raphelmadeira

This is a feedback post, I will give my feedback about Olaf's shield here even though I know that nothing will be changed.

Visually speaking, this circular shield looks very strange, and out of the place. I know it's the easiest and most practical solution, but with so many circular champions/items shields within League, Olaf could be given a more unique shape.

The blame for this strangeness comes a lot from Olaf's silhouette. Olaf's stance in the game is very hunched forward; the axes are outside the shield; there is a lot of shield-free area behind Olaf; That is, it is visible that this shield does not belong to Olaf\*.

You guys could see the possibility of changing this VFX to look something like an aura shield-like Sejuani-Bristle (Fury of the North), Malphite (Granite Shield), and Olaf himself in his ultimate (Ragnarok), but instead of this shield being "glued" to Olaf's body as in the examples cited, Olaf's shield could visually function as an "electrical aura" coming out of his body. Contouring Olaf's body using his silhouette with 2 times (maybe 3 times) the size outside the body, thus giving an impression of protection/shield, as if his body was protected by a shield of electrical rays.

*Olaf's shield in-game:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQKzjPiWYAklNNh?format=png&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQK0BCKXoAIHtLS?format=png&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQK0b_TWQA8mz-6?format=png&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQK08ffXIAsh46g?format=png&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQK1i_IWUAgGGvC?format=png&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQK17dQX0AgsCrr?format=png&name=large

https://youtu.be/r1aUYy-djuY

Passing this to the artists. Not sure whether they're going to change anything, but they'll see it.

Dawnbringer_Fortune

This rioter is officially my favourite. Excellent changes. Thank you so much Riot Axes. Imagine if his playrate increases again because of this! Also do you know if Sivir will be getting an adjustment? u/RiotAxes

No news on Sivir, sorry.

Spideraxe30

Could I also ask if it is intentional that his R is capped at 2.5 seconds at extension, since that kinda reduces the fantasy of a potentially infinite R

100% intentional. A very long R is meant to be a rare, when-the-stars-align kind of situation.

We have specifically been testing to ensure that he has R casts that are shorter, similar, and longer than his live duration, and that decisions made by both Olaf and his opponents determine how it turns out.

ImBuGs

Numbers look a bit overtuned but overall solid stuff

Just to speak to the tuning -

It's fully possible he's overtuned and if he is, he'll get nerfed (though its very unlikely we'd be able to discover this on PBE, where games are so wildly uneven). This update has enough change that it's just hard to forecast.

I will note that if we didn't have concerns about what he does in pro play, we would buff him substantially tomorrow. This iteration of the champion's clear speed is significantly slower than on Live (still fast, but much slower), which is a significant pro play impact, and while his R is way cooler scrapping in melee against other melee champions, he'll be both more kiteable when diving ADCs and less able to run away, both of which ought to be important for pro players.

The bet is that this frees us up for really significant buffs at every other skill level. That bet could fail - if it turns out he's still the priority pro jungler when tuned to reasonable winrates then we're in trouble - but I feel it's a bet worth making.

PrivateVasili

Its probably not that simple. His early game passive is significantly nerfed and he also lost CD and early base damage on Q. That will probably have a significant effect on his early clear speed. His early dueling should also be nerfed by that (the armor shred on Q isn't super relevant early), though the lifesteal on passive might offset that somewhat, not sure. I suspect it will be a buff overall, but its not without some potentially impactful tradeoffs.

The bet is that between a meaningfully slower early clear speed and an R reshape that is both worse at diving ADCs and worse at running away when caught out, he has room to be balanced around solo queue first rather than pro play first, and if he's being balanced around solo queue, we have room for large buffs.

But forecasting balance on updates like this is hard and it's fully possible he'll need followup balance, as with any update.

Spideraxe30

Changes look really cool, could I ask why you guys decide to make his durability less sustain bound, was it because he was just too stat checky with it

The R change reduces his free access to diving targets (it can go infinite - but if you're being kited around, it won't). If he's not as guaranteed to be able to dive the back line successfully, he needs his alternate game plan to be better, which means the tools to not just auto-lose fights on the front line.

WeAzSoRya

Multiseason challenger olaf one trick here, i really love these changes, making him more tanky by making him keep his resists in a meta where there is so much damage is a good change. Especially in duels, a lot of the time you didnt press R just because it felt like it would just make you weaker by reducing your resists and removing the toxic part of his W that enhanced the healing and replacing it by other sustain tools is a GREAT change, allowing him to scale in the late game with armor shred is super great. But what's the idea behind increasing the minimum range on his Q ?

Ah, that one's kind of subtle.

So, if I'm going to give you the possibility of infinitely being immune to crowd control, that is very likely to result in situations where the fight is a perfect stat check - able to be calculated in advance - for opponents who can't dash away to break contact. The min range change exists so that Olaf has to forecast his position a little bit in advance, essentially adding counterplay because when he throws Q, if you move away from the Q, he has to choose whether to pick it up or not, and that choice has real consequences to the outcome of the fight from that point on. (Incidentally, part of the reason for adding armor shred on Q is to ensure that picking up the axe really matters to whether he wins the fight or not - don't want him just ignoring it)

I realize it's going to feel bad, but if I reverted it I think I'd also have to cap the ult at 7 seconds or something like that :/

EDIT: This is mainly talking about melee vs melee duels. In other contex...

bz6

/u/RiotAxes

Hey boss. I have a more holistic angle when it comes to my questions regarding these changes.

