Red Post Collection: No Olaf in 3.11, More on Rengar, Brush / Fog of War discussion, and more!

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No Olaf updates in 3.11
If you read over Riot's tentative notes for this PBE cycle, you may have noticed a bunch of Olaf changes were listed and never actually made it on to the PBE.

Here's Riot Pwyff with more info:

"Speaking of build stability, I'll copy paste the same thing I mentioned on EUW about Olaf not being in 3.11 now:

We're actually planning to pull him from this build. With the World Finals coming up, build stability is of incredibleimportance, so we're being extra careful. If this were just a regular patch we might be okay with trying out Olaf but this isn't the case.

Morello has mentioned that Live Design is happy with Olaf's overall design direction, but there are certain build considerations (bug fixes, etc) to take into account. So there we have that."

He continued:

"I'll clarify this additionally: Olaf also currently has stability issues that would make us leery even in a regular deploy. In other words, we are on the fence about deploying him with 3.11 regardless. This has everything to do with player enjoyment world-wide if his changes come out buggy.

What tipped the scales in favor of pulling him from the patch was that we also have a huge tournament happening around this time and so we value server stability just a little more. Was it enough of a reason to pull him on that alone? No. Did it influence our decision making process as we weighed risks? Yes. So it's not just a single if A then B kind of situation - it's more of a "hmmm maybe we shouldn't do it." "Oh this is happening, well this makes the decision easier even if we might have made this same decision."" 

Brush and Fog of War Discussion
Yakaru, a Senior Software Engineer, has put up a thread on the general forums to discuss how Brush and the Fog of War work and how it can be improved to be more consistant

"Hi everyone, 

I've been quiet for a while so for those of you who who don't know me I'm Yakaru and I'm one of the Senior Gameplay Engineers. I'm pretty well known as a hardcore tabletop gamer and for my Ninja 300 motorcycle. 

I've been looking at fog of war and brush and I've noticed a lot of things that are strange, which made me realize the rules for brush/fog aren't as clean and consistent as they could be. If you have a few minutes would you mind sharing your thoughts with me? :) 

Here's some facts:
* Autoattacks will always reveal you through brush
* Nunu's ultimate (Absolute Zero) doesn't reveal him in brush while he's charging
* Blitzcrank Rocket Grabs will show you his fist but not Blitzcrank himself
* Nidalee throwing her spears (Q) also doesn't reveal her
* Taric's Dazzle does reveal him
* Nunu's Iceball will reveal him 

I can get into the details of why it's like this, but the more important question is how SHOULD it work and why? 

My gut instincts are that any 'aggressive' action should probably reveal you -- if a spell is dealing damage, slows, roots, or stuns, for example, it should reveal the caster. This is an easy to understand rule and is very easy to understand and explain to new players, but I'm not sure about this, what do you guys think? 

Thanks much!

~Yakaru"

Yakaru continued, citing a few things the community pointed out as being unintuitive

"Hey guys, 

first up I totally want to fix pinks not showing other wards in brush and invisible skill shots! I think everyone wants that :) The same goes for the minimap teleport bug -- if anyone has a good way to consistently reproduce that let me know. I hate that bug too. 

I'm glad to hear from people like Sty13z who brought up their own confusion about vision. I'm glad to know I'm not alone in my confusion :) . I know I often instinctually do the wrong thing, here's my example: 

* ambush setup in brush
* cast a skill shot
* RETREAT before they counter-attack my squishy (even though my cast didn't reveal me) 

Maybe this is just my own bad habit, but the current rules are complex and there's no way to tell if I've exposed myself. 

