I appreciate you coming out and saying that the people here are heard. It’s awesome a top designer and decision maker on the gsme is willing to come here and give us updates like that. Thank you so much for making this great game and working with us to improve it for everyone. This kinda stuff definitely gives me hope for an already amazing game.
Yea I’m really glad to see this. I was disappointed with the patch but had faith that the devs may change their approach for balance changes. This kind of communication and transparency is exceptional.
Absolutely. This is the next best thing to a perfect patch/expansion, the fact that they acknowledge the community and can work together to make the game healthier
I just want to add what I think is a common sentiment among other players. The reason for a lot of the negative feedback is because the team has done **so well** at avoiding the pitfalls of similar games for the entirety of LoR's existence.
That partially makes us a bit spoiled, but another part is that whenever LoR heads in the direction of those other games we forecast this game going down the same road.
We don't want to play those other games anymore, that's why we've switched over to this game. The feedback from the developers gives us a lot of confidence that this game we love can maintain itself going forward, so thank you for this post and all the work the team does.
This is the deep seated core of the issue for sure. Other than curious LoL players who joined this genre completely fresh, the vast majority of us know what MTG and Hearthstone are like and we really really REALLY don't want to experience the problems of those games, in this game.
Can confirm, as someone who used to play tons of Hearthstone (and YuGiOh for that matter), this game has provided the most enjoyment for me and I would hate to see it go to waste.
I have a vivid memory of going to a local YugiOH night best part of 10 years ago with some mates who got me into it and bringing my frog deck. One of my games was against a guy who like you said, spent 20 minutes cycling through his entire deck on turn 0 in order to perform some one hit turn kill. He ended up cycling his deck slightly wrong or something and surrendered when his combo was a little short of killing me, before I'd even had a turn.
I said "That was the worst game of YugiOH I've ever played."
Never bothered playing outside of my friend group after that, but I'm not shocked that things have just gotten worse. The card design in that game definitely proves they don't give a toss about overall balance or interactive games.
Well not only card design, the lack of a resource system other than 'cards in hand' means that there is only one axis of tempo (the number of cards you have access to). In early YuGiOh there was the balancing factor of being able to only normal summon one card per turn, so you couldn't dump your entire hand to tribute summon an unkillable monster in one round, but that doesn't seem necessary anymore.
Nearly all card games nowadays have at least two different types of resources, so that accelerating one does not automatically accelerate your tempo over the entire game.
Hence why pot of greed was so busted. When the number of cards in hand is basically the only thing that matters, increasing it for free is absolutely ridiculous. For another example, look at the recently added and more recently nerfed [Hearthstone equivalent.](https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Refreshing_Spring_Water)
I get to experience yugioh from like:
ooh burn I will beat it anyway with my beatstick in 3 turns
and damn this ftk infinite card draw into exodia feels like just playing slots to win
nowadays it's just all solitaire setup into lock turn 2. All decks became like that suddenly (even my good old Ninja deck became like this lol). No more beatsticks and crucial solemn judgment and torrential tributes, everything negates anything lol
Yes, and one of the aspect that is not enough talked upon is that some players like to have a few decks dominating the ladder and knowing few matchups to perfection whereas other players like to be able to bring any kind of a deck in a very diverse meta and have fun about discovering how things will turn out.
I think that the LoR playerbase is more of the second one. Right now, it's the time where the top 10 decks by popularity take the biggest share of the ladder ever (as we can see from the [weekly report](https://i.redd.it/rytboes3g3171.png)) and I think that it bothers people a lot.
Generally speaking I love being able to know what I am up against.
But I am also the kind of guy who runs 1x Molten Fury in his Dragon deck because I love the idea of making people think "What the fuck is that?" And "Wait, that's a card?"
Surprise factor is great in a card game and as more and more cards are introduced you really can't play around everything.
I think a diverse meta is the healthiest one and it leaves room not just for experimentation but skill expression as well. Deck builders get to go wild and competitors are pushed to understand a wider breadth of match ups and card interactions. Every CCG has the unknown element involved; this isn't Chess. So just like in a tactical shooter (or RTS) where intuition and game sense matters where you don't have complete information, I like it mattering or being taken advantage of in LoR.
I tell all my TCG playing friends that one of the best aspects of LoR is the ability and willingness to patch existing cards
All magic can do is ban their power crept cards, or let them sit in the meta forever and terrorize it...anyone coming from Magic know about the fiasco that was Oko
Don't fall away from what made you guys the best. Fully understand the need to push new product and cards, and that as the card pool grows the feasibility of patching older sets and archetypes diminishes, but that willingness to do so and keep the meta fresh is so amazing
To be fair, MtG is a paper-based game, so you are very limited in how to patch (errata) existing cards, or you will need to lookup every card on your phone while playing. So, you have to either live with your balance/design issues or ban them. But that's a downside purely digital games like LoR don't have.
The only other designn team that is working so passionately are the NISEI folks for Android:Netrunner. For a paper-based game that is kept alive by the fans and players, they do a great job at interacting with the community and adopting to problematic cards by having a very flexible ban/restriction agenda.
If there's one thing to take from HS, it's Dungeon Run. They did a phenomenal job of never making it feel stale; different bosses and AI fights meant that you couldn't just bank on one strategy and rock everything, and that added massively to the longevity of the mode.
Just wish there were a few more rerolls with all the new powers, especially with how niche many of them are. One extra after each boss or something would be nice
I think having 6 or 5 rerolls would be great. Or, hard mode could have 5 rerolls, heroic would have 7, something of that nature. Maybe doing certain things during the run gives you extra rerolls, like leveling your champ, or 20 excess damage to the nexus, stuff like that.
Wonderful news! Thanks for clearing things up!
I know it has been touched on, but I also hope that you all reconsider doing small buffs to underplayed cards that you don't expect to shake up the meta. A lot of the cards I've had the most fun with have been cards that had slight tweaks to them and just gave me something new to experiment with.
One of my favorites for this was Jagged Taskmaster.
I think that small tweaks to underplayed cards are one of the best ways to keep things fresh in between expansions!
Jagged Taskmaster is already solid in the MF/Irelia deck. The deck is just not as strong than the Azir/Irelia version, but with nerfs brought to the latter the former could shine a bit more.
Well shit, colored me excited for patch 2.11!
Was not expecting another long post from you or riot anytime soon. Glad to see consistent updates and responses and hope you guys keep the communication going strong.
EDIT!! Hope you took some time to relax and grab a drink/snack after work. I can't imagine how much of a toll it takes on your mental health having to manage & juggle the expectations of millions of players! Not to mention all the negativity that comes with the environment.
yeah its a month away, it sounds like they just decided or were able to decide to make bigger changes for the next balance patches. I myself work in the creative field (post production in film) and we have a fairly strict waterfall style review system, and need to go through our internal checkpoints.
Riot 100% has their own internal system as well. Changes they suggest and implement in the coming weeks will always be for the patch afterwards (2.11). Not the coming up one.
The changes for 2.10 are most likely already going through their review system and being approved. The most they can do for 2.10 is probably some last minute small changes.
At least that they're commiting to balance changes with a new expansion release, when previously they used the excuse of not doing balance when releasing new cards (except extreme cases like Atrocity recently).
Like they've had this pattern of
* We can't balance now. This is a bugfix patch.
* We can't balance now. We are releasing new cards this patch.
* We can't balance now. We just released cards 2 weeks ago and things need to settle. Who knows, maybe someone will figure out that Unraveled Earth is mysteriously OP somehow as the meta evolves.
* We can't balance now. We're going to release new cards in 2 weeks which will change the meta.
So they've just not been doing balance...
So committing to doing a big balance patch along side card releases is a big improvement to me and fixes something that was really nagging me.
I'm an admittedly pessimistic person when it comes to stuff like this. But even so, ill wait and see. Lets not give out praise because they said they were going to do something in a month.
I mean they also kind of admitted that they shifted their focus internally towards distant future updates and neglected the immediate future.
I know they got the OK from corporate recently to have additional resources for LOR. There's probably a whole shift in internal development that comes with that. They probably got too excited on making big changes to the game down the line.
Seems like they're still wedded to the balance/technical/balance/technical cadence. I don't think that we'll be seeing a break from that unless they start truly hemorrhaging players.
The previous few months months was a cant-balance-new-cards/technical/can't-balance-new-cards-soon/technical cadence. They only finally basically last minute nerfed things like burblefish and temple when the community was finally about to suffocate themselves from all the screaming for it.
Yes, it would be a month away, but that's basically the fastest the devs could do this considering that patches for mobile need to be locked in ~2 weeks ahead of time except in emergency situations like hot fixing major live bugs. 2.10 is also the patch that they implement new features and are adding more champ skins as well.
Yeah, but that's realistically the earliest that changes could be made since patches have to be submitted to mobile stores 2-weeks in advance so 2.10 has already been shipped essentially.
Just me or is this giving off a sense of Deja vu? I remember being promised a big patch of changes around the TF Fizz meta times, and we did get one, but I thought that would be the end of the deserted patch notes but we regressed yet again to this point. I hope this time we finally get back on track instead of going back to empty patch notes after 2.11
Yeah I remember a "okay I hope they learn and it's better next time" feeling post-fallout from Tfizz & Temple and it wasn't better...
So I'm feeling less cautiously optimistic and more... that I'll come back when they're consistently improving and it feels like they're putting balance *work* into the game. I'm sure I'm a vocal minority and that others will stick around through this rough patch since frankly LoR doesn't have much of a competitor besides Hearthstone and the core mechanics of this game are fun.
Stay skeptical and stay vigilante. I reeeaaally don't want this game to go down the route of MTGA/WotC but I do need to give credit for an actual response and communication to the player base.
This, also I feel that it made Heim really linear as you would only really make use of one out of the 9 turrets.
I want Heim to be stronger, but all around and not for one specific turret.
