Alistar pays less mana for his mayhem, Lucian's pursuit is more relentless,
and we're putting jungle creeps on the clock.
Welcome to Patch 4.12
Hey guys! MsPudding here to walk you through the changes we're making in patch 4.12.
We'll kick things off with a tl;dr
before getting to our panel to cover a few topics in depth.
Today's topics are the new Jungle Timers, Lucian, and Alistar.
To skip ahead, check out the video bookmarks!
Okay, let's get into it.
Essence Reaver and Bloodthirster got some changes
to cement one as an offensive mana-restoring item,
and the other as a defensive life-stealing, bloodthirsty item.
Next up, Kassadin's been running rampant with his crazy mobility and control.
Rather than hitting his iconic Riftwalk,
we're tweaking a few other things to reduce Kass's late-game power
so he doesn't just continuously punch you in the face.
Similarly, Lucian's getting some changes
to highlight his strengths while giving him real weaknesses.
He'll be dashing a lot more often
but in exchange he'll have to get a liiiittle closer to deal damage and stay effective.
Alistar now has lower mana costs and an early buff to his ult.
Buuuut, junglers take note: Alistar's passive no longer deals double damage to monsters.
This patch also comes with jungle timers.
In the scoreboard, you'll find red, blue, dragon, and baron timers that will
automatically update if your team has vision of a camp when it's killed.
Finally, we've got a few more champion tweaks:
Ahri's Q costs less mana, and scales slightly better than before.
Kha'Zix is getting a buff to his Q, and Ezreal can now buff himself with Essence Flux...
but only if he can get in front of it while it's mid-air.
Christina: OK, so that is the gist of Patch 4.12.
To talk about these updates, I am joined by Nome from Game Clarity Team,
Static from Live Game Play, and Snoopeh from Evil Geniuses..
Hey guys, thanks for coming out. So, I'm sorry, you all nodded in unison. What is this?
Static: We're all just acknowledging we're here
Christina: All three of you at the exact same time.
Nome: We're all too awkward to say something
Christina: The same thing. So, I would like to start a discussion
with the addition of jungle timers that are visible in the scoreboard now.
Why did we add those in the first place?
Nome: Yeah, so we knew this was going to be a really controversial feature
when we started working on it.
It's controversial, not only to players, but also internally,
because we have literally been debating this feature for years, right?
Static: I feel like we talked about this three years ago.
Snoopeh: It's been on Reddit for a while.
Nome: Yeah, and really when it comes down to it, we sat down and thought about
what our design values are and we came up with a list.
One of those values was gameplay clarity and sort of the gist of
gameplay clarity is that we want players to fight other players and not the game.
When we look at how players have been utilizing jungle timers,
that is, the timers we present currently which are mini map icons, the chat logs,
they are actually resorting to notepad, mobile applications and third party programs
to really make the best use of the jungle and play best.
When we look at this situation, it's not really a situation we want,
because we want the game itself to provide all of the tools necessary
to play at the best competitive levels.
Snoopeh: My problem then is that every single player,
maybe not necessarily Diamond or Challenger players or competitive players,
but most players are going to want the game to be simpler,
so where do you start with making the game simpler for those players to digest?
Static: I think it's also a little unfair to just say we're just making it simpler.
The goal behind it is a bit more than that.
We are trying to make sure that we have players focusing on the skills that
they enjoy doing and that we feel show what a League of Legends player really is.
Dodging skills shots, aiming skill shots.
Nome: We want to stay away from wrote, sort of, book keeping behaviors
Christina: Right so like instead of focusing on when is this Dragon going to spawn,
when should I check the chat log and actually just thinking,
where should I be at the right time, is my team ready to fight this?
Snoopeh: But if you apply that train of thought, at the same time
the enemy's marksmen's carry, his flash thing, the summoner's are down.
I want to know that, so why should I have to book keep it and constantly log that
his flash is down or that his flash is up?
