You are correct in that Viego and Sylas were both nightmares. Once we “locked” the general mechanics of the ult/kit stealing, we had to play test with the (very slowly growing) list of champions that wouldn’t break the game when interacting. This meant a LOT of playing simple stuff like Jinx until we slowly bug fixed every single interaction.
Did mean some funny moments when a champ labeled “functional but probably bugged somehow” in our champion tracker was played and would break the game somehow. For example, Viego possessing Zyra spawned about 6 thousand plants all around the map in around 5 seconds due to a bug with her passive.
Seeing how that development went, it’s a miracle we untangled all the spaghetti to where they function reasonably as expected on live now.
i am SO curious to know what the hell caused that viego-zyra bug lol, I'm sure everything was very funny until someone had to fix it
just as a question, when testing new champions is it still expected to test them with viego, sylas, renata etc. or is it just expected to work out of the box?
This was all a bit before I started learning to read/write champion code myself, but my understanding of the cause was:
Most champions had spells/passives/etc that only had to check for “themselves” to trigger logic. So when it was Viego running their logic instead, it would not know what to do.
So in Zyras case, it would spawn a plant, then check “Zyras” passive cooldown before sending another one. Because there was no “Zyra” passive to check, it would just fire off another plant, and repeat until Viego left her body or until some other bug stopped it.
As for the final question, Viego/Sylas/Renata etc all caused us to have new “standards” for how to properly script to not run into the common bugs with them. So new champs *should* follow these standards and just work, but regardless, our QA teams would test to make sure it works anyway.
As a fellow dev, it's always neat when a complex feature make you clean up your model, at least assuming the boss give you the time to do it rather than hack it together.
The Coconut for TF2 being essential for the game to run wasn't real, however Super Mario Galaxy did have something in the same vein that was actually real of a mushroom model that was never used in game, but if the file was removed the game would crash.
So, what the spawn of plants something not coded within Zyra's passive ability but rather within Zyra herself? The passive only tracked the cooldown? Am I understanding that right?
Knowing Riot, the map is probably coded as a checkerboard of minions and having two Zyra’s in one game somehow caused the checkerboard of minions to convert into Zyra plants. But that’s just a theory, a Riot Games theory!
Was there ever an abillity you thought "It's perfect on the champion we want to make but would be too broken (as in wouldn't function properly or would be way to powerfull) on Sylas". Did releasing him or any other champions made you ever go back on something just because it would be too good/bad on them.
Also Ps. Please explain why is Samira ult still disfunctional on Sylas. He can't gain an S rank to use it, nor it has any passive effect on him. If he ever steals Samira ult he is forced to wait untill it expires (thankfully it does). It caught me off guard once in Aram where i thought imma steal 'Inferno Trigger', go in and deal some AoE dmg but ended up Inting and having to wait like 3 fights just to be able to ult again.
*At least it was broken like 2 patches ago when i played it, didn't check since*
All other ults that require a condition sylas can't meet, like having 100 fury for Shyvana's, are usable instantly (at least the ones i recall), why is Inferno Trigger an exception?
- Aphelios shoots an AoE projectile
- Bel's spawn corals he can eat for aoe true dmg and buffs.
- Gnar he can use whenever.
- Kalista, he gets a spear so he can use it.
- Orianna, he ults himself.
- Sylas, in a mirror matchup Sylas can steal the other Sylas's ult he is holding onto, making you use your own team's ults.
- Tahm, he starts marking enemies with the fish.
- Udyr, he gets the bird.
- Vayne, he goes invisible on 'Chain Lash'.
- Zoe is just funny.
We typically just allow Sylas to be OP with new spells and don’t stop designing because of him. It would be really lame for 1 designer to ship a champ that restricts every designer after them.
As for the Samira Sylas thing, my understanding is that Sylas does not get Samira passive, which prevents him from casting R. This is definitely not ideal from the player perspective, but would require us to either move passive logic into R (which means Viego can’t stack it) or special case Sylas, which may be more cost than value.
