Quick Gameplay Thoughts: February 7

Riot Scruffy

NA
Hey all, Scruffy here with some insight into our gameplay direction and upcoming changes. **Balance Framework Fine Tuning**We’ve been working with a standardized balance framework for over a year and we’re constantly looking to tweak and improve it over time. The Summoner's Rift Team has a small but hopefully meaningful set of changes that we’ve been testing this year and are using going forward. Normal Play (Iron - Gold) * For both normal and skilled play, we’re tightening the OP line a bit after looking back at the full year (2019) and seeing that we trended towards buffs over nerfs. Ideally we find the right balance so that we don’t have power increase or decrease over time. * OLD: OP if 54.5% win rate if < avg banrate, down to 52.5% win rate if >5x avg banrate * NEW: OP if 54% win rate if < avg banrate, down to 52.5% win rate if >5x avg banrate * For Example - Our new system flagged Diana for nerfs in 10.3 (at 53.7% win rate, 23% ban rate) which we would not have gotten from the old. Skilled Play (Plat - Master) * OLD: OP if 54% win rate if < avg banrate, down to 52.5% win rate if >5x avg banrate * NEW: OP if 53.5% win rate if < avg banrate, down to 52.5% win rate if >5x avg banrate * For Example - Our new system flagged Senna ADC as OP in skilled when the old system would not have. Elite Play (Grandmaster - Challenger) * No changes at this time, but we’re working on ways to have a more game data driven system here. Our current usage of picks and bans is approximately correct, but we think that we can get a more accurate picture of champion balance with game data like win rates here. Professional Play * Unlike Elite play, we think pick and ban data here provides a very good representation of champ power. We’re still tweaking this a little to reduce the amount of patch notes for pro during most of the year and then amp up our focus as worlds approaches. * OLD: OP if >90% presence for 1 patch or >80% presence for 2 patches * NEW: OP if >95% presence for 1 patch or > 85% presence for 2 patches. Increased focus for major events (worlds / MSI). **Widening the Jungle Champ Pool**When we’re digging into our results and follow ups from this year’s preseason, we were really struck by a problem in the Jungle role that we’d never been able to fix - throughout League's entire history, low Elo players have preferred the jungle position least of all 5 positions, regardless of whether jungle is strong or weak relative to the other 4 positions. We think this will take a variety of changes to fix in the long term, but we want to also do some short-term work to improve jungle appeal. In 10.4 we’re going to try adding a handful of champs that we (and you) love into the jungle pool. We’d be doing very focused changes that buff these champs' jungle clears but leave their lanes unchanged. Not all of these may ship but here is our current list: * Garen (we’re also doing some light changes to make bruiser items more viable compared to attack speed builds) * Diana * Zed * Talon * Darius **Soraka in solo lanes**We’re working on some targeted nerfs to Soraka to prevent her from being a dominant pick in solo lanes with a pretty low quality gameplay experience. Her self healing pattern (Q) was built to be risky and semi reliable against ranged opponents, but in the 1v1 vs a melee it’s low risk and too hard to dodge. **More Aphelios followup**Few more changes should be coming for Aphelios in 10.4 to help increase the clarity playing against him, and overall bring him into a more balanced state: * Better understanding of his guns - We’re adding his offhand gun icon to his health bar * Less surprising Rs - We’re lowering the range on his R and amping up the color differentiation so that you can better tell when an R is coming and what it will do. * More clear turret threat - We’re looking into ways to make his turret visuals convey their actual high threat so that players react to them more quickly. * More balanced - He seems to still be strong even after 10.2 so we’re going to do another set of nerfs to put him into a better spot **Sunfire Cape Improvements**Sunfire currently is a bit underpowered, giving us the opportunity to buff it in ways that improve the tank experience in the late game. Damage focused classes scale up with items in a way that speeds up and eases their farming patterns, while tanks still can struggle to clear even after multiple items. Our current changes in testing are: * Immolate burn is increased by 1.5% of the wearers bonus HP for 4 seconds after you apply an immobilizing (same rule as fiora W) crowd control to an enemy **Stopwatch**Currently we believe Stopwatch is being used too often by a wide range of champions in a typical game. This leads to both a feeling of homogenous powers across every champ but also it can be too good at stifling action and negating burst. We’re looking into how we want to change/reduce its presence in the upcoming patches. Scruffy https://twitter.com/MarkYetter https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/9.24.2/img/champion/Sion.png

Posts are displayed here in chronological (time, oldest first, newest last) order, like a regular web forum.