Nome: It comes down to; those things are a point of attraction
between player and player, right? The jungle itself is a very static element.
When Baron respawns, it's always going to be seven minutes
and there is no variability there. You know it's going to respawn.
Whereas, when a champion flashes or a champion uses an item,
there is no guarantee of something that is going to happen
when that cooldown comes back up, right?
Christine: So, we made the decision to put red and blue buff on the jungle timers as well.
Where did we draw the line and why didn't we include things like
inhibitor timers or even the rest of the jungle camps?
Nome: Yeah, well I think a good point there is that inhibitor timers are one of the things
that we could consider doing in the future.
Snoopeh: I am actually more in favor of that.
I am more in favor of inhibitor timers than necessarily jungle timers.
I've grown to kind of accept the jungle timer change,
But inhibitor timers are more primary than jungle timers for example.
Static: That's the big thing for me, honestly, which is
every time we make a change to the game, what is the actual result from the players?
What's going happen when we do it? In this case, when we were thinking about
jungle timers specifically, giving people easier access to that information
means people are going to be able to show up to buffs, show up to Dragon,
show up to Baron and create a lot of interesting moments in the game
where they can interact and make big plays.
So that is something that, as designers, really excites us.
Snoopeh: What's going to tell them,
now they have to be told to press tab and then look at the timers?
Nome: It being in tab, anytime you do check your score, you do get to see
when is Baron up, when is Dragon going to be up.
And that is sort of our way of almost hiding it, but also keeping it very accessible.
When you do check that score you get that little glimpse of information.
From my point of view it's not that much different from checking a chat log,
but now the onus is on all of the players to understand.
Snoopeh: I don't understand the part you make about, we want to hide it slightly.
I don't understand that, because if we want to be more transparent
and just give them this information that is already there.
Why would we slightly disguise it?
Nome: That's a really good question. It's not that we necessarily want to disguise it,
but it's also like, hey this is a big a chunk of the UI,
we don't always want to keep it up.
When we do keep it up, it becomes a prescriptive element.
You see a big countdown at the top of the screen.
You kind of understand, oh my gosh, countdown to zero, I better be there.
That's really not what we want to get to. What we do want to get to
is this is optional information that you can make use of to make your own decisions.
Christine: So, let's go ahead and move on to Lucian.
He's been consistently strong in competitive play,
I mean, especially in solo queue I think.
What is it about his kit that is so difficult to balance?
Static: He is just a super well-rounded kit.
He is a kit that has a lot of strengths, but not necessarily any weaknesses.
He's got great damage, he's got great safety through mobility
and when you put that all together you get a champion that can kind of
react to any situation and not necessarily care about what the enemy's doing
or what he needs to do this game. It's just, I'm Lucian and I have a great chance to win.
Christine: "I'm Lucian"
Static: Yeah
Christine: "I have a great chance to win"
Snoopeh: He synergizes really well with any aggro support for example,
he just synergizes so well with, because those early levels, he can punish you
really, really hard, because he can choose to go in, he can choose to go backwards,
he can also push the wave relatively fast compared to other AD's.
So that early phase of the lane where it can be decided on,
whether you get level two first or whether you get level three first,
he was really potent in that aspect.
Christine: So, in giving him weakness; we reduced his attack range, his Q cast range.
Attack range is one of the most sensitive things that affects a marksmen's power.
Why did we decide to make that his weakness?
Static: It comes down to, what do we perceive the core of Lucian to be?
We are at a point where we have a hundred plus champions,
and we need to make sure they are all different, you know, they feel different,
they provide something different to the game strategically,
I think is really important for competitive.
And so when it came down to it, he has got great damage, he has great mobility.
We had to find a way to make sure he had a weakness,
he had something that people could exploit.
Nome: Exactly.
Static: So, how do we increase the vulnerability in his kit?
Well, we thought if we could lower his range
maybe he could have a little bit of a harder time dealing with certain champions.
