimate goal of class updates and in my mind, they've been extremely successful.

166 Comments

BobaFlautist56 votes

That's fine. And while people will complain until the cows come home about the power levels of the rework, that's not what's actually bothering them. Nobody's that concerned about the power level; it's that reworked champions will often feel like shit to play.

Take new Sej: everyone agrees that she's strong, even too strong. But she still feels shitty to play, because her kit is clunky, counter-intuitive, and has massive power budgeted into the least satisfying abilities.

Her q is...basically the same, though a bunch of damage was removed. Her w, most people agree, is far more satisfying to use and has a lot more play around it - but then the damage is shit. Her e feels like she gets basically no agency in whether or not she gets to use it, and, by extension, her passive bonus damage feels the same.

A ton of her damage is locked up in her e and passive, and that feels like shit.

Let's go to another example, Zac: His new ulti actually is more interesting than his older one, but it's also a hell of a lot less reliable and has a lot of frustrating tied into getting it off. Same goes for his q, it's a fun quirky mechanic, but they removed the reliability from it and it feels clunky as hell to use.

That's not something you want to happen to your main's kit.

And lastly, Malzahar, the rework everyone hates: People don't really care about his winrate. People also don't want him to be able to get a free kill whenever his ulti is up, as fun as it was. People just want his power budget to be shifted from his w and passive back into his qer. Like, I used to play a ton of Malz, and he just isn't satisfying anymore.

HateDaddy10 votes

{quoted}

That's fine. And while people will complain until the cows come home about the power levels of the rework, that's not what's actually bothering them. Nobody's that concerned about the power level; it's that reworked champions will often feel like shit to play.

Take new Sej: everyone agrees that she's strong, even too strong. But she still feels shitty to play, because her kit is clunky, counter-intuitive, and has massive power budgeted into the least satisfying abilities.

Her q is...basically the same, though a bunch of damage was removed. Her w, most people agree, is far more satisfying to use and has a lot more play around it - but then the damage is shit. Her e feels like she gets basically no agency in whether or not she gets to use it, and, by extension, her passive bonus damage feels the same.

A ton of her damage is locked up in her e and passive, and that feels like shit.

Let's go to another example, Zac: His new ulti actually is more interesting than his older one, but it's also a hell of a lot less reliable and has a lot of frustrating tied into getting it off. Same goes for his q, it's a fun quirky mechanic, but they removed the reliability from it and it feels clunky as hell to use.

That's not something you want to happen to your main's kit.

And lastly, Malzahar, the rework everyone hates: People don't really care about his winrate. People also don't want him to be able to get a free kill whenever his ulti is up, as fun as it was. People just want his power budget to be shifted from his w and passive back into his qer. Like, I used to play a ton of Malz, and he just isn't satisfying anymore.

I understand your point but I addressed this in the OP. If it turns out that a champions update in a class update isn't good or feels less satisfying, then it's clear that champion need individual attention. It sucks for your main, I don't dispute this but this is always a chance you take when you religiously main a champion. Nobody likes it or likes to talk about it but in the long run, especially with older champions, it's inevitable that they'll experience some sort of rework along the way.

LankPants28 votes

I understand your point but I addressed this in the OP. If it turns out that a champions update in a class update isn't good or feels less satisfying, then it's clear that champion need individual attention.

That's nowhere near fucking good enough.

Riot needs to learn to admit when they fuck up and be willing to revert the champs to the last point where they weren't complete garbage rather than just leaving them in a perpetually shit state for years.

ModAcademy Kayn6 votes

than just leaving them in a perpetually shit state for years.

If we're using only Class Reworks as an example for that, I don't think that's happened ever. (Other than Morde, but he has issues on issues only solvable through VGU, BUT they did put a good deal of effort in trying to make him viable in a Solo lane (ask Malicious))

LankPants17 votes

Kog'maw?

