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Cassiopeia gameplay change; Hatred of change

Dominick Destine··7 votes·731 views

A lot of players have asked for "Poison Mage" when talking about Cassiopeia. This update does not intend to make Cassiopeia a "Poison Mage," at least not in a way that some players seem to desire (or fear, depending on your stance). To truly make her a "Poison Mage" would require large alterations to the champion that may achieve that feeling, but that we ultimately thought would no longer be Cassiopeia

Translation: "A lot of players asked Cassiopeia to fit her theme rather than be completely dissonant to it" (I.e. Cass should = poison mage) "We decided against that" "The reason for that is; Because then Cassiopeia would be different than she is now"

In simple terms; "Players want Cassiopeia changed" "We will not change her because then she will be different" /boggle

I cannot be the only one that finds that "reasoning" to be flawed to a spectacular degree.... furthermore, if a significant portion of the player base wants the Poison mage to be a Poison mage rather than a direct damage nuke mage.... what is the downside to making her thematically consistent?

18 Comments

WoonStruck3 votes

The only thing that needs to be changed about Cass is her passive and cooldowns/ratios.

All her passive does is weigh down her ratios and CDs so they can finally be on-par when she hits 500...Its a stupid excuse to hold back her power.

Maybe if it actually GAVE power it could be useful...but 500 stacks is WAY too much to ask for with what it currently offers...which is simply a gating mechanism on a champs that isn't all that strong even when she unlocks it.

Dominick Destine1 votes

Well, I have consistently said that if they changed "Increased ability power by X%" , which only serves to make her a boring stat check character, were replaced with "Increases the range of her abilities by X%" it would be fantastic.

At 500 stacks, 30% increased range in her Q, W and E would make her a true threat without becoming a raw stat check. That's a very simple change that would fundamentally alter everything about Cassiopeia in a very good way.

WoonStruck2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dominick Destine,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gF5OvAha,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2016-03-15T14:25:26.710+0000)

Well, I have consistently said that if they changed "Increased ability power by X%" , which only serves to make her a boring stat check character, were replaced with "Increases the range of her abilities by X%" it would be fantastic.

At 500 stacks, 30% increased range in her Q, W and E would make her a true threat without becoming a raw stat check. That's a very simple change that would fundamentally alter everything about Cassiopeia in a very good way.

Part of Cass' issue is that she has so many gating mechanisms atm:

Have to consistently land Q to deal damage (W is basically only good for 1-2 E resets, reliably), meanwhile Karthus, who has a similar pattern) doesn't have a reset mechanic and has E to cover inconsistency, as well as a much larger and stronger slow. Much more effective as a DPS caster, especially considering the safety is less of a risk late game, due to his passive.

Then there's her E's raw stats, which are largely gated by her passive.

Her poisons still retain terrible ratios even with the artificial boost her passive offers.

And her ult, while thematically satisfying, leaves much to be desired in many circumstances. A slow situational stun cone like that was fitting for old Cass, whose power justified the unreliability, but now you have to hope for best case with the extremely telegraphed animation.

Its not just that her passive sucks, its that along with her basic abilities being lackluster without it, just barely palatable with it, and her general unreliability.

Valderis Vandala2 votes

Good, I like her the way she is, she's different from the other mages, she's interesting in that she kind of works like half a mage and half a ADC. It takes a little while to get used to but when you get the hang of her she's great. Just don't expect any CC from her other then her ult.

EDIT: She could do with a visual update though, I'd bet they can make her tail movement look so much better now.

Sightless662 votes

Their argument is that not all players want her to be a poison mage, and that shifting her to be primarily based around poisons disregards the players who currently enjoy her because it would necessitate a pretty significant shift in playstyle.

Basically, they're saying that "Players want Cassiopeia changed" is inaccurate because a large portion of her players do not want major change, and "Some players on the want Cassiopeia to be changed to be more poison based" is accurate.

I mean, they have said that some of the things that the playerbase has asked for are totally reasonable and will get changed, like the passive, so it's not like they're just disregarding input.

if a significant portion of the player base wants the Poison mage to be a Poison mage rather than a direct damage nuke mage.... what is the downside to making her thematically consistent?

The downside would be that a significant portion doesn't want that, and they're already enjoying her.

Dominick Destine2 votes

{quoted}

Basically, they're saying that "Players want Cassiopeia changed" is inaccurate because a large portion of her players do not want major change, and "Some players on the want Cassiopeia to be changed to be more poison based" is accurate.

Fair enough, Riot should then make a poll/census to see how many people want to conserve the general style of current Cassiopeia vs. how many people would like to see her turn into a poison mage... I.e. focus her kit around her ability to poison enemies, not her ability to spam E (I.e. nuke mage).

I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that the results will be an overwhelmingly victory for "Change her into a poison mage"

Sightless662 votes

I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that the results will be an overwhelmingly victory for "Change her into a poison mage"

I'm willing to bet that if you surveyed the boards that would be true. I'm not certain that it would hold true for the generalized League population. This place is really, really bad for getting looks at what most people want. It's really easy for it to just be a sounding board for the most vocal minority. Even on other forums, people don't want what the boards want, and the boards are made up of a pretty small number of people to start with.