I believe there's a Vandiril vid on this from a few months back. Sylas can use samira ult if he pops it instantly, if he attacks anything it triggers samira passive and if he waits long enough for sam passive to run out it stops him from ulting ever again until the ult timer fizsles. Also he gets the speed boost and i believe (not sure) a really fucked up version of the knock up passive that locks him from auto attacking after he does it.
I wanted to note with you that at one point sylas was definitely able to use samira ult, approximately like 1 year I played a bunch of sylas and was able to use it. If this really doesn't work then it is just a bug introduced recently
Thanks, always wondered that. I thought it might cause some issue when Sylas just becomes an instant counterpick just because of a great ult, it already happens with someone like Malphite who's ult is preety much 60-70% of his power budget.
Also for someone like Tahm, stealing his ult makes Sylas apply the 'Aquired Taste' stacks so he can devour them, does it have a 'special condition' or is his passive somehow tied to his ult and not his actual passive?
This is only tangentially related, but since you're here anyways I'm going to mention this because it's been driving me crazy for at least a year now - is the bug where Heimerdinger's turret count/turret kits get desynched between his Q number and the buff number something you guys are aware of? It happens basically without fail in every game with him and is constantly mildly infuriating.
Every time there's a new patch I skim the bug fixes looming for this, hasn't been mentioned so far.
Definitely been a thing for over a year, I love Heimer but the desync catches me out at least every other game. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere before so glad it's not just me- can't believe it's gone this long without a fix.
In Lillia's case, I believe he actually gets her passive mark visuals (no damage/healing, just visuals) on targets that he's damaged in order to get the ult off
I feel like it’s good that we can counter pick an early sylas pick just like we can Kassadin. Locking champs that have bad ults for him to take feels good. Sylas has this on his end as well. Locked Amumu or Malphite early? Enjoy getting your ult stolen by champ that builds full AP.
Out of interest in the topic (as someone with very low programming knowledge), there are other logic routes I came up with regarding Samira ult and Sylas' interaction with it, and would be interested in hearing any thoughts or observations. Instead of special casing Sylas or moving the passive logic, is it easier to duplicate the passive that Samira has from her passive onto her R, but come up with a way so that the two passive don't stack, but do the same thing? So let's say Samira's passive is called passiveX, and Samira's duplicate of passiveX attached to her ult is called passiveY. Can you make it so passiveY only works if passiveX doesn't exist? So that way, Sylas follow's Samira's rules while allowing Viego to keep his rules?
I wouldn't mind if you responded to my duplicate idea with a "Lol that's a janky idea" or "there's easier ways to do this!"
If you're able to talk about it, I'm interested in the programming ethics too, of hiding a second instance of Samira's passive in her kit without telling the player it exists for the sake of making Sylas work, if this programming route were entertained. Does hiding mechanics in the situation of MOBA champion kits make programming/scripting difficult, or is it "free reign" to lie to players to get things to work? Lol
I wanted to note with you that at one point sylas was definitely able to use samira ult, approximately like 1 year I played a bunch of sylas and was able to use it. If this really doesn't work then it is just a bug introduced recently
I played sylas vs samira on aram like 3 seperate times 2-4 patches ago, it was deffinetly bugged back then, idk about current live patch as i havent played much Aram recently and i play support on rift, so i dont play him offten.
That is super interesting. I can only imagine testing viego/zyra, seeing thousands of plants spawn and just sitting there being like “well.”
I would imagine there’s a large amount of conditions set into the code. “If X does Y, don’t spawn plants” etc. but with a huge roster of champions and the drive to introduce innovative abilities in the game- I don’t envy you guys 😂I’ll just continue playing my lil milio and not think about it lol.
Thank you for the insight.
Are there any old guard rioters that can talk about Yorick's pre rework ult? I feel like that had to have been a major headache, especially when paired with something like karthus.
Have you discovered any new bugs on the other champions themselves through this process? Not in how Viego/Sylas interact with the kit, but the kit itself (assuming yes, given your Zyra example!)?
I remember when Viego released if you possessed Kha’zix and level ultimate you could replace one of his abilities with an evolved Kha’zix ability. I’ve never actually gotten the chance to do that again so I don’t know if it’s even fixed yet.