As far back as I can remember Riot has only ever reverted one set of changes that made it live, those were the Kog'maw changes and Kog was a part of a champ update. This revert was easily the best thing they could do for him, I just wish they'd be willing to do the same for others.

ModAcademy Kayn5 votes

Kog'Maw got constant changes though, it's not like they left him alone, as shit, and then reverted it X months later. They tried and tried making his new thing work for a long time, and than they admitted defeat. So, if we're using Kog as an example, you'd have to wait for many months worth of changes to go by before they would consider reverting.

LankPants17 votes

They wasted resources trying to fix a bad rework. Typical example of a sunk costs fallacy. It's not worth wasting more resources than you already have trying to fix something you broke. It's better just to restart it to the last point where it worked.

To be honest though I've never seen a company fall harder for the sunk costs fallacy than Riot does. They're unwilling to let even their worst work "go to waste". This is why we had DQ forced down out throats for a whole year last year and Riot still refuses to admit it's a shit queue despite it being a dead queue with 15 minute waits and super uneven matches because no-one wants it.

ModAcademy Kayn18 votes

See, here's the difference between you and Riot. You see the Rework as a failure. They see the rework as needing some work. That's not a bad thing, lots of projects are hardly "Boom, Fixed". You also need to define what your definition of "Last worked" and what their's is. They rework for many a reason, both parties could be looking at different reasons.

Now, I don't disagree with you here, but I don't agree with you either, simply because you are looking through a very Customer Point of View. You see a product you don't like, so you don't want it. Easy, simple, no effort involved. All the power to you.

Riot is a Business, and Business's have a very different view point on everything, and this is worth mentioning. Let's use McDonalds and Minimum wage as an example. From a customer view point, asking for a dollar more minimum wage seems fairly insignificant, very small. But it's not for McDonalds, because they look at the very long term situations.

They look at 5 to 10 to 20 year plans in how they can make money. While a one dollar raise may seem insignificant now, in ten years, that could be a very large amount of money lost. It also works the same way with new products, or new machinery. They may take a hit for this year in revenue, but buying new machines could increase their revenue by 20% over the following years, so it's worth the initial hit to make more.

So this is where I disagree with people when they say "DQ should've been reverted ASAP", because that's a very customer based view. A year to try and fix a new system, even if it meant that they may take a hit the current year, is well worth the effort if it is able to achieve a better system that will be better throughout the years (be it Revenue or Ranked matchmaking, your choice).

Now, it didn't work as we see now, but for a business a year is hardly anything when it comes to trying something new, if it has potential for making something better. It didn't, and that's not the point here, but scrapping without any attempt at fixing is a faulty way to test out new things.

LankPants9 votes

Riot is a Business, and Business's have a very different view point on everything, and this is worth mentioning. Let's use McDonalds and Minimum wage as an example. From a customer view point, asking for a dollar more minimum wage seems fairly insignificant, very small. But it's not for McDonalds, because they look at the very long term situations.

That's not really an equivalent example TBH. It's never in McDonald's interest to raise wages unless forced, it's very easy to imagine scenarios where both reverting and not reverting reworks. They also wouldn't really be changing the product at all in the same way Riot has.

Also the idea that McDonalds would pass the expense of a raised minimum wage onto consumers is already shaky in the first place. In Australia McDonalds is cheaper than in America and we have an 18.70 AUD min wage. McDonalds just has to operate at a lower margin in Australia than in the USA, if they tried to raise their prices they'd lose marketshare to other fast food restaurants they can't lower their wages from what they are now. But that's fairly tangential anyway.

I'd say a fairer example here would be "new Coke". Coke at one point tried to change their formula and it was an utter dumpster fire. Over a couple of months they lost almost all of their marketshare to Pepsi. They were quick to bring back old Coke when public perception turned against them damned be the costs they sunk into developing new Coke.

ModAcademy Kayn4 votes

It wasn't meant to be a literal example, it was meant to show the long term thinking of Companies.

