Developer Riot Games aims to restore the connection to her lore and to address some balance-related concerns

Oct 13, 2014 11:37 GMT  ·  By

Riot Games has addressed the problem that many people have with Cassiopeia, the Snake Mage who, after the last few updates, seemingly lost an integral part of her personality and background: poison.

League of Legends, the company's free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game, broke popularity records a long time ago, and with such an extensive mass of people to please, mistakes are unavoidable.

The playable Champion pool went over the 100 mark some time ago, which means that updates to mechanics are harder and harder to implement, as the system grows increasingly more complex.

This time around though, the outcry from the community does not come from the fact that Cassiopeia is imbalanced in any way, but, surprisingly, from the fact that some members feel that she lost touch with her lore.

A zero-sum game

You win some, you lose some. Riot Games is currently attempting to push characters into more clear-cut niches in order to make sure that no character can do too many things at once, and also to make the 100+ Champions more distinguishable from one another.

The problem is that the latest update to Cassiopeia, meant to further her strength as a single-target late game nuker, and to enforce her identity as such, saw a decrease in her area of effect poison power, the damage over time ability that signified the poison in her backstory.

Some players complained about this, and so the developer has decided to step up and do what's right.

"On top problems from a balance perspective, Cassiopeia has lost a lot of her poison feel. This is the bigger pain point for most, and we definitely understand where everyone is coming from.

"Much of what has historically contributed to Cassiopeia feeling like the 'Snake Mage' is her poison DoT's, and, as these have been deemphasized, she's lost some of this -- well, to be more specific, we inadvertently took it away," the developer has posted on the League of Legends boards.

Moving forward

The developer has also stated that it's aware of some of the balance-related concerns the community has, namely the difficulty of playing Cassiopeia right and the fact that some champions can completely elude her kit.

Riot Games is currently testing various ways to make her stronger, or less susceptible to champions that have enough mobility and crowd control abilities, now that her high damage is no longer as strong as it usually is.

The direction that the developer pushed Cassiopeia in will still be kept, and she will still be about a high mechanical skill level, with combo-casting and a lot of late-game weight.

"It was never the intention to strip her Snake Mage identity, but we agree that we've done so in trying to meet other goals with the kit. This has left Cassiopeia in clear need of our attention, and we're really sorry about that," the developer has apologized.