NUNU:
Nunu was a big topic -- thanks to blockpartay, Narssisstic, Arizel and everyone else who chimed in there. I think Nunu's ult is the most obvious example of a spell which has unintuitive vision rules:
* The first time I played Nunu, I didn't know that casting his ult in a brush had this huge, dangerous advantage.
* "Im 729 elo" made a great point that at least showing the particle effect may be a good compromise. This also is consistent with skill shot behavior -- I see the mystic shot from brush, but I don't see the giant orb of ice.
If we were to change Nunu, though, we would definitely balance him appropriately, and I would defer to the Live Design team to make the right calls on changes there. 

SKILL SHOTS:
Squippit had the thoughts of revealing when a skill shot 'lands'
* pro: this makes sense (you damaged someone, brush drops, if you don't damage them you stay hidden).
* con: I can see it leading to my tank purposefully taking that nid spear so we can jump on her.
is that good counterplay or punishing someone for successfully using their spear?

Another interesting one to consider: if I'm playing Ahri and cast Foxfire (W), should that expose Ahri? Should she be exposed when one flame acquires onto an enemy minion or champion?"

He also opened up the discussion by presenting this idea:

"Hey guys, just thinking outloud here and I don't want to derail the conversation but as it is related: 

Does anyone think there should be a good way to tell if you are being revealed by your own actions (not just standing in a warded brush) and if so any suggestions on how to do this without visually crowding the screen?"

As for the infamous "jungler showing up on opposite side of map" mini map bug, he noted:

"Yes, this jives with what I've seen too. The problem is it doesn't happen every time the jungler pops out. We're trying to get something consistent internally -- will help track it down as well as let us verify a fix actually fixes it. Trust me, I want to smash this bug. Hard. :) In fact it is one of the reasons I've been digging into the vision system recently."

More Rengar

Following up on the post about his latest Rengar ult iteration ( which is a big movement speed buff that can be reactivated for stealth ), Scarizard dropped off a few comments to address summoner concerns and suggestions that had for a way to allow Rengar to consume his Feroicity for extra R bonuses.

"Brief post before i head out for the day - been reading a lot of your Ferocity bonuses for R and while i appreciate the creativity, unsure if i'm gonna take anything i see - everything so far is kind of above the powerbudget i'd like to give it - i'm heading towards 'nice, small bonus' - where things like Tenacity, a Fear, extra Damage are all things that just make me feel like an idiot for ever ulting without max ferocity. I'll continue to mull it over and let you guys know what i'm thinking. 

As for Hunt -> Stalk, i've seen a lot of you mention you think it should be reverse. Aside from my poor naming (Maybe Sprint->Prowl would be more accurate?), the basic idea around this is 

1. Adds a window of time where Rengar can get caught out and still be outplayed - stealthing, picking a direction you want to go, and then bursting into speed to run away is kind of @_@. Hunt->Stalk at least has a period of time where you know he cant' stealth you, and if you don't play it right may not even need to use it. 

2. Taken as evidence from our tests where the ult had no stealth at all - in most cases, i think 'Hunt' is more universal. When ulting with Rengar, more often than not you want to run fast. Whether or not you're getting into position for an Ambush or just running a guy down, if your ultimate button gave you nothing else, MS is more consistent and you can form an expectation around the button press. Seeing low-health dudes and pressing R, only to know your giant MS boost is ~5s away from activation feels like they're escaping from you just because we let it happen - while giving it to you upfront and keeping the Stealth optional allows you to premeditate it for when it would be useful to you. 

Maybe i didn't explain it that well - only got like 4h or so of sleep (Damn you, gamescom !_!), but i hope it makes sense. I'm still considering all of these suggestions, this is just snapshot on where i'm feelin'"

He continued, responding to someone commenting that the latest ult iteration has the same problems as the old one.