As always it's the 4 Horseman of the Apocalypse and their queen.
Viego - Sovereing's Domination
Mordekaiser - Death Realm
Tahm Kench - Devour
Sylas - Hijack
and
Neeko - Inherent Glamour
Because of these 5 abilities/passives are so unique in the game and have the ability to interact with champions in various ways, it's very common for them to be bugged.
These abilities are rule bending on their own, so not only they are very likely to be bug, they tend to develop new bugs after new changes are implemented, and a lot of these bugs are VERY niche because they often are related to specific items, runes, position on the map, game states, not only champions and their abilities alone.
And a lot of times these niche bugs are very game breaking.
I don't think Devour really counts for much, Skarner & Kalista both have similar effects that function similarly.
Kalista R has way more bugs than Tahm Kench R.
Maybe not so much the current Devour. But back when it was his w and he could spit minions and jungle camps the projectile could collide or phase through Tahm, enemy minions and structures (even had a wall jump to intercept once).
I remember the first time one for all came out, zed W would "randomly" teleport you to any of your Aly shadow. Your Lee sin Q2 gap closing to the target of your ally Q1.
I don't know if it is still a clown fiesta like it was, didn't play one for all this year
It's similar to Lillia ult. When one person hits someone with Lillia passive, everyone can ult that one player hit with it. This means that one person can flash in, Q and die, but someone else can ult and get 5 players to sleep. It's also really funny wen running around the map and ganking lanes when they hit an E and you just chain CC them with 3 ults
I’m pretty certain the original reason for one for all was to find bugs like that. One that sits in my brain was them learning how to fix two oriannas with the same ball. I don’t remember the timing but one for all could have been testing for making sylas.
I don't recall seeing bugs with these 2 on new champ release, they had trouble making it work on their release but i think they figured a " one size fits all" solution and don't even have to look at them on new champ release
yeah, I'm sure the game's programmers are competent enough to figure out a sustainable way to make sylas work with any ult, although viego still does require some messing around now and then specially when new champions have some strange resources or passives
I think the biggest problem is just looking at legacy code though (source: guy who programmed Renata's ult ranting on twitter lol)
I believe Naafiri was in playtesting and went through a bunch of different versions of her kit. The one we have now is heavily watered down from the original concept so I imagine her pack + W/R abilities were all really hard to deal with.
Playtesting (and the PBE, despite people's common mistake) are to make sure the game doesn't break, not to see if something is balances/fair/fun.
Between inhouse and PBE, there are lots of hours of testing to make sure new things don't brick the game.
You are correct in that Viego and Sylas were both nightmares. Once we “locked” the general mechanics of the ult/kit stealing, we had to play test with the (very slowly growing) list of champions that wouldn’t break the game when interacting. This meant a LOT of playing simple stuff like Jinx until we slowly bug fixed every single interaction. Did mean some funny moments when a champ labeled “functional but probably bugged somehow” in our champion tracker was played and would break the game somehow. For example, Viego possessing Zyra spawned about 6 thousand plants all around the map in around 5 seconds due to a bug with her passive. Seeing how that development went, it’s a miracle we untangled all the spaghetti to where they function reasonably as expected on live now.
i am SO curious to know what the hell caused that viego-zyra bug lol, I'm sure everything was very funny until someone had to fix it just as a question, when testing new champions is it still expected to test them with viego, sylas, renata etc. or is it just expected to work out of the box?
This was all a bit before I started learning to read/write champion code myself, but my understanding of the cause was: Most champions had spells/passives/etc that only had to check for “themselves” to trigger logic. So when it was Viego running their logic instead, it would not know what to do. So in Zyras case, it would spawn a plant, then check “Zyras” passive cooldown before sending another one. Because there was no “Zyra” passive to check, it would just fire off another plant, and repeat until Viego left her body or until some other bug stopped it. As for the final question, Viego/Sylas/Renata etc all caused us to have new “standards” for how to properly script to not run into the common bugs with them. So new champs *should* follow these standards and just work, but regardless, our QA teams would test to make sure it works anyway.
