Red Post Collection: Quick Gameplay Thoughts: 3/21, Come play Clash and kill bugs this Wednesday, March 21! & More

Posted on at 8:59 AM by Aznbeat
Today's red post collection includes Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for March 21st, a reminder on the Clash test at 6:30 PM PDT on 3/21, a note on a patch 8.6 rollout delay, April sales schedule, and more!
Continue reading for more information!



Table of Contents


Addressing Irelia Feedback

Here's SpaceNorth with a thread on Irelia feedback and upcoming changes:
"Hey all! I'm SpaceNorth, the PO for Irelia's update. 
We’ve been reviewing all the PBE feedback that we’ve gotten on Irelia and her skins over the last 24 hours. Before we get into specifics, I also just wanna take a sec to say thank you for the outpouring of both excitement and critical feedback. Even the negative reactions have included a lot of constructive, helpful notes - to be frank, it means a lot to us to have this kind of dialog with everyone. We aren’t going to be able to address everything, but here are some notes on what we’re looking to improve. 
Hair 
Hair is so damn difficult (Zoe’s hair was a beautiful nightmare to work on, and took a ridiculous amount of time). We’ve heard the feedback on Irelia’s hair looking like a flat cape on some skins, or being positioned far away from her body. This is something that we’ve iterated on a dozen times internally, and competing with blade readability and clipping has been a challenge. We’re going to taking another pass focusing mostly on base and Aviator, trying to add a little volume and tweak positions so her hair falls a little closer to her for some animations. 
Lotus 
Small tweaks to splash - mostly around face. 
Frostblade 
Let’s jump right in. Some people are missing the cyber aspect of the original, or wondering why we decided to double down on frost. Our goal was to make a more cohesive skin by focusing on one thematic and fleshing it out, especially in thinking about how we could find good particle and audio opportunities with the rework. We’re seeing some negative response to this decision, but we still believe that making her this frozen warrior slashing with giant ice shards will be an awesome skin for her. I think changes we make at this point to bring the futuristic theme back are going to feel shallow, and we don’t want to just put a band-aid on it. 
Outside of the theme notes, we also saw a lot of great feedback on other parts of the skin that we want to respond to. First, we’re changing hair color to bring it more blue (more ice read, closer to original - less gem/crystalline look). We added some reflective material to make it feel more like ice, but then the excessive purple got in the way of that read anyway... We’re also going to take a big pass at the fur collar, and see how we can make her more sleek. For splash, we’re changing face and expression to get it feeling less evil, and more like Irelia (and matching in-game changes). 
Thanks again for all the feedback - please keep checking PBE as these changes go up."

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: March 21st

Here's Meddler with his quick gameplay thoughts for March 21st, covering solo snowball vs team snowball, the next Champion roadmap, and more:
"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 
Solo Snowball versus Team Snowball 
We're going to be looking at how some of the rewards in the game contribute to solo snowball versus team snowball over some upcoming patches. We shifted a few things towards team snowball a while back, aiming to give more agency/impact to roles who needed it (jungle/support at the time) and reduce the degree to which the other positions would sometimes get so individually far ahead they were too hard to deal with. In retrospect we think we went too far in that direction though. That reduced concentration of power makes it harder to get ahead enough to really carry and means that when you're facing an enemy team that's ahead it's a bit too much that they're all ahead and threatening than that there are particular enemies who are really high threat you need to try and play around/shut down. 
We're planning to start by shifting shutdown gold back to going to whoever killed the enemy on a killstreak, rather than being split globally with the team. That's also got the benefit of making it more possible to get back into a losing lane if you can manage to get a kill on someone who's significantly up on kills on you. 
If that shutdown gold changes goes well we'll then look at see whether we should shift any other team rewards back towards solo rewards. Want to make sure we're getting the desired result before doing that though and cautious about swinging back too far in the other direction. 
Next Champion Roadmap 
I've been seeing questions about when we'll have the next Champion roadmap start to crop up quite a bit recently so I checked in with Reav3 (who writes them) yesterday to find out. Current estimate is the next post is likely to in mid to late April, so about a month from now. 
Homestart tuning and invades 
We'll be doing some tuning to the start of game speed boost in an upcoming patch, probably 8.7. Back in pre-season we increased its speed significantly so that we could reduce time until minions spawn without cutting into invade times too much. That's worked well overall, the exact implementation can be a bit too punishing for aggressors though, given they'll sometimes be trying to chase down defenders who haven't yet entered the river and so still have the large speed boost themselves. Looking at adjusting things a bit as a result so defensive positions aren't rewarded quite as much. That's likely to look something like removing the speed after passing the outer towers (instead of the river), reducing the speed buff duration a bit, or making the speed boost start higher but decay."
When asked about Ninja Tabi, as well as Varus, Meddler noted:
"Ninja Tabi - we're looking at them this patch. Goals there include probably bringing them down in power but also ensuring there's some nuance to when you build them that's harder to assess (not just 'do they have more than X auto attackers' or 'does my lane opponent basic attack'). Don't have a specific approach ready to share yet, will mention once we do. 
Varus wise lowering the AS ratio on the passive, at least for minion kills, has been on my mind as a likely candidate if we need to pull power from him. Would depend though on which situations he was too strong in if he's still too strong post Rageblade changes (e.g. lane versus late game, which builds, against which types of opponent etc)"