Directionally, I was always under the impression that Olaf is not a great scaler into the later game. Do you feel these changes go against that scaling profile?

That being said, what is the stance of the team when it comes to potentially homogenising scaling identities across the board? Personally I think it goes against what LoL stands for and greatly reduces aspect of the game like strategy, team comps, and sharp champion identity.

From our playtesting, he's less bad late game, but still not very good (even for a Juggernaut) - contrast his teamfight power to Sett, Darius, or Illaoi, for example.

Right now I don't think we have a strong stance about it. We aren't trying to homogenize it, but we aren't resisting it too strongly - it's more about what is right for a particular champion. If we go very far towards homogenization, then we'd need to deal with that, but we still do shotcall things like a very extreme late game curve for Gwen, and some of our other midscopes in flight aren't moderating scaling curves like this one is.

The Olaf mid scope update is coming to PBE today with an intended ship date of patch 12.9 (not 12.8). Putting him up early for feedback, so he should be on PBE for about a week, and then he’ll disappear as we prep patch 12.8. He’ll return to PBE when we kick off the 12.9 cycle.

Before getting into the actual changes, let’s talk goals. One common response to the initial announcement was confusion as to why he’d be next up on the list for an update.

Olaf has a number of urgent issues we’re looking to address. First, he is (and has consistently been) the least deeply played champion in League—on average, that is (Olaf one tricks don’t @ me.) If Olaf is a champion you play, he probably makes up the lowest percent of your games played, and has consistently been among the lowest for many years now. Second, he’s a deeply pro-bound champion: his win rate is kept lower than would otherwise be ideal because he tends to take over pro play when his kit is tuned to win games in Solo Queue. And ...

SocialistScissors

You buy QSS because you want to cleanse CC.

I buy QSS because it builds into the only item that offers both crit chance and MR.

We are not the same.

QSS is for situations where a CC spell makes you stop dealing damage. Renata ult does not make you stop dealing damage. Simple enough, right?

...and does your answer change if the ADC has a QSS and you know he isn't going to use it?

Spideraxe30

Hey BSlav are you the designer working on him or do you only have eyes for Draven

He has axes

PartyMagus

Everyone seems super focused on Taliyah (which I can understand, she has been weak for too long) and for her it seems like there are too many possible directions that it becomes hard to imagine what happens.

AoE Q makes sense, changing the passive so her roamcapability is weaker at the same time I could see as well, how she interacts with worked ground has changed before and I could see it change again, maybe her ult empowers her abilities in some way so she is gated by ult CD a bit, which could also allow them to unlock her from mid via AoE Q, since she doesn't always have her full power like she currently has, W could apply grounded instead of (or in addition to?) interacting with dashes by damaging them.

So many ways she could get changes, but Olaf? What are they going to change? His ult has to remain pretty much the same, I guess they could move the passive resistances/AD depending on if it is active or not atm around? I also can't see how they would change his Q without fundamentally changing the character in a way that isn't "mid sized" anymore. Maybe a 2 charge system? Or a change to the CD refund when he picks the axe up? I could see them making it so the CD reduction for E is increased while ulting or only active during W or something like that, but then again I am not sure if it would actually change anything in how he plays? His passive could also get an additional effect?

Idk, I am honestly more interested in what they do with Olaf because it seems harder to add depth into his kit without fundamentally changing it.

Idk, I am honestly more interested in what they do with Olaf because it seems harder to add depth into his kit without fundamentally changing it.

It was an interesting challenge for sure.

Did_Gyre_And_Gimble

I used to be with "it," but then they changed what "it" was.

Now what I’m with isn’t "it" anymore and what’s "it" seems weird and scary.

It’ll happen to you.

It’ll happen to you.

Can confirm

Jozoz

Reading between the lines of that post, I got the impression that Riot scrapped the idea.

Just want to be clear - the "Apply a global 20% damage modifier" version of that work was never going to ship. It was a useful, informative playtest that uncovered two major findings: (1) that we believe there's a better version of the game where we have reduced overall damage outcomes, and (2) here are some of the places we need to account for when we look for a shippable implementation.

The list of findings I posted was not a list of fatal objections or reasons why we would never do this; it was a list of the kinds of challenges we need to be ready to overcome while doing it.

We are currently at the step of actually doing that nuanced work - finding the good version, getting it ready to ship, and making sure we are ready to account for the impact of it.

Scatter5D

What the hell happened to the 20% damage nerf that was in testing btw? I remember Treatz proposed something like that and Riot decided to put it into testing, why didnt this go live?

We are actively working on finding the good, nuanced version of reducing overall damage in the game.

We are hoping to ship during the season if possible. There's not a good update I can give right now other than we're working on it, we're hoping to ship it when it's ready, and we're willing to ship it during the season instead of having to wait til preseason if we're able to land it, aside from specific launch windows like playoffs/MSI or the leadup to Worlds.

wetcogbag

If we come to the conclusion something is bad, we assess the priority to change or remove it.

What metrics would be looked at to help decide if a dragon change is ideal or not? Beyond user feedback I mean.

We're fielding a survey. It'll be a bit before we get results. The reddit and English-speaking social media backlash is clear, but that hasn't always meant players overall disliked a feature in the past.

(This does NOT mean that Reddit feedback is worthless, just that y'all are a subset of players and we want good data)

i-will-eat-you

How dare Riot devs be excited for a champion they've been working on.

Don't worry I'll take care of it

I'm sold

Cashmiir

If only

ಠ_ಠ