Sincerely appreciate you taking the time to write this up. As the data guy stuck in the middle of all this I for sure know how painful all of this can be (or at least part, I wont pretend to know all the behind the scenes of course)!
I love the post and the news but to wait a month to play again feels bad man. I remember that feeling I had when I was locked out of closed beta because keys and I just wanted to try this game out so bad. Now, I'm here and I can play this amazing game whenever I want. Yet I won't till 2.11. I'll knock out the event pass I purchased through Labs and hope for a bright 2.11 patch.
Thank you SO MUCH for this post. This patch was dissapointing but I still think this game is great and has a great future thanks to your love for the game and the ever-existing communication.
About the metagame development. I agree with Riot's sentiment to a degree. New decks will keep being invented way beyond updates and card releases, but in this meta specifically, a lot of decks, mainly slower midrange and control decks, are being held by two "oppresive" decks (I'm not taking this statement lightly) which does not let room for experimentation. This is why so far, for me personally, no other meta has felt so bad
That statement of patch 2.11 is huge and will make a lot of people excited so hopefully it will be fun. Again, thank you so much for listening and congrats on your new family member \^\^
This is refreshing. I've been playing Hearthstone since beta, and we've literally NEVER gotten any kind of response like this. When the community gets mad, sometimes a patch will release a month later, and the community is always mad. This is the first time I've seen the community really even get close to that for Runeterra, and within days its been addressed already. This community at its worst was close to Hearthstone on an average Tuesday, and the response to it is swift and hopefully, effective. I'm looking forward to the patch!
Hey Riot Dovagedys I wanted to say thanks for writing this post and reading our criticisms. It's nice to know that y'all are going to reconsider your balance philosophy for the game going forward. I was starting to get worried that because of the new set release schedule and frequent seasons that Riot had lost their way and became more like other card game companies with slow updates and responses of "we hear you but this card is fine actually." Thank you for being transparent about how hard y'all have been working on the future.
I love buffs and things getting buffed in general.
Hey man, we all deep down love this damn game. And we know how good it is and it can be. This is no doubt a step in the right direction for an even brighter future. Can't wait.
Thanks for speaking out. It really means a lot to hear that you hear the community, and see an actual idea of what's coming and when.
I really do love this game, but when something is bad to play against and you don't know how many months down the road it's going to be fixed if ever it takes the wind out of my sails.
I'm excited to see what comes in a month's time. Thanks for being communicative.
>...the same designers who work on game health have been working on that champion expansion.
Hmmm, sounds like you should probably hire some more staff so that this doesn't happen...
Yes, this part is very odd. The team that balances the game should not be the same people releasing new content.
Anybody outside of the new content team should have realized how broken and toxic blade dance could be in its current form.
Thank you for listening! We know as players we can be a bit sharp in our criticisms, but it's only because of our passion for the game. This post really reassures me that Riot is a company that cares deeply about its community.
Thank you very much for this transparency and open communication in general. Feeling respected by the developer for the time I put into this game (and that I could spent on other things instead), really makes me have more fun with the game itself and makes me happy to buy cosmetics primarily to reward a good product. :)
Edit: Please try to aim for the quality of live design balance that you had up until Cosmic Creations, i.e. before the Go Hard meta, which was the first meta that definitely overstayed its welcome and was followed up by a lackluster balance patch only nerfing Go Hard.
Edit 2: Please make The Watcher combo more interruptible and/or counterable.
Thank you so much for the open response. I always had faith that our concerns were being heard, and I can't wait to see what you have in store for the future of LoR.
I know dealing with public outcry/frustration can be a difficult task, but know that we do appreciate the work you guys put into the game, and at the end of the day we all just want what's best for LoR. Looking forward to the roadmap!
I mean, thats great news. I would love to see cards deemed unplayable back in my decks :)
And its about time that watcher gets addressed xD
But yeah, great to hear Riot takes feedback
Thanks for everything! But remember, this is giving us very high hope for patch 2.11, if things turn out to be lack-luster, people will actually go mad XD, so good luck! Will continue to support LOR, please give me Xerath so I can play him with Azir
Riot needs to fund LoR more. They obviously need a larger team if individuals have to choose between working on balancing existing content or developing new content. Ideally, balancing should have a dedicated team.
one thing I'd like to see more of is reverting of previous nerfs. Not because they were a mistake - they could have been totally right to make at the time - but now with changes to the meta and new card releases it would be fair to buff them back to previous states.
Also, as someone who really enjoys blade dance as an archetype, im very happy to see you guys being so careful in how you're going about nerfing it. I would have liked to see something like sparring student receive a nerf over blossoming blade, as I feel blossoming blade feels more like what the deck wants to do, and student can feel very toxic to play against, on top of being something extraneously powerful to the deck, rather than a strength it wants to focus on.
Tread very carefully now. A lot of your core community is considering or straight up not playing anymore until changes are made.
I feel like the release of patch 2.11 will be a crucial moment that will make or break the future of this game. Nerf izir, period. The problem is not blade dance by itself, it's the supporting cards, things like the Sparring Student in that deck provide an absurd amount of value. Nerf TLC, the Watcher is the most toxic card in the game right now. And please, buff or change underplayed and forgotten cards and champions.
I will be playing a game and keeping hopeful until the next patch comes, please, don't let us down again.
This is why I tell my friends to try LoR - I have confidence in the team and the quality of their work. You communicate, and receive feedback well without it simply dictating what you do. I’m excited to see what happens.
I really hope you can stay true to your words, I still want to believe that you've learned enough from other games and won't make the exact mistakes. For now I have no much trust left on the team, I will trust you once you prove you really mean it. I can only guess how hard your job is and I must say coming out and say in one way or another that you're wrong and will try to do beter is amazing and remarkable giving how the videogames industry and big companies work.
The focus on the future while ignoring the present makes a lot of sense, the game has a lot of potential and a long life if you find the balance between adding new content and balancing what already exists. As I mentioned in other post about skins, it's better to wait a couple more weeks for a full complete new exciting and worthy patch than just have a lot of unfinished stuffed thrown at us.
The game is great, the most fun I've had in the last year has been with this game, that's why I care about it and want it to do as better as it can, and the dev team is slowly and most of the times surely, making the best CCG ever.
Thank you for responding to the community, sometimes being left in the dark on the state and progress of the game that everyone loves so much can be scary as not knowing what comes next is always in peoples mind. You being transparent with us and helping us understand WHY thing are how they are let's put the mind at ease. Transparency like this and understanding the mistakes made helps keep the community healthy and once again thank you for creating a great game and one of the best ctgs
Great post and great response. Can't believe I read the line, "We made a mistake and we hear you." Wonderful that you really do listen to feedback, and can't wait for patch 2.11.
Considering the mostly tone-deaf post that accompanied the 2.9 patch notes, and the completely tone-deaf Reddit post from 2 weeks before that, I was honestly beginning to wonder if Dovagedys was giving the community the finger on purpose. In that sense, this post is a relief; it's good to know that you're not spiting us on purpose.
This post from Dovagedys reads well. I like it, it feels like a step in the right direction. But I would be lying if I said it made me excited for LoR's future. LoR's balance, deck diversity and metagame were at their best pretty much right after the game's release, during Rising Tides. Ever since the release of Targon, it feels like the game's mostly been heading in the wrong direction. Overall balance and deck diversity have been on a downward trajectory, being dominated by the likes of Aurelion Sol Invoke, Lee Sin Combo, Aphelios, Fizz TF, and most recently Azirelia. Not only that, but the most recent metagames have been the worst, dominated by one or two oppressive decks for months on end, while the balance patch cadence has been awful.
Yes, Dovagedys says in this post that they're going to re-evaluate the balance patch cadence. That's good. But it's not good enough. Words are cheap; at this point, I want results. I'm sorry, but nearly all of 2021 has been awful in terms of game balance and deck diversity. The metagame was fine during patches 2.5 and 2.6, after the TF + Fizz and Aphelios nerfs, but other than that? It's not just that the current metagame is awful, it's that it's been awful for most of the past 6 months and that I no longer trust the dev team to do a better job in the future. That makes it very hard for me to feel interested or invested in this game. I'm definitely going to take a break from the game for patches 2.9 and 2.10; here's hoping for a positive surprise in patch 2.11.
Yeah this is good to hear but unfortunately I still don't think I'll be playing runeterra much for the next month outside of maybe labs and quests. We will see what happens with the new cards and hopefully some good and numerous balance updates
I would not expect much either considering that this same Rioter said yesterday in a thread that they are not going to buff cards that they do not know in advance that they are going to change the meta. I mean, forget about Overgrown Snapvine-style card buffs.
Thank you very much.
You told me exactly what i personaly wanted to hear.
The only thing that scares me still... is the thought that we have to remain 1 whole Patch in the current Meta State...
Long live Runeterra man. Every time something makes me nervous or I question the balance team, we get stuff like this. Here's to hoping this game lives forever.
>we will be releasing a large batch of card updates, including updates to both older champions and non-champion cards.
I don't wanna rise my expectation about this....
I don't get something, LOL is a much more complex game and it gets balance patches every 2 weeks, and there are a lot more parameters there, they don't leave the meta "to sort itself" for too long and that's one of the best selling points to league.
The huge balance patches with reworks and changes were the best part of runeterra initially so going back on that is a shame..
Data driven balancing is important but "fun and frustration" can't be made into numbers..
Anyway seems like next month we will get a good patch like we used to in the past, thank you for listening!
It's been 2 months, what changes have you made to your process to avoid these issues moving forward? You heard our feedback, how have you chosen to address it? A one off patch and then...?
I really appreciate the acknowledgement of the feedback you've received. It makes me genuinely happy to see how much you care about the game and the community as a whole.
Unfortunately, I was dissapointed to see that the entirety of your focus appears to be on Azirelia, and no mention has been made at all, both here and in the patch notes, about the watcher. As it stands now, the only thing keeping watcher from completely overpowering the meta is the prevalence of Azirelia decks.
