Boards›Gameplay

@solcrushed sorry to ask, but plans for Poppy?

Mishli·4/1/2015, 8:58:59 AM·3 votes·1,688 views

I know you guys get this question a lot, so sorry for restating it, but Poppy was the champion that really got me into league in the first place, and that was back in preseason 2. Since then we've seen Poppy go to the wayside more and more, I once had a straight week where I never got to play a game (30+ straight tries) because people dodged on sight of poppy. Even back then there was talk of a Poppy rework, and it's been thrown around so much people thought it was never going to happen, Morello himself even threatened that 'Poppy would be nerfed to become the next Evelynn' if she ever became popular in high elo play.

From what I've read, the rework is finally getting off the ground (or at least getting more focus) so I really wanted to ask. How is that going?

What I have managed to gather so far is

1: You are currently in charge of, or at least partially in charge of, Poppy's rework 2: She is most likely going to get an almost brand new kit, potentially only her e is remaining 3: she is being reworked into a tank, as she was originally designed (if i understood correctly)

Also, shortly before the old forums we reworked into the current boards, one rioter held a "what does Poppy mean to you" thread (sorry i can't find the link anymore). And the general consensus was 'a tanky fighter who can kill someone/towerdive' Meddler said in another post that the current idea was a "dwarven warrior'

First and foremost, I'd like to honestly ask, what parts are you currently working on? I know these things take time, and I realize it's rediculous to assume that it's going to be done overnight, but as I'm going to school for game design, I was wondering if you could shed some insight on what is going on in the process? Is there a particular part of the kit which doesn't seem to mesh well with other things, Is one team waiting on another? Does something not thematically fit even though it feels like it should work?

I also wanted to ask your opinion, do you think she will end up being a straight tank, like Mundo, or a bruiser like Vi? Tanky enough to get by, but still strong enough to dive in and potentially take out a carry? There are many flavors of 'tank' and many people I know are concerned by Poppy constantly being referred to as simply a 'tank', yet when the champion update page references her as a "heavily armed and armored ball of golden death" and "[riot is] looking to keep her current fearless style of gameplay and core dash-and-smash mechanics - we still want her to have that same diver mentality". This to me sounds much more like a bruiser akin to Vi than a tank like mundo or Zac.

Also, as many people have already said, if her E is in fact the only skill remaining, are there any plans to make it more reliable? the ability for every other person in the game to make Poppy lose her gap closer simply by dashing/blinking or occationally sneezing too hard really hinders her ability to make any sort of play

One last thing, I know reworks are always very stressful for you guys, as it's impossible to please everyone, some fans of the champ will like the remake, others won't. It happens with every champion that gets reworked and I'm sure will happen to every other rework, but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents. 2 of my other favorite champions have gotten reworks so far, Trundle, being minor, and Karma, being more major. I know that Karma lost her old passive because, similar to Poppy, it wasn't very condusive to the game to have a champ get stronger the lower their health, but with both trundle and Karma, even though they got changed, you still kept one of my favorite things about them their natural... tenacity, for lack of a better term, still able to fight back even at low hp (trundles ult, karma's heal/shields) and potentially outplay their opponents. Even though I know Poppy's passive will have to go, I would love to still see this potential remain on her as well.

Thank you in advance for reading this if you managed to get all the way through, even if you don't reply. And thank you for all the hard work you guys put in. As i'm attempting to get into game design, I'm learning just little bits of what you all have to put up with, trying to sync together different teams, different ideas, different points of view/opinions, and on top of that listening to fans like myself of certain champions ramble on and on or constantly bug you about them, and for that I again I want to thank you and the rest of the teams for sticking it out. League wouldn't be the great game it is to play without you guys, even if you can't please everyone. I can't lie I'm apprehensive, but I'm still hopeful for the coming rework as well. Thank you and God bless.

28 Comments

Retillin4/1/2015, 1:48:50 PM1 votes

I would love to get some answers on this as well. I always felt that Poppy's passive (Valiant Fighter) is what set her apart from others. Yes the Ult was OP (if the person Poppy placed it on didn't have cc otherwise it was mostly useless). Her %hp on her Q allowed her to duel. And like a lot of older champions she needed her W as a speed up to even have a chance of engaging.

