[2021] Everything you need to know about the new IXTALI SEEDJAR item

This is actually something we originally talked about doing, but moved away from due to the added complexity and what it would do to the tooltip. Seedjar is already a very complex item and we did a lot of fiddling to help with things like picking up seeds (the video did a great job showing these).

Fun fact, early in dev we had a bug with player-placed blastcones. If it was used next to a tower it would knock the tower's hitbox, health bar, and fire point (basically all the logic but not the model) away. So visibly you would still see the tower where it was. But it would actually be firing from behind a wall or where ever you knocked it back to, but visually the tower would still be in the same place.

Because of the item's learning curve, both on the player with Ixtali Seedjar and their team, we expected to see early feedback that it was weak. If this continues to be the case we will address it, don't worry we are not putting it out into the game without monitoring it.

One thing I am very happy about seeing is the excitement for the item, and how quickly everyone seems to be picking up on how to interact with it at a base level. Obviously, there will still come some understands around when/how to use plants, but it seems like the starting points are solid.

We have talked about different kinds of tweaks/changes we can make if it ends up being weak or too niche. We do this for major content updates, but obviously, it gets adapted and changed on a case-by-case basis.

A lot of what I have been seeing is about the item's state line, we choose this line for a few reasons.

1. It is a good alternative to Zeke's. While Zeke's is good in team fights, this item was intended for a bit of roaming/being on your own. This put it in a place where you were unlikely to get both, and they would compete for the same slot.
2. We felt it was more exciting for tanky/roaming supports than enchanters. While initially, we thought the idea of a gardening item fit better with the babysitter mindset of enchanters, it ends up being less interesting. Enchanters put themselves into fewer risky situations so giving them more Honeyfruit felt wrong, similarly, the Blastcone is more interesting for tanks too whereas it doesn't do much for an enchanter.
3. The whole "harvesting seeds" aspect of the item necessitates leaving lane or roaming. Enchanters are also going to roam/leave lane less so they would have less access to plants around the map. So a tank item made sense here.
4. We avoided health because Seedjar effectively gives you health via Honeyfruit, though we understand that many players feel a tank item needs health to feel good.
5. The passive +5% MS is something that we felt was important to have to help signal the roaming aspect of the item and help with the collection of seeds.
   

We also wanted to avoid making this a mandatory pick-up for Scryer's Bloom's vision and felt it was best served as a playstyle choice or option in a given situation. We don't think that the support role should be all about controlling vision while this playstyle appeals to some players it can be difficult to recognize the impact vision has, both as the support player and also for your team.

What about its current stat makes you feel this way? Is it the stat line, or the chosen stats themself? Or is it in relation to the item's effect? Or both? If the item is weak you can expect us to buff it, this could be its stats, price, or something with its effect. But we wouldn't want to reach a situation where it is overloaded with stats and the effect is secondary.

Good questions, these are the kinds of decisions that designers need to deal with that most people don't tend to think about. Because of the complexity of the Seedjar we knew we couldn't fit everything into the tooltip. If we had tried to give plenty of details, such as seed growth time or per seed CD, its tooltip would be very long and wordy and turn people away when we put so much work into making something that we hoped would be easy to pick up and run with rather quickly through the item's theming. Though that doesn't mean it couldn't be clearer, and we could look at rewording it if needed.

Originally it would just drop the seed and if you had Seedjar you would need to run over and pick it up. But the Blastcone's made this annoying/painful for melee champions, they would hit the Blastcone go flying, then walk back to pick it up. It also annoying for ranged champions who interact with the world at range and would need to put themselves more into harm's way.

We never tested a version where you would automatically get the seed when an ally hit a plant, our thought was that it would be difficult to communicate who got the seed if multiple people on a team had Seedjar, and we didn't want to overload the world with plants when just one was broken (both for performance, and game feel reasons), this way we keep the number of plants relatively the same. It also meant we avoided situations where you, as the player with Seedjar, would randomly pick up a seed because an ally hit a plant. This could be a pain if you were going to place ward, and suddenly you placed a Honeyfruit instead. By making you pick up the seed yourself you both A) acknowledge that you are picking up the seed (thus avoiding surprises), and B) you get to choose what you want to do, and when you want to do it. In the previous situation, you can place the ward and then go back to pick up the Honeyfruit seed.

We could look at making seed a bit more obvious if this ends up being a core problem for the item. Given that picking them up is primarily done out of combat, and at set locations so I expect them to be noticeable in most cases. And we wouldn't want them to be super flashy so that they detract from team fights and enemy spells.

(Fun fact 2, the placeholder for the seed was a Ziggs bomb and everyone could see them. This was very confusing when you would see a bomb sparking and all and had no idea why.)

It would be very unlikely to make a change like this. We don't think vision control is the direction for this item (though that is an aspect of it) or is something that should become the primary responsibility for one role.

We do expect there to be some difficulty, especially early on with this item. But luckily Honeyfruit and Scryer's Bloom don't take much coordination.

