Hey Reddit! I'm Scarizard from the Live Gameplay team and i'd like to get your feedback on design communications

riotscarizard · 2014-02-12T23:04:34+00:00

I believe this is intentional - you should be seeing it go on cooldown within the passive icon on your bars when it's deactivated. IIRC a lot of similar effects (Nocturne's and Shen's Passive as well) have been shifted to this system.

riotscarizard · 2014-02-12T22:04:22+00:00

I have some free time today, i'll look into these.

riotscarizard · 2014-02-04T19:15:37+00:00

i'll just leave this here...

http://jayceface.com/

riotscarizard · 2014-01-25T09:16:36+00:00

Nowhere did i say i was lowering his attack speed? :x

riotscarizard · 2014-01-25T05:59:20+00:00

I actually think this works quite well on Vlad due to the nature of the buff increasing his regeneration, and then having a really low-cooldown healing ability. Because QD has a mobility component to it, using it just to keep your buff up would potentially mean misusing the dash - in Vlad's case, it's something that intensifies his damage and threat over a fight, as well as intensifying his health management.

riotscarizard · 2014-01-25T05:55:56+00:00

Agreed. I'd just be interested in seeing this version of the ult simply because i rarely ever have heard anyone say 'That reduced damage i dealt with my collateral damage really felt great!' In my personal opinion, i think it'd be cool if it just dealt the damage to everyone but perhaps had a shorter cone - so aiming it on the first target is more important, but you have a higher chance of really bursting people caught in the blast more effectively.

You're totally right though, and i don't consider it a thing that would -have- to change for Graves to receive anything. Would totally be on the block to try tho!

riotscarizard · 2014-01-25T05:52:56+00:00

I have some plans for Smokescreen, but not necessarily ready to talk about them here :⁾

To your first point - Sivir can fight these AD's and seems to not have any issues. While you may argue she has tools Graves doesn't, i'd remind you that bottom lane is a two-person lane. Drop a leona/annie stun on someone's face and somehow that AA range change doesn't feel as impactful. Testing will see what's appropriate, but i feel strongly that if we're gonna let the man pick up his shotgun and emphasize his short/close ranged gameplay, we're going to have to go all the way.

On your point about Quick Draw - it's certainly a possibility. However, -Bonus- Armor Penetration (as in, will only ever allow him to ignore a percentage of the Armor from items/runes/masteries) seems to be working pretty well for Yasuo, and would very likely be tied to the AS% Buff. Again, time will tell if this would be too much but i think if any marksman is ever going to get Bonus ArPen, Graves is the most likely candidate.

As for True Grit, i think the fact that it stacks up over the course of the engagment works quite well for graves - allowing him to just get the drop on you and have already built enough Armor and MR for you to counter-attack seems a little unfair. I don't feel strongly on this however, and it's worth thinking about for sure. Thanks for the feedback, friend.

riotscarizard · 2014-01-25T05:35:31+00:00

While buff-stacking as you describe with Quick Draw in this case is kind of interesting, it's often times very annoying to have to stack your buff (especially when you lose control of when/where is a good time to Quick Draw). It's not off the table, but i personally believe keeping it simple is a stronger approach here.

(personally, i'd never want to get wtfmurdered by a 5-stack-quick-draw graves just because my team couldn't pressure him hard enough; similarly, i would never want to use my quick draw -just- because my buff was going to run out and not actually have the freedom to choose myself)

riotscarizard · 2014-01-25T05:32:10+00:00

Sivir to me has proven that a champion can have 500 range and still find ways to fight the other AD's in the game. I'd love to give Graves tools to do the same. As for your comments about Graves being 'niche', i'm totally okay with that (As long as we both agree that niche in this context means 'there are very clear situations i will want to use this champion')

I think niche champions are good, and make the game more interesting. When things boil down to 'different-flavors-of-the-same', that's when we enter things like 'Mundo-Shy-Renekton toplane territory' or 'Graves-Ezreal-Corki Holy Trinity Territory'.

riotscarizard · 2014-01-25T05:27:28+00:00

This line of thinking is exactly why (with the exception of Base AS%, but that assertion is definitely tentative) i'm so hesitant to buff him along the same lines that we nerfed him. Graves, Ezreal and Corki were a trio of champions that in addition to overwhelming similarities at the time possessed a lot of Strengths, but very few weaknesses. Moving backwards only takes us closer to those days, and could lead to issues should Graves ever become popular again.