I really worry that she'll have only her E as an engage. If she doesn't have a speed up or dash it will make it almost impossible to use her E into walls.

Also there are two bugs that I hope get fixed on the rework. The first is if you qued up your Q before E she would sometimes just stand there and not attack at all. Second, movement abilities could be used to ignore her E into a wall. Example. Against a Renekton he could slice and dice right away as he was knocked into the wall. Same with Lee Sin and both his dashes. Leaving my Poppy to not be able to re-engage when those champions should have been stunned. (Happened about 20-ish times in one game)

As a long time Poppy player, she is my fav champ, I really hope they clean her up a bit but don't take away the fast little yordle who hits hard.

Hellhammer4/2/2015, 12:54:08 AM1 votes

I wonder after 5 months if Riot has honestly made any progress on reworking Poppy?, I have no idea what it involves reworking a champion, but i'd imagine an idea that goes involved is concept art and thinking about what kind of tank/bruiser she represents?

i dunno i personally would like to see a lil progress on her rework.

Going Dark4/2/2015, 6:20:55 AM1 votes

I actually don't think it's necessary to completely scrap her passive. Sure, it's strong, but that doesn't automatically mean it's broken when it can be balanced out in her overall kit.

One big design complaint I've heard about her passive is that it's "opaque", that is, I don't think it actually reveals how it operates in the game so it can be very hard for an opponent to figure out how much damage it is negating if they don't already know exactly what her passive does. But IMO this can be easily solved by translating the current damage reduction technique into a roughly equivalent (or greater or lesser depending on balance) amount of bonus armor and magic resistance based on missing health. This would also make it easier to tweak up and down instead of the current formula IMO. This would give opponents (and Poppy!) better information about just how much they can expect to damage her, and it will also be information given to them in a way they are more familiar with (armor/MR instead of non-resistance "damage reduction").

Mishli4/6/2015, 9:14:32 PM1 votes

bump

Mishli4/11/2015, 9:28:05 AM1 votes

bump

banthor115/17/2015, 4:54:04 PM1 votes

My greatest fear is that they end up pulling what they did with Karma. Months long rework, then developer throws hands in the air, trashes the work done, and hands it off to another developer who half-assedly throws together a kit and pushes the champion out the door. Refusing to admit fault for the champion, they overbuff it to get people to play it, then nerf it down later. That last part happens far to often with reworks.

Heimerdinger was probably one of the few champions (perhaps sion too), that in his last rework, actually had a great deal of respect and care taken in keeping to his theme and play style. He needed fixes too, but they were reasonable scaling tweaks.

I fear that Poppy just won't be Poppy anymore if she can't wall slam an ADC or mage and make them dead then and there. They may think Poppy should be a tank, but Poppy players fell in love with her being an assassin.

My predictions for her rework are thus:

  1. She gets a skill shot, because we're Riot and don't want people hitting Kalista unless its Kalista's fault

  2. Q is likely going to be a small area-of-effect smash that radiates from the target.

  3. Some form of Paragon of Demacia may end up being moved to her Passive. Basically, she gets tankier and faster as she gets attacked (seems reasonable).

  4. Wall Slam may stay the same. Sadly this may end up being what gets turned into a skill shot, which could be terrible unless they expand the range quite a bit.

  5. Her replacement W could honestly be anything, maybe a short duration speed increase for positioning, something strictly used to absorb damage, who knows.

  6. Her Ultimate will likely end up as something like Alistars (Pure tanking purposes) or like Heimerdingers (greater effects added to other abilities)

  7. Her Ratios are going to get slashed.... HARD. Riot's going to MAKE you go tank on her, and I doubt they're going to give her any decent scaling to facilitate any kind of Melee Carry builds because they've had enough of Poppy doing THAT since her creation.

I may be being pessimistic (Riot's given me good reason to), but overall I have low expectations this rework unless the developer in charge has been giving serious time and effort into making this rework actually good (i'm talking several months here).

Mishli6/20/2015, 5:17:19 AM1 votes

UPDATE!!! (least kinda) apparently in the rework, poppy's kit is mostly done, the artwork/design is currently in the works/in process

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/miscellaneous/sftAEOEo-between-two-turrets-chat-with-ironstylus?comment=00530000