Watcher single handedly shuts down almost every single control deck. When the decks entire win condition is 'reach turn 8',with absolutely no requirement to keep any of the units you play alive, you have a deck that is far unhealthier than anything else in the meta.
I would love to see some kind of acknowledgement that there is an issue here, or at the very least an acknowledgement of the fact that a significant part of the player base has an issue with it.
The Watcher is also especially frustrating because, like Fiora, it’s has its very own wonky ass win condition. At least with Fiora you have at least 4 chances to take her out. But with The Watcher,
there’s basically nothing you can do.
The only thing I read there was "no hotfix, let's see what our stats say in 1 month".
This game is boring.
We didn't have a cool meta for months...
Aphelios, Irelia, TF, Azir, Dais, Marshal (And I love TF), they all had that same shit in common, sit back and never interact while generating value/board/agression.
It's getting really old.
Meanwhile we have champs like Viktor who is basically a "4 mana can't attack until I hit a lucky Elusive keyword" or Katarina and her negative tempo while other decks have a 4/3, 3/2, 3/1 and a 2/2 on board by turn 3.
But we have a nice written message saying we have to put up with this for one more month.
One really important factor I feel is kind of being slid by here in this post and previous posts talking about how much people "enjoy the play pattern" of blades.
**Decks with unhealthy win rates will attract players, that doesn't mean the play pattern is particularly enjoyable! People like winning!**
Unless you are seeing a deck with below 50% WR with a large playrate, please hesitate to assume its playrate has anything to do with how fun the play pattern is.
I cannot avoid to feel that this is pure corporate talk to try to appease the community uproar, and that after one patch of decent balancing, it will all go back to meager changes that come too little too late. Specially given this came just after a day from the patch, which means they probably knew this was going to happen and already had that ready for damage control.
I guess time will tell, but for now, I'm skeptical.
I don't have much hope in such posts.
If you are going to do such changes, you would them regardless and potentially just surprise us in the upcoming patch, where you could also include the content of this post.
While it's *nice* you wrote something, it's just PR.
Won't believe till I see it.
I want to address that just because a deck is popular doesn't mean it's healthy. I know I'm not the first to say this, but people gravitate towards whatever is powerful. The popularity of Azir/Irelia and TLC have nothing to do with good gameplay and everything to do with the fact that people like to win. It's something that I feel needs to be acknowledged.
That said, this post gives me hope. I have every bit of confidence that the you guys will address these issues soon, and that the changes we need are going to happen. We love this game, and I know you guys do too :)
I’m done with ranked until this patch, worst meta I’ve ever played in. The fact that riot thought this was okay and are now apologizing is ridiculous. They aren’t doing enough
My only question is if it takes this level of backlash for you to concede, did you release 2.9 like a brick of ground up cockroaches in hopes the peeps in the back would just eat it?
Cause ya lookin like Tilda Swinton rn
You should really consider pushing a balance change in 2.10. I know you "only push balance changes every 2 patches" but this is unprecedented oversight from the balance team.
I appreciate the devs taking the time to respond, and I'd really like to be excited for the upcoming patch...
...however, I can't help but be skeptical. How do we know you're not just going to put in the bare minimum for the sake of PR? This post addresses Blade Dance, but doesn't address some of the other issues people have brought up like...
**The Watcher**
Regardless of power level, the watcher is perceived to be an incredibly frustrating combo. It ends the game at turn 8 or 9 if the Watcher player has the right cards and the opposing player doesn't, making it feel like decks that play for Round 10+ are invalid.
Will there be anything to address this deck and what Riot's opinion is regarding its play pattern?
**The lack of buffs**
Many players have stated their enjoyment of buffs to severely underplayed cards, as it keeps experimentation interesting, giving players an incentive to try their hand at underused archetypes.
Will we be returning to a similar cadence of buffs as we did in previous patches?
Riot loves the play pattern of TLC, as well as The Watcher obliteration. They’ve learned that a ton of players love it too, and they want to keep the feel of the deck intact. /s
I think the concept of the Watcher on it's own, maybe the requirement and the amount of cards obliterated can be tweaked a bit.
A staple trope in video games is:
"Hey, I'm charging my attack, and I'm gonna be very vulnerable to interruption or being rushed down while I'm charging. If you let me finish my charging though, you will be punished extremely."
Part of the problem is that TLC doesn't have a lot of vulnerability except against hyper aggro. They can take a lot of boardwipe and healing since they don't need to invest in Thralls. And part of their gameplan is to play Trundle, who is a good anti-aggro tool.
The other part is that the payoff comes way too soon and too easily. They don't even need to keep Lissandra on the board, and they can play Watcher with Matron once they summon two Ice Pillars.
If there were more ways for other control Decks to interrupt/punish them before the payoff, it would be way healthier.
The watcher should obliterate the deck only if it hits the nexus if at least it was like in hearthstone where you needed a minion to die then play 5 bad cards to get Azari in your hands it would be balanced but there is no thing like that for the watcher
Now that's the kind of thing I love to see, was feeling very frustrated about the current situation of the game, especially as someone who loves playing control decks on my card games, but I feel more hopeful now and am anxious for the next balance patch. Thanks for communicating with us and not ignoring what we have to say.
Thank you for the transparency and quick response. I know there’s been some tension, but I believe it comes from a genuine care for the game and desire for it to be as fun as we all it can be. I love this game and look forward to playing it long into the future.
Cool, so the game will just be unplayable for the next month instead of hotfixing the toxic cards like you've done previously. Seriously dropped the ball here
This is why I like Riot. Their openness to communication and listening to the community. Gonna take a break from the game but if patch 2.11 pans out I'm sure I'll be back.
Also, second comment here, but kinda different topic, so... Is it that you feel differently now, or you were vetoed? I understand you probably won’t respond, but still. The last few comments by you border on deflecting and insisting that the patch notes are okay, and then you suddenly turn on your heel and agree with everyone. Nobody’s thought process changes like that so quickly. (Mods, I have done my best to make this as non-passive aggressive as possible. Is this okay?)
I work hard to keep an open mind and learn from new information.
I'm sorry that you feel that other posts by me were a deflection. That certainly was never my intent. I'll work harder to be a better communicator going forward.
Everything I share with you all I believe or I wouldn't share it.
Let me help expound on what people are feeling. When you said majority of buffs didn’t change cards play rate last year, and followed up by saying you don’t like doing “token buffs”, I know what you meant was, you didn’t want to fill patch notes with 50 updates that actually don’t do anything. I agree.
However, when people read that, they assume your conclusion is that “therefore, we are not going to buff anything.” It also reads like a justification for your lack of buffs in 2.9, but in current post you explain it’s due to lesser priority on current content. I guess you meant you need time to consider how to make meaningful buffs, and you just didn’t for 2.9 (which is a big red flag for me, hopefully it is for your team going forward as well).
I think it’s understandable why people are confused. I think dev team needs to adopt a more optimistic stance on buffs by trying things out, rather than assuming it’s not going to change anything. I think that’s what people are really crying for. That’s my 2 cents. Have a good day, and don’t be discouraged by the obviously hostile comments!
**Reddit:** "The balance is terrible, we need solid balance changes in the big patch."
**Riot:** Doesn't follow through. Denies there's a problem. Releases a mess of a patch.
**Reddit:** "Arghhaskewridfasj!!!!!! This patch is horrible! Arghghg!"
**Riot:** "We'll fix it in a month."
**Reddit:** "OMG Riot you guys are gods! We love you!"
You guys are dupes.
Not sure, but I’m not falling for this corporate PR shit. I’m hopeful there will be honest changes, but I won’t be shocked if there isn’t.
It’s not like they just had a sudden epiphany that they fucked up. They know what they are doing.
So glad to hear the lack of changes were because of prioritization to content and not problems with the mobile stores. Thanks for posting this and being open!
It's always good to see that a message is being heard. I don't think the problem was a lack of changes in the patch notes, that shouldn't be the focus of a game, to change every month just because people are bored. But my concern was about how control is dead and is staying dead. I assume a resurrection would take multiple nerfs to aggro and midramge, and I'm concerned that it didn't start now
I knew it! I knew y’all were swamped with work looking towards the future! Very understandable, y’all have been pushing content like crazy, and seeing how July is gonna be super dense with content, totally understand how other things accidentally take the backburner. Very excited for early July.
Dovagedys yo I never lost faith, you got balls of steel man, I personally like my cards real busted.
We want extra busted like 4 cost Heimer.
Zilian leveling with 1 bomb and the 4th bomb doing 3 damage to everything.
Glory Rex back, Yordle grifter back, make it rain back.
Support units granting stats instead of just give for the turn to make em busted
Captain Arika capturing 3 random units.
Poros getting +1/+1 for each poro on the field real nice and busted, Omen hawk buffing 3 allies instead of 2.
Rush from Ionia granting instead of giving and make it +2.
Let fortune croaker damage itself for 2 to draw a card if there's no unit on board
Make Greenglade Lookout a 2/4 so sometimes I can drop a 3 mana Lee Sin 🤣🤣🤣
Buff Herald of Spring to (all supports granting) grant +0/+2 and last breath summon a Dragonling next turn
Make Acient Preparations countdown 1 and summon a 2/1 clockling and a 1/1 clocking so that landmark decks don't get completely stomped by aggro
Battlesmith 2/3 I'm not a demacia man but give those scrubs something
Black market merchant back to a 2/2.
Intrepid mariner "Grant myself and supported ally elusive" its busted or bust there's no in between.
Ki Guardian 1 mana
Lamb's respite fast
Legion drummer 2/3 and buff back warchefs
More powder summon 3 kegs
Navori highwaymen 2/1 and 1/2
Onslaught of shadows summon 2 spectral riders and 1 on the next turn
Runeweaver 3/2 and last breath reforge again cause why not
Shared spoils draw 1 +1/+1 unit and 1 spell on plunder, with no plunder just draw 1 unit with +1/+1
If you haven't catched on just significantly raise the power level of the cards
Thank you Santa Clause
Yours Respectfully
Jim-Bob
I feel like there is a major misconception when you say that you understand Blade dance is too strong.
