Chapter 381: Careful Designer

14th, the domestic server launched the 7.2+3 version, which is a major update combining two versions, with changes affecting all aspects.

It is worth mentioning that this phenomenon of merging two versions at the start of a season is a convention dating back to ancient times, with origins traceable even to the game's beta period.

The reason for this convention is mainly that after the preseason version made large-scale changes to the game environment, close tracking of balance data is needed; there is a lot to adjust, the designers' workload is huge, and it takes a long time.

However, paradoxically, this period at the start of the season coincides with the winter holiday season in both East and West: in the West it is Christmas plus New Year, in the East it is the Spring Festival.

Riot employees are all on holiday going home to celebrate the New Year and Christmas, development work is paused, so version updates can only be postponed naturally.

There is also a secondary reason: optimizing the competitive experience and new season players' ranked experience, because the preseason plus the new season make extremely large-scale changes to game content; if updates continued at the normal frequent pace, players and pros would not yet be familiar with the previous version before the next one arrives, leaving players unable to adapt, the game experience greatly diminished, playing the game feels as exhausting as school or work, some people cannot withstand the pressure and fail to adapt to such a rapid pace of changes and thus quit outright, which is naturally unfavorable for expanding the player base; moreover, not only players are affected, even exceptionally talented pro players will struggle to breathe under such high-intensity, frequent game changes, after all competitive intensity far exceeds ranked, and the demand for version mastery on players is even higher.

Then at this point, it is necessary to appropriately extend the buffer period; after comprehensive consideration, Riot has come up with this very human-friendly update convention: namely, at the start of each season, there will be a major update that merges two versions into one.

Getting back to this 7.2+3 version, the changes are indeed numerous, the biggest change still lies in the jungle; less than two months after the 6.22 version went live, Riot once again altered monster respawn times, a phenomenon unprecedented.

You should know that, from the public test to before this season, over six years Riot had only changed monster spawn times three times.

Of course, this adjustment's magnitude is not large.

However, after Liang Yan actually experienced it, he found that the announcement and the actual in-game situation once again have a discrepancy.

The game announcement says:

【The respawn time of the first wave of monsters increased from 1 minute 37 seconds to 1 minute 40 seconds.

【The first respawn of Magic Swamp Frog and Stone Armor Beetle increased from 1 minute 49 seconds to 1 minute 52 seconds.】

But the actual situation is:

F6 and the Three Wolves spawn at 1 minute 38 seconds, while the Red and Blue Buffs spawn at 1 minute 40 seconds.

Why do announcements and actual conditions keep mismatching? The announcement was already written but the spaghetti code simply cannot be changed, which really fits the public's stereotype—the world is just a giant makeshift troupe.

Liang Yan couldn't be bothered to investigate the root cause of this blunder; anyway, he always goes by the actual situation.

Aside from the monster spawn time adjustment, there are many other important updates, all of which greatly affect the battlefield.

First, the base effect of armor penetration was strengthened; previously, 10 points of armor penetration only exerted 4 points of effect in the early game, this time it was directly increased by 20%, allowing it to exert 6 points of effect, and the missing 4 points will gradually be made up as level rises.

At the same time, two armor-penetration items were strengthened: Curtain Blade and Night's Sharp Blade, the latter being equipment added in 6.22; this update reduces the cooldown of its active effect (granting oneself a magic shield) from 45 seconds to 30 seconds, and simultaneously removes the effect where using the item's active ability would reveal heroes in stealth, a truly epic strengthening.

It can be foreseen that after this version is implemented on the battlefield, almost all Mantises and Lion Dogs will build Nightblade, and Lion Dogs that already have crowd‑control immunity will become even more invincible.

Regarding heroes:

Werewolf returns in this version with a rework, its skill mechanism almost entirely remade into the model that has been used long thereafter: Q can be instant‑cast or charged and still track the target's displacement, W adds movement speed when catching low‑health foes, E provides damage reduction plus fear, R is a single‑target suppress……From the hero's attributes and skill mechanics, the strength is very high, the problem is……it's awkward to use, short‑ranged, lacking active displacement and AoE, it's okay to play in ranked but destined never to shine on the competitive stage.

The heroes that have been nerfed are: Green Steel Shadow, Jayce, Lion Dog, Mantis, Emerald God, etc.; these are all just slight cuts, not significantly affecting their standing.

Enchantress got hit with a heavy nerf, her Q damage greatly weakened, pre‑level‑14 burst greatly reduced, but she remains a mechanic‑based champion, the mid‑lane queen's status remains unshakable.

Two heroes received major buffs: one is Lulu, the other is the Wine Barrel.

Lulu's passive damage nearly doubles, meaning that when shielding an ADC the marksman's output greatly increases; stacked with the buff to the Censer, in a version already geared toward attack‑speed ADCs, Lulu's status will surely skyrocket, and the great prophet Liang Yan had long known that Lulu would become the support queen starting from this version, having already had Xiao Duan practice her.

The Wine Barrel's buff is similarly far‑reaching.

The Wine Barrel's hero passive restores health based on a percentage of maximum health after using abilities; this version increased the recovery by half, from 4% to 6%, and also raised base armor from 26 to 29, which seems a modest boost, but when combined with the current version's top lane originally being an AP engage tool and the nerf to Giant's Causeway leaving alchemists instantly relegated to the sewers, the rise of top‑lane Wine Barrel is also destined.

Moreover, Liang Yan also noticed the designers' tentative probing of him.

One is that Leopard Woman received a slight increase in heal amount, but the number of traps she can set at the start was limited; well, this was heavily criticized by Leopard Woman players who could not withstand the pressure, yet they feared the invincible canyon trap formation would return, so they made a compromise adjustment.

Also there is the Gunslinger's buff: now using abilities can also continue the pure‑guys passive, the experience will be a bit better, but the impact won't be large, Gunslinger was already very popular.

Vi also got a slight nerf, movement speed reduced by 5, attack speed reduced by 0.2.

Liang Yan could even imagine Riot's balance designers nervously tweaking nerf values, which is laughable.

Finally, the Sprint nerf increased the acceleration start‑up time by 2 seconds.

Sprint indeed deserved to be nerfed; the version's main theme is strengthening the bottom lane and improving the marksman player's experience, so mid‑lane taking Sprint at level 1 to gank bottom is naturally not allowed.