Meddler talked more on snowballing:
"Quote:
Something to consider is the fact that as long as there is an assist, it automatically adds to the kill's total value as well. No matter what, getting a solo kill is less valuable than a kill with at least one helper.
Perhaps adjust the baseline kill gold up, and make assist actually take a chunk from the kill's value? 
This drops the pressure to try and force yourself to get an assist in situations you may not have seen one happen (because you are not wasting the 150 assist gold or so), while also rewarding solo plays a bit more than team gang-bang feistas on bot, especially because while they may get a lead, they won't get as much gold funneled into whoever got the kill with the assist draining it out.
The inflation of the kill value via assist gold's there so that it's almost always the correct action to work together as a team and that that's clear enough to players too. We don't want situations where players are raging at their team for helping get a kill (I totally had that, stop stealing my gold!), especially given so much of the value of the kill isn't directly from the kill gold anyway (safe farming time, loss of enemy farming, ability to pressure or do objective etc). 
Agree with you it's important to ensure solo kills feel rewarding and like they can be impactful on game state. Think there are more effective ways, that come with less collateral cost, than targeting the assist gold pool though."

Meddler continued:
"Quote:
Will you leave us means to promote team snowball on champions who don't want solo snowball? Maybe through a rune that divies up extra gold you get from kills globally or by adding objectives that give global gold like a Tamatoa Drake?
Supportive items and Runes, that effectively convert what could be personal power into donated power (e.g. Censer or Locket) are the ways we're looking to get team benefit delivered for those that want to opt into that. Possible we need a few more things in those spaces though, particularly given some of our current power donation effects do skew pretty strongly towards helping marksmen specifically, rather than being more general team helping effects."

On bot lane, Meddler commented:

"Quote:
Also how goes the exploration into the bot lane open up with midseason around the corner
Still going through internal testing at present. Starting to get some things we think have decent promise, some of which are focused on who can lane effectively in bot and some of which are power curve and objection contribution focused. More details soonish, also possible we do some of those changes before and after midseason to smooth out disruption a bit and make sure things are hitting their targets before we go on to the next step."

When asked about Disarm, Meddler noted:
"Quote:
Hey Meddler can I ask for your thoughts on Disarm with Irelia bringing back the mechanic, since it seems like a blind clone imo
Yep, Disarm's almost identical to Blind. There's a bit of distinction in terms of what feedback players get, with attacks not being made versus not doing anything when they land. Also likely a few cases where Blind allows some effects to occur still that happen on attack launch, not attack hit. Overall though I think you could describe Disarm as a differently themed Blind with the occasional special case rule."

Meddler went on:
"Quote:
Will Disarm be reduced by Tenacity?
It will yes."