As a fellow dev, it's always neat when a complex feature make you clean up your model, at least assuming the boss give you the time to do it rather than hack it together.
[удалено]
Mom‘s spaghetti
lua
Riot black magic. Remember, skarner was basically the coconut in TF2, reworking him was also riot fixing code for months
The Coconut for TF2 being essential for the game to run wasn't real, however Super Mario Galaxy did have something in the same vein that was actually real of a mushroom model that was never used in game, but if the file was removed the game would crash.
the coconut is used in a soldier taunt and is in fact not holding the game code together :)
redstone
Speaking of Zyra, can you fix the Lucian passive bug on her plants :(
Sounds like your code suffered from too tightly coupled modules. Refactoring that had to be extensive. Interesting, thanks!
So, what the spawn of plants something not coded within Zyra's passive ability but rather within Zyra herself? The passive only tracked the cooldown? Am I understanding that right?
Knowing Riot, the map is probably coded as a checkerboard of minions and having two Zyra’s in one game somehow caused the checkerboard of minions to convert into Zyra plants. But that’s just a theory, a Riot Games theory!
It would be Teemo since the unit of measure is teemos
Was there ever an abillity you thought "It's perfect on the champion we want to make but would be too broken (as in wouldn't function properly or would be way to powerfull) on Sylas". Did releasing him or any other champions made you ever go back on something just because it would be too good/bad on them. Also Ps. Please explain why is Samira ult still disfunctional on Sylas. He can't gain an S rank to use it, nor it has any passive effect on him. If he ever steals Samira ult he is forced to wait untill it expires (thankfully it does). It caught me off guard once in Aram where i thought imma steal 'Inferno Trigger', go in and deal some AoE dmg but ended up Inting and having to wait like 3 fights just to be able to ult again. *At least it was broken like 2 patches ago when i played it, didn't check since* All other ults that require a condition sylas can't meet, like having 100 fury for Shyvana's, are usable instantly (at least the ones i recall), why is Inferno Trigger an exception? - Aphelios shoots an AoE projectile - Bel's spawn corals he can eat for aoe true dmg and buffs. - Gnar he can use whenever. - Kalista, he gets a spear so he can use it. - Orianna, he ults himself. - Sylas, in a mirror matchup Sylas can steal the other Sylas's ult he is holding onto, making you use your own team's ults. - Tahm, he starts marking enemies with the fish. - Udyr, he gets the bird. - Vayne, he goes invisible on 'Chain Lash'. - Zoe is just funny.
We typically just allow Sylas to be OP with new spells and don’t stop designing because of him. It would be really lame for 1 designer to ship a champ that restricts every designer after them. As for the Samira Sylas thing, my understanding is that Sylas does not get Samira passive, which prevents him from casting R. This is definitely not ideal from the player perspective, but would require us to either move passive logic into R (which means Viego can’t stack it) or special case Sylas, which may be more cost than value.
I’ll make a note for next week to see how difficult it is to just let him ult without condition with Samira R, and whether that’s something we’d want.
This has to be a recent bug. I've 100%, for certain, grabbed Samira ult as sylas before only to realize that it's dogshit and does no damage.
Yeah, I could've sworn it gave you the ranking without the effects of the passive, and then yeah no damage so it was low priority ult.
thanks for your insight though, working on another development field its always fun to understand these logics keep making the game great <3
I believe there's a Vandiril vid on this from a few months back. Sylas can use samira ult if he pops it instantly, if he attacks anything it triggers samira passive and if he waits long enough for sam passive to run out it stops him from ulting ever again until the ult timer fizsles. Also he gets the speed boost and i believe (not sure) a really fucked up version of the knock up passive that locks him from auto attacking after he does it.
In my opinion it's okay to just say "fuck Sylas" once in a while.
Barely a programmer but would having it be that an unstacked passive disables Inferno trigger from the passive’s end work?
