Did you guys test iterations of Akshan with more power allocated to damage and if so was it way more frustrating
Yeah, before we tuned his damage down to the (aggressively) low numbers they are now, games would get out of hand fairly quickly due to his propensity to roam. Similar to Taliyah mid, gating his 1v1 power has kept him from running over his lane then the game, which previously was his win-condition.
At which point (time spent on live and winrate) would you consider buffing him if he does end up looking too weak and, to add to that, which aspects of his kit look to be a target for such buffs? This isnt me asking you already to consider him for buffs but just hypothetically speaking.
We usually do a quick check to see if he's micropatch worthy (that's today, actually), then would look again come next patch.
We would likely target areas that make him "easier" for people less familiar with his pattern. This could be early AD/waveclear to assist with farming or base durability so he gets less punished for misplays.
Read moreDon't mean to be rude, but I guess I just don't see how his abilities really fit into each other? Why does his passive (with the double-shot and cancelling it for MS and shield) work the way it does? Why is his ultimate a charge-up Caitlyn ult? The revive is one thing, but considering he's supposed to be a marksman assassin, the rest of his kit doesn't seem that well suited for it? Like, he intentionally has low DPS and all of his utility is in his revive, sure. But how does he assassinate someone? Wait till they're low, stealth in then Q-AA-R? How does he snowball? What can he do except hope for a shutdown in a teamfight if he falls behind? His laning doesn't even seem that good for a midlane marksman.
Sorry if this is a lot, I just see his kit as being more scattered and all over the place than any release since, I don't know, Neeko? Despite all the balance complaints, champion kits in the past few years have usually done a great job of being cohesive and properly communi...
The points on kit cohesion are less my wheelhouse, so I'll defer that one to a designer.
As for the "How does this all add up to a functional play pattern?" part, that I can speak to. Akshan's power is meant to come from opportune roaming, which each portion of his kit is meant to feed into. His Q is meant to provide wave clear so he can push for priority in mid lane to have first moves on roams. His W (the stealth and MS and mana regen) are there to enable him to arrive at a fight undetected and quickly. And lastly, his E and R are meant to chase down those that get away.
To your point though, his DPS is low, his targets being full health usually makes them non-targets for him, which is why roaming to fights that your team has initiated is his strength.
Can we expect his mastery curve to be shared after players settle into his playstyle? Would like to see how hard he is and how he compares to champs we have mastery curves of in difficulty
That's an interesting idea. I'd love to find an opportunity in the future to share my (and my team's) learnings from Akshan development/launch, including things like mastery win-rate growth.
I figured I'd take this opportunity to post some quick personal thoughts on how I see our game design in league of legends evolving. In response to Akshan, the general consensus has went from "Look at all these unique tools Akshan has, how can he possibly not be OP/overloaded and exist in the same game as Udyr/Annie?" to "Wait, this champion is REALLY weak and his W is holding him back". And this evolution in thought is interesting because it really speaks to how much there is left to learn about power budgets in League of Legends.
Champions can win in a variety of ways in League of Legends. Some of them are super obvious, stat-stick style win-conditions (a-la Jax or Jinx) where they just have big numbers that add up to winning fights heads-up. Inversely, though, some champions have power budget shifted into less obvious win conditions, like Bard's super unique utility/roaming power or Ivern's contributions to utility for his team (like buff sharing and low-econ jungling). ...
Read moreEnders door is cracked, literally unwatchable
my brother punched it LMAO
I believe in testing we found that without being able to cancel it with move commands, people (especially those new to Akshan) get "stuck" on the swing and don't get off when they want to. It's instinct for players to right click to move, especially since you can jump off in a specific direction to dodge skillshots.
With all this said, it's possible we should have just locked players out of accidentally jumping off instead. Not 100% sure here what's the best version.
That's a bit too op, no? Takes the fun out of grinding cuz I just finished a game and I got 700 points like wtf LOL the story felt earned before now I feel as if I'm speedrunning mario.
It's still quite a lot of games to finish the story as a whole. We'd like the average player to be able to see most or all of the event story, even if that means that people who play a lot get through it pretty quickly. Our initial tuning was way off, hence this large correction which, while a bit clunky, is we think a lot better than waiting until next event to change tunings.
It should by live right now, but they said multiple times this mission won't be on missions tab, just play a game and you should get your 600 points.
It went live recently (as in, today). Wasn't there right at patch launch though, so can certainly understand a bit of confusion here
Is it just a 1 time thing?
Nope, repeatable each game
when will the 600 point mission be released? I can't see it if it's there already
It's hidden, but it should be active now
TIL (thanks!)
I'm here for you and all your ancient Riot trivia needs. And I love being pedantic about pronunciation!
That was actually the canon pronunciation from before you joined the company. There was literally a thread on the LoL forums saying, "Hey, so we want a champion whose name is pronounced need-a-lee. Which of these spellings works best for you?"
But as players made "Nid-a-lee" her pronunciation over the years we eventually retconned it.
TIL (thanks!)
That's Phreak's pronunciation framework, not the rest of us!
That was actually the canon pronunciation from before you joined the company. There was literally a thread on the LoL forums saying, "Hey, so we want a champion whose name is pronounced need-a-lee. Which of these spellings works best for you?"
But as players made "Nid-a-lee" her pronunciation over the years we eventually retconned it.
Phreak said in Dive podcast he’s North African not South Asian
Apparently I was misinformed! I had heard both and went with the one I heard more recently.
When is chapter 3 coming out? /u/Reav3
in an hour
Is this comment Nidalee specific, or for uck-shan vs ack-shan too? The world (aka Reddit) needs to know!
This was more about Nid-A-Lee.
I've heard it pronounced Ack-Shan fairly consistently internally, wouldn't swear though that that's intended versus just internal misunderstanding too
+1, South Asian inspired was very much the target here for Akshan
Riot's official pronunciation for Nidalee is "Needlee."
I protest Riot's pronunciation framework.
That's Phreak's pronunciation framework, not the rest of us!
This is what I always hope my Vayne games will look like when I try her. They don’t.
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