The entire edg team spent the last day of their vacation at a resort hotel on the beach in Rio.
In the evening of the same day, along the Monica Beach in Los Angeles, North America, a man in a light gray suit got out of the car. He walked to the other side without any intention of appreciating the magnificent scenery in front of him. The wall in front of the door was graffitied with the letters glhf.
of office buildings.
The man who had just gotten off the plane and arrived in the car was none other than Ryze, the founder and director of Riot Games, who was responsible for the on-site management of the Mid-Season Invitational.
And this building is not very tall, but the design and decoration are full of two-dimensional style, which is Riot headquarters.
Ruiz pushed open the conference room door.
The main personnel of the Riot Games design department and balance department were all sitting around the conference table.
Including the chief designer Ghost Crab who was poached from Blizzard, Riot veteran designer Morello who has the honor of naming the Morello Code, and Rickaha, the head of the balance department who pioneered "The weather is good today, why don't we weaken the Sword Girl", and participated in it.
Repertoir, the leader of the gameplay department of Ryze Galio's revamp, CertalyT, the designer of Thresh and Yasuo, and Chun-Li, a diamond player in the American server who has just been publicly recruited to the balance department and will soon join the weakened Sword Girl camp...
Everyone has unique skills.
The main purpose of the discussion at this meeting was to determine the general direction of the revision of League of Legends after SI.
"I had a lot of chats with Tryndamere, Ghost Crab, and Rickaha in the past two days." We are all acquaintances, and the overall atmosphere of Riot employees is relatively open, so Ryze entered the conference room and started talking, "In general, edg won the championship.
The results and the variety of heroes EDG uses are very satisfying!”
There are rumors that Riot will deliberately weaken the championship team from last year and find ways to strengthen the North American team.
In fact, this is just the result, not the purpose of fist balance adjustment.
For Riot, star players who have won multiple championships can bring huge popularity to the league and even the game, so why target and persecute the champion team?
Riot has always had only one design and balancing strategy, which is to try to change the powerful heroes in each version to bring a continuous sense of freshness to players - there is no requirement for too many heroes on the field, try to have enough for each position in each version
There are t0t1t2 heroes to choose from. At the same time, popular heroes must also have countermeasures, and these heroes must have both high and low operating limits, as well as two heroes to choose from: upper and lower operating limits.
Therefore, the six heroes in the semi-finals and the finals of Meixia are not the same. Even the mid laner Galio that he got in the end was completely contrary to the designer's original intention. He also has a backhand countermeasure, which is simply a thumbs up for the balance team.
Compared to Faker, who won two world championships in S5S6 and had to redo the hero Ryze three times in a row, and whose balance team was sprayed with blood by players, who wouldn't like a player like Sakura Girl!
Seeing the relieved expressions on everyone's faces, Rezbenz raised the issues encountered in SI.
"The first is Jace, Lucian and Syndra. The ban rate of these three heroes is very high, especially when facing ika, they are almost 100% banned. This phenomenon is not normal. Tryndamere and I initially believe that it needs to be corrected in the future.
What do you think?"
Soon there was a heated discussion in the conference room.
As for the reason why Jace and Lucian became supermodels, it is generally accepted that it was caused by the substantial increase in armor-piercing armor at the beginning of the season. The solution is also simple and crude. Just continue to weaken the relevant equipment. No one is worried that this reduction will make things better.
The physical assassins return to the sewers. After all, they have done this kind of thing a lot. It is common for a hero to be enhanced to a supermodel first, and then slashed to a weaker value than before the enhancement.
Just because it is easy enough to do so, it is much more convenient to kick it back into the sewer than to spend all your time designing values. Anyway, according to the strategy of changing the main heroes in each version of League of Legends, these heroes are destined not to be the protagonists in the next version.
But Syndra is too embarrassing to talk about, because the designer originally planned to weaken it, but unexpectedly, W's full-level real damage was directly allowed to sit at the top of the mid lane, and this was only slightly weakened by Syndra in the Spring Split.
The result of pulling - look, this is a failure case where the designer did not cut down the value, but acted smartly and activated the knife in the hero machine.
In the end, it was Ryze who made the decision and decided to continue to wait and see the strength of Syndra's version.
After all, professional players do not represent the vast majority of gamers. In fact, Syndra's winning rate in normal games remains within the normal range. At the same time, many professional players who play Syndra do not perform like supermodels, so there is no need to worry about it for the time being.
ika forced the changes alone.
