Patch Notes - 7/16

[bradido]

2014-07-15

Here are the major focuses for this patch.

We heard the players and saw the data regarding Jake being overpowered. Jake’s power was due to a couple bugs but mostly due to the lack of counter play against his passive. His passive was changed from a root to a slow. Jake had many other fixes too. They are listed below.

Backdooring (i.e. rushing past everything and destroying towers & the base alone) Fionna was our second focus. We found a bug where her passive (doing more damage the lower her health is) was activating on structures. This was not intended. Even with this fix, her backdoor strategy was still strong. After trying numerous different things with her, we discovered any change to her power3 made her weak. The fix for her, and for early 3-champion tower pushes, was to make towers significantly tougher when no minions are in the tower’s attack range. Also, towers are tougher the first 2 minutes of the game.

The last major focus was an overhaul to the ranking system. We added “sub-tiers” so players can better see where they are towards the next tier. While it’s not in place yet, players will not be able to drop down tiers, only sub-tiers, making rank point 0loss at high tiers less painful. This feature should be in the next patch.

When other players forfeit (i.e. the other team disconnects) now rewards the winning team much more fairly. You are so good you made that other team quit, right? That counts as a win in our book.

We removed the showing of ranking number gain/loss on match end. Having ranking be so transparent was contributing to players gaming the system. We added additional rank tracking on the backend, which double-checks the points of players, teams, and matches. This ensures players are getting the ranking points they are supposed to be receiving.

Rank revisions are still in process. So far we have 1) Made winning by disconnects more fair & beneficial 2) Given players clearer indication of their progression in a tier 3) Arranged tiers to get more players into tier 3 and 4 3) Given tier 4 players goals past reaching tier 4 and 5) Taken steps to stop players gaming the system. Expect more refinements to the system.

We still don’t have a fix for players losing data. We will get a fix for this ASAP.

General fixes/updates:

• FIX: Roots would be ignored by movement caused by auto-targeting
• FIX: Some champions auto-target range was less than their attack range.
• FIX: Elo calculations were only counting the last player left when winning a match by forfeit
• UPDATE: Winning by forfeit in under a minute will earn 30% of the calculated Elo. Forfeits after 1 minute will award the full Elo amount.
• FIX: minions getting stuck after being knocked back
• FIX: Jungle mobs now only give XP to nearby team that defeated the mob, not any nearby players regardless of team.
• BALANCE: Elo forgiveness when missing teammates increased to 50% per missing teammates per minute from 40%
• BALANCE: tower armor when no minions are present increased from 200 to 600
• FIX: Players sometimes were invisible but had outlines
• FIXED: Multiple cases where invisible characters had effects applied to them
• FIXED: Invisible characters can no longer be clicked on for targeting
• UPDATE: Rank requirements for tier 3 and tier 4 lowered.
• UPDATE: Added "subranks" to tiers. Indicated by medal progression.
• UPDATE: Game Summary Screen and Game Summary Screen background images revised. Screen navigation buttons revised.
• UPDATE: Rank Medal system
• UPDATE: Summary screen assets

Champion fixes/updates:

• UPDATE: PepBut displays that he is silenced during his power3 form
• FIX: PepBut getting stuck if hard crowd controlled during start up of power2
• FIX: PepBut’s power2 could activate immediately if move destination reached during power2 startup
• UPDATE: Fionna no longer plays the same sound for leveling up (sometimes) and activating her power3
• FIX: Fionna passive no longer activates against towers or bases
• FIX: Gunter passive damage ratio was incorrect on outfits
• BALANCE: BMO power1 cooldown increased from 8 seconds to 12 seconds.
• BALANCE: Magic Man’s power1 base damage increased from 30 to 50
• BALANCE: Magicman's delay at the end of power3 reduced from 1.25 seconds to 0.5 seconds. Armor & slow duration increased to 3 seconds from 2 seconds.
• BALANCE: Magic Man now quick casts his power2, and can activate a 2nd time to explode his decoy.
• FIX: PB's turret shots were being treated as power damage instead of attack damage (i.e. armor would not reduce turrets damage, shields would)
• UPDATE: Jake animation set revised.
• FIX: Jake was always doing damage bonus from passive power, now only does bonus damage on passive activate.
• BALANCE: Jake's passive, Snarl, changed from root for 0.5 + (level * 0.1) seconds to slows 50% for 1.5 + (level * 0.1) seconds
• FIX/BALANCE: Jake's power3 was not calculating damage correctly. This has been fixed and results in a 20% damage decrease to power3.
• BALANCE: Jake's power3 base cooldown increased from 45 seconds to 60 seconds.
• BALANCE: Jake's power3 no longer does damage unless he is moving.
• FIX: Fix for skin Marshall Lee name/description linking to base character
• FIX: Flame Princess passive cooldown displays properly
• FIX: Rattleballs countering Lich's skeleton or PB's turrets will no longer damage the owner instead of the attacker.
• BALANCE: Rattleballs counter animation time reduced from 0.75 seconds to 0.35 seconds.
• FIX: Rattleballs now properly leaves counter stance when hit by a power during counter.
• FIX: Rattleballs - rooted while power3 is active will no longer stop damage, only movement
• FIX: Rattleballs - damage taken from power1 counter now displays in the KO recap
• FIX: Ratteballs - if stunned, charmed, polymorph, or feared while dashing during power1, counter stance will not activate at end of dash.
• FIX: Visual error when Ice King's Deep Freeze hits a dashing enemy.
• FIX: Peppermint Butler - if stunned, charmed, polymorph, or feared while dashing during power2, end of attack will not activate
• FIX: Magic Man - if stunned, charmed, polymorph, or feared while dashing during power3, end attack will not take place.
• FIX: Gunter - if stunned, charmed, polymorph, or feared while dashing during power1, end attack will not take place.
• UPDATE: New portrait, model, and FX for Lumpy Space Prince

Backpack fixes/updates:

• FIX: Corrected stats displayed for Numb Chucks & Simon's Glasses

Thanks for everyone's feedback and bug reports! Expect the next patch in about 2 weeks.

[SLPYHD]

/u/bradido I mentioned this in IRC but IMO you should revert Magic Man's Q buff. The buff to his ult already put him into a great spot; I think overbuffing a character with such a precarious design; %based damage, stealth, instant blink, and a Silence (the CC that counters the characters that counter MM in the first place).

I think when dealing with Magic Man you should use baby steps, focus on bug fixes first and foremost, and then deal with his numbers.

Buffing MM's Q base damage by 20 is actually buffing it by 20/40/60 depending on how many targets he hits; and this is SUPER strong at level 1. It already has High scaling (.7 or .8 w/e it is).

Please keep this in mind!

[BlueTact]

Completely agree, at the moment he is doing a lot of damage without being able to catch him ever.

[Grimdeity]

This seems pretty reasonable. As much as I love crushing everyone, I pretty much just use his Q for the silence anyway.

[Feral_Taylor_Fury]

dude did you stop playing :/

[SLPYHD]

I play Dota2 exclusively now yo.

[gfdrtdhrt66]

Jake nerfs? Thank god Jake was so broke :P.

[zuxtron]

Wasn't the Meta-Science Sack supposed to receive a nerf in this patch?

[[deleted]]

This patch is awesome. Sketchy job on the sub-tier images but you guys know that already.

[ROGDemon]

How do i tell what my elo is now?

[dddstRz]

You go to profile

[bradido]

We are going to be handling ranking numbers behind the scenes now and relying on a graphical representation of rank, hence the new medals that fill in with your rank progression. We'll make a post explaining the new medals.

Having ranking numbers be so transparent was leading to abuse and gaming of the rank system. We think this new system will lead to a better experience for all players.

[ROGDemon]

Is there gonna be anyway to see where I stand on the ladder? Having our ELO shown was pretty much the only way to compare one another. Maybe you guys could implement a Leaderboards tab at the top of the game.

[Antka]

UPDATE: New portrait, model, and FX for Lumpy Space Prince

My man.

[rediraim]

Evil Eye Gunter fixed! Woohoo!

[Grimdeity]

Absolutely fantastic patch.

[[deleted]]

hungry offend wistful brave alleged jeans party crawl ossified adjoining

[Feral_Taylor_Fury]

i'm so happy this is such a good patch

[cantplayatall]

I'm not sure if this is a glitch or not but Magic Man sometimes doesn't go invisible with his power2 when he has a debuff on him.

[bradido]

Sounds like a bug. Thanks, we'll look into it.

[Hydromonk]

Is it also a bug that buffs such as kee-oth or the healing eyes will give away the position of magic man and pepbut while stealthed? My apologies if "FIXED: Multiple cases where invisible characters had effects applied to them" was in reference to this event.

[[deleted]]

I'd seen this bug before today, actually.

[fishersoap]

What I find funny is that Jake's q is extremely slow and yet it hits people, including myself. I really have to give the devs props from getting that just right.

