An upcoming Zoe mini-rework made the rounds on social media and the League of Legends Reddit community earlier this week and excited a lot of people, including us. It would have shifted her power in the correct ways and likely would have made her much easier to balance. The key phrase is “would have,” though, because as it turns out, it might never see the light of day.
The entire PBE change list, initially posted by Blitz Esports lead producer Renato “Shakarez” Perdigão on Twitter, should never have been made public. The changes aren’t yet on the PBE either, and the reason for all this, according to lead Riot designer Andrei “Meddler” van Roon on the game’s official forums, is that the project simply isn’t ready.
“That is an experimental list that’s been tested, it’s not complete nor something we’re planning to ship as is,” Meddler said in the forum comment. “Shouldn’t have been posted this early, needed more validation and then iteration. Changes won’t be part of [Patch 8.17].”
Obviously, that’s a little bit of a bummer. It’s perfectly understandable, though, and the fact that we’re now feeling disappointed about it explains why Riot wanted to hold off on publicizing the changes. Now that we know what could have been, it might feel disappointing to those who knew about the experimental version if something different ends up shipping. If word of the update wasn’t released by Riot until most of the heavy testing was finished, we’d at least know what to expect right off the bat.
This comment from Meddler means two things. The most obvious message is that this update will not be shipping with 8.17, because Meddler just comes out and says it clearly. We could wait two, four, six, or maybe even more weeks until this update actually hits the PBE for testing or before it goes live. It seems like it could be quite a while, because the second message of Meddler’s comment is that Riot is still pretty early in the design process for this mini-rework. Riot is still probably going to test out whole new versions of the update, which could take a while.
So no, Zoe is not being updated in 8.17, and at the time of writing this, you cannot test out the new kit on the PBE, either. We’ll have to wait a little while for her kit to get the makeover it needs.
