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Feedback/Analysis:The Riot Balance Team Failed to Meet their OWN Design Goals in the Marksman Update

341123545652·5/4/2018, 10:18:56 PM·133 votes·21,220 views

Introduction

This post is not intended to declare that Riot failed to meet the gameplay board's expectations or Reddit or me personally or streamers.

This post is intended to assert that Riot failed to meet profoundly specific objectives laid out in their own manifesto at: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/2ykqAkNa-marksman-changes-coming-to-pbe-in-the-next-couple-days

posted by Riot Axes on the dev corner.

The way I have structured my post is that I will first directly provide a quote from Riot Axes post which outlines a specific problem that they intend to fix and then I will provide evidence as to why they did or did not fix that specific problem with the current PBE changes.

What Riot Did Successfully in the Marksman Update:

Quote #1: "Another thing to mention is bot lane sustain has crept back up again. As usual, this means less action in lane, which puts higher priority on scaling champions. So, we also have some nerfs to marksman lane sustain"

They were fairly successful at this goal. They nearly halved the base regen of marksman across the board. Apparently true damage does not apply to lifesteal, so this would mean their lifesteal was reduced by 20% as long as they have IE and crit (compared to if they didnt). They also claim that a fleet foot work nerf will happen. Not much else to say, they did reduce sustain.

  • A small note, if fleet foot work is nerfed like they say, we may see more marksmen taking Press the Attack or even lethal tempo and this may remind many of us of what their damage is like with a dedicated dps keystone.

Quote #2: "Getting to two items (Infinity Edge + Zeal upgrade) usually makes a crit-carry marksman the most valuable champion for their team, regardless of how ahead or behind they are. "

In this section he talks about wanting to nerf the 2 item power level of marksmen. They definitely achieved this, a item 3031 item 3087 (the most popular 2 item combo on crit scaling late game marksmen) was powered down pretty severely. The crit multiplier went down from 250% to an effective 220% on 100 armor or 213% on 25% reduction armor which is usually around ~20-40 armor. The overall crit chance stayed basically the same with only a minor change of 50% to 60%. The item combo costs 300 more gold but this is offset by having 10 more ad and 10% more crit. Shiv will also crit for less and its a 1 time source of dmg. Overall to put it bluntly, 2 item got shit on.

*On a personal note, I find this quote to be very odd. "2 item marksmen being the most important member on the team regardless of how behind they are" I dont know about that one. When were 2 item marksmen (if behind) less important than early mid game champs spiking at that level? Its a very odd declaration and I think most peoples concerns with marksmen began at their 3 item surge and then their 4-5 item god mode. Either way, they achieved this specific goal I guess.

What Goals Riot Failed to Achieve in the Marksman Update:

Quote #3: "We're reducing the late-game burst that crit marksmen deal to squishy targets via the Infinity Edge update, which will rework the +50% crit damage passive to one that converts a portion of crit damage to true damage. This focuses crit build effectiveness more squarely on tanky targets—a few crits on a low-defense target will still be highly impactful, but it’s less likely they'll get two- or three-shotted."

I dont want this quote to be derailed, we can see in this quote some very specific wording; they precisely mention "late-game burst" so derailing the issue to early game nerfs or mid game or minor item cost changes is not really relevant here and they clearly mention squishy targets so derailing the scenario to items like randuins or various other hp heavy builds is not relevant either. Derailing to a scenario with 1 auto attack pokes is also not relevant here because they clearly state a scenario with the squishy target taking **multiple auto attack hits ** .

Evidence: For those of you who read my previous post that I posted a few days ago (I'd assume atleast some of you read it cause it had 200 upvotes), I posted alot of math in that post to try to prove my point. In this post I am doing it a bit differently, I have simplified the math to extremely simple levels to avoid any confusion or any "math is fiction" allegations. The math will be so simple that even the most delusional people cannot deny what is literally going to happen.