And no, I wouldn't compare either New Coke to this either. "New Coke" was meant to compete with Pepsi, a much sweeter drink, and you're right, they failed and it got switched back. However, you can't hoist the same time span on this to be considered an absolute failure and then reverted, as you can with League.

For one, Coca Cola had a much faster reaction to their product going down. If you were to take a Survey of it, the type of people who drink Cola drink Coke because it's Coke. They don't want Pepsi, they want Coke, it's just their thang. Coke and Pepsi are fairly different enough they don't overlap in customer base unless you're that guy. So if people who normally drink Coke aren't drinking Coke, that's a big problem.

Dynamic Que was no where near the type of immediate reaction, because League of Legends is still a fairly big and unique enough product that they could afford a temporary hit. The Food industry is much more competitive, especially back then, where any lead was a big one.

That, and not to mention the true fact, that there was a fairly decent sized amount of people who enjoyed Dynamic Que. Unlike food, and we're using a singular product size, you can have a varied amount of people who enjoy different aspects of a game. Food is pretty "Get what you buy", which very limited room for varied opinion. Riot wants to try to appeal to the largest amount of people, not singular groups.

So unlike Coke, who had had a HUGE immediate reaction with the Market, which was what prompted the revert, League did not have that. It's because they did not have that, that they decided to go the Year long trial route, and take the small hit in the hopes that they could make a better system. There is a huge difference between the two.

LankPants12 votes

That, and not to mention the true fact, that there was a fairly decent sized amount of people who enjoyed Dynamic Que.

No, there weren't. Riot wanted you to think there were and they tried to tell you there were but there simply weren't that many people who actually liked DQ. You can test this as well, considering DQ essentially still exists in the game. Go and queue up for a Flex Queue game, watch how long it takes, when you get a game look at well match making performs. Both of these will be abysmal. There just aren't that many people who want Flex Queue compared to Normals and Solo Queue.

Riot bought heavily into the sunk costs fallacy with DQ. They were hurting themselves and they knew it. They went full damage control mode for about 6 months, let's not forget that this happened.

The point of sunk costs as a fallacy is that it's attractive to look at your work and say "it can be fixed with X/Y/Z" then after attempting that and failing to move the goalposts and try again. Losing all of your work isn't meant to look like attractive option even when it's the correct one.

The difference between Riot and Coke is that Coke accepted that their sunk costs were lost, they took the path that offered the least future damage and didn't sink anymore resources trying to fix the unfixable. Riot bought into the sunk costs fallacy hook-line-and-sinker. They continued to pour resources into their failing queue and continued trying to push it even though they knew it was widely despised.

Volibear Boss17 votes

I dont understand, what was so unhealty about Maokai or Sejuani or Zac? I never minded playing against them, i also had no problem with old katarina, the one that had one jump and was in danger if melee, and couldnt immediatly jump away.

If you want to rework kits that cant be balanced through nerfs/buffs, rework Yasuo and Riven.

HateDaddy10 votes

[{quoted}](name=Marcus Phillida,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6bnukc5n,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2017-05-12T02:10:08.406+0000)

I dont understand, what was so unhealty about Maokai or Sejuani or Zac? I never minded playing against them, i also had no problem with old katarina, the one that had one jump and was in danger if melee, and couldnt immediatly jump away.

If you want to rework kits that cant be balanced through nerfs/buffs, rework Yasuo and Riven.

Maokai was definitely too good at everything. As for Sej and Zac, I personally felt Sej had too much power in her ult but that was a simple opinion of mine. As for riots definition? I can't say but I am not necessarily opposed. I didn't think Zac needed one but they felt he performed too well and his old kit likely couldn't be balanced. Maybe that is true for Sej. Even if I don't personally understand, I can still respect the decision because ultimately I know it'll lead to better balance.

Cookimonster3167 votes

they felt he performed too well and his old kit likely couldn't be balanced.