With only this place to go on, it definitely wouldn't be safe enough for me to put money on the line.

Riot should then make a poll/census to see how many people want to conserve the general style of current Cassiopeia vs. how many people would like to see her turn into a poison mage

Without specifics to inform people of what exactly they are choosing between, this is a meaningless question. It just comes down to a "which sounds better" without any knowledge of what actual gameplay changes would come. You'd more likely be getting answers based on whether people were happy with her current balance state than anything about her current design (I'm sure you've noticed how people are suddenly much happier with a champion's design when they are balanced than when they are underpowered). Even if we had data from that question, it probably wouldn't be worth shit.

Just getting data isn't the problem. Finding a way to ask the question that makes the data actionable is the more significant challenge, and it likely isn't a possibility without more design work done on alternate possibilities. A good example of this would be when they polled Skarner players back when they were reworking his passive (the rework before this latest one), and they could actually present what the new passives would be that people were choosing between.

Dominick Destine2 votes

{quoted}

I'm willing to bet that if you surveyed the boards that would be true. I'm not certain that it would hold true for the generalized League population.

You'd be mistaken, or at least as I said I'd put hard cash down that far more players want Cassiopeia to be made into a poison mage than players that want her to be a nuke mage (E bot).

The rest of your comment is meaningless fluff.

Sightless662 votes

You'd be mistaken,

Based on what? That you and the boards hate her? That means pretty much nothing to me, and I'm not seeing the same reactions anywhere else. I'm seeing enjoyment of her current playstyle and apathy about her balance state, along with a general hatred for her passive. Wanting her to be more of a poison mage at the expense of what she is now is not a universal thing.

The rest of your comment is meaningless fluff.

You want a survey, and I said why it's not that easy, and now you're calling that fluff. Very fluffy indeed.

Dominick Destine2 votes

{quoted}

Based on what? That you and the boards hate her?

Her pick rate drastically decreased after her gutting or "rework" if you will.

Got a reason for statistics utterly decimating your nonsense?

You want a survey, and I said why it's not that easy

It would be very easy.

Your argument was complete garbage.

Sightless662 votes

She went from a 2.5% pickrate to around a 1.7%. Given that she's significantly weaker now, that's not surprising. Started unpopular, ended unpopular and weaker. Doesn't say anything about people wanted her to be more poison-based. They certainly didn't like her when she was.

Got a reason for statistics utterly decimating your nonsense?

Exactly as much as you do. That being anecdotes and the opinions of some forumgoers. That's why I wouldn't put money on this either way. I can point to just as many people who like her new design more than the old as vice-versa. The only thing I can say for sure is that no one likes her passive, and no one likes that she's weak.

I haven't seen anything outside of the boards indicating the people are really craving for an increase on the importance of poisons, so I'm not willing to accept it as just a given that this is what people want. That's not unreasonable. Distrusting an opinion I've only seen on the boards is not something I'm backing off of.

Your argument was complete garbage.

Getting a survey that tells you anything useful about design doesn't work when people are annoyed about balance and you don't actually have design specifics to show. It's not impossible, but they'd have to actually have design work into Cassiopeia before this would mean anything.

If you don't control for factors like people being pissed that a champion is weak, you can't actually know what the results of the survey mean. If we're going to use surveys, they shouldn't just be fluff pieces that don't tell us anything.

Dominick Destine2 votes

{quoted}

Exactly as much as you do.

Incorrect.

It is a demonstrable fact that she was dropped by many players after her gutting. It stands to reason and is statistically significant to say she is disliked compared to her previous iteration.

Getting a survey that tells you anything useful about design doesn't work

Nonsense.

Your arguments are garbage, more making random declarations in lieu of any actual logic or reason.

Snaketits2 votes

RiotRepertoir doesn't really get it, otherwise he'd realize that she needs a complete rework and not a semi-one that doesn't even change her kit. As long as her Twin Fang ability remains a point and click ability, she'll never reach a healthy state since they'll immediately gut her the moment she becomes somewhat viable. That ability needs to go, period. There's no way to make it work.

Her passive was the most hated aspect (heh, aspect) of the initial rework and yet they refuse to get rid of it, how does that make any sense? It's been 2 weeks since he even looked into his own thread, meanwhile all those posts which questioned the direction of his rework remained unanswered despite being the hightest rated ones. Almost reminds me of what Stashu did back then.

I fear we'll experience just another prelude to massive nerfs. As long as RiotRepertoir doesn't stop trying to base his work off Stashu's, he'll never achieve his goal of satisfying her playerbase.

Infact her pickrate went down by 66% (!) since the rework, and this guy is seriously worried about losing players? Hello? She already LOST the majority of those who used to play her. How about trying to get these guys back by giving us an actual poison-mage aka what everyone wants?

RogueWill1 votes

Want to play her like a poson mage? Max Q first and use Deathfire grasp instead of thunder lord. Your early game gets unchanged, your mid game gets a small spike and your late game is a tad less powerful.

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