So in a late game scenario we can assume the crit based marksmen will have atleast item 3031 item 3087 item 3094 . A double zeal item build has formidable attack speed and hyper carry crit scaling marksmen often have an attack speed steroid somewhere in their kit so its safe to say that in the late game, taking 4 auto attacks in 2-3 seconds time is very easy to achieve (thats like 1.5-2 attack speed). To test the quote's claim that the new IE with true damage conversion will have less burst than current IE with 50% multiplier bonus in just 2-3 seconds time, let us consider two scenarios in which the 100 armor late game squishy target takes 4 auto attacks, one in the PBE setting and one on the live setting:

PBE Setting ==> multiplier is nerfed to 200% down from 250% but 20% dmg is converted to true, crit chance is buffed to 100% (yasuo style :O )

Auto Attack #1 (crits)|-->| Auto Attack #2 (crits)|-->| Auto Attack #3 (crits)|-->| Auto Attack #4 (crits) .........200% taken......|-->|.........400% taken........|-->|..........600% taken.......|-->| 800% taken

Total: 800% = 160% true + 640% physical. The 640% portion gets halved due to the 100 armor target down to 320%. Total final damage taken = 320%+160% = 480%

Live Server Setting ==> multiplier is 250% on a 100 armor target (on any target), crit chance is only 80%

Auto Attack #1 (crits)|-->| Auto Attack #2 (crits)|-->| Auto Attack #3 (lets say this one doesn't crit)|-->| Auto Attack #4 (crits) .........250% taken......|-->|.........500% taken........|-->|............................600% taken............................|-->| 850% taken

Total: 850% physical which is halved on a 100 armor target into a total final damage taken of 425% .

425% total ad on live vs 480% total ad on PBE. I am gonna squash this point before someone brings it up: "But the ADC on live could have gotten really really lucky and crit on all 4 attacks" This is a bad argument, because you could also, in the same exact mindset, say that the ADC could have gotten really really unlucky and crit only on 2 attacks. Taking the most probable scenario is the best idea. The luxury of being able to crit on every single attack 100% of the time is what is being given to the marksmen on the PBE in the form of yasuo'fication. But lets go ahead and assume the marksmen does get lucky and crits on all 4 auto attacks on live:

His/her total damage would be 250% x4 = 1000% halved by 100 armor = 500%.

Conclusion: In the most probable scenario, marksmen will do 425% on LIVE and 480% on PBE. They are buffed, they are doing MORE damage to squishies on the PBE, a complete mockery of the design goal set in Quote #3. You wanted to reduce, REDUCE, marksmen burst to a squishy target in the late game scenario and here we are at a mere 3 items and they are already doing more damage mathematically. I laid this out with great simplicity and clarity both on the math side and the visual side (takes time to make that table using boards client). My hope is that everybody (whoever it is you main, whatever it is you do) is able to clearly see this is not a nerf, yet a buff and a clear violation of their own goal. Even if you take the worst case scenario where the live marksmen gets lucky and crits 4 times in a row, you still see a total dmg of 500% which is very very close to the PBE dmg of 480%. A difference of mere 20% AD. I really dont believe any Riot employee can come in here and defend this specific point in my thread. I will say it again you BUFFED them vs squishies in the late game.

*Sidenote: I am going to squash this point before someone makes it "Squishies dont have 100 armor". In the late game they do, remember in the beginning I said dont derail the quote from its specific conditions. We are talking late game dmg here, squishies cap at usually 80 to 100 base armor in the late game, thats not even counting stuff like GA or seekers armguard or tabis. Squishies could very well have even more armor than 100 but 100 is a fair and fine number to use.

SUGGESTIONS:

I have two main suggestions to quickly fix this issue in a simple way (if they even care).

  1. Keep IE at a 20% flat crit. This way, nobody can argue the PBE changes are a buff. While their burst still will be high if you ask me personally, it will still at least be a nerf from live values and technically their design goal will be achieved.
  2. Make the true damage conversion on IE scale based on the health of the target, similar to how LDR works. Example: it would start at 10% conversion and go up to 30% conversion based on whether the target has 500 to 2000 more hp than the ADC. The numbers can be tuned, you can go for 250-3000 or 750 to 1500, IDC. This would also help them deal with extreme hyper tanks where I have seen certain ADCs auto them for negative dmg. The higher the true dmg conversion is , the less synergy they would have with LW so I dont think it would go out of control.