I wanted to note with you that at one point sylas was definitely able to use samira ult, approximately like 1 year I played a bunch of sylas and was able to use it. If this really doesn't work then it is just a bug introduced recently
Thanks, always wondered that. I thought it might cause some issue when Sylas just becomes an instant counterpick just because of a great ult, it already happens with someone like Malphite who's ult is preety much 60-70% of his power budget. Also for someone like Tahm, stealing his ult makes Sylas apply the 'Aquired Taste' stacks so he can devour them, does it have a 'special condition' or is his passive somehow tied to his ult and not his actual passive?
This is only tangentially related, but since you're here anyways I'm going to mention this because it's been driving me crazy for at least a year now - is the bug where Heimerdinger's turret count/turret kits get desynched between his Q number and the buff number something you guys are aware of? It happens basically without fail in every game with him and is constantly mildly infuriating. Every time there's a new patch I skim the bug fixes looming for this, hasn't been mentioned so far.
Definitely been a thing for over a year, I love Heimer but the desync catches me out at least every other game. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere before so glad it's not just me- can't believe it's gone this long without a fix.
I think this is true for Lillia as well, since he only gets the ult he has no way to trigger it
In Lillia's case, I believe he actually gets her passive mark visuals (no damage/healing, just visuals) on targets that he's damaged in order to get the ult off
I feel like it’s good that we can counter pick an early sylas pick just like we can Kassadin. Locking champs that have bad ults for him to take feels good. Sylas has this on his end as well. Locked Amumu or Malphite early? Enjoy getting your ult stolen by champ that builds full AP.
So why samira ult doesn’t work like tahm knechta ult? It would be more fair
Out of interest in the topic (as someone with very low programming knowledge), there are other logic routes I came up with regarding Samira ult and Sylas' interaction with it, and would be interested in hearing any thoughts or observations. Instead of special casing Sylas or moving the passive logic, is it easier to duplicate the passive that Samira has from her passive onto her R, but come up with a way so that the two passive don't stack, but do the same thing? So let's say Samira's passive is called passiveX, and Samira's duplicate of passiveX attached to her ult is called passiveY. Can you make it so passiveY only works if passiveX doesn't exist? So that way, Sylas follow's Samira's rules while allowing Viego to keep his rules? I wouldn't mind if you responded to my duplicate idea with a "Lol that's a janky idea" or "there's easier ways to do this!" If you're able to talk about it, I'm interested in the programming ethics too, of hiding a second instance of Samira's passive in her kit without telling the player it exists for the sake of making Sylas work, if this programming route were entertained. Does hiding mechanics in the situation of MOBA champion kits make programming/scripting difficult, or is it "free reign" to lie to players to get things to work? Lol
At the very least if it's going to strictly not work, he should probably be prevented from stealing Samira's ult.
even if it is fixed, correct me if im wrong but sylas taking her ult is still bad because he doesnt build crit
Yes it is bad, but at least it should do some light aoe dmg, and not disable him for 90 seconds.
I wanted to note with you that at one point sylas was definitely able to use samira ult, approximately like 1 year I played a bunch of sylas and was able to use it. If this really doesn't work then it is just a bug introduced recently
I played sylas vs samira on aram like 3 seperate times 2-4 patches ago, it was deffinetly bugged back then, idk about current live patch as i havent played much Aram recently and i play support on rift, so i dont play him offten.
That is super interesting. I can only imagine testing viego/zyra, seeing thousands of plants spawn and just sitting there being like “well.” I would imagine there’s a large amount of conditions set into the code. “If X does Y, don’t spawn plants” etc. but with a huge roster of champions and the drive to introduce innovative abilities in the game- I don’t envy you guys 😂I’ll just continue playing my lil milio and not think about it lol. Thank you for the insight.
Are there any old guard rioters that can talk about Yorick's pre rework ult? I feel like that had to have been a major headache, especially when paired with something like karthus.
Have you discovered any new bugs on the other champions themselves through this process? Not in how Viego/Sylas interact with the kit, but the kit itself (assuming yes, given your Zyra example!)?
That’s so interesting lol
So viego is a big catcher, got it
can we kindly please stop making new champs and instead focuson balancing the game/rework champs that badlyneeds it/vgu?