Yet he was at a 50% for a good amount of patches before the rework brought him down to 42%

Sqkerg2 votes

Winrate means almost nothing.

Sraeg20133 votes

It clearly means nothing when a 50% winrate champion in Diamond+ drops to freaking 42.5%.

Absolutely nothing.

SociopathFriend2 votes

To be fair, Riot pointed out in the past that any changed champion would probably have a loss in winrate because that should factor in all the new players trying them out and all the old players playing them and having to learn the new kits.

It's why you wait for a decent length of item to gather that sweet data before setting out with a new plan.

LankPants10 votes

I personally felt Sej had too much power in her ult but that was a simple opinion of mine.

And now she has an ult that's a worse Cocoon in most scenarios. At least her old R was satisfying to use. Her new R is just a joke of an ability that had all of its power shifted onto her shitty E and passive.

I can still respect the decision because ultimately I know it'll lead to better balance.

I can tell you it won't. New Sejuani is going to be a complete nightmare to balance due to the huge variance in power she can have based on her teammates.

Hyrum Graff9 votes

It's about changing unhealthy play styles or generic kits that do everything.

And I think they are fairly good at this. But, I also think they create problems. Example: Malzahar.

In my experience, full champion updates tend to have much better results, primarily because they're not constrained by art resources.

SexyBabyJesusZ9 votes

so what reason did they have to change zac? he was really well made, and now his rework has made him a joke.

cocacolalips2 votes

does no one read the patch notes - update notes?

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/vLEjALxZ-mid-season-tanks-update-zac

So then why are we picking him up for the Tank Update? While Zac’s strategic elements feel pretty interesting (see above), we feel tactically he falls pretty flat (see below). On top of that, we think we could expand even further on what it means to be League’s shape-changing, bouncy, goo-man.

Here’s what is likely to change with Zac:

Zac’s current kit encourages him to activate all his abilities in a single burst for maximum damage, instead of spreading them out to disrupt and bounce around the enemy team

After initiation, there is very little variance or mastery to his combat pattern, consisting of primarily sitting on one target and spamming his Q and W

Keeping in line with our overall Tank update goals, we’d like to shift some his reliable damage into additional forms of CC (we already felt that his two passives provide unique forms of defenses)

Although some of his abilities hit the mark, we feel that his kit could further stretch the blob man fantasy and give him a more distinct sticky feel in the Vanguard space

Stretching Strike does little to explore the stretching punch idea and ends up having a very similar output to Unstable Matter (AoE damage when you’re right next to someone)

Let’s Bounce! is a more chaotic version of Wukong’s Ultimate (Cyclone) rather than the potential teamfight-defining moment that Zac’s unique, sticky, bouncy nature promises

We’re looking to turn our resident goo-man into the premier displacement Vanguard, shuffling his opponents around the battlefield with sticky, stretchy, chaotic abilities that feel uniquely Zac.

Atanchan3 votes

tl;dr "he's basically a sunfire cape with some mild disruption after he uses his E"

SexyBabyJesusZ2 votes

{quoted}

does no one read the patch notes - update notes?

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/vLEjALxZ-mid-season-tanks-update-zac

he was 100% fine, there was no need to change him and his playstyle.

ModAcademy Kayn9 votes

I've never liked Zac's old Ult, it was never interactive for the person playing against him. The interactivity was always with his E, but even if he missed that, he was still in the middle of your team to bounce around however he wanted with his ult, not to mention ganks. I enjoy the new ult's interactivity much more than the old one, it's not an instant fuck you.

Automated Riven3 votes

or you could cc him out of his e and he became worthless

ModAcademy Kayn8 votes

Ask any Zac man and you'll find that they know ways around that. aka flanking

Automated Riven2 votes

thresh does it so well tho

ModAcademy Kayn6 votes

Frankly, Thresh does a lot of things well.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo7 votes

but they didnt rework tanks... they changed 3 champs that are tanks...

