Category: Development (Page 17 of 51)

      Riot needs to explain the Automated Leaver Ban system in detail

      December 14, 2010 /

      Banhammer.

      The Cassiopeia patch made a lot of changes to the League of Legends we know and love, and it finally brings some automatic anti-leaver technology to the client. The problem is, no one really knows how it works, because Riot hasn’t really told us. I think it’s great that the system is there, but a big part of the system working is that people know how it works, so the threat feels very real. I drive more slowly around the holidays because I know the cops are out and they are using radar guns to track my movement.

      Riot needs to do the same, to let people know that the game is being policed. Think about the reporting system. I was excited when it launched, but since it takes months for reports to be followed up on, players continue behaving as they see fit, often like assholes.

      Here’s the extent of what we know about Riot’s Automated Leaver Ban system. From the announcement forums: Continue reading »

      Current Affairs, Development, league of legends

      Cassiopeia is on release notice (skill list and impressions)

      December 9, 2010 /

      Cassiopeia splash.

      Cassiopeia, the League’s newest champion, is on release notice as of today. We got the official “champion approaches” post, which included her final skill list. I think she sounds pretty cool, and she’ll likely be a very strong caster, even if she does fall in line with the AoE metagame.

      Let’s have a look at the skills:
      Noxious Blast: Cassiopeia blasts an area with a delayed high damage poison, granting her increased Movement Speed if she hits a champion.

      Miasma: Cassiopeia releases a cloud of poison, lightly damaging and slowing any enemy that happens to pass through it.

      Twin Fang: Cassiopeia lets loose a damaging attack at her target. If the target is poisoned the cooldown of this spell is refreshed.

      Petrifying Gaze (Ultimate): Cassiopeia releases a swirl of magical energy from her eyes, stunning any enemies in front of her that are facing her and slowing any others with their back turned.

      Deadly Cadence (Passive): After casting a spell any subsequent spellcasts will cost 10% less for 5 seconds. This ability stacks up to 5 times.

      From her skill descriptions it sounds like she’ll have a cool poison playstyle without being terrible to play against. Teemo and Twitch can be really frustrating in lane because they get the damage of an auto attack and the benefit of poison for one action. With Cassiopeia, you’ll have to land some skill shots to get the benefit of her toxins, which is kinda cool.

      Twin Fang sounds like it could be really brutal, especially when combined with her passive. Obviously her bread-and-butter will be a poison to Twin Fang barrage, relying on her passive to keep her mana cost down. It sounds like an interesting mechanic, though I have to wonder if it’s going to release either severely under- or overpowered. That’s exactly the kind of combo that, without very careful tuning, ends up getting out of control or remains completely underwhelming.

      Her ult is borrowed from DotA’s Medusa, and should be very powerful in a team situation. A potential five-man stun on a caster is always huge. The size of the AoE will determine how strong this thing is.

      I’m always interested to see how new champions change the game. I haven’t hardly seen Trundle since his patch. Where do you think Cassiopeia will fall?

      Champions, Development, league of legends, News

      Champion sneak peek: Trundle

      November 22, 2010 /

      Trundle.We’ve got another champion on the way, this time in the form of a troll. Named Trundle, all we know for certain is that he has a massive club. Of course, if you know how to use Google, you might find some potentially leaked patch notes with a skill list that sounds fairly interesting.

      Here’s the official post:

      Champions in the League of Legends come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you’re a fan of huge, hulking, stone giants; sinister, lithe femme fatales; awesome, mighty warriors; or aberrant, horrific creatures, we try to represent them all under one roof. And while we’re on the subject of aberrant, horrific creatures, allow me to give you a glimpse of our next champion. Meet Trundle, the Cursed Troll. He’s hideous, and very possibly diseased, so he wanted me to let you know that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Unless, of course, that cover is snarling and wielding a club. Then you might be onto something.

      Look for him to launch after the holiday next week.

      Champions, Development, league of legends, News

      Another great forum post on range and the scalability of melee DPS and mages

      November 14, 2010 /

      masteryi_splash_2

      Another excellent community post has been floating on or near the front page for a little more than a week, this time with regard to the relative power of ranged carries versus melee DPS and mages, and the way that Exhaust and Banshee’s Veil augment that disparity. Again, I’ll let you read through the post on your own, but I’ll cover some of the major points.

