SummonersLab, Part 11: General Improvements (2)
Welcome to another part of this series! Im happy to welcome you once again for some ideas you may or may not have heared before and are equally excited to test the practice tool as me! First off the links to the other parts, in case if you havent seen them yet:
SummonersLab, The Introduction Here SummonersLab, Part 1: An additional Crit Item Here SummonersLab, Part 2: Crit Algorithm Improvement Here SummonersLab, Part 3: Tower Changes Here SummonersLab, Part 4: Ohmwrecker Here SummonersLab, Part 5: Support Role Improvement(1) Here SummonersLab, Part 6: Wits End Here SummonersLab, Part 7: Smite Buffs Here SummonersLab, Part 8: Plants Here SummonersLab, Part 9: ** Support Role Improvement (2)** _ Here _ SummonersLab, Part 10: ** General Improvements (1)** Here _ SummonersLab, Part 11: ** General Improvements (2)**_ Here
Todays topics are:
- showing actuall ArPen
- 99LP -> 100LP
- IP reduction for S/S+ on notowned champs
- zooming futher out
- Aatrox Q flash combo
- Towers
This part of the SummonersLab Series also showcases more ideas but not as detailed/indepth and they are way more controversal. So it is completely fine if you dont agree with all of them! It would be disheartening if downvote this because you disagree with one of the ideas, I would rather have you write down what you dislike. Maybe the idea initself was flawed or we come up with a better solution all together or I could potentionally even change your view on it, everything is possible. Thank you very much!
#1. Showing ArmorPen
You may have already noticed that Lethality replaced ArmorPen or better, gives a certain amount of ArPen calculated by a formula. Recentely this formula was changed from 40% base and 60% scaling with level to 60% base and 40% scaling. At level 1 you had a 43% conversion and now you get 62%. We can argue that this increase might be a bit to much, 50% base and 50% scaling could have been better, but that's not todays topic here.
If you press "c" while ingame this will show you your advanced stats, like AutoAttack range(AArange), Lifesteal, Spellvamp, Magic Pen and Lethality. Additionaly to the flat amount the % of Penetration is also shown. You may know that you get 63% at lvl 1 and 100% lvl 18 and can estimate that you get around 80% at lvl 9. But why so complicated? Why not just show how much Armor Pen you have?
The answer is, its not that easy because the scaling is depending on the enemy level and not yours. So what do I plan to do? Listing every single value for each enemy seperatly?
No, that would require way to much space and is not clean enough, it would overload the window. My plan is far more simple.
Just take the average enemy level for the Armor Pen calculation.
Thats it. It is more accurate then just taking your level. And it gives us a single clean number. This number is based on the enemy levels you last had visual confirmation off! So if you never saw the enemy, if they all farmed the jungle that could be possible, then their average level is 1, from your prespectiv. They all could be level 18, but it only updates your calculation if you have visual confirmation on the enemys level. This prevents some cheesy abuse to guess the junglers level for example. Always think ahead my dear theorycrafters :D
You also normaly see 3 to 4 uptodate levels anyway, so we could exclude the lowest enemy level, so it doesnt mess with the average, if the enemy jungle decides to gank at level 18 for the first time, for example.
If you dont think all this is necesseray I can fully understand you. But even simple math like 4/5 from your Lethality becomes a complicated, near unsolveable problem for a lot of people in the heat of the battle :D This would be a very easy extra, not causing any problems. So why not?
#2. Upgrade from 99LP to 100LP
This one is a bit tricky so stay with me for a bit. We all know the frustation if we just won a hard game, grinded that juicy LP to climb higher and then this... 99LP... 1 LP short to get into the series and potentionally climb higher. Now you need to waste a full game to get 1LP.
I'll shortly explain some basics of MMR and LP, you can skip this one here if you want. I'm generalizing a bit here, if you get 21+ LP your MMR is higher then the current place, below 20LP means that you are currently higher than the system thinks you belong. So you can climb with just a 50% winrate if the systems thinks you belong higher. Dont believe me? Here an example: A Diamond Player with a Diamond MMR placed in Silver only loses about 14LP and gains 25LP or more form a win. So he will climb back up even with just an overall winrate of 50%, because he gains more LP then he loses. This "place", where the system puts you, your MMR, always changes a bit for each win or lose, but only by a small amount. And there are alot more factors like matchmaking etc. but we will not talk about that here. So you can influence that, but it takes a bit of time.
With the basics done, this 1 LP is roughly about 1/20 of your normal gain or loss. This 1 LP that you need to get into the series is only 1/20 of a win, if your previous wins or losses would have been a tiny bit better you wouldnt need to win another full game! This is especialy frustrating if you are trying to get better and go past your current rank into the next division. What I am trying to say is that you could have been unlucky or had a strike of misfortune which put you at 99LP. This is demotivating and you feel ripped off. I want to change that!