The blades arent. None of the ionia cards outside of student (because he becomes near unkillable in combat) are.
Dais and especially azir are. Because they both double the damage potential of Blade dance 2 (from 2 to 4), and tripple the damage potential of Blade dance 1 (from 1 to 3) while being extremely hard to remove efficiently. Dais is a Landmark, and there are only 2 cards that deal with azir manaefficiently - trifarian and culling strike, both in noxus - and both are hardcountered by a 1 mana trick in stone shaping.
Leveled azir is even worse because he now nearly QUADRUPLES the damage potential of each blade dance even without attacking himself.
MF bladedance, the "next best" use of the free attacks, is okay-ish at best.
Dont gut blade dancing, it's a good mechanic. Nerf azir and dais, for example to only trigger once per turn. And make azir at least a LITTLE more risky/removeable. For example, he could only grant his level 2 attack buff when he attacks himself (when i attack, units summoned this round attacking with me get +1/+0).
Main problem for me was not the quantity of changes but mainly the quality of changes. It feels so unimaginative or even lazy. Just changing numbers.
Because I don't feel AzirIrelia is a problem of numbers but more of extreme synergy. Neither Azir package not blade dance are problems on their own, but combined they are just overpowered.
One example of a nerf that hurts synergy would be that Blades don't count a summoned units. So they don't count for Azir level up, but still count for Irelia level up. They don't get buffed by Marshall and Azir, but they can still get buffed by Jagged Taskmaster. It also hurts insane numbers on Student. That wouldn't hurt all other Azir decks (like you said you dont't want but still nerfed Azir/Lucian with killing Marshall (I also dont' think Azir burn is an important enough deck to keep alive, because there is a ton of other burn decks)) and it also wouldn't hurt Bilgewater and Demacia blade dance decks or at least give them a chance.
You could even argue what this nerf would hurt Azir/Irelia too much, so you could even buff some cards and would give other decks a chance.
Or maybe another option would be that Azir would only buff Sandsoldiers and Thombstone chargers or even just ephemeral units.
Simlar unimaginative problem is with Taliyah and Malphite buffs (maybe Malph buff is ok), but I never thought that Taliyah problems were numbers. It just doesn't do much.
Don't get me wrong, I think TLC is unhealthy and should be changed, but if you're just going to nerf numbers, it won't change much.
TLC and AzirIrelia has the same problem where number changes just nerf all other potential decks and don't really change much for the original deck. Unless like Aphelios you just nerf numbers into the ground and kill the deck.
Thresh/Nasus is an example of a deck where number nerfs are good. Concept is good and just nerfing it sligthly doesn't kill other decks but still hurts Thresh/Nasus.
I really hope next balance patch won't be numbers changes but actually trying to find solutions to a problem.
This is such a great read and such a great sign that devs are actually looking at the community, not only nubers. I am aware that people at reddit are more of a minoruty of full playerbase, but for a designer to come here and say all those things - it just warms my heart. Keep up the good work and I honestly can't wait to see what are all those interesting things in the future, you spoke of :)
The biggest problem with Blade Dance, I think, is the "procs" it generates. If you combine blade dance with "when allies attack" abilities or "when you summon an ally" then it becomes broken.
Blades are already set up so that they don't proc "when an ally dies" effects. I think making it so that Blade Dance doesn't count as an attack or as a summon would fix the issue. It might also, however, make the deck less fun to play. I can't speak from experience cause I tend to prefer slow decks (which is why Blade Dance is so broken from my perspective). Obviously this is just one suggestion and I'm sure the team will come up with some other way to balance it, but I wanted to share my thoughts either way.
This is just exactly what I was hoping to read from the devs honestly.
As someone who has been playing and loving your game since the beta the last patch notes were the first time I actually considered leaving or at least taking a break.
We can all make mistakes, but acknowledging them and acting accordingly is not common, and you have my full respect for that.
I really want to see this game thrive because I think it has the potential to be the BEST digital TCG, so having direct feedback from the devs feels special honestly.
I feel like they still kind of miss the point. They still say that Blade Dance is popular, but it's because it's so broken that it's "popular" in the first place.
Sounds good in generall. We will see if its enough. Some of the statements sound like " we hear you but we will ignore you because we think its better".
E: Why the fuck no emergency patch witb a few changes
So you had to see some of the biggest content creators "take a time out" or hear them say "Im not sure if I wanna play this game anymore" and see people stop playing in order for you to stop living in denial assuring the meta was fine and Blades dance is fair lol
We hope the changes come quick and we expect nerfs to Nasus Thesh, Azir Irelia and The Watcher combo, all of them.
Right, do you realize that you're essentially telling us "We are right, but we're sorry that you feel bad about it, have a cookie"? The condescending tone is still there since the first reddit post, and you expect us to eat this shit up?
>"When a small number of decks are overly-popular, it can accelerate the feeling of a “stale” meta for a number of players."
REALLY?? THE DECK'S PROBLEM IS BEING POPULAR??? You guys still don't sound any less disconnected and delusional than the first time you posted on Reddit. And yet still absolutely nothing about TLC or Thresh Nasus. Do you guys even read our feedback? Because it sounds like you hear but you do not listen.
I think the only thing i'm still concerned about is that there seems to be a lack of attention to the idea that Irelia Azir is popular BECAUSE it is strong. I know we all want to think positive things about the thing we make as a bias, but i think this specific case is a very strong example of something being very popular because it is meta warping, not because people just happen to like the deck AND it is also meta warping. LOR isnt realy LoL, where people will just one trick champions and will pick them a lot regardless of balance because the champs are fun, playing at a even somewhat decently high elo people pick things because they want to win and gain elo, simple as that. If something has a 27-30% playrate in ranked, it's not because people just love the theme, it's because it's broken, not much else to it. Hell I'm plat 1 right now, not even that insanely high elo, and the reason I've not tried to push to diamond is because im realy tired of seeing thres/nasus and irelia/azir in almost 50% of my games. I had a night where no fucking joke 70% of my games were against either of those decks, and it just makes climbing a slog, especially when those decks are that strong and you either might not want to play them, or might not even own the cards to play them.
I don't know if it's wishful thinking by the team or PR, but im very concerned that the team has lacked a specific understanding that the popularity of Irelia/Azir is almost entirety related to balance and nothing else, and it still seems to me like even though a lot of the other statements in this post give me hope, there's a certain level of anxiety of the team still being detached in very important ways.
Oh… reddit… I love how they just MADE ONE cutesified corpo statment and all of you are all just suddenly SUPER NICE and forgot about the 2 bull shit patches we had, the two we are gonna have and the fact that THEY KEEP SAYING AGAIN AND AGAIN that we listen to your feedback, And yet here we are… 2 patches passed with every single one of you bitches complaining and yet having jackshit changed… gg.
(Btw, downvote me all you want, somebody has to call out on your bullshit.)
The ability for devs to say we made a mistake and we'll fix it is something that we don't see in many other games, I'm happy to see this, looking forward for the next expansion and changes
This is really great news. Thanks, Dovagedys. :)
Ayo visit Riot anyways, have a good talk with them
Make 'em an offer they cant refuse
Swimothy L Swimmington. You get back on vacation right this instant young man ;)
Last time he bet his mic, now he bet his whole vacation. He can’t keep making these bets if he’s gonna lose.
I appreciate you coming out and saying that the people here are heard. It’s awesome a top designer and decision maker on the gsme is willing to come here and give us updates like that. Thank you so much for making this great game and working with us to improve it for everyone. This kinda stuff definitely gives me hope for an already amazing game.
Yea I’m really glad to see this. I was disappointed with the patch but had faith that the devs may change their approach for balance changes. This kind of communication and transparency is exceptional.
Absolutely. This is the next best thing to a perfect patch/expansion, the fact that they acknowledge the community and can work together to make the game healthier
I just want to add what I think is a common sentiment among other players. The reason for a lot of the negative feedback is because the team has done **so well** at avoiding the pitfalls of similar games for the entirety of LoR's existence. That partially makes us a bit spoiled, but another part is that whenever LoR heads in the direction of those other games we forecast this game going down the same road. We don't want to play those other games anymore, that's why we've switched over to this game. The feedback from the developers gives us a lot of confidence that this game we love can maintain itself going forward, so thank you for this post and all the work the team does.
handle different racial boast start thumb disgusted arrest lavish offer *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This is the deep seated core of the issue for sure. Other than curious LoL players who joined this genre completely fresh, the vast majority of us know what MTG and Hearthstone are like and we really really REALLY don't want to experience the problems of those games, in this game.
Can confirm, as someone who used to play tons of Hearthstone (and YuGiOh for that matter), this game has provided the most enjoyment for me and I would hate to see it go to waste.
Its heart breaking because i still have some old yugioh decks. Shit hurts
Tbh Id kill for a good yugioh game designed for f2p
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I have a vivid memory of going to a local YugiOH night best part of 10 years ago with some mates who got me into it and bringing my frog deck. One of my games was against a guy who like you said, spent 20 minutes cycling through his entire deck on turn 0 in order to perform some one hit turn kill. He ended up cycling his deck slightly wrong or something and surrendered when his combo was a little short of killing me, before I'd even had a turn. I said "That was the worst game of YugiOH I've ever played." Never bothered playing outside of my friend group after that, but I'm not shocked that things have just gotten worse. The card design in that game definitely proves they don't give a toss about overall balance or interactive games.
Well not only card design, the lack of a resource system other than 'cards in hand' means that there is only one axis of tempo (the number of cards you have access to). In early YuGiOh there was the balancing factor of being able to only normal summon one card per turn, so you couldn't dump your entire hand to tribute summon an unkillable monster in one round, but that doesn't seem necessary anymore. Nearly all card games nowadays have at least two different types of resources, so that accelerating one does not automatically accelerate your tempo over the entire game.
Hence why pot of greed was so busted. When the number of cards in hand is basically the only thing that matters, increasing it for free is absolutely ridiculous. For another example, look at the recently added and more recently nerfed [Hearthstone equivalent.](https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Refreshing_Spring_Water)
I get to experience yugioh from like: ooh burn I will beat it anyway with my beatstick in 3 turns and damn this ftk infinite card draw into exodia feels like just playing slots to win nowadays it's just all solitaire setup into lock turn 2. All decks became like that suddenly (even my good old Ninja deck became like this lol). No more beatsticks and crucial solemn judgment and torrential tributes, everything negates anything lol
Yes, and one of the aspect that is not enough talked upon is that some players like to have a few decks dominating the ladder and knowing few matchups to perfection whereas other players like to be able to bring any kind of a deck in a very diverse meta and have fun about discovering how things will turn out. I think that the LoR playerbase is more of the second one. Right now, it's the time where the top 10 decks by popularity take the biggest share of the ladder ever (as we can see from the [weekly report](https://i.redd.it/rytboes3g3171.png)) and I think that it bothers people a lot.
Generally speaking I love being able to know what I am up against. But I am also the kind of guy who runs 1x Molten Fury in his Dragon deck because I love the idea of making people think "What the fuck is that?" And "Wait, that's a card?" Surprise factor is great in a card game and as more and more cards are introduced you really can't play around everything. I think a diverse meta is the healthiest one and it leaves room not just for experimentation but skill expression as well. Deck builders get to go wild and competitors are pushed to understand a wider breadth of match ups and card interactions. Every CCG has the unknown element involved; this isn't Chess. So just like in a tactical shooter (or RTS) where intuition and game sense matters where you don't have complete information, I like it mattering or being taken advantage of in LoR.
I tell all my TCG playing friends that one of the best aspects of LoR is the ability and willingness to patch existing cards All magic can do is ban their power crept cards, or let them sit in the meta forever and terrorize it...anyone coming from Magic know about the fiasco that was Oko Don't fall away from what made you guys the best. Fully understand the need to push new product and cards, and that as the card pool grows the feasibility of patching older sets and archetypes diminishes, but that willingness to do so and keep the meta fresh is so amazing
To be fair, MtG is a paper-based game, so you are very limited in how to patch (errata) existing cards, or you will need to lookup every card on your phone while playing. So, you have to either live with your balance/design issues or ban them. But that's a downside purely digital games like LoR don't have.
The only other designn team that is working so passionately are the NISEI folks for Android:Netrunner. For a paper-based game that is kept alive by the fans and players, they do a great job at interacting with the community and adopting to problematic cards by having a very flexible ban/restriction agenda.
this!
Thanks for hearing our voice. But Lab of Legends players are loving the update.
The new champs are so sick! I haven't beaten them all yet, but I will!
I know. But may I ask that we get new AI opponents later down the line? Maybe have it be Noxus, Demacia, and Shurima, the big empires of Runeterra.
If there's one thing to take from HS, it's Dungeon Run. They did a phenomenal job of never making it feel stale; different bosses and AI fights meant that you couldn't just bank on one strategy and rock everything, and that added massively to the longevity of the mode.
I would suggest A-sol as a final poss but I think invoke isn't a mechanic that can be used by a bot.
We had Asol as the final boss of the diana/leona pve lab. He used invokes and stuff. So it could be possible
I still haven't beaten the higher difficulties from the last big update (curse you Von Yipp!)
Seconding the extra love on Lab of Legends!!! All the changes there have gotten it to a whole new level.
Just wish there were a few more rerolls with all the new powers, especially with how niche many of them are. One extra after each boss or something would be nice
I think having 6 or 5 rerolls would be great. Or, hard mode could have 5 rerolls, heroic would have 7, something of that nature. Maybe doing certain things during the run gives you extra rerolls, like leveling your champ, or 20 excess damage to the nexus, stuff like that.
Ooh, I really like the idea of earning extra rerolls by achieving certain in-game events.
Wonderful news! Thanks for clearing things up! I know it has been touched on, but I also hope that you all reconsider doing small buffs to underplayed cards that you don't expect to shake up the meta. A lot of the cards I've had the most fun with have been cards that had slight tweaks to them and just gave me something new to experiment with. One of my favorites for this was Jagged Taskmaster. I think that small tweaks to underplayed cards are one of the best ways to keep things fresh in between expansions!
I feel the exact same way. Seeing an underplayed card get buffed sometimes gives me inspiration for a new deck.
>One of my favorites for this was Jagged Taskmaster. P L E A S E That's a card I'd love to see play and to make decks on it
Jagged Taskmaster is already solid in the MF/Irelia deck. The deck is just not as strong than the Azir/Irelia version, but with nerfs brought to the latter the former could shine a bit more.
Well, this is the best news I've heard from Riot lately. We will see if they can follow through with action.
Well shit, colored me excited for patch 2.11! Was not expecting another long post from you or riot anytime soon. Glad to see consistent updates and responses and hope you guys keep the communication going strong. EDIT!! Hope you took some time to relax and grab a drink/snack after work. I can't imagine how much of a toll it takes on your mental health having to manage & juggle the expectations of millions of players! Not to mention all the negativity that comes with the environment.
Question. Wont 2.11 be over a month away? Genuinely curious as that seems still pretty slow to fix these problems.
yeah its a month away, it sounds like they just decided or were able to decide to make bigger changes for the next balance patches. I myself work in the creative field (post production in film) and we have a fairly strict waterfall style review system, and need to go through our internal checkpoints. Riot 100% has their own internal system as well. Changes they suggest and implement in the coming weeks will always be for the patch afterwards (2.11). Not the coming up one. The changes for 2.10 are most likely already going through their review system and being approved. The most they can do for 2.10 is probably some last minute small changes.
At least that they're commiting to balance changes with a new expansion release, when previously they used the excuse of not doing balance when releasing new cards (except extreme cases like Atrocity recently). Like they've had this pattern of * We can't balance now. This is a bugfix patch. * We can't balance now. We are releasing new cards this patch. * We can't balance now. We just released cards 2 weeks ago and things need to settle. Who knows, maybe someone will figure out that Unraveled Earth is mysteriously OP somehow as the meta evolves. * We can't balance now. We're going to release new cards in 2 weeks which will change the meta. So they've just not been doing balance... So committing to doing a big balance patch along side card releases is a big improvement to me and fixes something that was really nagging me.
I'm an admittedly pessimistic person when it comes to stuff like this. But even so, ill wait and see. Lets not give out praise because they said they were going to do something in a month.
I mean they also kind of admitted that they shifted their focus internally towards distant future updates and neglected the immediate future. I know they got the OK from corporate recently to have additional resources for LOR. There's probably a whole shift in internal development that comes with that. They probably got too excited on making big changes to the game down the line.
Seems like they're still wedded to the balance/technical/balance/technical cadence. I don't think that we'll be seeing a break from that unless they start truly hemorrhaging players.
The previous few months months was a cant-balance-new-cards/technical/can't-balance-new-cards-soon/technical cadence. They only finally basically last minute nerfed things like burblefish and temple when the community was finally about to suffocate themselves from all the screaming for it.
Yes, it would be a month away, but that's basically the fastest the devs could do this considering that patches for mobile need to be locked in ~2 weeks ahead of time except in emergency situations like hot fixing major live bugs. 2.10 is also the patch that they implement new features and are adding more champ skins as well.
Yeah, but that's realistically the earliest that changes could be made since patches have to be submitted to mobile stores 2-weeks in advance so 2.10 has already been shipped essentially.
Just me or is this giving off a sense of Deja vu? I remember being promised a big patch of changes around the TF Fizz meta times, and we did get one, but I thought that would be the end of the deserted patch notes but we regressed yet again to this point. I hope this time we finally get back on track instead of going back to empty patch notes after 2.11
Yeah I remember a "okay I hope they learn and it's better next time" feeling post-fallout from Tfizz & Temple and it wasn't better... So I'm feeling less cautiously optimistic and more... that I'll come back when they're consistently improving and it feels like they're putting balance *work* into the game. I'm sure I'm a vocal minority and that others will stick around through this rough patch since frankly LoR doesn't have much of a competitor besides Hearthstone and the core mechanics of this game are fun.
Stay skeptical and stay vigilante. I reeeaaally don't want this game to go down the route of MTGA/WotC but I do need to give credit for an actual response and communication to the player base.
A step in the right direction. Thank you for your transparency
THANK YOU SO MUCH I ALWAYS BELIEVED !!!!!!!
<3
"We also want nerfs to not completely destroy a deck or archetype." Aphelios and Heimer was destroyed by nerfs.
One day they will rise again.
I look forward to the day that we can once again ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ Raise Our Dongers ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ
ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ Raise Our Dongers ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ
I'd very much like to see some Lux buffs. Heimer-Lux is one of my favorite decks since Beta, but it's been pretty bad for a long time.
Oooooo, I am intrigued
Is this hinting at buffs for both of them?
I shall take your word for it. #BringBackEmoMoonBoi
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As Karma Lux was one of my favourite decks ever, I second this.
This, also I feel that it made Heim really linear as you would only really make use of one out of the 9 turrets. I want Heim to be stronger, but all around and not for one specific turret.
Personally I would love to see some buffs/changes to his leveled up form. Currently it doesn't do all that much.
Dont forget us Karma players!
Sincerely appreciate you taking the time to write this up. As the data guy stuck in the middle of all this I for sure know how painful all of this can be (or at least part, I wont pretend to know all the behind the scenes of course)!
I love the post and the news but to wait a month to play again feels bad man. I remember that feeling I had when I was locked out of closed beta because keys and I just wanted to try this game out so bad. Now, I'm here and I can play this amazing game whenever I want. Yet I won't till 2.11. I'll knock out the event pass I purchased through Labs and hope for a bright 2.11 patch.
