Gameplay impressions 1/14

Hello everyone, I'm Phroxzon, the new head of design at Summoner Canyon! I've been on this team for a long time and have been in charge of game balancing, as well as the last four preseason games. Today I want to talk about the landing of the 2022 preseason content.

Alchemy Technology Yalong and Hex Technology Yalong

Let's start with the new Elemental Canyon and Dragon Soul. The response to Hex Canyon was generally positive, and we were satisfied with it, but we also heard some negative opinions about the Alchemy Canyon. Given the camouflage mechanism it brings, controversy is also to be expected. During the testing phase, we found that this mechanism can sometimes be fun, creating unique highlight moments, such as the whole regiment launching a flanking attack from the alchemical fog; But at the cost, it can be irritating at times. In particular, it makes it harder to control its own wild areas, and the most commonly used eye slots become the edge of the alchemical fog zone, which need to be adapted. We've added some divination flowers to the map's defensive position in version 12.1 to alleviate this situation, while also continuing to keep an eye on further developments.

At the same time, we also found that the Alchemical Dragon Soul caused a lot of dissatisfaction, which may also increase the player's negative emotions about the canyon terrain. We agree that it is really difficult to face an opponent with an alchemy dragon soul head-on in the alchemical fog, because at this time you are often at a disadvantage in terms of combat power and vision. We also know that even without considering the whole set of mechanics, the Alchemical Dragon Soul itself is somewhat overmodeled, so it will be lowered in version 12.2. After these tweaks, if alchemy technology still doesn't bring enough highlight moments and continues to affect the player's experience, then we may also make larger changes, including redoing.

Strategic point bounty

Next is the strategic point bounty. We admit that when it was first launched, this function always appeared prematurely when the battle situation was still quite close, and after the backward side recovered some situations, it did not disappear for a long time. At the same time, its timing system is also very sluggish, whenever an active bounty strategic point is triggered, the timing will be refreshed, so that the team can avoid the conditions of resetting the bounty status, complete multiple strategic points in a row, and brush a large amount of money. Thanks to everyone's feedback and game data, we have stabilized the system at a faster rate. (In the first hour after the feature went live, we collected more information than the 200-year beta generated!)

We also received some feedback that players felt as if the strategic point bounty was punishing the leading team. Although by definition, the catch-up mechanism itself is not conducive to the leading team, but we believe that the backward team is not 100% able to get the strategic point reward. After the balance adjustment after the launch, we think the current situation is still ideal: if the leading team is at a higher level, the possibility of reaching the bounty can be suppressed as much as possible; If the level of the backward team is higher, they can get a reward and use it as a springboard to recover the situation. We're still making small adjustments to the balance, and in the long run, we're confident in the system: it increases the strategic choices of lagging teams, encourages players to be creative in macro decision-making, and pushes lagging teams to work together for a common goal, rather than giving up early.

Runes, summoner skills, and equipment

After the preseason went live, we also made some of the runes tweaks. Weakened by version 11.24, the melee intensity curve of Deadly Rhythm is still too focused on the early stages of the game, so version 12.2 will be adjusted to make it more growth-oriented. Glacier Amplification currently performs well in melee players, but we'd also like to see more mages replace Eli as a more defensive and performance-effective option in protracted battles. The First Attack also achieves satisfactory results in the hands of output and assassins, forming a good competition with other cornerstone runes, opening up more gameplay possibilities for players.

The teleportation tweaks in version 12.1 are not the first preseason updates, but they also work well. From the preliminary data, this adjustment had little impact on wins and usage, and also successfully reduced its impact on upfront wandering, reaching our goal.

Finally, there is the equipment. Most of the equipment adjustments are relatively good, we only need to make some adjustments after going online, and there is no major balance problem. Overall, we're happy with the equipment, but as always, we're always listening to our players and we're going to keep adjusting when needed.

Without everyone's feedback, the 2022 preseason would not have been so smooth. Keep up the good work with your thoughts, ideas, and feedback! Thank you all, see you at the canyon. Good luck with your 12th season!