      The basic idea behind the post is that by late game, almost every carry in the game will have a Banshee’s Veil, dramatically reducing the opponent’s chance at killing that carry. Because ranged toons can already kite other toons, giving them a free CC block or blocking one spell in a rotation from a mage means that character will probably remain free to stand back and wreak havoc. I think it’s a really good point, and I like the solution he offers: make BV block one CC spell, but no damage. It can still increase your magic resistance, but don’t allow it to completely nullify a spell.

      The author also points to exhaust as a big problem for melee DPS, mostly because it has too small a range to get on your average Flash/Ghost-equipped carry. When players can’t reach the carry, they exhaust the melee DPS, slowing those characters and negating their auto attacks when those champions don’t have a way to get out of the mix.

      I think it’s interesting to note that ranged carries are often the characters with skills to break Banshee’s Veil from ranged. Ashe’s volley breaks it. Ezreal has three low-cooldown spells to pop it. I’m pretty sure Tristana’s explosive shot proc from killing a minion will pop it. Obviously Corki has skills to pop it. MF can use Double Up. Kog’Maw, enough said. All of these characters can break veils from range, allowing them to deal magic and physical damage and exposing enemy tanks and melee DPS to their own tanks and mages.

      In short, I would love to see some mechanics altered to increase the prevalence of melee DPS. I love a lot of the melee characters, but without getting overfarmed or unique use of Flash (enemy players don’t have it), melee DPS is woefully susceptible to control mechanics and kiting.

      Current Affairs, Development, league of legends

      The community feels the development pinch

      November 13, 2010 /

      ireliatt3

      I would normally not bother to read a thread on the forums titled, “This game isent [sic] even worth playing anymore.” I obviously disagree. Despite the downfalls and recent design flaws (at least in my opinion), LoL is still a blast of a game, and I have a lot of fun queuing up with you guys and with my real-life friends. The thread in question, though, is now 34 pages long and caught an interesting response from Phreak.

      I’ll leave you to read the original post, but the author, MoreCowbell, is basically bemoaning the overwheling presence of an AOE metagame and the limited champion selection that performs well in that metagame. He also decries characters with strong mechanics having no serious weaknesses. He doesn’t back a lot of things up, but he makes some good points (many of which I think I back up on this blog) and makes other interesting points.

      I was particularly interested in this:

      One of the biggest issues is that in riot’s design philosophy of making all characters equally viable all game, they would need to make all characters have the same power at all times. Characters like MF couldnt exist as they beat most other characters in a lane and late game. The reason that some characters absolutely dominate the lane in dota was because they were trash later.

      That’s a spot-on observation and a lot of my problem with recent champion design. I would love to see the metagame shift away from the teamfight focus, but characters need to have different strengths at different stages of the game for that to be a real possibility. When a champion like Miss Fortune can 4-5 shot toons without health quints at almost any stage of the game, that kind of diversity can’t exist.

      After 12 pages or so, Phreak dropped by to offer this:

      We’re hitting a lot of the conventional “OP” champs this patch.

      We will also be massively assessing all our AoE champions to ensure they’re not must-pick champions. As much as you say we’re making new champions which just eclipse old ones, we’re trying really hard to not have these super faceroll AoE ultimates since Sona (also: Sona nerfs this patch. And I’m not talking +10sec cd on the ultimate). While Swain and Lux have AoEs (even ultimates), I think we can all agree they’re much more reasonable than Idol of Durand.

      If I read the original post correctly, this is the main complaint yes? That there are ~15 super OP champions that must be played, and everything else is below them?

      We will assess them. Stay patient, beloved summoners. We like playing all of our champions as much as you guys do!

      I haven’t been so (cautiously) excited about a patch in a long time. I’m hoping when he says “hitting” he means with a battering ram, not the tinkering hammer we see more often than not. I also like that he referenced Swain and Lux, two recently released and very underpowered champions, as having more “reasonable” AoE ults. I couldn’t agree more. I think Swain’s character design is really cool, and Lux could be a very fun toon with that short CD ultimate (and a much-needed damage buff for her base skills), but they just don’t stack up against the massive AoE pwnage in the game.

      The simple fact that there are 34 pages of responses speaks to how big an issue the current design direction is to the LoL community. Players are definitely unhappy about the lack of diversity, which shouldn’t be all that shocking considering the underwhelming numbers we see on Twisted Treeline. I’m hopeful this week’s patch will be the start of some changes, but I’m aware it would take a lot of changes for things to be significantly different. We’ll find out on Tuesday.

      Current Affairs, Development, league of legends

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