Surrender at 20

Red Post Collection: Quick Gameplay Thoughts: 6/15, /Dev: Addressing Your Feedback on Ranked for 2019, & More

Today's red post collection includes Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for 6/15, including more notes on snowball as well as Fizz, a new /Dev discussing feedback on ranked in 2019, a reminder on Your Shop ending soon, and more!
Continue reading for more information!


Table of Contents


Quick Gameplay Thoughts: June 15 

Check out Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for June 15, including thoughts on snowball and Fizz:
"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 
Snowball 
We're testing some changes for 8.13 at the moment aimed at reducing snowball, in particular in the early game:
  • Lower death timers at early levels, so that early deaths don't decide lanes excessively and to allow a bit more risk taking. Particularly significant since even slight differences can allow you get a chunk of a wave as it crashed into your tower (6s instead of 10s at level 1, back to current death timers around level 8).
  • Lower global gold on turrets (50 instead of 100 at present)
  • Bounties for 2 kills again. When we swapped back to solo bounty gold instead of team we also took out the 2 kill bounty on the belief that it tended to result in lanes swinging back too hard (leads being too easily undercut). In retrospect looks like that's probably a needed catch up mechanic.
Fizz 
We're testing some Fizz changes right now, looking in particular at his W and ways to replace the delayed mark with something better feeling that still backloads some damage. Options there could be things like a stronger DoT, a W with multiple casts of the AA reset or something else again. No concrete timeframe on when changes are likely to ship yet, probably on PBE in the moderate future though, potentially for a longer period to gather more feedback as with LB/Rengar."

When asked how Sterak's Gage users were doing after it's changes in 8.12, Meddler noted:
"Quote:
How sterak's users look so far?
Sterak's change doesn't seem to have affected them much at all, somewhat surprisingly. Yorick's noticeably stronger, given we also buffed him in the same patch. 
That means we'll be going with larger nerfs than we'd previously been thinking for Irelia (had been counting on Sterak's/Triforce combo loss to carry some of the power removal). Not sure about balance changes for any of the others yet, nothing currently in testing at least."

Meddler continued:
"Quote:
Which of them are overperforming(excluding obvious at every level of play)?
Pre 8.12 at least we felt GP and Camille at least were both too strong as well. We didn't nerf them separately because we expected the Sterak's change to have more impact. We'll at least look at both of them as a result."

When asked about balancing for the Worlds patch, Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Hi Meddler, 
Since you mentioned the next few patches will be balancing patches for Worlds, when will you do something on Azir/Ryze/Kalista? Before or after the Worlds patch?
The next few patches are not balancing for Worlds. Worlds will be played on 8.18 or 8.19, so it'll be a while before that's a major consideration. Our focus right now is on midseason followup and general balance. 
Nothing immediately planned for Ryze, Azir or Kalista. As previously mentioned whenever we next make changes to them they'll be simple balance changes as well, not things that attempt to overhaul parts of their kits."

On Ornn, Meddler commented:
"Quote
Hey Meddler can i ask about the Ornn changes Squad5 and Sotere are looking into? Is there more or are the only changes to his regen
They're also considering changing his W hitbox back to the values he launched with, argument being it got made too reliable post launch unnecessarily while people were still learning him. Not sure how confident they are yet about that and the regen change being what will ship yet though."

When asked whether enchanters would be seeing buffs or not, Meddler replied:
"Quote:
Hey meddler, any chances we'll see some buffs to the enchanters that got hit really hard recently? They were already being shifted out of power by the meta not favoring them since the ADC changes, but then they got their items nerfed, kits nerfed, and their banner removed. plus every champ recently has had anti shield mechanics specifically for them. I understand that they needed some power taken out of their shields, but several of them are left in a REALLY bad spot, worse than crit ADCs
Likely a small buff for Ori. We're also looking at Karma, though whether that will mean small power adjustments now and/or some kit changes a bit later is something we're still figuring out."

On Caitlyn, Meddler replied:
"Quote:
Are there no plans to buff Caitlyn along with the other marksmen?
Not yet at least. Caitlyn tends to define laning phase, in terms of who else can/can't exist in lane with her, more than almost anyone else in bot lane. She's one of the champs we're most cautious about buffing as a result, especially given even when her win rate's low she's still sometimes a much more effective pick than you'd expect."

