Red Post Collection: Quick Gameplay Thoughts: June 6, Pyke AMA roundup, & More

Today's red post collection includes Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for June 6th, including thoughts on post-midseason stability and systematic changes, as well as a roundup on the Pyke AMA on Reddit, Punches and Plants 2, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

• Red Post Collection: 5/31 Balance Update, Baron Changes in 8.10/8.11, Quick Gameplay Thoughts: 6/1, & More
• Champion & Skin Sale: 6/5 - 6/8
• Free Champion Rotation, Week of June 5th
• 6/4 PBE Update: Master's Challenge Emote & Summoner Icon
• 6/5 PBE Update: Tentative Balance Changes

Table of Contents

• Quick Gameplay Thoughts: June 6 
• Quick Hits
• Reminders

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: June 6 

Here's Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for June 6th, including thoughts on post-midseason stability and systematic changes:

"Hi folks, 

Usual Disclaimers 

These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get put delayed or even stopped. If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler 

Post-Midseason stability 

Now that all the midseason changes, bar the couple of new fighter items, are out, we're going to focusing mainly on polish and stability until preseason. We've made quite a lot of changes recently and want to pair that with a period of low systemic change. That will mean patches being more just balance adjustments, and less major overhauls of anything. That's something we aim for each year after midseason, as we hit the second half of the ranked season and the run up to Worlds. Looking at the amount of change we've made this year though, and the style in which it's come out, it feels extra important to do. 

In particular, spreading midseason changes out over a few patches was more disruptive than we'd anticipated. We were hoping to minimize the shake up of any individual patch and keep things steadier since we'd have time to react to each set of changes separately. In retrospect though the outcome was more a period of constant readjustment than greater stability. We'll be aiming to cluster changes back in a single patch more in the future as a result. 

Systemic change we will still be looking at 

We will still be doing some work to pull back early snowball, as mentioned last week. Even though we're looking for a period of stability we think that's important enough that it needs to be done regardless. The systemic changes already in 8.12 (2 new fighter items plus nerfs to Heal/Shield items and some gifted shield durations) are still planned as well. Beyond that things should be fairly light until November. It's also likely preseason's more focused this year on improving various existing parts of the game than adding new elements, though we've yet to plan preseason out in full detail."

When asked about how the big patch/small patch cadence on the PBE was going, Meddler noted:

"Quote:

Hey Meddler can I ask if you guys will be evaluating the big patch small patch approach since this season so far has been much more disruptive then past ones and people are exactly big fans of constant changes

Still talking about that. We do still think there's value in having distinction between patches, one possible outcome might be that we move to a medium patch/tiny patch approach instead of big/small."

When asked about more Sterak's compensation buffs, Meddler commented:

"Quote:

Would you give compensation buffs to the sterak users that aren't that strong right now and are very reliant on it?

We would yeah. Yorick's the one we're confident enough needs changes to do so in 8.12, rather than waiting to see where champions land after both the Sterak's change and Atma's/Spear."

As for the changes testing on Yorick this PBE cycle, Meddler replied:

"Quote:

Hi Meddler. 

Are Yorick buffs final on PBE (Q 7-5 to 7-4 CD + dynamic AD ghouls/maiden) or smth more planned for him ? 

Also how is Urgot looking after recent buffs.

Nothing else planned for Yorick before 8.12. After that we'll see where he is.
Urgot's about where we'd hoped he be after recent changes."

On Rumble, Meddler commented:

"Quote:

Do you think that the shield buffs is what Rumble really needs?

We think it's part of what he needs yeah, given he gets bullied pretty hard in lane. Also testing damage buffs to his ult as well, since it should be one of the primary reasons you want to bring him."

On Lulu and Karma, Meddler replied:

"Quote:

Im really worried about Lulu - Karma solo lane cappabilities with that shield duration change, ¿will it be compensated somewhere else in his stats-kits?

Potentially. Karma we think's especially likely to need followup. Do want to see where the 8.12 changes put affected champs before committing to anything though."

When asked about splash art updates and VGUs, Meddler commented:

"Artist time's our biggest limiter on VGUs right now, given how many skins some older champs have. In many respects a VGU and a new champ are about the same amount of work, updating skins is the biggest exception."

Quick Hits

• Riot Maple on Midseason patch cadence:

Hey there, 

We're definitely aware of the feeling of change fatigue at the moment. This year we tried something a bit different with mid season and broke it up into 4 patches (8.9-mid, 8.10, jungle, 8.11 - adc, 8.12 - a few fighter items and support changes). Normally we would ship these all together, but we wanted to avoid an overly disruptive patch for Clash, and didn't want to push everything to 8.11 because of the start of the lcs split. We also couldn't pull changes in earlier because there simply wasn't enough time to get it all ready. 

I will say that we're going to be taking a look at some of our next patches, as well as some of the current areas we've been working on (early snowball, solo carry potential, support power etc) and seeing if there's anything we can push out to preseason to give league a bit more stabilization time in the latter half of the year. We don't want to burn you guys out from changes, and it's one of the constant tensions we try to manage. Change too much, and it feels exhausting to keep up, change too little and it feels like we're oblivious to problems in the game that take forever to get resolved. Not an easy one, especially when player preferences around rate of change vary drastically. 

Some love having the game feel like it gets shaken up frequently, some feel tired by it, and some just want us to stop patching so they can log in 3 months from now and have the game be the same thing they're used to. None of those groups are wrong for wanting their preferred rate of change/game state, but if we're able to validate that overwhelmingly players believe that the game is changing too much we may have reached to far in one direction and need to pull it back a bit. 

Hope this explanation helps with some of the concerns, we're talking about this a lot right now. Please keep the feedback coming "

• The team behind Pyke hit Reddit for an AMA! Here's community member Spideraxe with a roundup of the questions and answers:

[Pyke AMA Roundup!]

• Punches and Plants: A Piltover Police Story 2

"Recovering from their epic battle with Mega Goatee Blitzcrank, Officers Vi and Zyra set out to uncover who, or what, caused the emergence of their electronic ally's evil alter ego. Will these two occasionally bungling buddy cops crack the case, or will the case crack them? 

Risu brings us yet another hard-boiled crime caper that you won't want to miss, with new pages dropping every Monday! Need to get caught up? Read the original series here!"