League of Legends: Riot Games respond to Doublift’s comments on “game-breaking” Mountain Drakes
Riot Games issued a response on March 4 to Yiliang ‘League of Legends’ Mountain drake being a “game-breaking” element in the MOBA.
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Doublelift gave an intriguing look at how the Mountain Drake can influence a competitive game because of its valuable buff that makes objectives quicker to kill.
Gameplay Data Lead at Riot Nathan ‘Blaustoise’ Blau expressed that the team was happy with their overall drake update, but thought that the comments could provide “great opportunity for future iteration.”
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Thoughts RE @TLDoublelift's Mountain Drake post:
(1) MAKE OTHER DRAKES MORE IMPACTFUL – DLift mentions that the other drakes (cloud ocean fire) are "basically stat buffs" and that "there's strategy that revolves around having a mountain and setting up Baron. (1/10)
— Riot Blaustoise :soon: GDC (@RiotBlaustoise) March 4, 2019
Blaustoise gave multiple solutions for either reducing the Mountain Drake’s buff or completely revamping how all the drakes could influence the game.
“DLift mentions that the other drakes (cloud ocean fire) are ‘basically stat buffs,’” Blaustoise said. “Maybe we should make other drakes just as impactful/strategic.”
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I like (1) the most: make other drakes have more impact. I also think that if we go down that route, it would be good to couple it with (2), giving more information in champ select at least for the first drake if we're going to make it more influential on strategy. (10/10)
— Riot Blaustoise :soon: GDC (@RiotBlaustoise) March 4, 2019
He likened the proposed change to affect how players would want to take the advantage of rushing down Baron with a Mountain Drake buff, to how players could value a Wind Drake so “rotations are faster.”
- Read more: League of Legends: Doublelift slams Locodoco – “he doesn’t have the skills to back up the ego”
The Riot Games lead also mentioned the possibility of letting both teams know the elements of the first one or two drakes beforehand, to let strategies around different objectives develop in champ select and not spontaneously during a match.
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Blaustoise admitted that he saw a flaw with his last idea of changing the Mountain Drake’s buff to give teams “reduced damage from epic monsters and turrets.”
Even though it seems Riot Games are okay with how the drakes are now, it’s encouraging that they are receptive to integrate feedback like this with future concepts or changes.
