3.10 Meta Changes -Zekent

I can’t 100% agree with this (not that I have to, it’s your opinion of course).

He has a good concept of what things should be like, but his number game leaves a bit to be desired. He also has clear vision for heroes that I think could work in a lot of ways but again…it’s hurt by the numbers. I like his non-number changes. Just my opinion.

Yes but you see idea making isn’t supposed to be what a game balance dev should be trying to invest their time in. Anyone can come up with an idea. The purpose of a game balance dev is to make those ideas possible in a balanced way which means having a strong sense in the numbers. If he doesn’t think that its awkward to take healing treant as a top laner than something is up with him BECAUSE IT IS AWKWARD.

I’ve been playing top lane for a long time and judging from the few games I’ve played with him he is good at mid. Mid and top/bottom are so different. Anyone can have a strong idea about junglers and captains because they are basic roles. They don’t have any complexity for which archetype hero should be played. You don’t play Glaive captain anymore and Inara captain only works so often. This is why Fortress is a jungler as well.

I like blaming Zekent but really it’s SEMC’s fault as a company. They have one guy doing all the balancing for a map with 4 (5) different positions. Sure as I mentioned before 2 of them are quite logical to what they are supposed to be but mid and bot/top are completely different.

You ever thought about why ‘mid’ is never complained about? It’s because that lane is so consistent in every single patch. Everyone knows how to play it and it’s probably the lane that has the most ideal/understandable rotation.

Bot/top have always been unbalanced because they don’t have anyone that can comprehend those roles without being mid orientated.

All in all, we need someone that has an idea about the side lanes and a good vision for them so then he/she can mix ideas with Zekent so we can have not a balanced patch, but a fun one.

I don’t really care about “balance” I just care about the game being fun. If a high skill cap hero is broken THEN ITS FUN. But if I watch a kinetic mow down my entire team it’s like “k.” Watching a Silvernail play bot lane is 10x funnier than watching a Kinetic there because you end up seeing the enemy top laner being glued to turret because of some elaborate tripwire.

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Agreed. I don’t think they have official separate positions for the person who ‘changes the meta’ and the person that balances those changes. I don’t think they have a specific point person for gameplay mechanic vision vs gameplay mechanic balance, so to speak.

I definitely agree that you don’t take treant ever as top unless you got lead: the map combined with enemy rotations doesn’t allow for it. I really think they expected junglers to rotate right to left and end up helping the top laner more than they do, and expected captains to be the ones rotating left to right.

I find top to be the ‘mobile heavy hitter’ or ‘pro defender’ spot, needing heroes with movement abilities or aoe, and high base dmg/quick scaling. Mid is for late game heroes, and bot…funny enough, isn’t even well designed for wp heroes, besides the jungle. Bot is actually a better environment for hard hitting cp mid game heroes at the start lol, as long as your jungle doesn’t get invaded, and cc heroes of course.

And agreed mid is the most stable place to be. You can’t really mess up mid as long as you have a solid team behind you and solid gameplay yourself. Top requires you to work extra hard on defense and extra, extra hard on offense, by design alone. Bot is just dangerous for non-mobile heroes but it’s way simpler than top.

Bro Zekent = balance team unless talent balance is included because then that would be inclusive of Sonata the guy balancing matchmaker as well :slight_smile:

I know. That’s kind of an issue. I mean if he was good with the number changes I wouldn’t have a problem, though I do think vision and balance should be two separate positions, but I gotta keep it real: the number changes aren’t going well. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: they need to find a better middle ground. In the past sometimes number changes were ineffectual, now they’re just a bit too consistently drastic. The concepts behind them are nice but the numbers are just a bit woah.

I thought SurpriseBirthday was doing matchmaking :o

I don’t believe so I remember sonata doing an ama on reddit about mm bc they were introducing chaos q

Zekent is the balance dev , surprise birthday is the matchmaking dev , sonata probably assistant for them both , I remember when he was talking about the chaos but I think the chaos for matchmaking is like talents for balancing , so he is there to imbalance things not actually balancing hehehe .

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I’ve said this for a while: the jungle is far too acccessible to laners. When I compare Summoner’s Rift and Sovereign’s Rise, it’s very apparent that Sovereign’s Rise has taken many cues from Summoner’s Rift, except that the jungle provides far more ganking opportunities in Summoner’s Rift, is overall more dangerous to walk though, and has its camps less accessible to laners. I think it’s time to seriously consider a redesign if we’re to shake this duo bot meta off.

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They will not do it, look how much time they need for even that layout - a year… as we all know now that not really any changes besides some balancing was done otherwise. It wasn’t really vainglory 2.0 as we expected it to be (I was hoping more of an separate app that succeed the vainglory game and there are some/all of the heroes reimagine in a way that their kits are designed for 5vs5 and it’s map, but keeping the overall spirit of the heroes).

So, after a year they come up with that map, I really doubt they will change it and that’s the primary way to deal with the situation.

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But it wouldn’t require too much. Ultimately, I’d love for the map to not be a mirror, however they could still keep the current map. They simply need to insert a couple of sections of trees/walls to block off a few access points. It could dramatically change the game for the better.

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Was mentioned and discussed in the 2018 spring… sadly, no resultts yet. One would hope for 4.0, but highly unlikely to happen. :slight_smile: