get the impression that the balance team members were feeling really sheepish? As if they knew what they were doing to Kassadin and Veigar was wrong? Didn't seem like they were really happy or confident about the patch. Maybe these changes are out of their hands? Maybe the recent changes are due to pressures coming from higher ups to make the game better for .. oh I dont know.. LCS? Just a thought.
SmokingPuffin1 votesDefinitely. Their discussion of Kassadin showed they're pretty sure that 5.4 Kassadin is a pointless thing, but they don't know what to do to fix it. On Veigar, they talked about the big numbers, but they also clearly knew that without reliable E that kit doesn't work. No word on why W was not buffed to fall faster or something.
Anyway, I got the feeling these changes are half baked in their eyes.
Maybe these changes are out of their hands? Maybe the recent changes and mobility creep are due to pressures coming from higher ups to make the game better for .. oh I dont know.. LCS?
Possibly patch scheduling is out of their hands. Maybe they needed to get DJ Sona out the door, for example.
I wouldn't read into this more than it is. This is a patch that contains changes they don't feel comfortable with. 5.3 patch rundown shows no such symptoms. I think they like mobility creep and are looking to find ways to make mobility fairly costed, not decrease mobility.
Kassadin was a priority nerf for LCS, but I don't think this patch was really pushed for competitive play. We didn't see anything happen to Lissandra and Gnar beyond a bug fix, and those are probably the most pressing concern for competitive balance. I'm pretty sure Kass R nerf is a design pushed idea; the competitive community would totally accept a reduction in his shield, increases in mana cost, decreased slow duration, that sort of thing, and it'd work to make him no longer spammed.
SephAgro1 votesI don't think its unreasonable to think that business decisions could be made by a higher authority and then trickle down to the lower quarters of business development. Their body language is a good indicator to how they were feeling about the patch, but I base my observation also on the fact that I work for a software company and god know how many times I've been asked by some exec I don't personally know to make changes that I didn't agree with (bad user experience but oh well it makes more money type of thing) to systems that we own.
These decisions are made. Its a business, and its top priority is to make money. If I worked for Riot, that would be my top priority as well. Due scrutiny is warranted given the recent changes.
SmokingPuffin3 votesCertainly management decisions sometimes result in discomfort in the rank and file. However, I don't buy that explanation in this case. Nobody was unhappy in 5.3 patch rundown, and 5.4 patch was not a big direction change. Business types have little reason to care about Veigar and Morde, and certainly no reason to want them to be nerfed into the ground (if they were buffed to the skies, you could at least make some tinfoil hat argument about skin sales).
I think these guys are frustrated that they couldn't solve the design problems. Both Veigar and Morde were delayed by a patch because their initial plan didn't work, and their backup plan quite clearly also didn't work. I would bet they were told that 5.4 had to go live by a given date and they know their projects aren't ready for prime time.
SephAgro2 votesVeigar was a FOTM pick in the pro scene at Korea. He was noted as being the ideal counter to mobility. Then he gets nerfed shortly after. I don't buy that "business types" have little to care about the champion roster of the very game they are invested in. Shareholders don't just sit on polished marble tables all day long and count figures. When you enter into corporate business, you may be surprised at how much meddling execs actually do. I've experienced it, its a perfectly reasonable conjecture and there is a high likelihood that at many points in Riot Game's history, there have been business decisions made to make the company more money.
I find it amusing that we live in a society now that merely suggesting that a business is prioritizing profit is viewed as 'tin-foil'. I chalk it up to consumer fanboyism.
SmokingPuffin1 votesI don't buy that "business types" have little to care about the champion roster of the very game they are invested in.
Business types are of course very interested in the champion roster. That's most of what they are selling. However, old champions that cost little IP are the lowest priority. New champions that aren't very popular are the highest. Rational executive meddling would produce Azir buffs, not Azir nerfs. Also, nerfing unpopular stuff doesn't do them any good. From a money perspective, nerfing popular stuff and buffing unpopular stuff into the meta is where it's at.
If we're playing "follow the dollars" this patch makes little sense.
there is a high likelihood that at many points in Riot Game's history, there have been business decisions made to make the company more money.
I agree with this point in general. To me, this case looks more like designers unsatisfied with their own work than executives forcing their hands. The only thing I can really say I expect executives to set about this patch is the release day; they want proper spacing between the release of DJ Sona and the release of Bard.
I find it amusing that we live in a society now that merely suggesting that a business is prioritizing profit is viewed as 'tin-foil'. I chalk it up to consumer fanboyism.
That's just the point. Veigar and Morde nerfs clearly do not prioritize profit. You gain nothing by nerfing stuff nobody is playing.
Stevev451 votesThe thing that surprised me about the Kassadin range nerfs is they always talked about that balance thought experiment where you could reduce the damage to zero on a kit and ask if the champion would be over powered then. If the answer was no then there was some damage level where they where balanced.
Kingsgrave1 votesThey don't have enough time or resources to fix any of the actual problems with the majority of characters, yet they still have to release those basic and unfinished changes and deal with the backlash from it.
Smashgizmo in particular used to stream quite a bit until all of the comments on the stream were just bashing on him for what he did with Olaf. Yeah what he did sorta helped with gamehealth but there was no way he could possibly fix Olaf completely with the amount of time he was given and the deadline he was assigned.
Same thing happened with Veigar and Morde and Kass. They are all characters that require huge amounts of changes to make work and also be healthy, but its impossible for them to do it.