Quote #4: "Not every marksman wants to play the crit-carry hyperscaling game, but crit builds are too smooth and too synergistic, while other builds haven’t been supported well enough. We're planning on better enabling other play-styles - the spellslinging of a Lucian, the raw AD snowball of a Draven"

This quote I find very odd, you have done nothing to promote specifically lucian or draven and you have done nothing to reduce the synergy of item 3031 item 3087 item 3094 infact those 3 items remain at a similar power level vs squishies and at a highly increased power level vs high armor targets like 200-300 armor. Sure lucian and draven could pick up those 3 items I tagged and technically be stronger than live but so could hyperscaling crit marksmen as well. Stormrazer is a good first item on draven sure, it gives him attack speed which he needs a little bit of to feel smooth (any 1 who has played draven knows what I am talking about), gives raw AD, gives a well placed crit for when draven wants to poke an axe at his enemies. But aside from this 1 item powerspike you have given him, he wont have anything else going for him. He could go a lifesteal item next but after that if he chooses to get crit, it will just have negative synergy with the guaranteed crit on stormrazer. New ER has no usage on draven at all. Lucian can get new ER with minor benefits compared to crit scaling marksmen. Lucian will benefit from the mana but other than that, resetting his Q or his W isnt worth much and his E already resets from autos anyway (he may gain an extra E which is strong but wait till you see what xayah and trist get). Compare this to Xayah or Trist taking ER, Xayah could double E you for massive damage and trist can actually reach 4 jumps in a row without the need of killing any 1 . She can leap, reset it with E, leap, Press R to proc ER, leap again from ER proc, E again to reset leap, leap 4th time. Assuming she kills 1 target during all that, its another leap. You may see stuff like twitch being able to pull double expunges into a second stealth. Kog could benefit from the mana as well and potentially reach double uptime on his W. And lastly a draven 3 item build (the most common one right now alteast) item 3812 item 3031 item 3087 was powered down heavily. But time will tell I guess.

**Quote #5 and #6: ** "Marksmen as a class have been too strong for a while, and express that strength in ways that produce only a few game states." "This gives other classes and positions more influence in matches where neither marksmen became obscenely fed in lane, moving us away from a bot-centric 'coin flip' meta." (Disclaimer, these quotes come from two different places in the post)

Throughout his post, Riot Axes is seemingly very adamant about stating that bot lane needs a power down. While he did succeed in increasing the marksmen hypercarry core build's item cost by 500 (200+ 200+100), along with this price increase he tagged some compensation buffs such as 10 ad, increased crit total, and an extremely powerful true damage amp (many underestimated at first) able to target not only squishies at 100 armor (shown in section Quote#3) but even more so the tanks at 200-300 armor. When you talk so seriously about a indisputable power down and avoiding a coin flip meta, you cannot also tag compensation buffs because that defeats the initial purpose of the power down. When you increase the cost of LDR, but tag along a compensation gain of TOTAL armor pen, this becomes a buff vs squishies (who often have similar hp values to marksmen, or slightly higher, but not enough for the LDR bonus % phys to matter). This pattern is really littered across the entire update, where they claim a global power down is needed but tag compensation buffs across it all. Only real power down I found was the 2 item spike of marksmen being shit on and the sustain of marksmen being unarguably lowered.

Final Conclusion

Riot succeeded in achieving some goals but were unsuccessful in achieving arguably many of the more important ones. Rereading Riot Axe's post and making this thread has made me realize a few things. Its been almost a year and a half that people have been complaining consistently about the same bot lane issues and as time has gone on, more and more people caught on and it probably lead them to eventually make this marksman update. The update lays severe problems with bot lane but they fail to act on it and I know Riot isn't dumb, many people think they are dumb, but come on guys, they arent that dumb, whats more likely is that they may they never truly want to change the direction of the game with regard to this specific class. This may just be their vision of the game and how they always want it to be. And with that I give an analogy of restaurants. When a restaurant is bad or you have a bad experience in it, not everybody makes a scene or sends their food back to the chef with complaints, or posts on review sites to slam the restaurant. Not everybody is that confrontational or passionate or whiny whatever adjective you want to use, most people will just get up and never come to that restaurant again. Then slowly, that restaurant may become less and less populated even without many complaints. Same is true for league of legends, when you make the game incredibly frustrating for certain roles or classes while full of glory for other classes, not all of us are going to kick and scream and cry or even make long posts like this, many will just be like Oh this other game looks cool, lets just play that instead.

