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Dear Riot - Your Sona Survey

Hexflashed·7/31/2014, 11:04:14 PM·31 votes·11,396 views

First off, I just want to say, despite how much I DESPISE the game play update after playing Sona 4.13 (it's not interactive, it's frustrating), I love Riot. I love League. A lot of the direction changes I agree with 90% of the time. I have played her roughly 15+ games since her rework, trying to figure her out and prove to myself that I'm wrong about the problem with Sona. I am still searching, but I seriously still feel she's one of bottom tier supports and relies on your team mates to not be dumb. It's more miss than hit and doesn't help when your ADC is clueless about the strengths and weaknesses of your kit.

However, after receiving this Sona Survey by you in-game, all I can feel is more irritated. Irritated that you loaded the question instead of separately ask which parts I absolutely detest about it. Why? Because the art direction did an amazing job on her and that's doing them an injustice when I click the "Disagree" button. I wanted to click "strongly disagree" but due to this aspect and general direction for Sona (STILL NEEDS HEAVY WORK) is a good idea, I cannot loathe it as much as I want to express in your survey.

So next time, break the survey into more than just one question because this is really misleading and I take it no one has taken a crash course on psychology 101 when it comes to surveys being misleading when you word it a certain way. In this case, loading the question.

PS: This isn't a Sona QQ thread, we have enough of them.

50 Comments

Riotdavin8/1/2014, 12:45:55 AM13 votes

This little question is part of a broader investigation that happens on each release. For each release, a few different questions are seeded via this tool (gameplay, visuals, etc.). Those questions are sent via the Microfeedback Tool (MFT), which is a super simple one-Likert statement thing. For this Sona update there's 6 total questions in the MFT--a visual one, a gameplay one, and a general one. All sent to two different populations (people who just played Sona and people who are in a random sample).

For any given release, those MFT data join the broader set data: lab data (we run usability/playability/etc. labs), "traditional" survey data (the larger web-based surveys we send out), analytics (analysis of in-game performance), etc.

Sorry that this question didn't provide you enough space to air your thoughts. We keep the MFT really brief and light so that it doesn't get annoying (since we pop it up). The more traditional surveys are much more in-depth, since they aren't interruptive. If you do want to share more about how you feel, the forum here is a good place or you can use things like the 'Help us Improve' survey.

Hope that helps shed some light on why we'd use something so narrow. The TL;DR is it's part of a broader constellation of things, and we really don't want any of our research to get annoying or bothersome, so the MFT keeps it brief.

Pika3107/31/2014, 11:33:01 PM7 votes

Agreed. If they could make a quick survey that provided a few more specific questions, that would be great. Otherwise, I feel exactly the same way you do on the answers.

DreamingOf Peace8/1/2014, 12:07:09 AM7 votes

I didn't get this survey but its ridiculous because the icon changes, and texture updates, even on the arcade skin are pretty well done and much appreciated. The gameplay mechanics themselves have good ideas behind them but ultimately can't work with the way Sona is now (squishy as hell). Either Sona needs defensive stats, or the auras need to be bigger, or something needs to give. Because right now Sona is only doing well when she gets ahead and builds a lot of AP. Tanky Sona and utility Sona and hybrid AP/utility/tanky Sona are dead. You need straight up AP, and you can't afford things like Rabadons as a support unless you're ahead.

Lucas Barreto8/1/2014, 10:30:43 PM5 votes

Sona is now a unsafe support, with low life, low damage, low heal early level's, big cooldows, big mana costs. Compare her to nami for an example, nami have best cc, best heal, best damage, best utility in TF's. Sona need buff's right now. Her poke is so unsafe compared to her fucking low life, and now her "Q" have 40 damage sounds so pathetic. (sorry for my bad english)

Thales8/1/2014, 12:50:56 AM4 votes

I'd be willing to bet that Riot has numbers showing that the proportion of people who take the time to answer the survey drops precipitously for surveys with more than one question. Surveys that short might not allow you much nuance, but at least they get answers.

DreamingOf Peace8/2/2014, 12:28:06 AM3 votes

Sona used to get 20 armor/mres from her W and 20 more of each from the heal, additionally she used to get extra stats from runic bulwark and aegis. Since all of these stats have been removed and since the radius on Sona's auras has been cut into about one third of what they were what is the justification for lowering her base health and only giving her 3 more armor. Additionally why would you increase her base armor by 3 and then subsequently lower her base health, this seems contradictory and baffling. Furthermore why should Sona be squishy-er or as squishy as zyra a mage who has far superior CC and damage and extreme range( On a side note I think zyra is too squishy). As a support who is expected to be in the frontlines and who has lost a lot of her passive stats through constant nerfing and changing of passive stat items why aren't Sona's passive stats buffed in compensation? Why doesn't Sona gain any magic resist per level? Why does Sona have one of the lowest if not the lowest base health in the game, if this is to compensate for her power can you please explain to me how her healing is better than nami's or how her shields are better than Janna's or how her damage is better than thresh's? Because there is not a single category where she offers superior utility than other supports. She also has one of the lowest base armors in the game even with the 3 armor buff, and her health at lvl 18 is something like 1600 without items. That's after the scaling health buff. My numbers might be slightly off because I'm doing this off the top of my head but they are generally in the right area. With those resists and health lategame you can literally be hit twice by an adc in the span of about 1 second and ignited by someone else and you will die. Since her auras encourage her to build AP to make them useful how is she supposed to afford tank items or have the slots for them or even afford big AP or tank items since frost queens gp/10 was nerfed and nomad's GP 10 and gold will usually only pay off the cost of the item itself if that?

I don't expect an answer, because I don't think there is one, but thank you for your time.

MAZZ1M09/1/2014, 4:55:48 PM3 votes

THAT was the survey? Wow, I've taken psychology and statistics. That survey is completely useless and so biased it fails to capture the polarizing nature of aspects of the update or any meaningful data. Of course the art is better, yes her E is better, but her overall kit is less effective. I haven't met anyone in-game thus far that likes the update. I'm not exaggerating; I'm more than fair in all my Sona criticism.

Also, what was the variability for the sampling? Did you send that survey to non-Sona users? Who does that even help if you did it at random? Half the players who took the survey probably never played her, saw the pretty colors and voted Strongly Agree.

Saltzhammer8/1/2014, 1:53:17 AM2 votes

Agreed,

Fisk8/1/2014, 4:14:26 AM2 votes

I dunno bout this... I played sona today quite extensively and found the rework to be pretty damn strong. Her poke is weaker and relies on her stacking up power chord and hitting a Q+power cord combo. But now you just max W and she will just wreck lane. I mean she will seriously be unkillable. She will hang out at full health and give a 200 health shield and an even bigger heal to you and your ADC. Just because her Q isn't and instant 0 health enemy duo doesn't mean she's weak.

Khmera8/8/2014, 9:29:35 AM2 votes

I have no complaints except her E range being so short and maybe maybe an increase in her aura range. Considering Janna 's passive, Taric 's aura, and Soraka 's old passive was/are 500 - 1000 in range. I just want it at 500, not measly 350 range.

TheKingDodo1/7/2015, 1:08:12 AM2 votes

Riot just puts these surveys out just to laugh our reactions... oh rito u! :3

cottonycloud8/3/2014, 9:08:01 PM1 votes

Thoughts:

Base stats are nice.
Q for turrets nerfed, OK.
W/E OK.
R still doesn't work on minions/monsters. Very skinny, maybe work on mana costs/cooldowns as well.