On the Lux changes we saw in a previous PBE cycle, Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Any context on the Lux buff we saw on the PBE last Thursday that got reverted?
Should be back, with some additional changes to test (ult resets if the target dies within X seconds, not just to the ult) for 8.7 PBE. Still experimental."

Come play Clash and kill bugs this Wednesday, March 21! 


Here's Draggles with a boards thread on Clash testing on March 21st:
"I’m Draggles, comms guy, and I’m here with MoreChrono, the lead QA on Clash, the upcoming tournament mode for League. 
I’ll cut to the chase: there’s a major bug we’re trying to track down, and we need a crap ton of players to help us find it. You need to be online on PBE this Wednesday, March 21 at 3:30pm PDT to play. To make it worth your while, everyone who participates will receive a 3-win XP boost on their main account. 
Here’s what we need from you:
  • Get 5 players together and create your team in-client (via the Competitive tab) any time from roughly 3:00pm PDT on Tuesday until 3:30pm PDT on Wednesday.
  • If you don’t have 4 friends on PBE, drop by the PBE Discord and pick up your missing members!
  • Get tickets from the PBE store and enter one when joining a team (tickets will be available on Wednesday).
  • Check in 30 minutes before the tournament begins - between 3:30pm and 4:00pm PDT.
  • Play your games like normal (you are guaranteed to play 2 games).
  • Give us feedback in the PBE Discord, or let us know if you encounter any other bugs.
  • If you encounter a situation where champ select has started but you’re not in it, report it in this thread.
  • COUNTDOWN TO TOURNAMENT LOCK-IN 
That’s it! 
Super important note: as we’re playing on PBE, all skill-based matchmaking will be disabled. The matches will be unbalanced, and won’t be like the full launch. We really want to make sure we track down this bug in particular as early as possible so we can fix it, and that means putting as many people through the same tournament as possible - so be ready for some wild games. 
Draggles + MoreChrono"

[UPDATE] Delay in patch 8.6 rollout due to issues 

Here's Riot Eambo with an update on the Patch 8.6 rollout:
"Update: 
We have tentatively scheduled the patch for +24 hours (22/03/18 - 02:30 GMT for EUW, and 22/03/18 - 00:30 CET for EUNE) 
We will update if there are any further revisions or changes to the scheduled, but right now this is hopefully our final changes :-) 
Hey guys! 
We're working on updating our messaging to reflect this, however patch 8.6 is currently delayed due to issues found in Oceania and Japan as part of the deploy. 
Currently we are working on a fix, however have no solid ETA. We'll update our messaging on the Service Status Pageonce we have a new timeframe, but this will be at least 24 hours, potentially longer. 
Transfers to and from Oceania/Japan to other regions will fail during this time due to mismatched patch versions. 
We hope this doesn't delay your 8.6 hype too much, but wanted to give you guys a heads up as soon as possible!"

April sales schedule


Here's Riot Evaelin with the April Sales Schedule:
"Check out all the champs and skins on sale this April! Like previous sales schedules, we’re not posting the exact dates for each champ and skin, but they’ll all be on sale sometime next month. 
Just a heads up – since we’re publishing these in advance, we won’t offer partial refunds on champs and skins purchased before they go on sale."


