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Idea for Future Reworks

Frosted Tips·3/13/2019, 1:26:10 AM·9 votes·6,275 views

(As a disclaimer I would like to say that every decision would still be Riots final decision)

When Riot is first looking into reworking a champion they could release a survey with a few rankings on specific aspects of the current kit of the champion to see what players want to be brought over with the rework.

Example:

(From Reav3's most recent list of Tier 1 priority reworks I will choose Shyvana)

What could we improve on with an update to Shyvana's gameplay?

0-perfect as is 1-could be improved slightly 2-needs some work 3-needs lots of work

Fantasy of being a Dragon (0) (1) (2) (3)

Difficulty to Play (0) (1) (2) (3)

Skill Expression (0) (1) (2) (3)

Cohesive Kit (0) (1) (2) (3)

Comments:

So that is just an example and it is bad I know, but i think that this could help Riot disappoint less players and also maybe give insight to what the player base may want. (Unlike how Karma has been treated) Do you think this could help?

11 Comments

Hemulen Magi3/13/2019, 2:48:36 PM3 votes

Surveys could be useful. Riot could set them up in the client and weight responses by the respondent's mastery with the rework target, so that feedback from champion mains with more vested interest isn't drowned out.

1k mastery required for rework survey prompts to appear. Each further milestone below adds one point of weighting or vote to the respondent's answers.

10k mastery, 50k mastery, 100k mastery, 250k mastery, 500k mastery, 1m mastery

So at 1m mastery on the rework subject, your feedback is worth 600% as much as a person who rolled the champ a few times on aram.

BigFBear3/13/2019, 5:59:25 AM3 votes

I thought about something like that too. Make the process of champion rework more transparent. This way they could prevent reworks the community or fans of that champion wouldn't like. Ofc the designer should have the last word, but i can imagine that sometimes it could be a little bit difficult for a designer to rework a champ he isn't really familiar with. Let's take Voli for example. He is a Tier-1 Rework champ and he is very unpopular. I bet there is no designer at Riot who really plays him let alone mains him. So the one who have to rework him will play 20, 30 games and then will try his best to understand what fans love about him. But will it be enough? I think it could be helpful to get in touch with fans in the process of the rework to get some inspiration.

Not like: "ye we want his W exactly like this or that..." but more like: "this is what we like at Voli" "this is where he can be stronger" "what is his role?" "what is his job?" "would he profit from a suportish kit or would it make him too different from his current state?" "should his Ult be pure DMG buff like other Juggs or something more?" "like single target or more like AoE?" etc.

Shahamut3/13/2019, 3:18:47 PM2 votes

I think what they are doing with Teemo is the right way to go: pit changes on pbe, gather feedback. Talk about it, make some other changes, get feedback.

ModAcademy Kayn3/13/2019, 7:09:21 AM1 votes

I mean, the things that Riot would use their final say on, as you yourself said "Riot has final decision", are probably the things that the players would be the most mad about if changed. Take Aatrox, Riot seemed pretty set on changing the way he played entirely. Survey or not, I don't think it would've done anything. One could argue "Well then they'd know not to change it", but the other could argue "What if it's apart of the problem?"

Beyond that, they already invite pros and dedicated mains of champions when they begin work on reworks. Malicious Metal himself got invited to try out/judge a couple of the ideas they got going for Morde.

Alzon3/13/2019, 2:52:41 PM1 votes

They actually do this sometimes. I’ve gotten one for Taric, one for Nautilus, one for... I think it was Garen? And another for Kindred, I believe. The types of questions are always different though.

Sire Hippington3/13/2019, 3:05:22 PM1 votes

They also should do that for aspekts people find frustraiting about them so you don't just get another CertainlyT champ that is fun to play but feels totally bullshit to play against(most recent releases/reworks go that way, so blameing it all on CT is kinda wrong, his champs are just the most iconic ones for that)

Glaricion3/13/2019, 7:06:31 AM1 votes

This would be cool as a 'getting feedback' sort of thing, or to act as a tie-breaker during heated debates, but hopefully they wouldn't take such a survey too much to heart. It's better to fail with a vision than to have a project executed via focus group.

Some people are going to want a champion with extremely harsh skill curves, others may want them to be pick-up-and-play. What is cohesive, if being completely cohesive is good, and just what is 'skill expression' can be so different from user-to-user.

Designing surveys is hard enough when it comes to just polling for simple opinions, something as complex as just what people find essential to that champions identity, both kit-wise and in aesthetics? Hope they allow for essays and have very effective scanning programs + statistics dashboards/a glut of interns.