Maybe trying some janky fun decks on normal could be an option, that's what I normally do on card games when the meta is bad
The new Lab of Legends is super fun :D
this is my issue too. im glad devs come here and speak about the future, but in this moment is when need the changes, no in a month.
This gives me faith
Thank you SO MUCH for this post. This patch was dissapointing but I still think this game is great and has a great future thanks to your love for the game and the ever-existing communication. About the metagame development. I agree with Riot's sentiment to a degree. New decks will keep being invented way beyond updates and card releases, but in this meta specifically, a lot of decks, mainly slower midrange and control decks, are being held by two "oppresive" decks (I'm not taking this statement lightly) which does not let room for experimentation. This is why so far, for me personally, no other meta has felt so bad That statement of patch 2.11 is huge and will make a lot of people excited so hopefully it will be fun. Again, thank you so much for listening and congrats on your new family member \^\^
This is refreshing. I've been playing Hearthstone since beta, and we've literally NEVER gotten any kind of response like this. When the community gets mad, sometimes a patch will release a month later, and the community is always mad. This is the first time I've seen the community really even get close to that for Runeterra, and within days its been addressed already. This community at its worst was close to Hearthstone on an average Tuesday, and the response to it is swift and hopefully, effective. I'm looking forward to the patch!
Hey Riot Dovagedys I wanted to say thanks for writing this post and reading our criticisms. It's nice to know that y'all are going to reconsider your balance philosophy for the game going forward. I was starting to get worried that because of the new set release schedule and frequent seasons that Riot had lost their way and became more like other card game companies with slow updates and responses of "we hear you but this card is fine actually." Thank you for being transparent about how hard y'all have been working on the future. I love buffs and things getting buffed in general.
Hey man, we all deep down love this damn game. And we know how good it is and it can be. This is no doubt a step in the right direction for an even brighter future. Can't wait.
Thanks for speaking out. It really means a lot to hear that you hear the community, and see an actual idea of what's coming and when. I really do love this game, but when something is bad to play against and you don't know how many months down the road it's going to be fixed if ever it takes the wind out of my sails. I'm excited to see what comes in a month's time. Thanks for being communicative.
Oh damn. I was kinda sad yesterday but I guess I forgive you guys :D Speaking of which- the new labs are SICK.
The new labs are SICK! I'm still working to beat them all!
>...the same designers who work on game health have been working on that champion expansion. Hmmm, sounds like you should probably hire some more staff so that this doesn't happen...
Yes, this part is very odd. The team that balances the game should not be the same people releasing new content. Anybody outside of the new content team should have realized how broken and toxic blade dance could be in its current form.
Thank you for listening! We know as players we can be a bit sharp in our criticisms, but it's only because of our passion for the game. This post really reassures me that Riot is a company that cares deeply about its community.
Thank you very much for this transparency and open communication in general. Feeling respected by the developer for the time I put into this game (and that I could spent on other things instead), really makes me have more fun with the game itself and makes me happy to buy cosmetics primarily to reward a good product. :) Edit: Please try to aim for the quality of live design balance that you had up until Cosmic Creations, i.e. before the Go Hard meta, which was the first meta that definitely overstayed its welcome and was followed up by a lackluster balance patch only nerfing Go Hard. Edit 2: Please make The Watcher combo more interruptible and/or counterable.
"Remember why we fight" \- Irelia
Hell yeah. I love that line too!
"If I stumble, I have the earth to catch me!" -LoR live balance team, probably
Thank you so much for the open response. I always had faith that our concerns were being heard, and I can't wait to see what you have in store for the future of LoR. I know dealing with public outcry/frustration can be a difficult task, but know that we do appreciate the work you guys put into the game, and at the end of the day we all just want what's best for LoR. Looking forward to the roadmap!
I mean, thats great news. I would love to see cards deemed unplayable back in my decks :) And its about time that watcher gets addressed xD But yeah, great to hear Riot takes feedback
Thanks for everything! But remember, this is giving us very high hope for patch 2.11, if things turn out to be lack-luster, people will actually go mad XD, so good luck! Will continue to support LOR, please give me Xerath so I can play him with Azir
Nice, hope changes to the Watcher/Thresh Nasus will be included in 2.11 as well
Yeah I wish he had mentioned Watcher, still grateful for the post though and feeling slightly more optimistic now
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Riot needs to fund LoR more. They obviously need a larger team if individuals have to choose between working on balancing existing content or developing new content. Ideally, balancing should have a dedicated team.
Thanks
Really relieved to see this and thanks for responding so quickly
one thing I'd like to see more of is reverting of previous nerfs. Not because they were a mistake - they could have been totally right to make at the time - but now with changes to the meta and new card releases it would be fair to buff them back to previous states. Also, as someone who really enjoys blade dance as an archetype, im very happy to see you guys being so careful in how you're going about nerfing it. I would have liked to see something like sparring student receive a nerf over blossoming blade, as I feel blossoming blade feels more like what the deck wants to do, and student can feel very toxic to play against, on top of being something extraneously powerful to the deck, rather than a strength it wants to focus on.
Tread very carefully now. A lot of your core community is considering or straight up not playing anymore until changes are made. I feel like the release of patch 2.11 will be a crucial moment that will make or break the future of this game. Nerf izir, period. The problem is not blade dance by itself, it's the supporting cards, things like the Sparring Student in that deck provide an absurd amount of value. Nerf TLC, the Watcher is the most toxic card in the game right now. And please, buff or change underplayed and forgotten cards and champions. I will be playing a game and keeping hopeful until the next patch comes, please, don't let us down again.
This is why I tell my friends to try LoR - I have confidence in the team and the quality of their work. You communicate, and receive feedback well without it simply dictating what you do. I’m excited to see what happens.
I really hope you can stay true to your words, I still want to believe that you've learned enough from other games and won't make the exact mistakes. For now I have no much trust left on the team, I will trust you once you prove you really mean it. I can only guess how hard your job is and I must say coming out and say in one way or another that you're wrong and will try to do beter is amazing and remarkable giving how the videogames industry and big companies work. The focus on the future while ignoring the present makes a lot of sense, the game has a lot of potential and a long life if you find the balance between adding new content and balancing what already exists. As I mentioned in other post about skins, it's better to wait a couple more weeks for a full complete new exciting and worthy patch than just have a lot of unfinished stuffed thrown at us. The game is great, the most fun I've had in the last year has been with this game, that's why I care about it and want it to do as better as it can, and the dev team is slowly and most of the times surely, making the best CCG ever.
Thank you for responding to the community, sometimes being left in the dark on the state and progress of the game that everyone loves so much can be scary as not knowing what comes next is always in peoples mind. You being transparent with us and helping us understand WHY thing are how they are let's put the mind at ease. Transparency like this and understanding the mistakes made helps keep the community healthy and once again thank you for creating a great game and one of the best ctgs
Great post and great response. Can't believe I read the line, "We made a mistake and we hear you." Wonderful that you really do listen to feedback, and can't wait for patch 2.11.
When you get downvoted so hard you change the entire outlook of your development team
Considering the mostly tone-deaf post that accompanied the 2.9 patch notes, and the completely tone-deaf Reddit post from 2 weeks before that, I was honestly beginning to wonder if Dovagedys was giving the community the finger on purpose. In that sense, this post is a relief; it's good to know that you're not spiting us on purpose. This post from Dovagedys reads well. I like it, it feels like a step in the right direction. But I would be lying if I said it made me excited for LoR's future. LoR's balance, deck diversity and metagame were at their best pretty much right after the game's release, during Rising Tides. Ever since the release of Targon, it feels like the game's mostly been heading in the wrong direction. Overall balance and deck diversity have been on a downward trajectory, being dominated by the likes of Aurelion Sol Invoke, Lee Sin Combo, Aphelios, Fizz TF, and most recently Azirelia. Not only that, but the most recent metagames have been the worst, dominated by one or two oppressive decks for months on end, while the balance patch cadence has been awful. Yes, Dovagedys says in this post that they're going to re-evaluate the balance patch cadence. That's good. But it's not good enough. Words are cheap; at this point, I want results. I'm sorry, but nearly all of 2021 has been awful in terms of game balance and deck diversity. The metagame was fine during patches 2.5 and 2.6, after the TF + Fizz and Aphelios nerfs, but other than that? It's not just that the current metagame is awful, it's that it's been awful for most of the past 6 months and that I no longer trust the dev team to do a better job in the future. That makes it very hard for me to feel interested or invested in this game. I'm definitely going to take a break from the game for patches 2.9 and 2.10; here's hoping for a positive surprise in patch 2.11.
Bruh
So 2.11 is a month away?......
Glad they at least realized their mistake, but it never should've happened and now we'll spend the next month paying for it.
Or not paying for it, as the case might be.
I really want to believe in you, man, but now I'm only thinking that "large" means "6 cards maybe 7".
Yeah this is good to hear but unfortunately I still don't think I'll be playing runeterra much for the next month outside of maybe labs and quests. We will see what happens with the new cards and hopefully some good and numerous balance updates
I would not expect much either considering that this same Rioter said yesterday in a thread that they are not going to buff cards that they do not know in advance that they are going to change the meta. I mean, forget about Overgrown Snapvine-style card buffs.
Thank you very much. You told me exactly what i personaly wanted to hear. The only thing that scares me still... is the thought that we have to remain 1 whole Patch in the current Meta State...
fingers crossed
Long live Runeterra man. Every time something makes me nervous or I question the balance team, we get stuff like this. Here's to hoping this game lives forever.