TLDR:

  1. Please just read the post
  2. Please just read the post it kinda ties everything together
  3. If you really dont want to read the post then atleast read the section under Quote#3, thanks

84 Comments

RainXBlade5/4/2018, 10:21:24 PM54 votes

TL; DR: Rito's balance team sucks at their job in trying to fix the game of the ADC problem fixing the game in general.

There, I summarized this post for you.

Teridax685/4/2018, 11:10:56 PM29 votes

I like this post, because it goes about a contentious topic in a pretty moderate tone, relies on direct quotes taken in full context, and uses math and easily understood reasoning to justify the OP's points in a manner any reasonable person can agree upon. It may not close the topic conclusively, since it'll take some time before the changes go to Live and have their impact truly felt, but I also think a lot of what is mentioned here is a pretty accurate anticipation of what will happen, and at the very least a solid analysis of the discrepancies between the stated goals of these changes, and their actual implementation.

TS Media5/4/2018, 11:37:39 PM17 votes

They've been failing their own balance design plans from the juggernaut update. They lost sight of what their game was suppose to be the day they implemented that patch. I mean, look at the overall flow of the game since after that. It's incredible how every design restriction they've placed on themselves they've broken.

And every time you think they'll make the right decision, they go ahead and hit you with another, "Classic Riot" balance act. Loved this company before. But now, I'm questioning their every decision.

iTaLenTZ5/5/2018, 12:56:22 AM14 votes

What worries me is that in 2 days you have made 2 post summarizing, explaining and calculating all the changes and made clear what anyone with knowledge in basic maths should know. The things that come to my mind are: What has the live design team being doing the past couple of months, do they not know the math and theory behind all the changes and how can they not know this when it is their job. Or do they know and they are liyng to us and trying to deceive us? They are supposed to be profesionals. Just because it is on the PBE is not an excuse. You don't need to test math.

I have said this many times the past few days but if this midseason is another failure they should throw in the towel and resign.

edit: BTW your final conclusion reminds me a lot of what Gordon Ramsey used to say in a lot of Kitchen Nightmares episodes. I wish he went to Riot HQ. They definitely need someone from outisde to evaluate them and make sure they stop being in denial. The game sucks. Riots most common reply to that is: "Well that is your opinion a lot of people like our food". Meanwhile the restaurant is more and more empty every day.

Please Gordon come help us.

Mordepool5/4/2018, 11:52:27 PM10 votes

I'm expecting another round of actual Nerfs to be honest.

xJLx MCHammer5/5/2018, 1:00:38 AM8 votes

While I agree with 90%, I have to say, you are partially incorrect on point 2

ADCs do spike very nicely with 2 items. This isn’t as strong as a 3 item spike but some ADCs like Tristana are actually outscaling many champion who should be spiking with two items. This is mostly because the ADC itemization is much cheaper than many champion who spike with two items. ADC would technically spike earlier despite not spiking as strong. Furthermore, by the time the other champions catch up, the ADCs are also on their way to building their biggest spike (3rd item).

This is especially true in pro play where teams funnel more gold into ADC than many other champions. In pro play, AP champions are normally used to wave clear and utility which just enables these two item ADC spikes even more

The Yetii Rider5/5/2018, 1:31:49 AM8 votes

As you said, they dumpstered the two item build and increased the cost of the three item build. Combine that with the buff to assassins and we will see many more games that end before marksmen become relevant.

Anatera5/5/2018, 12:09:12 AM7 votes

It's not surprising at this point though, is it? They have a history of making stupid and unexplained changes, so now they're just doing more of the same.