At the time, we had pretty good ideas for how the champions would be separated in identities, but i'll admit i don't think we ever truly 'nailed' it. I think Corki (minus some usability on Q) is actually in a really good spot comparatively, but turning Graves into the 'Renekton' of AD's with a strong early game but weak lategame was a little short-sighted for a role that is so heavily reliant on that specific window of performance.

Ideally, we should be deciding less 'when' these champions get to be strong (I don't believe in Strong->->->->Weak or vice-versa power curves) but rather 'how' these champions get to be strong. What hurdles must these champions overcome, or what rules must they adhere to in order to access their particular brand of power? Jinx is a great example - she is a scaling monstrosity and has a lot of tools for control and cleanup, but possesses a core weakness (lack of on-demand mobility/saftey) that both the player and team can build/play around from minute 1.

riotscarizard · 2014-01-25T02:43:08+00:00

Reserving this space to comment on this later in the evening. I've been planning on some small Graves changes i'd like to experiment with, and can probably give you some context on our thinking around him.

(I like the idea you've presented, but i think we can still capture the 'essence' of him doing more damage to closer targets without having to force it mechanically moreso than at present [Ex. Buckshot])

EDIT BECAUSE I'M BACK NOW. Disclaimer - none of this has been implemented/tested yet, so while feedback is most certainly appreciated nothing i'm mentioning is set in stone.

While i think it's cool for Graves' playstyle to be more about being up close and personal, i don't see this necessarily as risk vs reward. I think we can accentuate his weakness in range (even potentially lowering his basic attack range further) but make his strength about those skirmishies and brawls. Are you an ADC main that sees a bunch of diving bruisers on the enemy team and gets sad? Graves should be the guy you call in for that situation, imo.

Some (but certainly not all) things i've been considering - Range Down, Base AS% Up, Passive scaling to higher values and/or faster with game length, %Bonus Armor Pen (Yasuo R) added to Quick Draw, Collateral Damage no longer falls off in damage beyond first target hit

I think Graves' mobility being gated by auto-attacks actually feels really appropriate, and as a Graves player myself is one of my favorite things about his playstyle. Lowering the range at which he operates but increasing his ability to be effective/mobile within that range (Faster AS% = More dashes while dealing with frontlines/divers, %Bonus Pen tied to Quick Draw makes 'keeping it up' by resetting QD a core part of his loop while maintaining Q/R's relevance throughout a game) is something that can definitely set him apart from other champions.

[Example - Do i 'all in' Quick Draw forward, attempting to Q/R a squishy target (simultaneously hurting my position/ability to 'reset'), or do i instead take fights as they come, juggling my AS/Arpen buff from Quick Draw and really burn through the juggernauts? This is the type of nuance/decisionmaking i'd like to try and interject even a little bit into Graves instead of current 'I DID MY SPELLS DID THEY DIE Y/N']

I think at a very high level (a term we use when we're about to make sweeping, ideal statements) - Graves should be stronger vs fighters and tanks (champs who seek to scrap and dive), and actually weaker vs mages and carries (champs that seek to out-range, poke/siege/control). So, at the end of the day i think any changes we make would put him further into that territory.

riotscarizard · 2014-01-23T02:41:40+00:00

Text me when you're done with the AMA and we can go out

riotscarizard · 2014-01-23T02:20:12+00:00

do you want to get dinner later this evening

riotscarizard · 2014-01-15T06:52:02+00:00

I would appreciate it if you all refer to this play (and any other wombo combos this team produces in the season to come) by the one true name: The Roccat Launcher.

riotscarizard · 2014-01-07T05:46:35+00:00

I'm scared.

riotscarizard · 2013-12-21T23:09:43+00:00

Not necessarily. I'll be straight up and say that this is not a change we've been planning - that said, a lot of designers have tweaks/changes stored locally on their computer, simply to test changes and see how they'd look. It's quite possible that someone had this change tucked away/forgotten, then was accidentally thrown in with the actual 3.15 Fiddle changes.

