[2023] Phreak: "On day 1 (after the patch), more than half of Zeri players built Trinity Force first item. So we know that players don't read"

Originally posted by Sluukje

Would help if the tooltips would have all the info that is involved with that skill tho. Lot's of times there's vague descriptions and no real numbers.

Originally posted by averysillyman

Would it be possible for game designers to actively code in single-patch exceptions to the recommendation system when they make a big change to a champion that they expect will make the current popular build no longer viable? (Like when Azir's recommended skill order was intentionally hard-coded to be W max after his rework.)

Not every player can be expected to do the theorycraft necessary to figure out the implications of all patch changes. So it would be great if the recommender could err on the side of caution to avoid recommending something completely troll.

For example, if you make a big change to Zeri to remove Triforce synergy, then the recommender should stop recommending Triforce for one patch. If it turns out that Triforce is still good on Zeri after the nerf, then the recommender will go right back to recommending it on the next patch, and for that one patch where Triforce wasn't being recommended, well at least those players who autopilot recommended builds were building the second best option so their builds were still probably okay. On the other hand, if the recommender keeps recommending Triforce after the nerf and it turns out the item is actually awful, then everybody who plays Zeri and autopilots the recommended build just ends up accidentally trolling their team with a horrible build.

Originally posted by RiotAugust

When designing new champs we have to consider the fact that many players, all the way up to challenger, don't read tooltips. If a champ has a mechanic that can only be learned by reading a TT, it is likely that a good chunk of players will not know it exists.