This is so cool to see! Mel was a lot of hard work and the team did a great job. Thanks for taking the time to check it out.
Looks like the Urgot R bug fix missed the PBE deploy yesterday, should be fixed today.
so she can execute him the same way she did in the spotlight video?
Yeah, there were many many bug fixes and a couple didn't make it through the PBE migration. Looks like Vayne Condemn was missed too, that should also come in in the next PBE patch.
Congratulations on creating Mel and thanks for the comment! Good to know what's up with Urgot - can't wait to see it fixed.
edit: just read the comment on Vayne below - that's great!
Thank you!
Vayne and Urgot fixes should both come in the next PBE deploy. They were fixed for our development environments and missed when migrating everything to PBE.
We appreciate your work to showcase bugs and features, it helps players and devs alike!
Will Urgot's R2 (the pull, which is considered a projectile) execute him if Mel is below the health threshold and she reflects it? Does he need to also be below the threshold? Thank you for your work on the game!
When Mel reflects Urgot's R, the projectile never reaches her.
Only Urgot's health (or whoever it hits) matters for triggering the Urgot R execute.
Since Mel cannot manually reactivate abilities she reflects, only automatic reactivation will occur.
Thank you for playing! All I hope for is players to play and enjoy the game.
Not sure if you could answer this, but how does her abilities recolouring skills VFX work? Is it just like a shader or something that replaces the original one?
We use a shader and a special texture for that shader. Base Mel and Arcane Councilor Mel actually have different textures for that shader, that's why base Mel reflects are golden and Arcane Councilor Mel reflects are blue.
Appreciate the post a lot, he was a challenge to make.
Gotcha, and consequently if it comes back confirmed, would that make him the highest skill ceiling champion in the game? Or what would that specifically mean?
It would confirm that he is the champion with the most games required on average to hit a steady state of winrate when playing more games.
That doesn't mean he requires the most skill, but probably implies he takes the most games to understand and access his optimizations. The distinction is that Hwei tends to be optimized more from decision making than from raw input precision (though he still does have input precision requirements).
So does that mean Hwei has the longest learning curve? What I mean is that, does he require the most games out of all the other champions before his winrate starts to stop increasing?
That seems to be an implication from our reports but is unconfirmed, hence asking for a more detailed report.
When you said “normally we see a taper off of win rate growth over ~20 games”, is this about Hwei or about champions in general? Just need clarification as it can be read as it being “other champs usually but with Hwei it’s different past 20 games”.
Normally, champions have a winrate curve you can see starts its steepest and tapers off (you gain more winrate games 1-5 than games 10-15 playing the same champion).
Hwei's winrate doesn't taper off in the first 20 games. His first 1-3 games are abyssmally low winrate and then you just keep winning more the more you play. From the data slice we usually use (first 20 games) it looks like you just linearly get better game over game indefinitely. That's why we've requested a special data report.
Hey Emizery, would you know how the team feels about Hwei now that you guys are back from break (hope it was nice) since Auberaun mentioned he was getting a small armor buff
Hey Spideraxe, right now we're observing Hwei's performance and cautious about making drastic changes before 14.1 introduces so many changes to the map and item system.
We have seen his overall winrate steadily grow at a slow rate and an intense mastery curve showing almost linear correlation between games played and winrate growth (normally we see a taper off of winrate growth over ~20 games; we're actually working on a special internal data report to get even more information).
That said, players are still learning him right now and it's a bit unfair to his allies if most Hwei players are feeding into assassins. The armor buff coming in 14.1 seeks to lower his and allies frustration with sharp matchups without creating much thrash in terms of output power.
Read morethe hwei movement speed buffs are live but the W Shield Base stats are still 90/110/130/150/170
It's only a tooltip bug. Going directly to the WW tooltip (opening the book first) shows the right values, and casting it gives the buffed values.
Ah interesting so say for instance Hwei tank emerged as something that was way too strong kinda like Tank Ekko did for a while you’d look to somehow put a restraint on his kit to make sure it can’t happen in any system rather than nerf his numbers particularly
It depends on the severity and if the item is just an outlier, but that's generally the idea! This is often why certain champs have "Damage Resistance" or "Damage Immunity" instead of bonus health/shielding/healing baked into their kits. If you don't want a champion to like building durable, don't give them raw health pool because those scale together.
Ya I suppose it is a little bit of a balance question, but I assume when you're designing him you are thinking about what builds he would like to do and items that would synergize with his design, like say if Brand were made today it would almost be impossible I would think to create Brand without immediately thinking you're going to build Liandry's on him 99% of the time.
This goes into system design versus mechanics design.
Champion gameplay design is focused on mechanics - what does the character do? A champion should have self contained cohesive mechanics first and foremost, usually ones that compliment themselves or shore up a weakness contextually thus requiring skill.
Systems design like items and runes are focused on choice and problem solving. They look at the things champions can do and give them exciting ways to improve their mechanical output or shore up key weaknesses at the expense of other opportunities.
What this means is when making a champion with a DoT mechanic like Brand, you may say "He will be good with on-damage applications in the system" as a consequence of the design, but you do not add a DoT simply because "I want this champion to be good with on-damage applications in the system." Someday that system may change in a way that doesn't support your champion, and if that happens suddenly your champion doesn't have a satisfying...
Read moreInteresting okay so if I’m understanding this correctly, you(meaning designers in general not specifically you or champion designers) design champions to be system agnostic and if they work well in a certain/current system that’s a side effect rather than an intent. Then once you’ve got that design in a moldable form you see what type of things you can do to allow him to fit in as many systems as possible?