Variks the Loyal34 votes

By that logic, they didn't rework Juggernauts either, since none of the other ones received massive changes. Nasus Shyvana Udyr Volibear Olaf

oSEXYPLATYPUSo3 votes

but they actually have made more changes to juggernauts then they did tanks...

and shy has been changed twice, udry has a rework coming up.

Variks the Loyal19 votes

In the subsequent patches you mean? Because no one's even giving Riot any time to actually change anything with the new tank reworks. It's only been one patch, and they even hotfixed in some changes to Sejuani and Zac.

Patches come every two weeks, and there are balance changes to Sej, Zac, and Maokai on the PBE right now. There's also a Rammus rework.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo2 votes

the biggest change the did was to the items for tanks...

the over all class update was small in comparison to adcs, and supports and juggernauts

Variks the Loyal11 votes

It should be properly called the Vanguard update, because they specifically said only Vanguard champions would be effected. They reworked three tanks, introduced two new tank items, and changed a bunch of tank items across the board. And there's another Vanguard rework on the PBE right now.

Sounds like a tank rework to me.

HateDaddy11 votes

[{quoted}](name=MrFawknSunshine ,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6bnukc5n,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2017-05-12T00:30:50.943+0000)

but they didnt rework tanks... they changed 3 champs that are tanks...

So huge itemization changes don't have across the board ramifications?

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

well if that is the case then it was an marksmen update too right ?

HateDaddy5 votes

[{quoted}](name=MrFawknSunshine ,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6bnukc5n,comment-id=000100010000,timestamp=2017-05-12T01:29:26.246+0000)

well if that is the case then it was an marksmen update too right ?

You could say it was a small update, sure. Marksmen haven't really been using crit and given that armor and Hp just got changed, now was a perfect time to attempt to address that as well.

SteelMankind2 votes

You are forgetting that new items are part of class updates. item 3001 item 3194 item 3193 make the itemization of all tanks more diverse.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo3 votes

its really not that diverse considering the nerfs to sunfire cape cuz now there is no reason to get it... you just get one of those items instead now

Very Hard Engage3 votes

yeah, gutting, we get it. Veigar GalioZyra item 3070

AirKingNeo12 votes

Galio gutted LUL

ForeverLaxx6 votes

Galio was removed and replaced with an imposter.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo4 votes

yea i agree ... the new champ is cool but its not galio

Sraeg20135 votes

Galio was removed. Just like Karma before him.

Predatorator3 votes

Amen to that.

however, i still didn't get how the last skarner rework made him healthier than he was before.

Meep Man5 votes

It didn't. Mordekaiser and Skarner without much doubt did not benefit, whichh is why Riot decided that they need VGUs AND all future roster updates would avoid working on champions who need much more.

SociopathFriend1 votes

Old Skarner could perma-slow if I remember correctly- however a brief Google search didn't give me a resource where I can look at his old kit. He basically either could get in range and you'd never escape or he'd never get in range. He also didn't have CC outside of his ult so he either could run you down and maul you or he'd never catch you and be kited to hell.

Also that's probably the king example of Riot wanting to implement a new mechanic on a rework with the spires. Which I wouldn't say is wrong.

Sraeg20131 votes

His Q used "energize" if he hit an enemy with it. Another Q used durning the empowerment would deal bonus damage, slow and refresh the buff. His E used mark anything it hit and any instance of damage to targets with the mark would consume marks and heal him.

The thing is, the whole thing was resolved with the first rework, which had no spires. Adding them completely fucked over his strength dynamic.

Honestly, adding gimmicks like that always ends up with said gimmick either being a non-factor or so strong the rest of the kit has to be nerfed to compensate making a champion feel shit to play in the process.

Predatorator2 votes

It all went fine with the second rework indeed, which gave skarner a way to stick to his targets without slowing them down, and some utlity outside of his ult. His first rework was another failure, everyone could just walk away from him.

Sraeg20131 votes

Wait. How many reworks did he have?

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