Quick Hits

  • With the Irelia champion update now testing on the PBE, VonderHamz explained how some of her gank voicelines worked:
"Okay there's a few things to make this work - This sounds obvious AF, but bear with me: Top lane ganks happen earlier in the game with yourself and an ally around. If it is successful, an enemy champ dies. We can take that info and turn it into conditions to feed the VO system. So We know we have to be in top lane, we need and ally around us and we need to have just killed an enemy. Then we can strap a time constraint on it to make it so it doesn't trigger too late into the game. The time constraint could be something like a top lane tower falling, or literally the in game time. 
We are doing something similar things with an ally pinging OMW and Irelia responding. You have to be top lane, have an ally OMW ping near you, with the ally being in the river/ around scuttle crab (that way bot lane can't ping you and have Irelia talk back) and Irelia will respond to the ping! 
The idea is that with these two VO calls together, we can make her respond to the flow of getting top lane ganks and make that moment really satisfying.... if you get top lane ganks at all"
Over on the boards, they also noted Frostblade Irelia would be getting a recall animation:
"She will be getting a recall, it is still getting animated!"
"We talked about him in patch planning for 8.7, and while we aren't taking him on immediately in lieu of other work, we put him in a "bucket" of champions that we can pull from if we finish up some of our other planned work in the patch/get good progress on some of our stuff slated for the next large patch. 
When we do work on him I can't confirm whether it'd be a buff or small reworky type stuff, but he's definitely not forgotten!"
  • Riot Repertoir noted his thoughts on Malzahar:
"I think a directional shift to where Malz is less reliable but deals more damage could make for a solid champion. I bet a lot of people play him in large part for his reliability, however, so I'd be pretty hesitant to just sign him up for that kind of work. Not many mages have that reliability profile anymore. 
Citing his per game damage relative to other mid laners doesn't seem like a very convincing reason for change tbh. These charts tend to have pretty high correlation to whether the champion deals a bunch of AoE damage rather than single target, as well as whether they have high or low reach. Malz's damage is pretty single target focused and low reach overall (especially when compared to many other mid laners), so I'd expect him to be pretty low on these charts. 
I could buy that Malz would be more satisfying if he traded off some raw ult CC duration power for a bit more damage, but I'm not sure most of his player base would want to see him become much less reliable."
He continued:
"Would you say he is in a good state power wise?
I do think he's pretty balanced. I wouldn't claim his power is perfectly allocated to the right parts of his kit.
Are there perhaps any plans to revisit him later?
There aren't immediate plans, but things like that can always change. Malzahar is difficult because he is trying to fulfill several different thematic and gameplay fantasies: shadow magic DoT guy, minionmancer, lockdown mage, a few other minor things. I can see how that's the champion that was created years ago when Malzahar was originally made, but in today's much larger roster, if we were designing him from scratch, we'd probably make him really awesome and cohesive at one of those things. I guess he's a victim of the time he was created, in a way.
His current W seems to be a source of lots of trouble with Malzahar, while also being the least fun of his abilities, that is however necessary for him to deal damage. Any plans for that?
The most recent changes to his W where the voidlings became very killable were a step in the right direction imo, but they're really not supposed to be a significant portion of his pvp power budget (because he really lacks the agency to help them succeed). If anything, if we were to do some power shifting, my starting point would be reducing voidling pvp presence even more and putting some of that back into Q or perhaps a reworked/modified ult."
On Kai'Sa, Riot Repertoir also noted:
"What exactly was the balance team's train of thought regarding Kai'Sa?
When handling the release of a new or reworked champion, it's not all that common that the team that created the new champion thinks the release was perfect with no issues to sort out. In this case, we've had a patch of play on Kai'Sa, players have gotten some time to explore, and the creators wanted to make some changes that they thought will improve the feel of the character. 
Obviously, there are power implications to said changes, which they consult me and/or my team about. At this point, we ask that in the event of the champion becoming too strong, are the changes still directionally correct? If the answer to that question is yes, we try to get these types of changes in sooner rather than later. 
If Kai'Sa becomes too dominant on account of the changes in 8.6, then sure, we'll nerf her. However, it's unlikely we'll just revert the changes from the patch, because again, the creators of the champion believe they were right for the long term future of the champion. I don't think it would have been right to preemptively nerf her on account of them, because although her performance is rising, it still doesn't seem alarmingly high. 
To sum up and directly answer the quoted question... the balance team's train of thought regarding Kai'Sa is that if her creators have post release changes they want to make that they're confident are in the best long term interest of the champion, then we should try and accommodate. If that increases the possibility of a nerf waiting down the road, then that's what we'll have to do."
  • Reav3 noted the next Champion Roadmap should be coming soon:
"Should be sometime after Irelia releases, so likely sometime in April." 

Reminders 

To round out this red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events!
.

No comments

Post a Comment