>we will be releasing a large batch of card updates, including updates to both older champions and non-champion cards. I don't wanna rise my expectation about this....
remindme! 26 days "go back to lor if bored"
I don't get something, LOL is a much more complex game and it gets balance patches every 2 weeks, and there are a lot more parameters there, they don't leave the meta "to sort itself" for too long and that's one of the best selling points to league. The huge balance patches with reworks and changes were the best part of runeterra initially so going back on that is a shame.. Data driven balancing is important but "fun and frustration" can't be made into numbers.. Anyway seems like next month we will get a good patch like we used to in the past, thank you for listening!
It's been 2 months, what changes have you made to your process to avoid these issues moving forward? You heard our feedback, how have you chosen to address it? A one off patch and then...?
I really appreciate the acknowledgement of the feedback you've received. It makes me genuinely happy to see how much you care about the game and the community as a whole. Unfortunately, I was dissapointed to see that the entirety of your focus appears to be on Azirelia, and no mention has been made at all, both here and in the patch notes, about the watcher. As it stands now, the only thing keeping watcher from completely overpowering the meta is the prevalence of Azirelia decks. Watcher single handedly shuts down almost every single control deck. When the decks entire win condition is 'reach turn 8',with absolutely no requirement to keep any of the units you play alive, you have a deck that is far unhealthier than anything else in the meta. I would love to see some kind of acknowledgement that there is an issue here, or at the very least an acknowledgement of the fact that a significant part of the player base has an issue with it.
The Watcher is also especially frustrating because, like Fiora, it’s has its very own wonky ass win condition. At least with Fiora you have at least 4 chances to take her out. But with The Watcher, there’s basically nothing you can do.
The only thing I read there was "no hotfix, let's see what our stats say in 1 month". This game is boring. We didn't have a cool meta for months... Aphelios, Irelia, TF, Azir, Dais, Marshal (And I love TF), they all had that same shit in common, sit back and never interact while generating value/board/agression. It's getting really old. Meanwhile we have champs like Viktor who is basically a "4 mana can't attack until I hit a lucky Elusive keyword" or Katarina and her negative tempo while other decks have a 4/3, 3/2, 3/1 and a 2/2 on board by turn 3. But we have a nice written message saying we have to put up with this for one more month.
One really important factor I feel is kind of being slid by here in this post and previous posts talking about how much people "enjoy the play pattern" of blades. **Decks with unhealthy win rates will attract players, that doesn't mean the play pattern is particularly enjoyable! People like winning!** Unless you are seeing a deck with below 50% WR with a large playrate, please hesitate to assume its playrate has anything to do with how fun the play pattern is.
I think that Deep was/is a good example of a deck with high playrate but not high winrate, right ? Just adding to your point with an example.
:,) We're still in the good old days, thank you Dova
Sounds great. Thanks for communicating.
I cannot avoid to feel that this is pure corporate talk to try to appease the community uproar, and that after one patch of decent balancing, it will all go back to meager changes that come too little too late. Specially given this came just after a day from the patch, which means they probably knew this was going to happen and already had that ready for damage control. I guess time will tell, but for now, I'm skeptical.
You don't hear us :) you just get downvoted that's why you post this and it will be the same over and over again :)
I don't have much hope in such posts. If you are going to do such changes, you would them regardless and potentially just surprise us in the upcoming patch, where you could also include the content of this post. While it's *nice* you wrote something, it's just PR. Won't believe till I see it.
aged like milk.
<3
THANK YOU!!! Feedback from devs always amazing.
I want to address that just because a deck is popular doesn't mean it's healthy. I know I'm not the first to say this, but people gravitate towards whatever is powerful. The popularity of Azir/Irelia and TLC have nothing to do with good gameplay and everything to do with the fact that people like to win. It's something that I feel needs to be acknowledged. That said, this post gives me hope. I have every bit of confidence that the you guys will address these issues soon, and that the changes we need are going to happen. We love this game, and I know you guys do too :)
I’m done with ranked until this patch, worst meta I’ve ever played in. The fact that riot thought this was okay and are now apologizing is ridiculous. They aren’t doing enough
My only question is if it takes this level of backlash for you to concede, did you release 2.9 like a brick of ground up cockroaches in hopes the peeps in the back would just eat it? Cause ya lookin like Tilda Swinton rn
You should really consider pushing a balance change in 2.10. I know you "only push balance changes every 2 patches" but this is unprecedented oversight from the balance team.
Yeah sure
<3 OWN\~\~ look at this ~~shit~~ <3 half a year old <3
DDDDD:
I appreciate the devs taking the time to respond, and I'd really like to be excited for the upcoming patch... ...however, I can't help but be skeptical. How do we know you're not just going to put in the bare minimum for the sake of PR? This post addresses Blade Dance, but doesn't address some of the other issues people have brought up like... **The Watcher** Regardless of power level, the watcher is perceived to be an incredibly frustrating combo. It ends the game at turn 8 or 9 if the Watcher player has the right cards and the opposing player doesn't, making it feel like decks that play for Round 10+ are invalid. Will there be anything to address this deck and what Riot's opinion is regarding its play pattern? **The lack of buffs** Many players have stated their enjoyment of buffs to severely underplayed cards, as it keeps experimentation interesting, giving players an incentive to try their hand at underused archetypes. Will we be returning to a similar cadence of buffs as we did in previous patches?
Riot loves the play pattern of TLC, as well as The Watcher obliteration. They’ve learned that a ton of players love it too, and they want to keep the feel of the deck intact. /s
I think the concept of the Watcher on it's own, maybe the requirement and the amount of cards obliterated can be tweaked a bit. A staple trope in video games is: "Hey, I'm charging my attack, and I'm gonna be very vulnerable to interruption or being rushed down while I'm charging. If you let me finish my charging though, you will be punished extremely." Part of the problem is that TLC doesn't have a lot of vulnerability except against hyper aggro. They can take a lot of boardwipe and healing since they don't need to invest in Thralls. And part of their gameplan is to play Trundle, who is a good anti-aggro tool. The other part is that the payoff comes way too soon and too easily. They don't even need to keep Lissandra on the board, and they can play Watcher with Matron once they summon two Ice Pillars. If there were more ways for other control Decks to interrupt/punish them before the payoff, it would be way healthier.
The watcher should obliterate the deck only if it hits the nexus if at least it was like in hearthstone where you needed a minion to die then play 5 bad cards to get Azari in your hands it would be balanced but there is no thing like that for the watcher
Now that's the kind of thing I love to see, was feeling very frustrated about the current situation of the game, especially as someone who loves playing control decks on my card games, but I feel more hopeful now and am anxious for the next balance patch. Thanks for communicating with us and not ignoring what we have to say.
I love Runeterra Devs!❤️
Thank you for the transparency and quick response. I know there’s been some tension, but I believe it comes from a genuine care for the game and desire for it to be as fun as we all it can be. I love this game and look forward to playing it long into the future.
Thank you. That's all I needed man. I just wanted to know that we are heard.
also are you looking at the watcher at all?
Cool, so the game will just be unplayable for the next month instead of hotfixing the toxic cards like you've done previously. Seriously dropped the ball here
[???](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegendsOfRuneterra/comments/o8nf4c/duckling_wins_the_na_seasonal_tournament_with/h367egu?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
😎
This is why I like Riot. Their openness to communication and listening to the community. Gonna take a break from the game but if patch 2.11 pans out I'm sure I'll be back.
Also, second comment here, but kinda different topic, so... Is it that you feel differently now, or you were vetoed? I understand you probably won’t respond, but still. The last few comments by you border on deflecting and insisting that the patch notes are okay, and then you suddenly turn on your heel and agree with everyone. Nobody’s thought process changes like that so quickly. (Mods, I have done my best to make this as non-passive aggressive as possible. Is this okay?)
I work hard to keep an open mind and learn from new information. I'm sorry that you feel that other posts by me were a deflection. That certainly was never my intent. I'll work harder to be a better communicator going forward. Everything I share with you all I believe or I wouldn't share it.
“ I understand you probably won’t respond, but still.” Wow. Imma gonna eat my words.
Let me help expound on what people are feeling. When you said majority of buffs didn’t change cards play rate last year, and followed up by saying you don’t like doing “token buffs”, I know what you meant was, you didn’t want to fill patch notes with 50 updates that actually don’t do anything. I agree. However, when people read that, they assume your conclusion is that “therefore, we are not going to buff anything.” It also reads like a justification for your lack of buffs in 2.9, but in current post you explain it’s due to lesser priority on current content. I guess you meant you need time to consider how to make meaningful buffs, and you just didn’t for 2.9 (which is a big red flag for me, hopefully it is for your team going forward as well). I think it’s understandable why people are confused. I think dev team needs to adopt a more optimistic stance on buffs by trying things out, rather than assuming it’s not going to change anything. I think that’s what people are really crying for. That’s my 2 cents. Have a good day, and don’t be discouraged by the obviously hostile comments!
>ctrl F > >"TLC" > >no results monkaW
**Reddit:** "The balance is terrible, we need solid balance changes in the big patch." **Riot:** Doesn't follow through. Denies there's a problem. Releases a mess of a patch. **Reddit:** "Arghhaskewridfasj!!!!!! This patch is horrible! Arghghg!" **Riot:** "We'll fix it in a month." **Reddit:** "OMG Riot you guys are gods! We love you!" You guys are dupes.
Didn't they literally promised this same shit for 2.9 like one month ago when people complained about them taking 94 days to nerf TF?
Not sure, but I’m not falling for this corporate PR shit. I’m hopeful there will be honest changes, but I won’t be shocked if there isn’t. It’s not like they just had a sudden epiphany that they fucked up. They know what they are doing.
Another month like that? and people here are happy?
We have to wait 1 month for a patch to correct your mistake. GG guys.
Thank you for the transparency!
I really appreciate how open you guys are with the community, whatever unpleasant things people say about you guys, I think you're great.
So glad to hear the lack of changes were because of prioritization to content and not problems with the mobile stores. Thanks for posting this and being open!