Snoopeh: My problem is, you didn't just lower the range,
you cut it from five fifty to five hundred, which I think is pretty big.
Static: It's severe. We didn't take it lightly when we did it.
We only did it, because we were sure we wanted to amp up the strengths of the kit as well.
I think we are going pretty crazy with the mobility we are giving him this patch,
it's going to be really intense.
Nome: And thematically and mechanically, right?
It's really what we want to focus on to make this champion
really distinct from all of the other AD carry's in the game.
For example, using a mage as a sort of analog;
Lux, she's got really good damage and she's got really long range.
And previously she had really high movement speed as well.
And when we look at what makes Lux, Lux, is it that she is fast
or is it that she has really long range, or...
Snoopeh: Insane burst
Nome: ...She lasers you across the screen. And that's what we really want to do,
sort of, we want to apply that to Lucian. We have to have mobility.
Christine: Right, so we give him a lot more mobility with the cooldown reduction on his E.
I actually was testing it out with forty percent cooldown reduction
and he is just dashing all over the place
and I feel like that is actually going to buff his late game power a lot.
Static: It's hard to tell, honestly I think against certain match ups he will be better,
and certain match ups he might be worse though, because range matters.
Snoopeh: One thing you have to question as well in the early game,
if he is weaker in the laning phase, because of the auto attack trading in lane,
is he not going to translate into this mid/late game beast that he could be,
because he just can't get out of the laning phase as well as some other AD carry's?
Static: It's definitely something that we were aiming for though,
because right now you pick him in the laning phase,
you feel like your going to get through it. You are going to at least get through it.
Snoopeh: Get a few kills as well.
Static: Sometimes you can just crush and just run away with it.
Snoopeh: Buy the blade.
Static: With the new setup, he will crush some lanes,
he might get crushed in some lanes, some one's with range and stuff.
Snoopeh: Caitlyn
Static: Caitlyn is probably going to be a nightmare match up.
Snoopeh: It already is to be honest.
Static: That's true.
Christine: So, I do want to move on to Alistar before we run out of time.
He has been a pretty low tier support pick in all levels of play
and I know that we are giving him better mana, mana costs and
better damage reduction on his Ult in earlier ranks.
What are our goals for actually giving him competitive viability,
and how do these changes support that?
Snoopeh: Just jungle Alistar coming back.
Static: Well that's complicated.
We've always designed, originally intended Alistar to be a support champion.
He brings a lot of cool mechanics and big play potential from that position.
We've even seen Aphromoo and some Korean pro players do some really cool stuff with him.
We really love that about him.
Christine: More than a really crazy jungler.
Static: Yeah, and that's actually the problem.
I think a couple of years ago we went back and remade his passive
and had this idea that maybe he could be a jungler,
and what ultimately fell out from that was,
we had to nerf things about him that were really abusive in the jungle,
but that made him very weak in the support role.
The mana costs are a large example of that.
He's someone who, from the jungle, doesn't really feel that fair to play against.
He comes out and knocks you away from your tower and CC's you for like, way too long.
Christine: It's like a free Malphite Ultimate.
Static: And you have no time to react to it, but in lane you can use the brush,
you can see his positioning and you can react to him. I think that's an important part.
Snoopeh: One thing you have to take in mind though, I think,
people, when they glance over the patch notes won't really realize is,
the mana reduction in Q and W, sure you can cast it more often in lane,
but if you look at the seventy percent damage reduction at level one on his ultimate
and you combine that with the mana reduction on the Q and W,
essentially when you engage at level six, you can get off another Q/W rotation
just because you have an extra twenty percent mana mitigation
that you otherwise wouldn't have.
That can be really strong when you are going for fights
or when you are escaping ganks or things like that,
and that's one of the things that people overlook a lot.
Christine: OK, thanks guys. If you are looking for more information,
definitely check out the patch notes. We'll be back in a couple of weeks,
but until then, check out the link below and leave us your comments and questions.