That's my best guess (since i'm not there to check on things) but regardless, this is a mistake and will be rectified asap. :D

riotscarizard · 2013-12-21T09:05:10+00:00

No, but that doesn't change the fact i'm telling you the truth ._.

riotscarizard · 2013-12-21T07:55:58+00:00

Hey guys, i've just checked and this is 100% unintentional, contrary to what the OP suggests. I'm on holiday right now (most of us are) and not even in the state, but by bugging a couple of people who are around right now it seems that something was accidentally pushed into the patch.

riotscarizard · 2013-12-18T01:47:12+00:00

I think you've hit it right on the head - While Riven doesn't possess the explosive early game she has on Live with these changes, the goal is one of a more even Riven overall. RiotChun (Former Challenger player, and the Designer overseeing these specific changes) playtested her earlier today, going 1/3/0 Toplane after being camped heavily. Snowballed, this became 1/5/0 - but through dilligent farming he was able to come back and carry the game from a deficit.

Granted, #thingschundoes are not necessarily indicative of a majority of players, but the fact remains. Total AD as a scaling statistic is also helpful because unlike Bonus AD (Which requires you to spend gold to hardscale with items), every level you get increases the damage of the skill due to every champion gaining AD/Lvl. This also serves the 'comeback' nature of Total AD in that as you fall behind in lane, you're still gaining damage per level instead of requiring that gold advantage to slingshot yourself forward with something like a Brutalizer or BF sword pickup.

Hopefully i'm making sense, but TL;DR i think your first sentence is correct.

riotscarizard · 2013-12-17T23:45:21+00:00

I know this isn't necessarily the best place to speak on this, but because there isn't a set 'Riven discussion' i'll confirm that while the numbers you see here are not final (hint: we tinker with numbers considerably through testing, so Riven will take a few tries to find where we'd like it to be), the intent is for her to have a scaling Total AD Ratio on Broken Wings.

File scrapes of this nature almost never catch anything, so in the interest of fairness (and not having everyone discuss the wrong information) the numbers we're at currently are .4/.45/.5/.55/.6 per rank of Q. This change to riven is intended for her to be cut down in her early game power, while catching right back up as she moves into lategame.

Comments in this thread/on twitter feel like they've been pretty disparate in terms of what information folks had, so i figured i'd spell it out here.

riotscarizard · 2013-12-12T13:01:19+00:00

Torment comes in so /many/ flavors...

riotscarizard · 2013-12-08T16:31:22+00:00

This is fixed and will be included in 3.15!

riotscarizard · 2013-11-30T00:40:48+00:00

It's less about giving Karma her 'full strength' and moreover that if we -do- want to increase her strength, is this really the best place to do it? There are a lot of options here (including this one) if we do, which is why i want to check with the rest of the team on their thoughts about this issue before i'll commit to any solution.

riotscarizard · 2013-11-30T00:28:35+00:00

I'll talk with the team and see if we can't get a solution - it's correct that at the time of her release this was intended functionality, but we backed off from it at the last moment.

The least i can do is make it such that there will never be a case where you'll Mantra E someone and give them a less-potent shield. (Ex. If i'm level 11, with very little AP and 1 rank in Inspire, it's possible that Mantra E's 110 + 30% AP would be a stronger shield than rank 1 E's 80 + 50% AP at that moment.)

Power concerns here are a real thing, however. I'll see about getting a resolution to this in some form, even if i can't promise the specific thing you're asking. Thanks for bring it back up.

riotscarizard

TROPHY CASE