As for what we could expect for Rageblade, Meddler replied:
"Quote:
Any infomation you can tell us about Rageblade, that u guys will be worked on?
Likely reducing the % values on the stacks at least, one of the biggest problems we feel exists with it at present is how much it's both a spike item and a late game multiplier. Possible there are larger changes in 8.13 as well, larger changes we've been testing haven't hit the mark well though, so might have to just do simpler balance adjustments for the coming patch at least."

Meddler provided his thoughts on Riven:
"Some current thoughts on Riven:
  • Her performance has been noticeably weaker than previous for around half a dozen patches.
  • That's more true at average MMR than high MMR though, where she's not as much weaker.
  • We'd expected Spear of Shojin to be a substantial buff to her. Given that's been delayed (likely back in preseason) we'll want to give her a look during the next patch cycle or two as a possible buff candidate."

/Dev: Addressing Your Feedback on Ranked for 2019 

Here's Riot SapMagic with an update on the Ranked for 2019:
"Hey everyone! Ed “SapMagic” Altorfer, the lead for Ranked, back again. A couple weeks ago we recapped the feedback we heard from you on our initial announcement about updates we’re making to Ranked next year. Since then, we’ve been hard at work refining solutions to mitigate the biggest concerns you—and frankly, we—have about the experience. 
We believe positional matchmaking and ranks can give you fairer games and meaningful ways to challenge yourself. At the same time, we heard an important piece of feedback from you that we agree with: Win or lose, every game reflects your skill and needs to matter regardless of the position or champion you’re playing. The changes we’re discussing today are aimed at making sure the system reflects both of these goals. 
YOU’RE WORRIED OTHER PLAYERS WON’T TAKE GAMES SERIOUSLY. 
SOLUTION: WINS AND LOSSES IN RANKED WILL SPLASH LP TO ALL OTHER POSITIONS. SPLASHING STARTS MODERATE (AROUND +6/-3) AND CAN BECOME STRONGER WHEN YOU WIN AUTOFILL GAMES OR IF IT LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE NOT TAKING OFF-POSITION GAMES SERIOUSLY.

Position ranks and positional matchmaking promise to let you challenge yourself with fair games in off-positions without hurting the accuracy of your main. We’ve been worried for a while that completely separate ranks make the system more grindy and create concerns about competitive intent—which is to say, some players won’t try as hard in off-position games. 
We’re adding a mechanic called splashing, which reinforces how every game reflects your skill while preventing abusers from ruining off-position games. It works like it sounds: At the end of each game, you’ll splash some LP to your other positions based on your normal gains and losses for the position being splashed to. Bear in mind, we’ll likely tune these numbers over time, but let’s talk about a couple examples of how this works: 
EXAMPLE — GETTING AUTOFILLED 
Let’s say you’re a Silver mid main and you’re usually earning around 20 LP for a win. You queue up for a game and get autofilled to support. Winning that game will net you around 6 LP for top and jungle and 10 LP for your main since you didn’t get to play it. 
EXAMPLE — GETTING UNLUCKY (OR TROLLING)

On the other hand, maybe you’re that same mid player and you’re on a losing streak trying to climb in top. The strength of splashing is determined by the number of losses out of the last X games. At first you’ll splash around -3 to your other positions, and that splashing scales up to around -15 if you’re supremely unlucky—or trolling, but we know you wouldn’t do that. 
YOU’RE WORRIED POSITIONAL MATCHMAKING CAN BE ABUSED. 
SOLUTION: THE MMRS FOR ALL YOUR POSITIONS ARE LINKED TOGETHER. OCCASIONAL POSITION SWAPPING DOESN’T HAVE ANY EFFECT, BUT REPEATED TRADING TIGHTENS THE LINK, MEANING YOU’LL GET MATCHED IN HARDER GAMES WHEN PLAYING OFF-POSITIONS.

