In League of Legends, developers have a tough job. A planned nerf of the strong LoL champion Kai’Sa in the next update has now been criticized. One of the developers resignedly states: Players and professionals are just very bad at understanding patch notes.
This is the nerf that is being criticized:
- The champion Kai’Sa is perceived as somewhat too strong in her AP variant in the game League of Legends. Therefore, Riot Games wants to weaken her in the next LoL patch.
- As a nerf, the scaling of her Q ability strength is set to be reduced from 30% to 20%. Additionally, her cooldown reset on hitting with W is to be decreased from 77% to 75%. Her health points will drop from 670 to 640.
- On reddit, a player criticizes these nerfs as “not looking very convincing”. Riot apparently didn’t want to hurt the champ.
LoL developer explains nerf: Looks weaker than it actually is
What does one of the developers say? David “Phreak” Turley spoke up on reddit: The 36-year-old was previously a caster for LoL, but has been a designer on the team for several years now.
He explains on reddit: The changes are intended to give the AP-Kai’Sa a small weakness: By lowering the Q, the entire build becomes significantly weaker. The nerf on the W may look like just a 2% nerf, but it is actually an 8% nerf.
In any case, one doesn’t have to use a big hammer here; a scalpel is enough:
“None of these changes are massive. In truth, we only need to lower Kai’Sa’s win rate by approximately 1% or 1.5%.”
Perception is reality – We will probably bring another nerf
Phreak seems almost resigned and says:
“But players are really bad at reading and understanding patch notes. This also applies to the professionals. Therefore, we will likely bring another nerf because perception is reality.”
In politics (and in LoL), moods are always facts too
This is what it’s about: This “perception is reality” is usually heard from contrite politicians who lament that statistics show crime is decreasing, while fear of crime among the public is on the rise.
The quote “In politics, moods are always facts” is attributed to Edmund Stoiber (via sz) – this also applies to the balance in LoL.
Riot Phreak sounds almost desperate. After all: We can do good work here, but if the public is standing at the palace with pitchforks, that won’t help us.
Indeed, many reddit users see it like the developer. Many say one should not underestimate the Kai’Sai nerf: Even seemingly small changes can have a big impact on balance:
- It is said: “Remember the Karthus nerf in the jungle. Everyone said that it was completely insignificant until his win rate fell.”
- Another says: That’s kind of funny. Sometimes a champ loses just 5 points of attack damage and doesn’t work anymore. In other cases, they can lose 15-20% of the entire kit and you notice no difference.
- Another player says: There’s even a placebo effect. Once it was mentioned in the patch notes that Vladimir was nerfed, although Riot changed nothing. Nevertheless, his win rate fell.
The developer’s criticism that players are unable to read patch notes reminds one of the criticism from a strategy expert:
LoL nerd explains that coaches and pros have no idea about a central aspect of the game