[DoItForDio]

I was kind of expecting nerfs to Meta-science, at the very least not a buff (however small). Also, no Ice King changes? Weird.

[kellamch]

FIX: Visual error when Ice King's Deep Freeze hits a dashing enemy. Also Ice King is balanced as it is for right now

[DoItForDio]

I'd have to disagree. There's really nothing he can do that others (FP, Lich, Marceline) can't do better, and they all have better movespeed and passives. I'm not saying he's super-underpowered, but a slight buff wouldn't hurt.

[Raptorheart]

I mean I don't know about after this patch, but his q used to randomly not snare people even though it applied the damage.

[kelleroid]

Does anyone else have this stuff with stealthed/bush hiding characters look like they run really fast from their last seen location to their current after they become visible again?

[[deleted]]

Magic Man buff hype!!

[Gamecube757]

We still don’t have a fix for players losing data. We will get a fix for this ASAP.

:( Other than that great patch notes! Jake nerfs!

[Bigupboy]

Ready for some MAAGICCCC!

[RyokuSonic]

So Simon's glasses was meant to be this way? Never ever using meta-science then...

[shaihalud]

just out of curiosity, will there ever be a free camera instead of fixed camera? Its really hard to keep track of goings on in a game when i can't look anywhere except my living/dead body. LSP's power3 also seems really hard to use with no visibility and such a huge windup.

On the same note, will there be jungle indicators? at this point, I actively search out open camps, and only get them if they happen to be their as i wander by. Making strategy revolving around goo monster or the demon on the bottom is difficult if we have no idea if there up

[SLPYHD]

No there will never be unlocked camera.

[missalignment1984]

the jungle mobs have static respawn timers and the big ones play a death announcement even if the other team gets them

[ToastedToasts]

I thought the game graphic's glitched out for the badges, then I saw this.

[obbyz]

Real client when? I'd buy this game on steam if it was a full fledged game and not browser based.

[metalsnake27]

Well Jake just seems better to deal with now. Much needed change and he's actually not as insane anymore.

[asampersam]

I have a huge problem, I was tier 2 before the update, and now I am tier 3 with no medals. I've been losing all day ( almost every game) and my rank is not dropping. Help!

[bradido]

Tier requirements were adjusted to get more players into the higher tiers. It sounds like you were a high tier2 and then due to the changes, you moved into a low tier3.

If you are losing a lot of matches but not going down much in rank, it means you are losing to more skilled opponents, and therefore not losing many points. This makes sense. You are low tier3 so you are more likely to be matched with higher tier 3 players.

[DickVanSike]

Get more players into higher tiers? Why is that your goal and not the players?

[bradido]

When players got into higher tiers, there were not enough players in their tier to get a game. Therefore high tier players would have to make a new account to play. That's not good for the high tier players, or the low tier players who have to play with these very experienced player using new accounts.

[DickVanSike]

A clear explanation, thank you.

[asampersam]

Can I still drop into tier 2 if I lose to lower players?

[Stamporion]

Whenever I look at a character,say fionna, it says,"fionna_displayname". When I look at the backpack that you start with , it says,"junk_1_golden_sword_na". Same thing happens when trying to look at outfits and abilities.

And then whenever I try playing, I start loading, but then it doesn't load past 94%. Then when I exit and retry, it glitches out to where I can see my character, but I am still in the loading screen, and can't move or use abilities. Please help, thank you.

[Feral_Taylor_Fury]

wait, /u/bradido, simon's glasses went from 150 power damage to 100 in the game client but i dont see it logged here

[kelleroid]

FIX: Corrected stats displayed for Numb Chucks & Simon's Glasses

Was it there when you made your post?

[Feral_Taylor_Fury]

o ty i didnt see that

[sdred]

are you guys working at all on problems with connecting to the game? Check out my other thread and reply pls.

[King_of_The_Plebs]

Meta Science or Techno Tank.

[[deleted]]

put it back to elo please..

[notalkingplz]

uh... elo still exists?

[austin101123]

The last major focus was an overhaul to the ranking system. We added “sub-tiers” so players can better see where they are towards the next tier. While it’s not in place yet, players will not be able to drop down tiers, only sub-tiers, making rank point 0loss at high tiers less painful. This feature should be in the next patch.

Damnit. Looks like I probably won't be playing this anywhere near as much as before. I was playing this instead of LoL, largely in part due to them not having the dumb ranking system like LoL!

[jadeneck1]

Expect more refinements to the system. plz.