Yes! That's correct. Sometimes we do consider systems though, when we don't want a champion to access certain systems because it would normally be optimal for them and create degenerative or uninteresting play. This was done for example with Pyke to ensure that he stays an assassin and doesn't just build bruiser items and become "Thresh with more damage and mobility". It keeps that cutthroat, high risk high reward, in-and-out gameplay that he was built around present regardless of system changes. Usually this stuff is done after defining the kit and finding that a system is damaging their unique play.
Read moreI assume he was very much made with the new item system in mind? How much do you tailor champs that release near major changes to fit into that ecosystem vs fitting into league in general across any meta?
This is more of a balance question than a gameplay design question. Our goal was to balance him for 13.24 items because that's the system he would launch in. That was difficult because 14.1 items are different and what we primarily tested on.
When 14.1 drops, many items and champions will need changes because the overall game state will change so much. Hwei might be included in those.
These look like solid changes. Only two other things I can think of that feel weird/weak on him is his base armor and early ult CD. Any reasoning behind keeping armor so low and his early ult cd so high?
If more adjustments are necessary we will make them; we don't want to over-adjust prior to the 14.1 item system and map changes.
That said, we also want to preserve his weakness to being aggressed without retaliation options ready and properly aimed. That's not to say he will never receive buffs to lower his weakness in these areas, but we also don't want to shave off his weaknesses so much that he offers no opportunities for opponents.
First off, Hwei is really fun conceptually and so actual statistical performance aside I'd say you guys did a great job. The buffer system Hwei plays with in order to chain 2-3 spell combos together + R is really smooth and adds to fluidity, but my only gripe is that the buffer window feels too large in a way? There was another post not too long ago about how Hwei punishes double pressing, but my understanding after playing him is more so that he shouldn't be the type of champ that can buffer out 3 other things during the animation for 1. It again adds to fluidity, but for a champ that is intended to reward situational awareness and variability, I think there's less benefit to him being able to do this rather than other champs capable of it as well.
Qiyana is another champ that can hit-buffer entire full combos, but in her case it works better because she has routine/standard openers and engage combos that are effectively universal(E>Q>W>R>AA>Q/R>F>Q>W>E>Q). Hwei doesn't really feel the same in that regard, especially for a control mage.
I think it's neat that Hwei is able to kitdump like he can in certain situations, but accidentally queuing up Q/W/E accidentally after something else just leads to unnecessary APM, ironically, just to cancel it and readjust. How does the team feel about this? Additionally on his cast times as well(which I now realize are supposed to be offset somewhat by his ability to buffer like this)?
We experimented with many different versions of spell queuing and cast times trying to be sensitive of both Hwei's mechanical fluidity and opponent reaction times to someone that could be casting many different things. In the end we found that blocking spell queuing hurt fluidity far too much and made Hwei less exciting to master. We decided to just turn off all kinds of special input blocking and let players fix their own inputs when overpressing rather than providing a system to help prevent players from hurting themselves but getting in the way of players who are pushing him to his limits. It was a real challenge to solve this problem, but in the end Hwei offers skilled players wanting to main him a path to mastery and skill expression and we felt the answer was to give those players the freedom to flourish.
Read moreWas Hwei designed with the Season 2024 items in mind? If so, do you expect him to feel smoother or stronger when the new season starts?
Also, is it a coincidence that his name matches the word for gray in Mandarin Chinese (as to represent a blank canvas)?
In general we do not design champions for specific items as items could change at any time in the future. In Hwei's case we did have a goal of giving him versatility in itemization, but that should extend to any mage item system not just the current or new ones. All of that said, he was primarily tested in the new item system prior to launch and that did make balance tuning very challenging for his release patch.
This is a question for Hwei, but also just for champ design specifically- how do you decide what skill goes on what button? It’s not max order because not all champs max Q -> W -> E. It’s not certain types of spells go in the same slot across champs (Morgana E is her shield, Karma E is her shield, but Lux has her shield on W and so do Seraphine and Sona). For Hwei especially, I would expect there to be some sort of deeper logic behind why his QE isn’t his QW for example. Thanks!
There's a lot of reasons to organize spell hotkey assignments that were considered.
One is familiarity, as you mentioned, making sure that buttons sit on champions of similar playstyles. For example, many champions have their line skillshot on Q, so we wanted Q to be his "line" spells. Some champions use W for shields, others use E for shields, so there wasn't a clear winner for that one other than enchanters preferring shields on E compared to mages.
That leads to the next consideration, which is mechanical feel. Generally you want to spam Q the most out of all of your abilities, so that was another reason to put his low cooldown damage spells on Q. It feels a little awkward to constantly spam Q + W or W + Q, so his wave clear and poke spells were put on Q and E so you can double tap or dance between them using your point and ring finger. Your middle finger is then used less frequently and with more intention, preventing too many "fat finger" inputs due to spamming two buttons next...
Read moreAs is stands, all of Hwei's E (Torment) spells do that same amount of damage despite some being far easier to hit than others. Would the team ever consider changing up the damage on the different spells? It seems strange to me that a more or less point and click EE does the same amount of damage as EQ which is far more difficult to land.
Of course the argument is that a fear is much more potent than a Displace and slow, but I'm curious if those numbers are set in stone or are subject (: torment) to change.Loving the champion though, great work!
Currently we're happy with the choice of Torment spells being focused on their control outputs rather than their damage outputs. When their damage outputs vary, then you have to consider "This spell is the best for damage so when I maximize damage I should use this one." There's already a lot to think about when comboing, so simplifying it to "I need to hit multiple targets right now" or "I need to control this area" or "I need you to get off me" helps to clarify why one should be chosen over the others. With Hwei there's always a bit of a conflict between adding complexity for depth and keeping things simple to focus on execution perfection. This is an area we've chosen to lower complexity on in order to focus mastery on execution and use cases over damage optimization.
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