[2019] Riot August on Why Skill Shots Indicators Aren't Perfectly Accurate

Originally posted by abibyama

For what it's worth, I'd like to point out to those bitching at August that this is just a classic case of Game Designers fudging exact numbers to match human perception.

This happens in nearly every single game, and despite what all of you who are convinced you're special and unique want to believe, everyone wants it this way.

What you want to happen is rarely what actually happens, so designers frequently tweak things like this to match expectations

The most classic example of this usually presented is the Mario jump, where there's actually a small, typically unnoticeable delay after walking off an edge where pressing the jump button will still result in a jump.

The Human brain does not like reality, to be perfectly clear. COUNTLESS games have done the whole "perfect accuracy" thing and discovered in playtesting that players whine and say either it doesn't "feel right" or that it "didn't respond how it's supposed to", insistent that they're somehow a more objective view of the situation than the literal computer doing the perfect mathematical calculations.

Game Designers need to balance accuracy against human expectation, because decades of game design have shown very clearly that players refuse to accept their own shortcomings.

In short: Stop bitching, they're doing this for you because you'd whine about PERFECTLY ACCURATE, 100% CORRECT THINGS for "not feeling right" if they actually matched things exactly. There's literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of articles, essays, video analysis, and so on regarding the topic of managing human expectation in game design

Originally posted by mrslakes

Alright Reddit so what am I supposed to complain about this time?

Originally posted by DM_ME_LEWD_KINDRED

Ok.

Now have Riot August explain why nautilus Q hooks thro walls.

Curious to hear the next joke.

Originally posted by abibyama

For what it's worth, I'd like to point out to those bitching at August that this is just a classic case of Game Designers fudging exact numbers to match human perception.

This happens in nearly every single game, and despite what all of you who are convinced you're special and unique want to believe, everyone wants it this way.

What you want to happen is rarely what actually happens, so designers frequently tweak things like this to match expectations

The most classic example of this usually presented is the Mario jump, where there's actually a small, typically unnoticeable delay after walking off an edge where pressing the jump button will still result in a jump.

The Human brain does not like reality, to be perfectly clear. COUNTLESS games have done the whole "perfect accuracy" thing and discovered in playtesting that players whine and say either it doesn't "feel right" or that it "didn't respond how it's supposed to", insistent that they're somehow a more objective view of the situation than the literal computer doing the perfect mathematical calculations.

Game Designers need to balance accuracy against human expectation, because decades of game design have shown very clearly that players refuse to accept their own shortcomings.

In short: Stop bitching, they're doing this for you because you'd whine about PERFECTLY ACCURATE, 100% CORRECT THINGS for "not feeling right" if they actually matched things exactly. There's literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of articles, essays, video analysis, and so on regarding the topic of managing human expectation in game design

Originally posted by AnataBakka

at least fix indicators when there's a difference in the z axis.

you only made the example of people launching the skill shot and saying "Oh nice I didn’t expect that root to hit!"

but what about the other side, when the hitbox is misleading and people say "WTF? That shouldn't have hit me."

Did you try fixing it and then people in playtesting started saying again "That hitbox is so weird. I point it somewhere but it fires elsewhere."?

Originally posted by Hanyodude

I don’t think you would have gotten the backlash you did on the boards if you worded it as effectively as you did here. This makes a lot more sense since you typed the whole thing out. I don’t use the board though, so whatever lol that’s just observation.

But anyways, what do you think of an idea that shows a ghost indicator of a lighter transparent color that just shows maximum range in addition to all the current indicator? Possibly a toggle-able feature? Nothing fancy in shape, but just an exact outline of the accurate spells hit box and range. Especially if it could be toggled on and off, nobody could complain about either side of the argument ever again.

P.S. Thank you August, for being the only person at Riot that i have faith in to make good decisions. That new designer that made Sett is showing some promise too.

Originally posted by stopfeedingplz

I wish he never opened his clown mouth. This is not even funny

Originally posted by stopfeedingplz

How sad do you have to be to read through every single comment in this thread and then stalk every last person who shat on your opinion?

Originally posted by EndoSym

I mean sure people are going to be upset if they missed more than expected but what about the player that is the target, those who will say: " this shit never hit me". I feel like its the same thing with akali, Riot really doesnt care how something feels when you are the target or the one who plays against it, the only thing that matters is the player per se, everything else is irrelevant.

Originally posted by Knox627

Indicators should correctly show the flight path of the projectile, irrespective of whether it hits the target at max range or not. I want to talk a bit about this part

I ran into this problem with Jinx W. When the indicator was exactly accurate people were more likely to tell me it “missed more than expected.” This is because, while the missile is very fast, it still has travel time so shooting at someone who is max range away will almost never hit them. A shorter indicator was more representative of the “effective max range.”

Consider a situation where the target is standing still inside a bush, waiting for you to walk up to kill you. You use the indicator to see whether you can W him or not, but the indicator will say that he is out of range, even if he is not. You walk up a little and end up in lethal range of the guy in the brush.

I have lost count of the number of times someone threw a game because they got hit by a skillshot that was clearly supposed to miss. It makes me even more angry when I look at the replay to check. Just because some people "feel" that they are not missing skillshots doesn't justify adding false information. Adjusting/shortening indicators like that is just giving bad players a crutch to make them feel better. It becomes even more hilarious when pro games show highlights and replays of skillshots in slow motion, that land even though they are clearly not supposed to hit.

If people argue that they "feel" like they missed, they can always look at the replay to verify (after you fix the indicators, of course). You have to keep in mind that in higher elos, people do consider travel time to hit their abilities (and dodge/sidestep the enemy ability), and in such scenarios, having indicators that give accurate information will always help.