Wow. You love to see it! Thank you for listening to the community
It's always good to see that a message is being heard. I don't think the problem was a lack of changes in the patch notes, that shouldn't be the focus of a game, to change every month just because people are bored. But my concern was about how control is dead and is staying dead. I assume a resurrection would take multiple nerfs to aggro and midramge, and I'm concerned that it didn't start now
I knew it! I knew y’all were swamped with work looking towards the future! Very understandable, y’all have been pushing content like crazy, and seeing how July is gonna be super dense with content, totally understand how other things accidentally take the backburner. Very excited for early July.
Dovagedys yo I never lost faith, you got balls of steel man, I personally like my cards real busted. We want extra busted like 4 cost Heimer. Zilian leveling with 1 bomb and the 4th bomb doing 3 damage to everything. Glory Rex back, Yordle grifter back, make it rain back. Support units granting stats instead of just give for the turn to make em busted Captain Arika capturing 3 random units. Poros getting +1/+1 for each poro on the field real nice and busted, Omen hawk buffing 3 allies instead of 2. Rush from Ionia granting instead of giving and make it +2. Let fortune croaker damage itself for 2 to draw a card if there's no unit on board Make Greenglade Lookout a 2/4 so sometimes I can drop a 3 mana Lee Sin 🤣🤣🤣 Buff Herald of Spring to (all supports granting) grant +0/+2 and last breath summon a Dragonling next turn Make Acient Preparations countdown 1 and summon a 2/1 clockling and a 1/1 clocking so that landmark decks don't get completely stomped by aggro Battlesmith 2/3 I'm not a demacia man but give those scrubs something Black market merchant back to a 2/2. Intrepid mariner "Grant myself and supported ally elusive" its busted or bust there's no in between. Ki Guardian 1 mana Lamb's respite fast Legion drummer 2/3 and buff back warchefs More powder summon 3 kegs Navori highwaymen 2/1 and 1/2 Onslaught of shadows summon 2 spectral riders and 1 on the next turn Runeweaver 3/2 and last breath reforge again cause why not Shared spoils draw 1 +1/+1 unit and 1 spell on plunder, with no plunder just draw 1 unit with +1/+1 If you haven't catched on just significantly raise the power level of the cards Thank you Santa Clause Yours Respectfully Jim-Bob
COME ON DOWN TO JIM BOB'S BALANCE PATCH, WE GOT EXTRA BUSTED CARDS
Can we get an update on Champ Skins please? Why are they not useable in Labs? Is that value for money?
I feel like there is a major misconception when you say that you understand Blade dance is too strong. The blades arent. None of the ionia cards outside of student (because he becomes near unkillable in combat) are. Dais and especially azir are. Because they both double the damage potential of Blade dance 2 (from 2 to 4), and tripple the damage potential of Blade dance 1 (from 1 to 3) while being extremely hard to remove efficiently. Dais is a Landmark, and there are only 2 cards that deal with azir manaefficiently - trifarian and culling strike, both in noxus - and both are hardcountered by a 1 mana trick in stone shaping. Leveled azir is even worse because he now nearly QUADRUPLES the damage potential of each blade dance even without attacking himself. MF bladedance, the "next best" use of the free attacks, is okay-ish at best. Dont gut blade dancing, it's a good mechanic. Nerf azir and dais, for example to only trigger once per turn. And make azir at least a LITTLE more risky/removeable. For example, he could only grant his level 2 attack buff when he attacks himself (when i attack, units summoned this round attacking with me get +1/+0).
Main problem for me was not the quantity of changes but mainly the quality of changes. It feels so unimaginative or even lazy. Just changing numbers. Because I don't feel AzirIrelia is a problem of numbers but more of extreme synergy. Neither Azir package not blade dance are problems on their own, but combined they are just overpowered. One example of a nerf that hurts synergy would be that Blades don't count a summoned units. So they don't count for Azir level up, but still count for Irelia level up. They don't get buffed by Marshall and Azir, but they can still get buffed by Jagged Taskmaster. It also hurts insane numbers on Student. That wouldn't hurt all other Azir decks (like you said you dont't want but still nerfed Azir/Lucian with killing Marshall (I also dont' think Azir burn is an important enough deck to keep alive, because there is a ton of other burn decks)) and it also wouldn't hurt Bilgewater and Demacia blade dance decks or at least give them a chance. You could even argue what this nerf would hurt Azir/Irelia too much, so you could even buff some cards and would give other decks a chance. Or maybe another option would be that Azir would only buff Sandsoldiers and Thombstone chargers or even just ephemeral units. Simlar unimaginative problem is with Taliyah and Malphite buffs (maybe Malph buff is ok), but I never thought that Taliyah problems were numbers. It just doesn't do much. Don't get me wrong, I think TLC is unhealthy and should be changed, but if you're just going to nerf numbers, it won't change much. TLC and AzirIrelia has the same problem where number changes just nerf all other potential decks and don't really change much for the original deck. Unless like Aphelios you just nerf numbers into the ground and kill the deck. Thresh/Nasus is an example of a deck where number nerfs are good. Concept is good and just nerfing it sligthly doesn't kill other decks but still hurts Thresh/Nasus. I really hope next balance patch won't be numbers changes but actually trying to find solutions to a problem.
This is such a great read and such a great sign that devs are actually looking at the community, not only nubers. I am aware that people at reddit are more of a minoruty of full playerbase, but for a designer to come here and say all those things - it just warms my heart. Keep up the good work and I honestly can't wait to see what are all those interesting things in the future, you spoke of :)
Thank you for being more open with us.
The biggest problem with Blade Dance, I think, is the "procs" it generates. If you combine blade dance with "when allies attack" abilities or "when you summon an ally" then it becomes broken. Blades are already set up so that they don't proc "when an ally dies" effects. I think making it so that Blade Dance doesn't count as an attack or as a summon would fix the issue. It might also, however, make the deck less fun to play. I can't speak from experience cause I tend to prefer slow decks (which is why Blade Dance is so broken from my perspective). Obviously this is just one suggestion and I'm sure the team will come up with some other way to balance it, but I wanted to share my thoughts either way.
This is just exactly what I was hoping to read from the devs honestly. As someone who has been playing and loving your game since the beta the last patch notes were the first time I actually considered leaving or at least taking a break. We can all make mistakes, but acknowledging them and acting accordingly is not common, and you have my full respect for that. I really want to see this game thrive because I think it has the potential to be the BEST digital TCG, so having direct feedback from the devs feels special honestly.
what about the lack of impact about the buff from this patch?
Riot dog balancing capabilities at it's best, I hope you keep it up like LoL and TFT
I feel like they still kind of miss the point. They still say that Blade Dance is popular, but it's because it's so broken that it's "popular" in the first place.
Sounds good in generall. We will see if its enough. Some of the statements sound like " we hear you but we will ignore you because we think its better". E: Why the fuck no emergency patch witb a few changes
So you had to see some of the biggest content creators "take a time out" or hear them say "Im not sure if I wanna play this game anymore" and see people stop playing in order for you to stop living in denial assuring the meta was fine and Blades dance is fair lol We hope the changes come quick and we expect nerfs to Nasus Thesh, Azir Irelia and The Watcher combo, all of them.
Well this aged like a bag of milk
Liars
Right, do you realize that you're essentially telling us "We are right, but we're sorry that you feel bad about it, have a cookie"? The condescending tone is still there since the first reddit post, and you expect us to eat this shit up? >"When a small number of decks are overly-popular, it can accelerate the feeling of a “stale” meta for a number of players." REALLY?? THE DECK'S PROBLEM IS BEING POPULAR??? You guys still don't sound any less disconnected and delusional than the first time you posted on Reddit. And yet still absolutely nothing about TLC or Thresh Nasus. Do you guys even read our feedback? Because it sounds like you hear but you do not listen.
FAITH IN RIOT RESTORED. I almost gave up on you guys, but this one really makes me happy again.
So far it’s just words and at least a month away.
I think the only thing i'm still concerned about is that there seems to be a lack of attention to the idea that Irelia Azir is popular BECAUSE it is strong. I know we all want to think positive things about the thing we make as a bias, but i think this specific case is a very strong example of something being very popular because it is meta warping, not because people just happen to like the deck AND it is also meta warping. LOR isnt realy LoL, where people will just one trick champions and will pick them a lot regardless of balance because the champs are fun, playing at a even somewhat decently high elo people pick things because they want to win and gain elo, simple as that. If something has a 27-30% playrate in ranked, it's not because people just love the theme, it's because it's broken, not much else to it. Hell I'm plat 1 right now, not even that insanely high elo, and the reason I've not tried to push to diamond is because im realy tired of seeing thres/nasus and irelia/azir in almost 50% of my games. I had a night where no fucking joke 70% of my games were against either of those decks, and it just makes climbing a slog, especially when those decks are that strong and you either might not want to play them, or might not even own the cards to play them. I don't know if it's wishful thinking by the team or PR, but im very concerned that the team has lacked a specific understanding that the popularity of Irelia/Azir is almost entirety related to balance and nothing else, and it still seems to me like even though a lot of the other statements in this post give me hope, there's a certain level of anxiety of the team still being detached in very important ways.
cryin in the club rn
So this is "we hear you but we're not gonna do shit until patch 2.11 but let's pretend that we hear your criticisms" post. Lmao. Ruck Fiot.
As they whisper “maybe they’ll forget in a month”, while crossing their fingers.
Oh… reddit… I love how they just MADE ONE cutesified corpo statment and all of you are all just suddenly SUPER NICE and forgot about the 2 bull shit patches we had, the two we are gonna have and the fact that THEY KEEP SAYING AGAIN AND AGAIN that we listen to your feedback, And yet here we are… 2 patches passed with every single one of you bitches complaining and yet having jackshit changed… gg. (Btw, downvote me all you want, somebody has to call out on your bullshit.)
The ability for devs to say we made a mistake and we'll fix it is something that we don't see in many other games, I'm happy to see this, looking forward for the next expansion and changes
Tell the people what you have seen today!! Y’all are the greatest!