Boards›Live Gameplay Balance

A question for Riot

7hreshprince·6/9/2014, 6:03:05 AM·2 votes·1,775 views

I have wondered for a while how the decisions to make sweeping changes to fix a problem with a champion come about. Nidalee is the newest champion that comes to mind with it but it has happened before. I have read that it is felt she is a toxic champion for several reason so I understand that there should be change. The thing I do not understand is why so much gets changed so drastically.

Other champions it was stated that there was a disparity with how the champion was intended to be designed and played to how the champion actually was played. Most recent champion I can think of like that was gragas.

With nidalee I have not seen that same concern but there is generally the same concept of large changes to bring her "toxicity" down. Most commonly cited that I am aware of is her spears, cooldown/mana cost/range/damage, and her heals(too high). I would assume changing parts of the kit slowly could lead to a champion that played similar to how they used to while making them less troublesome in the game environment.

That being said I do not know if it was ever said what nidalee's archetype or fantasy was supposed to be. Is she supposed to be a super mobile mage that occasionally gets in your face to finish you off? Is she supposed to switch through forms effortlessly and quickly to get kills? Does she run through the jungle and set things up for her team while killing the unfortunately weaker monsters that roam there? I think it would be much easier to understand changes if there is a direction other than less harmful to game play. In my opinion if that is all that is wrong and she is supposed to be the mobile spear nuke machine that she is now than the way the changes are being done feels wrong. It is too much at one time to understand if it is helpful. If it is just less toxicity than why not slowly change one aspect of an ability and see if that itself fixes part of the problem instead of changing everything? On the other hand if I am wrong and she does not fit into the concept of what was originally intended it would be great to know. I would love to know what Riot has wanted for her since the beginning and it would make it much easier for me to understand and get behind changes that are being made.

TLDR; Please tell us why there are so many changes at once if it is just to fix her balance or tell us what she is intended to be so that everyone can understand why so much is changing so quickly.

Thank you for the replies and sorry if my statement is more... displeased. I personally like nidalee the way she is and felt that she could have been slowly tuned to be fixed and keep things workable on live. The feeling at reading the changes in the pbe forums made me feel like she was being bashed on because people were upset with her spears and that is probably a wrong attitude. If anything I hope that nidalee with the changes gets moved to jungle/top rather than mid lane since her kit and fantasy always felt more like a jungle character. Great job with a lot of the work you do Riot and thank you for taking the time to read my less than nice post.

9 Comments

Sir ArmaMalum6/9/2014, 8:51:32 AM2 votes

While I can't speak in Riot's name I can at least explain my take on the drastic changes to Nidalee. Any 'band-aid' changes similar to what they did with Gragas and Kass would not simply nerf her to unviability but just make her actually useless. Her huge nuke damage with max range spear is her her only real damage and her absurd heal is her only real support ability. Everything else was kind of just.... there. Cougar Q could be nice at times, but both W's were simply utility instead of damage in practice and both e's were used only half the time. Nerf her pain points (spear and heal) and she loses her only real contribution.

Simply put, her absurd Spear and Heal was overtuned to make up for the fickle and small presence of the rest of her kit, which is why so much focus was made to bring the rest of these abilities back into her real damage without changing how they worked too much. All in my humble non-professional analysis of course.

Thematically I'm going to say her transform is her main claim to fame, and ample use of the R in gameplay can reinforce that well, as the future rework seems to do. Honestly I was pretty perturbed when I eventually found out in my leveling days that her main playstyle was a sniper. You know, when she could turn into a flipping giant cat. Instead it was usually used as an escape and 'pounce' may as well have been changed to 'Catch me if you can!'. Imho, at least.

Rastamon Ganja6/9/2014, 9:12:26 PM1 votes

I know this is way off topic, but are we going to get an ultimate skin this year?

OblongOtter6/9/2014, 11:12:02 PM1 votes

They said somewhere that she's supposed to be a huntress. She was also the first form changer, but she barely uses her form change at all (basically only uses it to escape and get somewhere fast) so they made her feel like more of a huntress, while also making her cougar form more important, while also making her spears healthier gameplay-wise.