Those hoping for a surprise balance changes this week will be disappointed as Riot is maintaining their normal cadence of only introducing balance changes every other patch. Instead, Patch 2.4.0 focuses exclusively on "bug fixes and miscellaneous quality of life improvements," along with several expedition bucket changes. This means we'll have to wait for Patch 2.5.0 at the end of the month before we see the changes to Twisted Fate that RubinZoo hinted at earlier.
Quote From Riot Miscellaneous
- Visual clarity improvements have been made to the process for phasing a Moon Weapon.
- Player vs. AI matchmaking rules have been updated to allow for a wider pool of AI opponents.
Bugfixes
- Ranked Rewards from the Cosmic Creation Season should be properly delivered to all players.
- Fixed a bug that was preventing Spellshield from stopping Cataclysm.
- Fixed a bug where Cataclysm’s forced Challenge could be undone by the defending player.
- Fixed a bug where a blocking unit under the effect of Cataclysm could be removed to have the attacker incorrectly damage the defending player’s Nexus.
- Fixed a bug that was preventing champion voice lines from being played on mobile.
- Fixed a bug that was preventing Spellshield from stopping Captain Arrika's Play effect.
- Fixed a bug where having multiple Buried Sun Discs in play resulted in incorrect Countdown effects.
- Added a Deep counter to Vicious Platewyrm.
- Fixed a bug where The Veiled Temple would allow Thermogenic Beam to deal 2 damage when being cast for 0 mana.
- Fixed a bug where Zoe's level 2 effect would occasionally not appear correctly.
- Fixed a visual bug that occurred when using the Fen Guardian on the Arcade Board.
- Fixed an issue where text was overlapping in some languages on the Empires of the Ascended Event Pass.
- Several text improvements have been made across the game in our continued effort to improve text consistency.
AI Opponents
Riot Raptorr detailed a little more about the changes to AI opponents on reddit.
Quote From RiotRaptorr We've updated how AI matchmaking works. After your first 10 games or so in AI (20 if you're new), you should start to see your opponent pool open up quite a bit.
If you have less than 20 total vs AI games, your first games will be against the 'easier' AIs. After those first 20, the AIs you're matched against are influenced by your recent win rates. If you're winning vs AI a lot, you'll encounter some of the more challenging encounters.
The net result is that most players should be seeing a much wider variety of AIs.
While we're disappointed that none of these changes promises to have any impact on the meta, they certainly are some welcome bug fixes. Anyone who has lost a game to either the Cataclysm or Buried Sun Disc exploits can attest they just made the game feel very unsatisfying. What are your thoughts? Share with us below!
Comments
They clearly have to change the established patch pattern. We waited too long between swing patch and patch. Now with the expansion we are just seeing changes in the game (beyond introducing new cards)
Wait, they didn't fix the Rite of Negation visual bug?
Anyway, there is a balance change cataclysm isn't useless anymore, it's a huge buff to J4.
Edit: also the last patch was full of bugs.. still didn't cover some other ones.. but at least they adressed the game breaking ones I heard about so tat's something.
Well, it looks like I will be taking a break from the game, you couldn't tell that an expansion just got released from all the TF/Fizz and Fiora/Shen that plague the ladder.
I love the fact that Runeterra’s expansions add a lot of new viable things to the game without invalidating the old things. It’s a very tricky balancing act. And the meta absolutely feels different now even though some old decks have remained powerful.
Yes, some nerfs are needed. And yes, it can be healthy to take a break from the game if you need to. But you can definitely tell that an expansion just came out.
No you can't, I just played 5 games today and three of those games were TF/fizz, one TF/Aphelios and the other was a Lissandra/Trundle. The rest of days are not different, I can't go into ladder without playing at least 2 or 3 matches against TF/Fizz or Fiora/Shen in any giving session and from the reaction that patch got on twitter and reddit I am not the only one.
To be clear, I do like the expansion, I find most of the new champions/deck fun to play, the problem are the balance patches. Ever since Call of the mountain, they have been less frequent and pretty lackluster, which have the unfortunate side effect of making the game feel stall despite all the new content added.
For what it’s worth, I’ve played 6 ladder games since my last post: I saw 3 different Kindred decks, 2 different Azir, and one good old-fashioned Miss Fortune-Gangplank. That’s definitely not my usual experience, of course.
I think that LoR’s meta is a lot more varied than Hearthstone’s or (from what I hear) Magic’s, and it is also a lot more feasible to climb with off-meta decks in the game. I also don’t want crazy power-creep, so I’m fine if the expansions that come every two months only change things somewhat.
That said, I’m also worried about how long we’ve started going without nerfs that are obviously needed, and this game can be so time-intensive that breaks can be a good idea. I stopped playing for most of the second Targon expansion. The only thing I really disagreed with you onwas whether the new expansion is noticeable, but I don’t want to make a big deal out of that.
Good luck, whether you end up taking a break or not. My break was definitely healthy for me, and I’m playing the game more than ever since I returned.
Your right man. The meta report show that new cards have a healthy presence in the game. Something you just get unlucky with your match ups I guess.
As for the lack of nerfs. From what I understand, they need to ship patches 2 weeks in advance before they can implement them in the game due to mobile restrictions. This is a big issue especially for the competitive scene. I don't think anyone would like to watch the same 3 deck over and over again for months.
Anyway see you guys at the next patch.
I've also seen them say this ... but the fact is that they used to do a lot more balancing a lot more often. I got pretty persuaded by a Twitter thread detailing all of the history of balance changes, and there is a VERY noticeable change when they started tournaments.
Here's the most recent Mobalytics meta report, posted to reddit. Yes, it has Fiora and TF/Fizz among others.
But five out of those nine decks have new cards in them. Trundle Lissandra is, in fact, a new deck. Ashe midrange has incorporated LeBlanc and a couple of other new cards. LeBlanc Sivir is obviously a very new deck. Azir scouts and Nasus endure are also both using new champions and some other new cards as well.
And if you look to the region popularity at the bottom, Shurima is tied with Shadow Isles as the most popular region, at 19% of all decks.
Apparently you're getting unlucky with your matchups, but the objective fact is that a significant portion of the meta actually IS using new cards.
Yeah it seems that way. The funny ones are Targon at 6% and Bilgwater at only 7% Yet those are the regions that face the most .
I guess I should just take a break until the next balance patch.
Definitely no shame in taking a break. If it's not fun, no point playing it.
But I'll throw this in there - I find it stunning that TF has dodged a nerf this long. The dude has literally NEVER been less than tier 1 ever since he was first released.
TF/Swain, TF/Elise, TF/Fizz, and probably at least 1-2 decks that I'm forgetting about. His decks keep getting nerfed around him, so he keeps having to find a new Tier 1 home, but he always manages to find it - because HE IS THE PROBLEM. Ok, end rant.
Funny side note: Now that Vlad/Braum/Scargrounds is fairly viable with the two new cards (the 1 drop Crimson and Ice Shard), it was absolutely hilarious to see a TF/Fizz player try to figure out how he can avoid dying with a leveled TF on his board, a Scargrounds on my board, and 1-2 Crimson Disciples in play. Truly, no better way in the entire game to punish TF's Red Card harder than that. Make all my dudes bigger, do no damage to them, and ping down your own nexus, all in one single effect, which he is required to activate just by playing cards.