8/1 PBE Update: Continued Nexus Blitz Testing

The PBE has been updated! As we continue the 8.16 PBE cycle, today's patch includes continued testing and changes for the experimental Nexus Blitz mode and more!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

• Continued Nexus Blitz Testing
• Miscellaneous
• Balance Changes
• Context & Notes

Continued Nexus Blitz Testing

 Riot August posted an updated Nexus Blitz change list for 8/1 focused around stability -

"Initial patches will target bugs and whatnot to ensure the mode is stable. 

Patch notes for PBE 8/1 - 

Items
---Fixed Runic Echoes recipe to build out of the right items (Fiendish Codex instead of Lost Chapter)
---Fixed a bug that was causing the Bilgewater ARAM items to be disabled (Spectral Cutlass, Ghostwalkers, Bloodletter's Veil) 

Events----Attempting a fix to the event spawn rate bug. Events are sometimes failing to activate, creating long periods of time (even whole games) without events."

• Syndra's in client bio was tweaked:

Old: "Syndra is a fearsome dark mage with incredible power at her command. As a child of Ionia, she disturbed the village elders with her prodigious but reckless use of magic. They sent her away to be trained under strict supervision, but she quickly surpassed her mentor and discovered he was restraining her powers. Betrayed and disgusted by such cowardice, Syndra eliminated her teacher and struck out to destroy all who would try to limit her potential, dark spheres in hand." 

New: "Syndra is a fearsome Ionian mage with incredible power at her command. As a child, she disturbed the village elders with her reckless and wild magic. She was sent away to be taught greater control, but eventually discovered her supposed mentor was restraining her abilities. Forming her feelings of betrayal and hurt into dark spheres of energy, Syndra has sworn to destroy all who would try to control her."

• Karma's in client bio was also tweaked to match her recent bio update:

Old: "No champion exemplifies the spiritual traditions of Ionia more than Karma. She is the living embodiment of an ancient soul reincarnated countless times, carrying all her accumulated memories into each new life. With this insight, she serves as a spiritual beacon to her people, bestowing boundless wisdom and healing in times of crisis. Despite being blessed with power that few could comprehend, she rarely uses her magic for destruction, as it always comes at a considerable cost-- both to her, and to the land she holds most dear." 

New: "No mortal exemplifies the spiritual traditions of Ionia more than Karma. She is the living embodiment of an ancient soul reincarnated countless times, carrying all her accumulated memories into each new life, and blessed with power that few can comprehend. She has done her best to guide her people in recent times of crisis, though she knows that peace and harmony may come only at a considerable cost-- to her, and to the land she holds most dear."

• Store assets for each new chroma added:

Context & Notes

1) Here's an update from Nurse Flan with changes for Mecha Aurelion Sol:

"Update: 

Hello! NurseFlan's been working hard to compile and share all of the feedback with the team. As of this afternoon, she's locked down some changes the team will be working on. Some of these changes have already been checked in as of Wednesday evening.

• (Q) core should now have a red flickering light, with a darker background on the map floor.
• (W) passive ships have a red circle glow/core around them!
• Joke emote has new glasses - it's black with a neon teal rim!
• The chest turbine has been pushed in/sized down!
• The waffle tail has been fixed, but it's only really noticeable on his shadow - it looks much less broken, and more pointy."

2) Check out Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for August 1st, including thoughts on damage, experimental game modes, and Gold funneling:

"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 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 

More thoughts on damage later this week 

We're doing some planning around where damage comes from in LoL at present as mentioned previously. Should have some further thoughts to share in more detail later this week. Things we're particularly looking at are: 

• Different systems damage is coming from (how much from kits, versus items, versus runes etc)
• How much damage, from non kit sources in particular, is front loaded (burst versus sustain)
• Which damage sources should/shouldn't stack together (non stacking unique passive on items for example) 

For anyone that missed it also talked last week about how lack of tanks (defensive ones especially) being played can also contribute to damage being high (less champs to soak, more champs per team with high damage output).
https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/2RzBfAcE-quick-gameplay-thoughts-july-27 

Experimental Game Modes 

As you've probably seen we're trying something new at the moment where we're putting out a somewhat rough prototype. Goal there is to get early feedback from you folks on what is/isn't working, help figure out whether a mode has the potential to be a permanent addition to LoL or not. Feedback on the mode (currently called Nexus Blitz), much appreciated. Would be particularly helpful to hear which of the elements that aren't like other game modes you do or don't enjoy. Also really interested to hear how your thoughts compare before playing it and after. Are there things that sounded good on paper that weren't fun in practice, or vice versa? 

We'd also love to hear what sort of things you'd like to see tried if we do any further public prototypes like this. Depending on how this goes we might give it another shot with a different mode at some point. 

Announcement post for Nexus Blitz for those that haven't seen it already:
https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/yKk22n3O-experimental-modes-nexus-blitz 

Gold Funneling penalty in 8.15 

We made a couple of adjustments to the gold funneling penalty on jungle items in 8.15. The first is having it also apply to Twisted Treeline, based particularly off feedback collected from the regions with higher rates of TT play (EUW, EUN, NA, BR, LAN). Let us know how that additon’s feeling for you if you play TT, we’re certainly open to adjusting it further if needs be. 

The second change, which also affects SR, is having the penalty only apply when you’ve got the most CS on a team, rather than the most gold. That should remove a lot of cases where early kills result in junglers who aren’t being funneled get an early gold lead and therefore get inappropriately penalized. Feedback on that also much appreciated. In particular if you found the 8.14 approach really penalizing, would be great to hear whether this works better for you or whether it’s still feeling like you’re being penalized at times when playing normally."

Check out [THIS PAGE] for a comprehensive list of the new content & changes currently on the PBE as a part of this cycle or catch up with the individual update links below !

• 7/31 PBE Update: New Skins, Experimental Mode - Nexus Blitz, and much more!