@RiotChun (and other Rioters) The reason why the Mordekaiser players freaked out
So having now played the Mordekaiser changes, I can safely say, I like them. They're well thought out, they increase his core elements, and make his differences stronger, not less apparent.
However, there was a big backlash of the Mordekaiser players when this was unveiled, so I'm here to go over why this was.
The first thing that happened, was you showed a lack of knowledge on the multiple ways to play Mordekaiser. This is something that you have to understand, because it sets the background for the rest of the reactions. The very first thing said is that Mordekaiser is having a bit of trouble late game now with DFG gone. Here's the important part of this, DFG was a very debatable item pick for Mordekaieser, very few people considered it core on him. Rather it was situational, "Oh, they have an adc which is melting my team, I need to be able to guarentee a kill on him and fast, I'll pick up DFG."
#Things to remember when presenting your change to a fanbase #1: make sure the reason you give is the actual reason you want to, making Morde healthier gameplay wise might sound harsher than describing it as a buff, but if you give a reason people don't think is valid at all, people are going to distrust you.
The next thing you do, is you talk about Mordekaiser the burst mage. Now this is one way he is played, but it tends to be situational. As a Morde player, you'll start with the same items, then you'll build bursty if you can afford it (i.e. their team sucks at kiting) or you'll build tankier and knock at them over the fight. The fact that you were only targeting one playstyle, when the fact that Mordekaiser could have two different ones situationally, told the community that you didn't quite understand the champion, and historically, really bad things have happened when the champ wasn't properly understood before abilities were modified. Basically, what this served to do was to make players a little bit scared that the changes were being done without comprehension, and made them much more likely to jump on and attack the changes.
#Make sure you understand all of the ways the champion is played, not just one, and show that you do, otherwise you'll cause fear that the champion isn't understood.
The next thing you said was you said that the burst playstyle couldn't exist in game. This makes sense to me, but only because I have a background in Game Design, and I'm able to analyze the reasons why. To everyone else, what they saw superficially is that the champs which people are currently complaining about on the forums are burst champions, (Riven and Zed to name two). Now people have this weird thing where if you say, "This is something bad so you can't have it" when other people have it, even if you intend to take it away from others later, they'll feel like you're taking something that you owe them, and they'll fight that. The other thing is that Morde actually has a built in handicap towards using his burst, he can be kited incredibly easily. A game designer might know that the difference between this handicap and Zed's handicap for bursting people down is the binary play pattern it creates (if someone wants to debate this with me in the comments, or ask for more information, just ask, but Zed's is healthier gameplay wise.) But people without a game design background don't know this, all they'll see that they both have handicaps, and Zed's is actually less of a handicap than Morde's but Zed is allowed to have the behavior, while Morde is not.
#Keep in mind that most people won't know things fairly standard in game design, be prepared to give them an essay to explain the concept of something like healthy handicaps for burst, vs unhealthy handicaps.
The next thing that you did was that you stated that his playstyle conflicted with his Fantasy. This implied to players that you wanted to make his playstyle fit exactly with his fantasy, and his fantasy was a big giant suit of armor. Whether it's carrying a mace (actually isn't is a morningstar?) or not is irrelevant, when you look at Morde, he looks like he should be able to get hit hard, and being told you were matching his playstyle to his fantasy means that he's going to be able to take more damage. This sounds great, but almost all players understand the concept of a power budget, if his tankiness was going to go up, his damage was going to go down.
#Never try to use the fantasy as an excuse for changing the playstyle. Most people who love the champion love the fantasy, but they can love it all they want and not play the champion, they're playing the champion because they enjoy the playstyle, and having the playstyle change on something as arbitrary to gameplay as the fantasy will make them very, very unhappy. There are better reasons to change the champion, and choosing to change one because of fantasy is a bad reason. You know it, the players know it, it's the gameplay that ultimately matters the most.
And then, there was this sentence: "And for enemies, Mordekaiser is no longer a moving short range cannon, but slow metal tank who can be kited." Up until here, you had done a very good job of describing the fact that Morde was going to be a brawler, not a tank, and it was a choice to get tanky. The biggest change I would have done before this was to highlight the word "chooses", because that really embodies the change, it makes another choice available. But this sentence does everything wrong, you call him a burster, which is never why he's chosen (there's Veigar or Zed for that), you call him a tank and imply that he can now be kited, when in fact the changes made no difference to his kitability, and if anything made him less kitable!! What this did, is it told people who were already a little scared because there champion was being changed, then who were both irritated and scared the champion wasn't understood because of the above reasons, something that confirmed their fears. While the changes reflect knowledge about the champion, nothing about this sentence reflected knowledge of Mordekaiser, or even what your changes were doing. You imply that your changes make him more kitable and slow, when that was something that already exists and your changes, if anything, make him less kitable and faster (he now has a speed boost), you imply that you're turning him into a tank, a word that in league, represents CC and tankiness, with no damage at all. And you imply a fundamental misunderstanding of the way Morde is played at least half the time. This is the sentence that caused people to freak out!!!