T4underbolt5/5/2018, 8:45:26 PM6 votes

The sustain one has been a fail since they compansate it with hp buffs and hp regeneration buffs. Basically power shift to make it look like nerfs while hiding obvious buffs.

Maiocco5/5/2018, 12:53:37 PM5 votes

I got the same sentiment about this "nerf" as OP.

However, what i dislike the most about the current situation is the amount of free gold that is tossed around to the team that gets a lead in botlane. And that to me stayed fully unadressed and wont get changed anytime soon.

1 Bot Lane gets a lead. Takes first tower ( free Gold ), into dragon, rotates top, gets tower and free gold, rotates herald, takes herald, rotates mid, takes mid with herald, and while you may have done good or gone even in your solo lane, game is most of the time over at this point.

Can't count the games where i won my lane, but was behind around 5-10k gold to the botlane duo. Even when i had around 50 cs more and roughly the same kills as the opposing adc.

-> Give botlane turret fortification again ( i much rather have lane swaps in pro Play back, that stay unaffected from solo Q anyway, than the current situation ) -> Extend fortification 3 minutes longer. This would in my opinion heavily slow down the snowball. -> Remove or at least half the gold granted for turrets ( especially that effin first blood turret ), remove global team gold tossed around...

Shåwn5/4/2018, 10:22:49 PM5 votes

Good post. What do the numbers in your name stand for?

Seviel Vorose5/5/2018, 9:57:59 AM5 votes

You know what will happen. They'll just ignore any feedback and ship the changes. Welcome to League of Legends.

THE RlVER KlNG5/5/2018, 12:50:08 PM5 votes

Upvote this

Riot pretty much never responds to things that don’t praise them but this is very good content right here

Annoxis5/5/2018, 7:16:00 AM5 votes

I believe you are under a wrong assumption at Quote 3. You are calculating taking into account the fact that the build of ADC post-update will be IE, RFC, SS.

If we assume that one is rushing the IE Zeal-Item build, if they start by IE, they will sit on a 3700 gold item that does nothing except giving AD, until they get a Zeal. On the other hand, if you are rushing the Zeal item, it will cost 2800 gold for the same kind of non-existant powerspike.

Meanwhile, Riot reduced the price of BotRK to 3200, created Stormrazor and reworked Essence Reaver, both are 3200 gold. And all of these three items are far better first than IE or a Zeal item. And this is where Riot has been better than what some think.

The standard build for an AA-centric ADC was three crit items (IE, two Zeal items, or IE, ER, one Zeal items), one % armor penetration item, one defensive item (Lifesteal item or GA) and boots. But now, there are three items that are good standalone items and that doesn't necessarly fit this build that exists and you can't exactly replace the defensive item, the Armor Penetration (situationally, you could skip this one, if there are no tank/fighters in the enemy team) or the boots, which means that one of the crit items will probably go, one of the Zeal item, or maybe IE itself. There is a reason why we weren't seeing anymore BT and Rabaddon, and that was that 3700 and 3800 gold cost respectively.

Tempist5/5/2018, 9:18:21 AM5 votes

Very well written and thoughtful post. I only hope the balance team takes some of your work into consideration. Unlikely perhaps, but one should never totally abandon hope.

Wild Geese5/5/2018, 5:04:43 AM4 votes

Why can't Infinity Edge, Essense Reaver, and Stormrazer just have 20% crit?? More options is good. I understand adc needs to be weaker but I was hoping for variety. All they've done is make Infinity Edge the go to item if you're ahead...

The lategame build remians to be IE+zeal+zeal. And how hard is it to get a BF+zeal early in this PBE (only 100 gold more), so although the total costs are higher, it's still the same easy build into the best scaling build... BF Sword->Zeal->Zealitem->IE->Zealitem... Costs more but is stronger.

Ifneth5/5/2018, 2:02:36 AM4 votes

Your claim that marksmen burst has increased is misleading. It concerns the damage that marksmen’s basic attacks will deal over three seconds once they have three items, but the community complaint about marksmen’s burst regarded the damage that the synergy between the passives of just Infinity Edge and Statikk Shiv could deal instantly. Yet you conclude that marksmen’s “burst” has increased.