And now the tricky part: If we do this 99LP to 100LP upgrade, shouldnt we allow 98LP to be upgraded too? It is now only 1LP away too! Because 99LP is now ok. And then 97LP, 96LP etc... No, only 99LP gets upgraded, nothing else. Before you go and say: "hey, thats unfair" let me explain.
Beeing 1LP off could be from beeing unlucky, but beeing 2LP or more off isnt just "unlucky" anymore! The goal is still to get 100LP, but now with the offset of 99LP. Allowing the 98LP, so the offset of the offset, not the goal itself, is a completely different story. This is a bit hard to understand, but it should help if you always look from the 100LP. 98 LP is only 1LP from the "ok" zone, the 99LP, but 2LP from the goal, the 100LP, away. And the distance to the goal is the only important factor, not the distance to the "ok" zone.
My hole point to allow this "upgrade" has something to do with the margin of error.
I am saying that mathematicaly the 1LP off can be tolerated, but 2LP off not. So math helps to safe the day once more :D
#3. IP price reduction for S and S+'s
This is more important for newer players or those who havnt bought all champions yet. The idea is that you get a 5% IP price reduction for an unowned champion, if you got an S or an S+ with this champion while it is free to play. This price reduction could ether last 1 season(like the chests), 3 months or only 1 month. 5% are 315 IP less for a 6300IP champ.
Before we get into this, I am not a fan of Riots pricing! I think runes and champs cost a bit to much, but this idea is build around the current state. I could say that you get a 90% price reduction or so, but this is unreasonable, it will never be implemented like this. All my ideas are made with the current state in mind and could be implemented as they are without messing everything up. Even if I dislike the current state. Otherwise I would state it clearly, like i did with the 15% to 10% nerf for Lord Dominiks, which should only be done if the meta changes.
How did I come up with this? If you play a free to play champion, that you do not own, and then get an S or S+ even and do not get a chest, which is a bit disheartening to be honest. You did very well, maybe also dont own alot of champions, and then you dont get the chest you would have earned. Just because you didnt own the champion.
And farming IP to buy a 6300IP champion takes a very long time! A very, very, very long time! If we include first win of the day you get maybe 100IP per game, you still need 63 games before you can buy this 1 champion. If we assume 30mins per game, we have 1.890 mins or 31.5 hours total. Which is close to 1 1/2 days just playing League. 1 1/2 DAYS! For 1 champion! Thats alot of time for the average 3-4 hour gamer. (which are rooky numbers btw. we need to bring them up :D) So this, "why didnt you buy the champ lul", should now be answered.
I would be happy to make it a 10% price reduction (630IP less for a 6300IP champ = 5570IP), but I already have my doubts that riot would do this. The 10% could be possible, maybe tied to S+ only, but I am 100% certain they wouldnt go above the 10%.
Also the "duration", ether 1 full season or 3 months or only 1 month long, has alot of psychological reasons, which would take way to long to explain, but the baseline is: "You did well on this champion, but sadly dont own him/her/it/cho'gath, but we give you a temporary price reduction so you may buy him soon. Getting an S or S+ is not that easy and normaly requires a decent amount of games, which means that you potentionally like this champ alot. So this reduction is a headsup to help you to get it faster, because you earned it!" Thats the baseline.
I forgot to mention that this is not stackable, but that should be obvious. We could include S- too, and make the reduction S-/S/S+ depended, giving 2,5%/ 5%/ (7,5% or 10%) respectively, im totally open for that! What do you think?
#4. Zooming further out
If you have played any strategy game or other birdeye view games (warcraft3 for example) you may notice that LoLs view is incredibly close. You get used to it after a couple of games, but it seriously throws me off of my chair everytime when I switch back to LoL! I know that zooming even a tiny bit more out gives you strategy advantages, like seeing the jungler or roaming mid step out of the bush on screen instead of seeing it on the minimap. Checking the map regulary is also a highly recommended skill btw. Knowing this, it would still be very nice if we could zoom out just a tiny bit more, it really feels way to close! Just by a tiny bit is all the I would want, I wouldnt expect to zoom out like a Jhin ult, thats by far to much, a small bit is enough.
It might just be me but this would improve my game quality tremendously.
#5. Aartox Q+Flash combo
Currently if Aatrox uses flash while midflight it completely cancels the ability. I would like to change this mechanic, so he could use flash midflight to change the landing destination, so he knocks up everything around this new position, like a reksai unburrow for example. This is not just a tiny thing the code itself needs to be changed to make this possible.
Aatrox is and has been in a rather weak spot for a long time, so I think he definitely deserves this kind of buff. It also is not just a simple numerical increase, this increases his skill cap, gives him more outplay potential, makes his only hard cc way more reliable if the player is skilled enough, but at the cost of the summonerspell.