Positional matchmaking can help us make huge improvements to how fair games feel when you get autofilled or decide to challenge yourself in new ways. Having said that, there are clearly some big problems to solve—players could consistently trade positions with a duo partner or queue up in new positions and stomp lower-skill players. 
Similar to splashing, we can mitigate these problems by linking the MMRs for all your positions. To start, that link has some slack, but we tighten it if we’re less confident about the position you’re playing. 
EXAMPLE — PLAYING A NEW POSITION 
Imagine you’re a Gold mid main. If you decide to go play a new position like top, matchmaking will look at your MMR in mid and other positions to estimate your initial skill. That means instead of getting put into a Bronze game, you’ll likely play a Silver game. 
EXAMPLE — FREQUENT TRADING 
Let’s say you’re the same player and your duo hits you up. They play top and suggest you queue up for each other’s positions and trade so you can get easier games. It takes a game or two for us to see a pattern of trades, but for those games we’ll detect that you traded positions and adjust accordingly—you’ll have decreased LP gains and increased losses since your team was favored to win. After that, the link between your MMRs will tighten and you’ll get matched in Gold games regardless of the position you’re playing. 
While it does take a couple games to tighten the MMR link and stop abuse, those games should be about the same quality as today because we don’t currently consider position skill in matchmaking. 
YOU’RE WORRIED WE’RE MAKING RANKED TOO GRINDY. 
SOLUTION: WE’RE SOFTENING THE SEASON RESET SO MOST PLAYERS WILL HAVE A HIGHER INITIAL RANK. WHEN PLAYING OFF-POSITIONS, YOU’LL HAVE LP SPLASHING, INCREASED LP GAINS AND DECREASED LOSSES, AND PROMO HELPER FOR EVERY SERIES, WHICH MEANS YOU’LL GET PROMOTED MORE QUICKLY.

Position ranks let players branch out and challenge themselves in new ways, but that might not feel rewarding if it takes twice as many games to reach your rank across two positions, let alone three, four, or all five. Alienating fill players would be a pretty clear failure to meet one of our goals: to give better recognition for breadth of skill. 
We believe we can address this concern using several mechanics we’ve already built into Ranked. We want players to be able to climb to their peak skill in two or three positions without playing significantly more games. True fill players will have to play more games if they want to max out their rank in every position, but nowhere near five times as many.  
Let’s talk specifics: 
ONE POSITION 
Starting next season, we’re going to soften the season reset, which means most players will have a higher initial rank. With other placement changes, it should take you less time to climb than today, even after considering Autofill games. This will make Ranked explicitly less grindy than today. 
TWO TO THREE POSITIONS 
You’ll have larger LP gains when playing off-positions and we’re extending Promotion Helper to all series for off-positions below your main rank. LP splashing will help considerably when playing off-positions as well since it translates some of your gains to other positions. 
FOUR TO FIVE POSITIONS 
Generalists will benefit from all the features above. We’re also making a small adjustment to splashing: When you queue as Fill, your LP splashing is stronger, which means you’ll be eligible for promotion series more quickly. 
We plan to tune how some of these work to find the right balance, but we believe they make sense in the context of the other changes we’re making and help reinforce the value of every game you play. We’ll also consider ways to recognize versatile players through Ranked rewards. 
UP NEXT 
Hopefully you’re starting to get a feel for how we’re planning to handle most of your big questions and concerns. We’ll continue the regular updates and check-ins over the next several months, with the next blog focusing on details about tier and division changes. Stay tuned! 
This is the third one of these we’ve done, so by now you probably know the drill: Thanks for all the conversation so far, let us know what you think of the changes, and we’ll be on the lookout for your suggestions and feedback! 
Oh—and if you want all the latest info on the Ranked changes for next year, check out our other blogs below: 

Visit Your Shop before it expires on June 18 

Here's Bilby with a reminder that Your Shop ends soon:
"Don’t miss out: Your Shop is open in the League client during the Curse of the Drowned event! 
Discountbot has DEMANDED that we open up Your Shop for the duration of the Curse of the Drowned event. (The bot also wanted to call it Yarr Shop, but we have to draw the line somewhere.) 
If you’re not familiar with Your Shop: 
  • The generally well-intentioned Discountbot selects six skins that it thinks you’ll like and offers them at varying discounts
  • These discounts may include Legacy skins not currently available in the store
  • If you receive a skin discount on a champion you don’t own, the same discount will also be applied to the champ
  • Ultimate, Legendary, Limited, Gemstone, and relatively new skins (released in the last three months) will not be featured in Your Shop 
Your Shop will be open for business until June 18, 2018, at 11:59 PM PT."

Reminders

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

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