Riot Games returns with a Quick gameplay Thoughts post

After seeing the topics popping up in recent times, Riot Phroxzon shared some of the developers’ gameplay thoughts for Patch 13.16.

Riot Games posts Quick Gameplay Thoughts

The game developer has touched on three different topics: game time and snowballing, champion durability, and role balance (primarily bot, top, and jungle).

Game time and snowballing

Starting from game time and snowballing, Phroxzon stated they are currently happy with the length of the games. “Right now laning is roughly half of the game while the other half is mid- to late-game, and in games that extend past that we’re seeing a good amount of back and forth that allows for more gameplay options in the mid- and late-game,” he said. Phroxzon mentioned that game time has been a bit longer compared to previous years across normal play, while for the Elite brackets, it has been more or less consistent across the board.

He also added how snowballing in regular play is in a healthy spot and still lower than pre-Durability Update levels. “In Elite play however, snowballing has increased a bit due to how the changes to dragons and early sustain in patch 12.14 have been optimized by players over time (which was intended to increase the pace of slower Pro games),” he added. The trade-off ended up having more snowball in the top levels of play since the plays are optimized and players are better at utilizing early-game advantages to snowball their leads.

So far, this seems to be quite an accurate analysis but I don’t really enjoy the direction they are looking to take. Phroxzon wants to reduce snowballing in Elite play, including lowering the impact of early deaths, adjusting the influence junglers currently have on their games, and decreasing the impact of early objective rewards. While the latter two can be good changes, reducing the impact of early deaths is not something I agree with. Players should always be rewarded for playing the game well, and I already feel like early deaths don’t necessarily mean much to the outcome of the game.

While Riot Games themselves are not sure how they would tackle these issues, I believe most of these problems are caused by the importance and the power Dragons give over Rift Herald. Having dragons always spawn on the bot side of the map is something that will always put more attention down on that side, and with both teams knowing how crucial the team-wide buffs are, they are always going to put the resources there. Finding a way to shift that power (maybe swapping dragons and Rift Herald spawn in some way) can be beneficial to break that impact and add one extra layer of strategy to it.

Regardless, Phroxzon confirmed they won’t address it until after Worlds, which means that these changes will likely come with the new pre-season.

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Durability

In the middle part of the 2022 season, Riot implemented a durability patch with the goal of decreasing the damage creep that had been plaguing LoL for years. Riot Games mentioned that while damage has been slowly creeping back up, they explained the reasons behind such a trend.

“Item changes from Midseason this year initially resulted in an increase in damage, but after nerfs in the last few patches have been adjusted to be about neutral damage-wise with where we were a year ago. There are some specific champions who lost durability from changes to Shieldbow and Bloodthirster and we’ve been trying to restore that over time,” said Phroxzon.

The other reason is caused by the biweekly patches and the constant updates that happen to the game. The game designer explained that Riot expected a natural decline in durability over time from regular balance changes because when they make balance changes, they also “need to take a champion fantasy into consideration”. And to catch the eye of players’ attention, it’s much easier to see them “excited” when a champion receives a damage buff. He also added that the nerfs to enchanters and the increasing presence of damage-oriented supports have also led to an overall increase in damage.

To that, Riot has been working to bring back a durability level to patch 12.12 where “each class was viable, combat felt like it was interactive, and many champions were viable”. He mentioned how Patch 13.15 is ~5% more durable compared to the patch before the durability update, while Patch 12.12 was closer to 10%.

“We intend to gradually bring durability back up to 12.12 levels through regular balance changes, especially for squishy classes. We’re planning to do this by buffing non-damage things where it makes sense (like the Sylas mana changes in 13.16), nerfing damage rather than other things more frequently, and by spot-adjusting champions who’ve excessively skewed towards high-damage builds”.

Some of these changes are going to be implemented in the next patch, with Patch 13.17 having item and champion damage nerfs.

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Riot also brings gameplay thoughts on Role Balance

According to Riot, “top and bot lanes are in a perpetual seesaw of one feeling strong and the other feeling weak”, which is what I explained as an underlying issue that the game is currently having. That said, Riot made a key distinction between normal play and those in the high-skill brackets.

“For the vast majority of players in almost all levels of play, top and bot lane are close in power level and agency,” said Phroxzon. “The exception here is bot lanes in very high skill brackets where players are able to better coordinate with their teams, absorb pressure without dying, and consistently optimize their damage dealt.”

He explained how top and bot are both low on agency, meaning that it’s usually in the hands of other roles to determine which lane gets to play the game and utilize the power effectively. And even though Riot has been actively looking to reduce that agency, it’s still the optimal way to play the game. Phroxzon mentioned how they could theoretically lower the power of bot lane, but then it would be detrimental to those playing in that specific role.

“Jungle is currently still overpowered and we believe is a significant contributor to feelings of lack of agency from the top and bot especially. We’re going to further adjust the jungle to get to a sweet spot where the role is still fun, lanes feel like they can control their own destiny, and ganks are still effective and keep certain strategies (like perma pushing) from getting out of hand,” he added.

While I do agree that junglers have probably the highest agency in the game, they are also the ones who struggle the most when the team is not actually helping them. There are far too many situations where junglers are unable to exert that agency because the team is not aiding them properly.

Riot acknowledges the fact that not all players within the same role want the same things, and they are exploring ways to allow lanes to have more agency over the game. “Top laners aren’t a monolithic entity as they’re often split between players that are looking for 1v1 fights and others that want to influence the map and group,” he stated. “We don’t believe a one-size-fits-all solution to solve top lane agency exists. However, we’re figuring out how to deliver on some of the things that top laners agree on; better scaling and less punishment when leaving your lane to impact the map.”

So far, Riot has been buffing weaker top laners and nerfing other roles but Phroxzon also explained they are scared of bringing back fighters and tanks to the mid lane. And just like the other issues mentioned above, they are looking to address them after Worlds.

Takeaways

I’m personally happy that Riot knows they are facing these issues and positive that they will find new ways to make the game more balanced. The part I’m worried about the most is the fact that I think fundamental changes are needed to achieve these goals and that even something like a major item rework (yet again) might not fix the issue.

My personal impression is that there will always be a sort of imbalance in the game and that’s how it should always be. What I would like to see, however, is seeing that imbalance (whether it’s champions or roles) shift more often, so that we don’t get stuck into the same meta for too long. It’s one hell of a challenge, but I’m confident Riot can somehow work this out.

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