#See if you can get someone who's not working on the project, but plays the champion and knows game design to review what you're going to say, and ask them if there's anything that seems off, as those are the parts which are really going to inflame people.
You go on to do pretty good with the rest of the post, the one big change I would make (other than, again, not using the Fantasy as an excuse), is to emphasize in the first change that he should be doing more total damage now. Maybe go off on a bit of a tangent on how him being able to survive with a ghost means he'll be able push down towers, which means surviving is more valuable for Morde than for most midlaners, and how you're actually enhancing that part with the ult changes (Which are probably my favorite part btw). Basically just show that you're trying to buff him, not nerf him or give him a neutral change.
There is one other, really big thing that I'd do though, and this goes against all of Riot's tendencies, but I really think that exceptions would be good in this case. Give the numbers and changelist!!!! Let me explain quickly, in general, Riot has the policy of never releasing the numbers (as they tend to get focused on) or the exact changes (as they're subject to change), until the champ is on the PBE, in order to stop disappointment if something people like is cut. However, this champion was literally a day away from hitting the PBE, I can't imagine that the numbers changed that dramatically in a day, as I'd expect it to take a while to get a good sense of any given change internally, before releasing them onto the PBE. Additionally, there's the argument that the numbers aren't relevant, in cases where abilities are fundamentally changed in behavior, that's absolutely true, but this change was about the numbers! This change was about moving some of Morde's power from immediate damage to tankiness to let him deal damage over time, and buffing him a bit in the process, that's a numbers change. People are going to want to see exactly how big, or how small the damage changes are. By releasing the numbers (which I've seen a general assent to that, now that the changes are known, it's a good change, Morde players who disagree are going to splatter my blood on the walls for that statement though possibly). What happened was you told the players you were doing what was mainly a numbers swap, then you left them in the dark for a full day, letting them stew on the possible ways you could change it, and being very, very worried that their champion would be ruined. This is something that could have easily been fixed, but is against Riot's policy because in some situations, it's a stupid idea. The guidelines I'd give for this are: First identify the scale of the change, if it's a soraka level change, you should just plain give the abilities, a Veigar level change warrants the gameplay changes, but not the number changes. Then identify the type of change, is it a rework or champion refocus (soraka), is it a mechanic change few number changes (veigar), or is it a number swap, where the biggest thing you're doing is moving power from one place, to another (Morde). If it's the last one, you should give the numbers, as that's what the change was about. Sure you gave Morde a few more tools, but it was about moving his power around.
EDIT: I forgot to talk about this one last thing. When asked by someone who was worried how this would affect his clear and damage, this was the response given:
The damage changes will be small, our goal is to reduce his burst potential but remain the prolong threat.
I would say his laning will be approximately the same or slightly weaker and his wave clear will be approximately the same or slightly stronger (in lane). But late game his wave clear will be weaker mainly because we are not expecting him to build full damage at that point.
This comment failed to get the point across, your point was "not much changes early, late game his clear might be weaker because clear is based on burst, but we expect his total damage to be stronger." The point that the players received was: "And his laning is weaker and his wave clear is weaker and we expect him to build full tank." That full tank part comes from the Warmogs which were added jokingly at the end. It's important to remember that emoticons (and those are emoticons) are the things we use to show that we're making jokes, not to make jokes themselves. People don't trust text instinctively, but they instinctively trust emoticons of any sort, and what those emoticons are telling us is "full tank", after you talk about building less damage. Basically, just remember that if people are afraid of something, they're only going to see the parts that reinforce their fears, not the parts which counter them unless explicitly pointed out!
Anyway, that's just my opinions on what went wrong, I'd love to hear a few other people's point of views. Also one trick I personally use a lot is I bold things that are main points, which might have saved you some grief.
Alright, come at me Morde players who don't share my opinion that it was a good thing after seeing the numbers (I seriously do play Morde, and I've played him on the PBE now with the changes, it's a buff to your damage, trust me.) I'm prepared to get downvoted into oblivion!!! As long as RiotChun sees this first...
(but in all seriousness, please don't downvote me, it makes it less likely that RiotChun will see this and I think it's something he really needs to see.)