So basically this buff rewards skilled Aatroxes and encourages you to learn him and get better so you can pull this off. I'm honest with you, it may be not enough to make him completely viable again, but I think this is a very big step in the right direction!
If this by chance makes him OP then numerical changes should be done to keep it in check. But this is extremely unlikely.
#6. Towers
Yep, you may remember that I made a post regarding the state of the towers, but this is so important that I feel forced to mention it again.
The Basics:
All Towers have the same Attack Speed and start with 40 Armor and MR.
Outer Turret:
- 3500HP, 152AD, cap at 180AD (6:45min), scaling from 40 to 70 Ar&MR (1:00-16:00min)
Inner Turret:
- 3300HP, 170AD, cap at 250AD (27:00min), scaling from 40 to 70 Ar&MR (16:00-31:00min)
Inhib Turret:
- 3300HP, 170AD, cap at 290AD (37:00min), scaling from 40 to 70 Ar&MR (31:00-46:00min)
Nexus Turret:
- 3300HP, 150AD, cap at 270AD (37:00min), scaling from 40 to 70 Ar&MR (31:00-46:00min)
You may or may not know that your Armor and Magic Pen works on the Towers too! So you need only 40 Armor or Magic Pen to deal True dmg to the Inner before 16 mins or before 31 min for Nexus and Inhib Towers! They only start to scale their Armor and MR at 31 minutes into the game! Most games are over before they even start nowadays!
Additionally look at the AD, we already saw that changing the attack from laser to bullets already made the Inhib and Nexus towers weaker. But your Nexus Tower is WEAKER than your Inhib Tower and the Nexus Towers fight against Superminions! Inhib Towers never fight against Supers. Yes, I know that there are 2 Nexus Towers, but they fight against Superminions, which are 3 times stronger than cannons/siege minions! And additionally doing less dmg against champions if we compare 1 to 1.
Lets bring it all together:
- Inhib and Nexus Towers got a lot weaker form the Laser to Bullet change
- Their scaling only starts in Late Game and maxes at mere 70 Ar/Mr, which can easily be reduced to 0 today.
- Inhib towers are stronger than Nexus Towers
- Nexus Towers fight against Supers(x3 harder to kill than a cannon)
- Every wave has a Cannon/Super before they start to scale
- the 75% Armor Pen was changed to 30% for Inhib and Nexus towers
As we can see Towers, especially Inhib and Nexus Towers need a buff desperately! They should get the 75% Armor Pen back, and the scaling should start immediately after the lower tier tower gets destroyed. So you can still "rush" them down, while they are still weak. The Nexus Towers may even receive special buffs, but more ArmorPen and faster scaling should be tested first.
TL;DR
I havnt forgotten about the circular abilitys, dont worry, I just want to test it even more accurately with the practice tool, just to be safe. I will make another Post too.
- Showing Armor Pen
- use the average Enemy Level for the calculation, so you dont need to do the math yourself
- Upgrade 99LP to 100LP
- we could call this margin of error, if wanted
- helps against frustation
- 99LP is the cap. 98LP will not be upgraded
- IP reduction for S/S+ on unowned champs
- reduces frustation a bit
- 5% reduction (10% would be maxium possible)
- limited by time (1 season, 3 or 1 months)
- possible including S- too
- possible % of price reduction S-/S/S+ dependend (2,5%/ 5%/ 7,5%( or 10%) respectively)
- Zooming further out
- game feels very close, especially after switching back
- futher zooming out gives tactical advantages, thus only increasing the ability to zoom out by a small amount
- Aatrox Q+Flash combo
- Aatrox needs a buff
- a skill cap raising buff, requiring skill to pull of successfully is a good possiblity
- does not increase skill floor
- no negativs/drawbacks/high risks, because it can be tuned down with numerical nerfs if needed(very unlikely)
- Towers
- Inhib and Nexus Towers are made of paper and scuttle does more dmg than them
- Both need to get the old 75% Armor Pen back
- Ar&Mr scaling should start as soon as the lower tier tower gets destroyed
- possibly special buff to Nexus Towers, but ArPen and scaling should be tested before that
Again quite a few controversial topics, you are, as always, free to disagree, but I would ask you to comment the reason, so I can improve these ideas further! If you have other ideas what could be change to improve LoL further feel free to share them, so we can spread it high and wide so the devs might get a look of them :D
Holy Moly, they just changed Lord Dominiks passiv, the HP difference. The exact same way that I discribed in my last post! I would honestely jump out of my window if a rioter or even a dev would look at my posts and ideas! It would be extremely awesome if they do/did, but it could have been random. So im not jumping yet :D But I will keep the window open, just in case!
Anyway, lets believe/hope they did, so tell me what you think could use some improvement! And lets get ready to test alot more stuff with the practice tool :D Hoped and eagerly waited for this day to come and it is so close now xD I hope you enjoyed this one, have fun on the rift and see you on the next one!