Furthermore, your arguments supporting that claim are just wrong. Two to three seconds is such a long time for a marksman to have access to any squishy that damage dealt over that time cannot be called burst. Three items is not enough to reach 2 attack speed without around a 50% attack speed steroid; even among the hypercarries, only Tristana has one. Almost every other crit marksman would need 3 seconds to land 4 attacks—and only if not interrupted by having to kite or juke. The realities of gameplay mean that we are talking about damage per second.

Unlike what you claim, a marksman with the new items would need a serious steroid, near full build, near max level, and no interruptions to deal anything approaching the “burst” that their current itemization allows against squishies, and it still wouldn’t be anything like a two-item IE-Shiv crit today.

Azazel Aerternum5/5/2018, 3:09:27 AM3 votes

They should just rework the base damage of crits to be 150% instead of 200%, and that would solve a lot of issues. Make Marksman more about abilities rather than auto attacks, and essentially just gut the auto-attack focused ranged-carries, as that's almost never a healthy playstyle.

I'd rather play against a Fed Tryndamere or Fiora than a fed Tristana, at least Tryndamere isn't going to reset insta kill four people with two autos while flying all about with heavy safe peel and high range.

Leonerdo5/5/2018, 8:05:33 PM3 votes

I hate posting on topics a day late, but I think you're math is a bit inconsistent:

There are two possibilities with the new IE true damage conversion. Either it converts 20% of all damage done by a critical strike, or it converts 20% of the bonus crit damage (10% of total damage). First, in section #2, it sounds like you are using the 10% version (10% of 200%AD converted to true damage = 220%AD damage on a 100 Armor target). But in section #3, you use the 20% version (20% of 800% = 160% converted to true damage).

Now, I have no idea which is actually correct. I've seen both, and debated it a lot myself. I think it's slightly more likely that 20% of the whole critical hit is converted. But that is besides the point. Either way, you're math wasn't consistent and I think that leads to a less believable argument. Although personally, I think your conclusions still hold, even where I think your math is off (in section #2).

And if I may add my own biggest grievance: The LW changes and IE changes seem to have the exact opposite goals in terms of late-game damage to squishies. In effect, late-game ADCs (who can be expected to have both items) will end up doing the same damage to squishy champs. So in regards to Riot's goals from Quote #3 (less late-game burst to squishies), the IE change seems to be spot-on, but the LW change cancels it out and put us back where we started, but with a lot of disruption and confusion.

(Honestly I just hate the entire direction of the LW change, but I'm not willing to take on a fight that big, so I'll stick to nitpicking for now.)

Sire Hippington5/5/2018, 5:19:45 PM2 votes

To be Honest, after some Experience from PBE, i'm inclined to say that they failed goal 2 aswell( "Getting to two items (Infinity Edge + Zeal upgrade) usually makes a crit-carry marksman the most valuable champion for their team, regardless of how ahead or behind they are. ")

Yes, IE+Zeal is more expensive and the builtpath is less convinient, but IE+zeal is not the only option. Stormraiders adds a very powerfull 1 item spike for many adc on PBE, and it scales incredible well into a zeal item and then IE, granting about the same if not better 1 and 2 item spikes and similar 3 item power(maybe slightly less) compared to live. Yes, the save crit becomes less relevant as you get more crit from other sources, but if you do crit reliably, Stromrazor grants 55 AD, 60% AS and 8% MS for 3400g, 3425g worth of stats that scale multiplicative with each other and crit aswell as 8ms, and makeing sure you're first hit in combat aswell as you're chip damage in standoffs is critical still is powerfull, if you have IE+1Zeal it still acounts for 40% crit on those hits and increases your reliabillity.

Total Eclipse5/6/2018, 12:36:01 AM2 votes

See thing is, If you actually read closely, what this guy is actually saying:

-Riot succeeded on all fronts -Except IE is currently broken on PBE. But guys, it's just PBE.