"I've seen this a bunch in this thread so far, but i don't see it as having the same problems due to 

- Stalk having less Stealth Duration than on Live
- Stalk losing Thrill of the Hunt's movement speed
- Rengar's overall burst being lowered

In general, there's a much lower window for Rengar to Sneak-Attack you. He can also just run and leap on you if his goal is to just get to you, but if taking your opponent by surprise is important (say, in a lane-gank) that option is still available and potent. Overall it takes a lot more planning and execution to pull off the stealth-attack, but you can forgo the planning and just bumrush them (at the cost of alerting them to your presence earlier)"

Lyte on Player Behavior
Lyte has been creeping around the forums lately, commenting on various player behavior topics that pop up in his thread " @Lyte - Player Behavior, Matchmaking, and Life as a Scientist"

First up is a response to a question about the Tribunal automatically just handing out punishments all willy nilly instead of a person behind the screen making the calls.

"To clear up some misconceptions, systems like the Tribunal are moderated. In fact, the more severe punishments are always reviewed by Player Support staff. The cases that tend to be close in voting also get double checked by staff. Right now, up to 74% of players that are punished by the Tribunal improve their behaviors and don't return to the Tribunal. Although the system isn't perfect, it does a decent job."

 In regards to his appearance in a video discussing EU LCS player Ocelote's personal behavior reform, Lyte commented he would be interested in doing more!

"We worked with Machinima and Ocelote on that piece, and are definitely interested in more pieces like that in the future. If you noticed recently, we also released a bunch of videos teaching positions of the game by the Korean OGN Pros. Check it out if you haven't seen them!"

In response to some suggestions to improve the honor system, Lyte reiterated his stance that he would like to improve Honor.

"Hm, we're definitely interested in making Honor more visible and easier to use."

 When asked if he could look at removing the "Lock" button from champion select to prevent summoners who attempt to auto lock as fast as possible to get the champion they wany, he comented:

"When analyzing or assessing a feature like this, we have to take a look at the value we're adding given the costs/risks. If the majority of Champion Select lobbies have instant lock trolls who irritate and harass their own team, then a feature like this might add a really high value by removing their ability to frustrate others (though one could always argue they'd just act toxic in a different manner because we haven't solved the problem and only removed a channel the problem is vented through).

However, the data suggests that the number of lobbies that end with instant locking and the players are frustrated or pissed off about it is in the minority. Given the data, removing the lock would only arbitrarily increase the duration of Champion Select for many lobbies which I believe is too high of a cost to solve a problem that only a minority of lobbies have."

Fiora Discussion
Speaking of Riot's PBE tentative notes, Fiora discussions have been brewing since Riot announced a few tweaks for her ultimate.

Here is Volty with a few comments about the changes, her ult in general, and a comparison to Mater Yi's Q.

"Some skills are about popping projectiles and effectively blocking or counterspelling incoming attacks. Some skills are about providing a period of untargetability so that no new attacks can be made. Blade Waltz is in the latter camp. You can partly tell because it has a cast time, which I wouldn't condone for a skill that is meant to be used to interrupt incoming attacks like Vlad pool or Fizz's hop. 

So that's why it doesn't pop projectiles. That's also why it doesn't block DoT damage.
I'm not sure I understand delaying damage. From what I can tell, Yi's Alpha Strike doesn't delay projectiles or damage. I've also asked around about this, and so I'm pretty sure he doesn't delay anything. It might be that he seems like he's delaying but from carefully watching your health displayed at the bottom center of the UI you can see that damage is applied on time. 

Blade Waltz does actually clear turret aggro, but turrets are (right now) trying to reacquire Fiora as a target when she damages enemies under the turret. The game visually suggests that this is working, when in fact the turret aggro is re-dropped as Fiora is untargetable. She can be picked up again by the turret after she comes out of the ult. 

I've tested and you can't be struck by skill shots or area of effect spells during Blade Waltz. Same for bots targeting me during the effect. I've tried this out against bots repeatedly, slowing the game down to carefully examine the interaction, and Annie bots will patiently wait to cast their Disintegrates until Blade Waltz is entirely complete.

I hope this helps clear up some of the understanding around Blade Waltz's behaviors. I'm personally very excited to play with the more consistent version of Blade Waltz coming out in 3.11."