It's easy to avoid Sakura Girl continuing to dig out Syndra in the World Championship. At worst, wait until around the World Championship version and give Syndra a rough chop and that's it.
"Then there are the heroes used by ika, mid laner Rambo and mid laner Galio. These two are completely out of touch with the original intention of our design..."
Gameplay designer Repertoir immediately expressed his thoughts, "The mid laner Rambo is quite boring. He just pushes the lane and roams around. However, there is no need to weaken this hero in a targeted way. Our mid-season update has already made adaptability
The equipment of the helmet and the inspiring armor have also been strengthened. Rambo probably won't be able to choose it next season.
On the contrary, the mid laner Galio is very aazg. Ika’s mid laner Galio is so subversive. I think we can actually continue to encourage the emergence of mid laner Galio! It is not too powerful, and it is also very suitable for the support ability of the ultimate move.
Well, when we were designing, why didn’t we expect that he could become the tank version of the card Rock Bird! It’s just that the ability to clear troops in the early stage needs to be weakened a little to avoid boredom in the laning stage.”
Ghost Crab feels the same way, "I agree with repertoir's view, the mid laner Galio is so cool!!!"
Balance director Morello also expressed support, "And very importantly, the emergence of heroes like Galio can actually weaken the impact of the mid lane on the overall game. This is in line with our original concept of the S7 World Championship."
Although Sakura Girl's sudden rise in fists was welcome, the score of 3 to 0 still detracted a lot from the enjoyment of the game.
Although no one said it clearly, it is obvious that the competition between Faker and IKA is more in line with Riot's interests. And when Sakura's operation far exceeds that of other mid laners including Faker, it is feasible to weaken the importance of the mid lane laning.
operation.
"Is it true that retaining Galio can reduce the impact of poor mid-lane players on the game?" Ryze was not directly sure.
Rick Maher, leader of the balance team, said, "The answer given by ika is to choose a group fight. I think it is trustworthy to the vision of the world champion. What do you think, Chunli? You are our player with the highest ranking score!"
Chunli glanced at the team leader Richiaher, knowing that she was asking him to show off in front of the leader, so she opened her mouth and said a point of view that neither the players nor the audience were aware of, "I think that Clockwork is not Galio's best.
Good choice! Because from the competition, I didn’t feel that Clockwork had any advantage. If you are familiar with her terrible operation, you should know that in the last game of the SI final, Ika won it completely by relying on operation.
Victory has little to do with hero restraint..."
"Is that so? Is ika hiding the tactics? Or does she not even have a solution?" Ryze asked after pondering for a moment.
Chun Li expressed her opinion, "I don't know about this, but my opinion is basically the same as everyone else. The mid laner Galio is very cool! The hero's debut is great! So in the summer split, I will first nerf the mid laner Galio.
Let’s see if anyone can find a more effective counter hero. When the hero’s basic attributes are reduced to about the same level, there should be surprises.”
Ryze nodded.
Then the second version balance issue of si is raised.
"The performance of the blazing incense burner in this si version is better than we expected. Should we continue to strengthen it or weaken it appropriately?"
Ghost Crab expressed his opinion, "On the contrary, I think the effect of the incense burner is not ideal. The only soft supports that can be used are Karma and Lulu, and Tahm's reappearance also deviates from our attempt at the beginning of the season to let the players down.
The efforts of hundreds of flowers bloom..."
"And the ADC's appearance rate is also very problematic. There should be more heroes who are good at incense burners, not just Rat Mouth! As for the policewoman Han Bing, oh God, you know how many I have seen in the first two seasons.
These two heroes? It’s time to take heroes with this old mechanic out of the game, well, at least not so often!”
"This is a big project." Ryze touched the stubbled bottom lane. "It seems that the bottom lane and the incense burner still need to be strengthened. However, during the changes, we must try to avoid mid laner Karma or jungler Cui.
A hero like God appears..."
The impact of the mid laner on the situation can be moderately reduced, but the game of the mid laner must not become boring, and the mid laner must not be allowed to become the support position of the large player. This is his bottom line.
Riot Games now rely entirely on Sakura Girl and Big Devil to expand their influence around the world.
If the middle lane is made boring, the brand of League of Legends will be ruined!
On the one hand, we must carefully protect the environment of ika in the middle, and on the other hand, we must carefully reduce the lead of Sakura girl.
This balancing act is dancing on an egg...