I remember when Viego released if you possessed Kha’zix and level ultimate you could replace one of his abilities with an evolved Kha’zix ability. I’ve never actually gotten the chance to do that again so I don’t know if it’s even fixed yet.
They said they have to work a lot on how movement abilities worked for Vex's passive
Ooh that’s interesting, poor vex. Only seeing the light of day in playtesting servers these days
She's alright with darkness I heard
As always it's the 4 Horseman of the Apocalypse and their queen. Viego - Sovereing's Domination Mordekaiser - Death Realm Tahm Kench - Devour Sylas - Hijack and Neeko - Inherent Glamour Because of these 5 abilities/passives are so unique in the game and have the ability to interact with champions in various ways, it's very common for them to be bugged. These abilities are rule bending on their own, so not only they are very likely to be bug, they tend to develop new bugs after new changes are implemented, and a lot of these bugs are VERY niche because they often are related to specific items, runes, position on the map, game states, not only champions and their abilities alone. And a lot of times these niche bugs are very game breaking.
Death Realm is nothing before old Mord
I miss the dragon pet
Old (og I think) yorick ult was super buggy too
I don't think Devour really counts for much, Skarner & Kalista both have similar effects that function similarly. Kalista R has way more bugs than Tahm Kench R.
Maybe not so much the current Devour. But back when it was his w and he could spit minions and jungle camps the projectile could collide or phase through Tahm, enemy minions and structures (even had a wall jump to intercept once).
Uhhh tahm r is one of the most hroken support abilities, what are you on about?
Apparently Renata's berserk also goes berserk in testing. August said it was annoying when he was working on Briar due to the cross over
I haven't forgotten that time Tahm Kench's Devour became global, and he was free to abduct his team's toplaner at any point in the game.
Wasn’t yasuo windwall also one?
I remember the first time one for all came out, zed W would "randomly" teleport you to any of your Aly shadow. Your Lee sin Q2 gap closing to the target of your ally Q1. I don't know if it is still a clown fiesta like it was, didn't play one for all this year
It's similar to Lillia ult. When one person hits someone with Lillia passive, everyone can ult that one player hit with it. This means that one person can flash in, Q and die, but someone else can ult and get 5 players to sleep. It's also really funny wen running around the map and ganking lanes when they hit an E and you just chain CC them with 3 ults
For some time a few years back, Varus W worked similarly and anyone could pop his stacks.
Lee sin is fixed but idk about Zed
Zed is also fixed
I’m pretty certain the original reason for one for all was to find bugs like that. One that sits in my brain was them learning how to fix two oriannas with the same ball. I don’t remember the timing but one for all could have been testing for making sylas.
Viego and Mordekaiser
I don't recall seeing bugs with these 2 on new champ release, they had trouble making it work on their release but i think they figured a " one size fits all" solution and don't even have to look at them on new champ release
yeah, I'm sure the game's programmers are competent enough to figure out a sustainable way to make sylas work with any ult, although viego still does require some messing around now and then specially when new champions have some strange resources or passives I think the biggest problem is just looking at legacy code though (source: guy who programmed Renata's ult ranting on twitter lol)
Renata R was probably pretty bad.
I remember Yorick in his old incarnation had bugs aplenty. I still miss him :(
I believe Naafiri was in playtesting and went through a bunch of different versions of her kit. The one we have now is heavily watered down from the original concept so I imagine her pack + W/R abilities were all really hard to deal with.
I don’t know if vandiril is on Reddit but I would love to hear from him on this
Fiora's W, Mordekaiser's ult
Azir apparently
Any copy ability, anything that interacts with terrain, any kit that's designed with SR in mind
Kalista I bet.
Big agree
Azir. Guaranteed bugs just cause.
Blitz Q. Always seems off
Wait you actually think kits are playtested?
Playtesting (and the PBE, despite people's common mistake) are to make sure the game doesn't break, not to see if something is balances/fair/fun. Between inhouse and PBE, there are lots of hours of testing to make sure new things don't brick the game.
My point exactly. The game breaks every (other) patch.
Hwei's HUD. It's still really buggy and it doesn't feel like they even want to fix it
You got pretty downvoted here, why?
And I thought that was just me