Haha thats me on Orianna! That is a hilarious clip that we always like to revisit for the laughs. I remember we theorized that since Orianna Q is a projectile that interaction would work like that, but we never saw it in action until this clip where we had completely forgotten about it!
I've gotta ask:
What was the closest design you ever came to a Yandere/Sadist style champion? And will we ever get one that goes 110% for those thematics?
We only have an influence on the game design aspect of the champions! There are teams that are dedicated to narrative, aka the story and lore of a champion, while we work separately on what that champion actually does in the game. For the most part they flesh out the character themselves but occasionally they have to work around the game design aspects (for example Akshan's revive was written into the story based on the mechanic we added into the game) so its possible something like the thematic you are describing appears in League, whether its through game mechanics or story writing, but I can't say for sure as I don't work on those teams.
Oh well thats interesting to know. I played 2 games of her on PBE and the occasional getting uno reversed card after diving with it felt bad as well. The dash targetted on an enemy on a mage I guess is gonna have pros and cons eitherway.
Wait. Could you guys maybe have it work like Kaisa R?
Also tried that! Had similar problems but also ended up giving the Vex player too much power and agency in a spell that could reset on kill.
Might I ask if there's a chance it could be changed to dash like Ivern Q where you're at auto range away from the target rather than in their face?
That might help the suicidal feeling of casting it. Cause I can just imagine lots of vex's getting tilted if they get baited by something like Trynd R or Steraks or Hexdrinker or something. And die because they dashed into a melee champ with something like that.
We tried this, and it often interfered with Vex wanting to cast W while fear was up after casting R. That kind of anti-synergy in a kit feels pretty bad, so we ended up not going in that direction.
How did Vex ultimate dash turned out in playtest?
Did it feel weird for a vulnerable mage to get in the middle of team fights with the second cast?
The second cast has so much damage so its inevitable that one has to use it
But like if you get into middle of team fights being a squishy mage, like suddenly from a ranged position to a melee position, isn't it awkward to position out of that chaos again, to move to a new place?
Like imagine dashing and then getting 1 shotted by the many assassin, skirmisher, junglers, irelia, darius and maybe even the enemy mage because you are throwing yourself into them and if you dont then you are not doing much damage? If lucky then you kill one and die or maybe kill two and die.
Doesn't feels very excitingThis is same type of weird awkwardness that Neeko's kit has. Range Q E and suddenly melee R. Maybe Vex will be a hit in Neeko playerbase but not in Lux, Sera's playerbase
Abilities like Vex R have a lot of what we call "levers" that can heavily change how the spell actually plays out in practice. From simple things like missle speed and width to more complex things like damage split on the missile hitting v when Vex actually takes the R, as well as of course the complexities of whether or not it can reset and the conditions (kills only?, takedowns?, 2 seconds reset timer or 10?, 3seconds recast timer or 15?). All of the added complexities make for a completely different spell with even the slightest change of any of them, let alone multiple at once. A lot of testing is experimenting with those levers until what we find feels like hits our goals for the spell and are satisfied with the output of the ability.
I recall Yone's designer talked about a spell he had that, in summary, gave Yone a free dash towards enemy champions after they used a dash. It stuck around in his development for a really long time before they canned it.
Interestingly, Yone W was also a heal and not a shield for the longest time, right up until just before ship!
Oh neat, Afic wrote this one. I've heard horror stories from him about champions like Pyke and their earlier iterations. IIRC his W used to make him invisible (not camouflaged) and it reset on kills/assists.
Early iterations on champions are always fun, Akshan for example had his R as a basic ability when the ability was first introduced onto the kit.
No matter what happens comrade, it was an honor to fight by your side
That makes a lot sense I suppose, I remember him being a terror in earlier seasons.
If I may ask one last question, I know you guys (some of the team) are active on Reddit. But how do you balance this issue with other non-english regions?
If I recall right Malzahar is LOATHED in a lot of the Chinese and eastern servers. But Yasuo is just "okay" and not a big deal. Similar for champs like Fizz. How do you balance that kind of thing?
Or do you find champs like Malz and their penance to be uninteractive just easier to adjust? Because I feel in a lot of regions, people find champions with too much interaction are frustrating, but other regions tend to find champions with not enough to instead be annoying.
We simply use data from all servers, the mistmatch of player preference based on region all gets evened out when you look at the data as a whole, and it also allows us to not hone in on outliers in one region that are fine within a holistic view of the game.
Thanks for the reply!
But honest question: why? Yasuo is almost never picked in pro play and is only somewhat viable if there is a diana. So he's far from being a decent pick now.
His soloQ winrate is solidly average, but on the higher end of average as such that we don't think we could buff him for pro without running a high risk of increasing his soloQ winrate beyond balanced levels.
can't believe yone becomes first when it comes to buff him or yasuo. Yasuo is way harder to play and does not have a get out of jail free card as yone.
I like Yasuo just as much as I do Yone but Yasuo simply didnt have enough room for a pro-focused power increase while Yone did.
Fwiw Yasuo has gotten changes over the years to remedy the frustration. I think Yone will kind of see that trimming in the same way. Yasuo losing permanent armor pen on ulting was what made me not utterly loathe him. I think when the meta shifts to be less sustain heavy they'll be more manageable in solo queue.
I do have to wonder what champion is notorious for being frustrating just consistently? Outside of Yasuo. Pyke used to be if I recall.
Zed is probably my guess, he has an average winrate but had been nearing a 50% banrate before we nerfed him. I haven’t looked the data post-nerf however but historically players have always regarded him with frustration
What do you think about nerfing the true damage dealt after Yone exits his E? And buffing him elsewhere?
Possible, but risky as it runs the risk of lessening part of the Yone fantasy of using E as a finisher.
At what point does player satisfaction play into the equation? It's all well and good that flashy pro play champions are picked, but if that has a detrimental effect on player satisfaction surely it's not a good change?
Thats right, we don’t want any of these changes to come at the expense of the rest of League of Legends whether it be through winrate or satisfaction or otherwise. We carefully selected these changes with that in mind, and did the higher risk changes a patch prior to worlds to allow us to make the necessary adjustments on 11.19 if need be.
Were you maining to bring him to pro play in midlane or toplane? Either way wont happen at worlds, pretty sure. Just wondering what role you were aiming for.
Mid lane is the goal
Respectfully as possible, how do you determine a champions "frustration" to play against is worth changes? Personally I hate going against Yone, but can see that he is fun for the player. But at what point does their fun out way my misery for changes to be made?
Because going against this champion can just be a nightmare at times, and he is VERY popular simultaneously. But unlike Yas, that's not the core of why I find him unenjoyable to go against. Yasuo is everywhere but Yone is just frustrating.
There really is no "official" way as frustration is VERY subjective. Banrate is a good start but you have to look at it within the context on winrate as well. A champion with a high banrate but also high winrate makes sense, players ban them because they are powerful. A champion with a high banrate but average winrate is a sign that champion is likely leading a a lot of frustration in players and probably feeling more powerful than they actually are. Samira was an example of a champion that we changed to target frustration. Her winrate was average but her banrate was very high, so we targeted some of the areas players had been voicing their opinion felt the most powerful, and changed her dash to only work on allies (she felt too mobile and hard to lock down) and increased her R CD from 3 to 8 seconds (she felt like she had too easy access to her ultimate multiple times in a fight). We also decreased her W duration and her E dash speed to help increase her counterplay. Her banrate d...
Read moreJust a quick question, I'm sure you must have plenty of stats and trends to back the changes but what happens if the champions that received pro play adjustments got little to no picks in pro play?
It is honestly pretty likely to happen with how many champions we are changing, and we are OK with that. If they don't get picked, they might be revisited in the future or we may just accept that the champion is not seeing play and move on.
Is it true that only riot employees can have riot in their summoner name?
Yes
was that on her ultimate? i think it could be more fair then
All of it was on a basic ability which made it very difficult to tune around.
What’s the normal process is like? I remember the change to xin zhao’s w was shipped pretty quickly
Xin Zhao's changes were something that we tested internally for months before we shipped it, as we do for most changes. The normal process is the changes go to PBE a patch (2 weeks) before they ship.
devtrackers.gg