Subsequently, we discussed the ecology of Ueno and the new round of revisions of auxiliary equipment. The entire meeting lasted thirty minutes.
"Oh my god, it's easiest to weaken the sword girl..." Chunli couldn't help but complain as she walked out of the conference room.
rickMaher said sympathetically, "Okay! This is what you suggested! Anyway, it is tiring to cut one, and it is also tiring to cut two. In the next version, we will add another Sword Girl to the weakened list. As for how to cut it, I will leave it to you!!"
"Ah, this..." Chunli didn't expect that Richiaher, who was clearly thinking about the knife-cutting girl, actually gave all the work to herself! Did she come here to take the blame for the balance department?!
However, being able to weaken heroes at will seems to be a joy that simple gamers cannot experience.
So this is the fun of planning!
Chunli smiled softly.
"Hey hey hey, Dao Sister, I'm coming!"
…
In the conference room, Ryze turned on his computer and started a video call with his old friend Tryndamere.
"Hey, I heard that Edg will leave Brazil tomorrow morning. Are you still on vacation in Brazil? Do you know how the conversation between TS and ika went?"
"Oh my God, TS contacted their sponsor this time and offered an annual salary that surprised me!" Tryndamere shrugged, "But Ika still didn't agree. She's not Chinese. I really don't understand why she didn't come.
North America! Doublelift will also come to TS this year. If ika comes, it should be a super battleship that will not lose to edg. It's a pity..."
Although the two of them will try to avoid partiality in order to make more money at work.
Ryze can guarantee that he has not deliberately made any balance adjustments for the enhancement of the North American region. Of course, this is also because North America cannot afford to support Adou. Deliberately strengthening the heroes that North American players are good at can easily be self-defeating and allow other regions to enjoy more benefits.
…
But as Americans, both of them secretly hope that the North American division can achieve enough honors.
"That's no problem." Ryze smiled calmly, "If ika comes to the North American Division, to be honest, I might not be able to bear to weaken the influence of the mid lane..."
The reason why he wants to determine the direction of the version for the second half of the year before Sakura Girl leaves Brazil.
He is just worried that if ika really cannot withstand the temptation of money and chooses to move to the North American division in the summer split, he will not be able to bear it and continue to weaken the mid lane. This kind of partiality is something that a successful businessman cannot do.
Fortunately, he made the most just choice!
"What? Are the version changes confirmed in the second half of the year?" Tryndamere asked again.
"Well, it is determined to continue to increase the richness and intensity of adc and soft assist, and weaken the influence of the mid lane lane on the game."
"Soft assistant? I have good news here. I heard that ika recommended a Japanese-Brazilian female player in the master level to ts this time. Her level is very good. Her main role is soft assistant. The key is that she is only sixteen years old.
There may be a chance to become the next [superica]! (Super Mica, the English nickname given by ika’s American fans)!”
"Really..." Ruiz was extremely rational, "I hope I can train someone to take over..."
I watched Sakura Girl crushing Faker at SI, so how could I believe that if someone just showed up, it would be just another ika.
It would be good if he could grow to the faker level.
As for a dazzling player like ika, it is simply not something that mortals can hope for.
"You seem a little pessimistic? What's wrong?" Tryndamere heard the subtle emotions of the old man.
"I'm still a little worried. Will a dazzling player like ika really lose control of the game and fall to the same level as faker because of the game revision?"
The single Archmage Tryndamere Biriz, who is still vacationing in Brazil with his wife Ashe, is much more optimistic.
"Now go to the window on your right and look out the window!"
Ryze complied without understanding.
The beach is right outside the window, and deeper into the beach is the sea water. In the evening, the setting sun makes the sea sparkle.
Tryndamere said, "Look, even something as hot and bright as the sun cannot escape objective laws and must set in the evening! Not to mention people! In the field of e-sports, designers are the makers of the rules. You should believe it.
We have a group of guys with unique skills! Except for your boss Ryze, when have they ever messed up?"
"Haha..." Ryze laughed heartily at Tryndamere's pun, "It seems like I have to keep an eye on the weakening of Ashe this time. After all, she is the wife of the Riot president!"
"Ha, feel free to cut the ice, but it's best to add two seconds to my ultimate move. Tryndamere is too weak in the game! Oh, my wife Ashe called me! See you later!" Tryndamere hurriedly said
Turn off the call.
Riot president seems to have the fun of being a president.
After looking at Riot Games’ response department, it turned out to be only 4,000 words.