If it ends up needing some love we have different directions we can take. It just depends on what the problems are in that situation. This might be with the items stats, build path, or tweaks to the effect itself.

If finding seeds ends up being a pain point for the item then I expect we will be looking into ways to make this clearer. Though I am not convinced it is in most cases. The first time seeing/hearing about the item will likely lead to confusion for some players, but even in those cases, I expect that after the initial confusion it will come together well.

Making sure players could quickly understand the item is a key part of its success or failure. In playtests, we would tell testers the name of the item, and the brief concept, before seeing how quickly they figured it out. Generally, testers were able to understand everything they needed to know rather quickly, but if that doesn't translate well into the live environment we can look into it.

Sorry for the formatting, I'm writing this on mobile.

" I hope my opinion can be valuable to you anyway."

It is helpful for sure. While Jinx isn't expected to be buying this item she would still be interacting with it in her games. And we want it to be understandable to its core users, but also not unapproachable to the rest of the player base.

" For me, Zeke is definitely one of the reasons why I see the Seedjar as lackluster. I do understand that you gain 5 more armor and magic resist with the jar, as well as 5% move speed and a cute gardening ability that may or may not be clutch. But who will choose that over Zeke's ability haste, mana and powerful passive? I am aware that you can buy the jar and Zeke, but I just feel like any other item is just at least a tiny bit "better". I am relatively new to LoL and Wild Rift, so seeing that the way to make an item stand out is to give it +5% move speed is weird for me. Like, 5% is not much and multiple other items give that exact same, underwhelming bonus. Why not make it a tiny more to actually make it stand out? "

It's possible that the item will need some love, but if we are happy with the effect and the stat line, but feel that it needs to give more then this is an easy change for us to make. As for the movement speed itself, 5% is our standard value in these cases kinds of cases. We don't want to go over that unless the movement speed is the item's identity (See Deadman's Plate) but it is a good way to help signal the item's intent while helping with its goals (in this case collecting seeds). It isn't so much that move speed is the item's identity,

" Obviously I am no balance expert. But aside from the gardening ability (which I love, if I had not said it enough), the jar feels underwhelming overall. The Singed of items is what I kept thinking of, while editing that video for hours. I find it funny, but also kinda sad. I wish power creep was real for such an item: make it too strong so it is meta and we can see its potential. Then tune it down. Why always make the cooler item/champs op? Give us OP jar!"

We are keeping an eye on it's balance for sure. Balance is always a tricky thing with all the variables that go into any situation, item, or champion. But I can promise you that we do alot to hit within a relatively balanced state. We do not try to make something OP, champion or item. When even account for this with learning curves, this is a high learning curve item and expect the perception to be that it is weak at release. I think a perfect example here from earlier in the game is Kat, at her launch data told us that she was weak, but we knew she was a champion with a high learning curve so we left her alone. Over a few patches she started to look good, and actually was strong without us doing anything, until we had to nerf her.

The important thing here is that if it is weak because of stats/price that is easy for us to adjust. But is the effect desirable, and if so is it weak in some way?

"The fruits replenish your health, but that is no use when you are fighting and need extra HP. The defensive stats are strong though.

My video has only about 5 comments, and one of which is a guy complaining that the item gives no health. lol"

While it isn't Max health most fights don't start at full health, or involve some amount of poke before hand. I'm interested to see how Honeyfruit is used in team fights, we've all had fights were we snag a fruit mid fight, or duck out for a quick heal before rejoining. The defensive stats are multipliers here on that healing. This isn't to say that we couldn't/wouldn't make adjustments to it's stats, but I do think players tend to, understandably, overvalue health over other defensive stats.

"The jar does not stand out in any way other than its never-see-before passive, and the fact that it gives tiny tiny more armor/MR than Zeke's does. I just find it... boring?"

It's not the most exciting stat line for sure, this goes back to what I am saying with health. But the exciting part of an item shouldn't be it's stats, if that is the case the items effect likely needs some work. This is doubly true for playstyle/fantasy items like Seedjar. What do you feel is lacking here?

"I cannot wait to see it used by high-level players, or even in tournaments."

Same!

"One last thing: is there a way to give such feedback and talk with devs like I am doing now, but without first having to spend 6 hours editing a video and having you stumble upon my Reddit post by luck? A forum or something? Because I want this to happen again! And because I think people must have an entirely different opinion than mine on the Seedjar, so I wish I could read about them."

​Here tends to be a good place. Even if we aren't posting we pay attention to what playing are saying. I know for me personally I try to jump in when I see an interesting discussion that falls within the kind of work I do. But don't worry you shouldn't need to make a video for us to see feedback =p. Though they are enjoyable and I wouldn't say no to seeing more from players.

Endstep, from the balance team, also does a patch review on his Twitch channel each patch where he chats about the reasons for different changes and answers questions.

Our communication peeps, like Draggles, are also great and help keep us aware of things going on.

"Thanks for replying with so much care and interesting insights!"

I'm always happy to, I'm stoked you are enjoying the game! Thanks for caring so much about it yourself, and giving us the space to talk about our work and improve it.