Episode 214 – “Ghostcrawler, Khoopa, RoamingNumeral Discuss Patch 4.20, Season 5, and More!”

Summary: Riot game designers Ghostcrawler, Khoopa, and RoamingNumeral come on the Trinity Force Podcast to discuss Patch 4.20, pre-season 5, and more!! Time Stamps: 2:00- Introductions 3:10- Give us your thoughts on Season 5 and what you envisioned for it. While looking into changing the jungle, the towers, the baron, the dragon, and more, what was your goal for the game? 5:55- During the AMA designers admitted that there was a concern that there would be too much vision added into the game due to the scuttle crab and wolves. Do you see this being a problem in the future and if so what steps would be taken to address it? 10:14- Reduction of Vision 12:40- Was there concern about adding in uncounterable vision in front of 2 key objectives? Why was it decided to make the Scuttle Crab vision uncounterable? 15:44- Crab movement. 18:04- Assuming that you are spot on with every timer, it takes roughly 30 minutes to obtain all 5 of the dragon buffs. General Dragon talk. 21:12- First Dragon buff vs Towers 24:20- How did your design team come up with at what level you would get what buff? Some are complaining that buffs 2 and 4 are underwhelming in comparison to the other buffs. As Riot watches games (both solo and pro), do you think we will see minor tweaks to what level the buffs are available? Say moving buff 1, the AP and AD, to buff 3 instead where it could potentially have a larger impact on the game. 30:39- The Dragon is now classified as an Epic monster and has to be “tanked” by a single person (facing it away from the group). It has been argued that the team stealing the objective has the advantage. Do you feel that this added need for positioning unintentionally gives the team that is contesting the objective an advantage? 33:13- Do you have any plans to remove the ability to “tank” dragon with neutral plants / cannons? 35:39- We’re all aware that the Baron buff empowers nearby minions. Coupled with a few levels of the Dragon buff, this could be misinterpreted as an excuse to split push. Are you aware of the complications this could impart on solo queue? 40:04- Were they envisioning sustain jungler having such an impact immediately? were they trying to rescind power from the common top tier junglers we've been seeing over and over for the past year? 42:52- For champions(WW specifically), that are too strong at the moment, is it the champion or is it the items that are overtuned? 45:53- Skirmishers having internal CD 53:05-Now that Dragon buff globally gives players bonuses the game has seemed to slow down a fair bit. Was this a by product of the changes or do you feel that it’s because players are being cautious with the new changes? 59:58- How did you decide on the current jungle camp buff options? Were there any crazy buffs that didn’t make it into the game for one reason or another? 63:53- In season 3 we saw laners taking advantage of jungle items which caused some champions to be more powerful than what we perceived to be intended. Without saying that a lane cannot take Smite, what was the process the design team took to keep jungle items where they belong? 68:36- Why do you not have to kill the minion to get the buff? 70:46- There has been a lot of discussions about the mana regeneration changes. Will the amount of mana regeneration available through current midlaner paths (for example athenes) be less in season 5? 72:37- How will you balance this vs. resourceless/energy champions? 73:57- Morello made a comment that the pick/ban phase is being looked at for an update. He did say that these plans didn’t currently include upping picks/bans. Is there any insight you can give us into the possibilities that are currently being explored? 75:08- DOTA 2 Pick/Ban phase 76:00 - End of game gifting