Spideraxe (NA)
Hey Scruffy can i ask, despite it being a little early, how well the Yuumi and Akali hotfixes have been, have their winrates climbed?

RakellanEUW (EUW)
Any thoughts on sivir and/or kalista. Sivir seems to need some love

YoungGooby (NA)
Is there any reason Aphelios turrets have a 50% bonus AD ratio while simultaneously being as difficult to kill as three heimerdingers combined or five zyra plants combined?

SilverMaster (EUW)
Yeah, let's nerf Soraka and ignore the problem that exists for 4 years! Top lane Impact. I won't do any suggestions to toplane since it's a dead lane for me and I don't have any idea how it could be more meaningful to toplane mains like me. There are plenty of ideas you could ask since Soraka isn't really the problem here, toplane is. I say it again. Toplane is the problem NOT Soraka.

Gen Blood Sword (NA)
Would the Talon Changes by any chance be allowing his passive to proc on large monsters, maybe at a lower percent of champ damage if it becomes to strong? It seems the obvious choice to give jungle power without actually affecting the lane.

Chiwi (EUW)
Toplane is really shit right now. Can we like make it actually being able to impact the game?

cardinals1392 (NA)
High stopwatch usage is the natural result of high burst damage. It would need substantial nerfs to actually decrease its presence.

FF1224 (NA)
I see Aphelios is getting nerfs but is he also getting bugfixes? Theres 3 off the top of my head. 1. cant auto after depleteing a weapon with an abilitiy 2. Turrets despawning early when activated 3. Dieing during R cast time still activates ability but doesnt put it on cd

CharleyLooney (NA)
Why on Akali you decide to cut her ultimate cooldown in half and buff the ult damage by 50% in an hotfix when other champions get +5/10 dmg on one spell every other patch because you're afraid of going too far. And Akali got a gameplay change it's normal if people continue to play her like before they will be more vulnerable to ganks / get a lower winrate.

Véntus (EUW)
can we get some buffs to adc in genral the role is the worst role in the game to play right now no agency over the game untill 35 mins unless ur playing s10 champs its really insane how bad it is

Dat Irelia Booty (EUW)
Hi Scruffy! Some thoughts about Riven? long time i didn,t hear something about her from the balance team.And is something about the toplane improvement?

Gunnerlain (OCE)
With regards to broadening jungle, is there any hope for more mages? I recall minor work being done on zyra / morg jungle, but they were never really touched afterwards and the only mage jungler that's been prevalent recently is Karthus.
Riot Games user

Riot Scruffy (NA)
We're working on some more toplane impact improvements. Nothing tangible enough to talk about today but it's definitely high on our priorities.

Kyunsei (EUW)
What about Jungle Tryndamere ?

Chubbles (NA)
HI Scruffy, last year you guys made a series of changes primarily targeting pro play balance for worlds, where you ignore the framework. After worlds was over you left those changes in giving us the ekko jungle + engage support meta for months, pretty much all of whom have now received nerfs. Any chance you guys would be willing to revert balance changes targeting pro play immediately after worlds was over?

ZelosRiven (EUW)
I think is not a good idea buff sunfire when Ornn is super strong at the moment and tanks dominate bruisers in the lane phase at the moment,If you will buff sunfire buff at least black cleaver for melee champions or at least nerf Ornn.
Riot Games user

Riot Scruffy (NA)
They look about right: Yuumi - we intended a 1-2% buff -Patch released - she moved non -After hotfix shes up about 1.5% Akali - we intended a 3-4% nerf (46.5 in 10.2) -Patch release she dropped 7-8% (depending on elo and lane) (38% ish) -After hotfix shes up to about 42% (which is roughly on target

EliFrost (NA)
Any thoughts on Sylas? His waveclear is a little too weak to have such high Mana costs.

FirstBloodMaster (EUW)
Hi Scruffy, Thanks for keeping us informed What is your feedback after Sylas changes ? Any plans for him in the next patchs ?
Riot Games user

Riot Scruffy (NA)
Yes, we're aware and fixing those bugs too.

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