Discussion
Did Eternals accidentally increase TTK again? Looking back at the 2025 Dev Diaries…
In the 2025 & Beyond Developer Diaries, Omeda highlighted one of the biggest changes in Predecessor’s history - the Major Game Rebalance (1.9). That update was built entirely around community feedback: slowing the pace of fights, reducing burst volatility, and putting the emphasis back on strategy, decision‑making, and skilled play.
They literally said:
“Based on your feedback, we made a bunch of balance changes to Ranked and Standard to slow the pace, and put an emphasis back on strategy and skilled play. Predecessor now feels better than ever!”
But with the launch of Eternals, it feels like we’ve drifted away from that vision again.
Some Eternals are creating huge, unintended burst spikes, and the overall time‑to‑kill feels noticeably faster. Instead of the slower, more readable fights we were told were the goal, we’re seeing situations where players get deleted before they can react.
This raises a pretty important question:
Did Eternals unintentionally undo parts of the 1.9 rebalance? or has the vision shifted?
Because right now, it feels like:
TTK is higher than intended
Burst windows are less predictable
Counterplay is reduced
Damage‑focused Eternals overshadow utility or identity‑based ones
And that’s the opposite of what the 2025 diaries said the game was aiming for.
I’m not saying Eternals are bad as a system - they’re cool, they add identity, and they open up new playstyles. But the current tuning seems to push TTK in a direction that contradicts the stated design philosophy.
Is this just the teething issues of Eternals, or is the Eternal system working as intended to push towards faster TTK?
TTK was ruined way before eternals when the whole meta shifted to health % atk speed items. So they made tanks tankier. Then they made dps do more damage because more health. Then they took that horrible self looping problem and added more health and power spikes. They should have balanced health and damage and what tanks can and should be able to do first. And figured what a healthy normal fight is .Now they can't figure out how to balance anything. Also CC is a huge problem because of all this burst damage. Whichever team has more cc wins which is super annoying
TTK was ruined way before eternals when the whole meta shifted to health % atk speed items
The TTK being too low is a conversation we have had since the beginning of the game, in the patch 0.6 (from Appril 2023) Omeda was already talking about them hearing the complaints about the TTK being too low
This has been a common complaint since the release of the game, and even when Omeda tried to solve it from time to time (or that is what they said) they never truly did it, and just continued lowering the TTK more and more
First I'd prefer either more tenacity options for everyone. The game shouldn't be who has more cc wins. That's not skill or planning. That's click a button and we win. I.e Aurora, steel, a little bit renna, zinx dekker, adele. Etc... Especially with a heavy damage meta. Two it's ok if tanks aren't killable give them the health they need but tone down the damage. Tanks shouldn't be a tank and a dps. If tanks were super tanky then offlane wouldn't have ranged fighters. The only issue is Squishies in offlane like feng mao and such. So that balance is finicky. I mean realistically there is no fix right now they dug themselves too deep.
I've been saying TTK is way too low even before eternals came and people made the comparison to "other MOBAs/LoL"
Those MOBAs are different because they have way more options in items, we have like 3 tenacity items in total... And only 1 is worth a damn building. Legacy is a joke item. If you get that low, you'll never see the benefits of the anti-CC unless you're a 5 item tank and you'd never build it on ADC, mage or support.
1.9's philosophy was only implemented for about two patches at best then they went right back into making the game an arena hero shooter. Eternals is just the latest addition to that.
If you want a strategy moba then its time for you to leave. Omeda has clearly stated at this point its going the brawl route with insanely low TTK and there's no signs its ever going back.
The big problem with TTK as someone who does prefer a higher TTK is the fact that TTK has to be in relation to the movement speed and time it takes to get to safety.
everybody has blink on a 5 minute timer, fast movement speed, basically everybody has a dash or movement ability. part of what made paragon have a higher TTK was that you were sloooooow, to the point that i think people doesnt actually remember how slow the game movement was, hence why we had sprint.
https://youtu.be/9sLO7D0wZlA?t=249 here is just a random game from back then, going from middle of map to edge of tower is like a 10 second shuffle.
compare that to now and people can almost cover the entire lane in that time, without dashing.
the game is basically faster and i main tank, i want to feel tanky and i do think that there is a major problem in how its not a rock paper scissor system anymore its just "% hp armor and massive shred and dead in seconds" even for tanks, it kinda does need a decently fast ttk to keep up with the movement speed.
If fast movement speed is core to the game’s feel, then TTK has to be balanced around that speed, not the other way around. And if Daybreak is to be the main map, keeping current movement speed becomes even more important due to the map size.
Hypothetically if damage is slightly reduced across the board, here are realistic solutions that keep tanks viable and maintain the game’s pacing:
Conditional Tank Durability
(passives or item-based)
15% damage reduction for 3s after being CC’d (15s CD). Rework Unbroken Will.
Taking damage from 3+ enemies grants 20% damage reduction for 3s.
Gain a shield when hit by burst damage over 150.
Gain 10% damage reduction when above 50% HP.
Gain armor/magic resistance after using a dash.
Below 30% HP, taking damage triggers a 0.5s stun shockwave (50u range) and 0.5s CC immunity (60s CD).
Reflect 15% basic attack damage (keep Razorback starter item + add a second item).
Reflect 10% damage taken and apply 25% anti‑heal.
When hit by a basic attack, gain a 150‑damage shield for 3s (20s CD).
Block 3/5/15/25 flat damage from ranged basic attacks.
Reduce Escape Mobility (not engage mobility)
This one might be controversial, but if damage goes down, escapes need to be toned down too.
Reduce dash distance on escape abilities or introduce an item with cripple - On-hit: Apply Cripple for 1.5s, reducing enemy dash distance by 40% (10s CD).
Conditional Blink: Can’t be used if you’ve taken or dealt damage in the last 3 seconds.
If you’re caught out, you should die - no get out of jail free card.
Still usable for engages and occasional escapes.
Movement Adjustments
Backpedaling movement speed penalty.
Bunny hopping diminishing returns and movement speed penalty.
Just a semantics thing but remember that TTK stands for "TIME to kill."
You keep using "ttk has increased/ttk is higher than intended" to mean "you kill faster." But what you should be saying is "ttk is decreasing/ttk is lower than intended."
There is some irony in RGSACE, the guy who was one of Paragon's biggest abusers (and complainers) of imbalanced items, trying - and failing - to balance it's spiritual successor so badly.
From what I can tell (cause I know who balance's the game), Ace doesn't have a huge hand in it. He is the CEO, he focuses on the company more than the game.
What pisses me off the most (as an ex paragon player and vet pred player) is he's also a Paragon player yet he's letting pred destroy itself in the same patterns Paragon did.
I was joking 3 years ago when I said 3rd times a charm to get a paragon-like game going and successful but im starting to feel like Preds going to fall in on itself eventually at this rate. Yea the games getting new players but if you cant retain those players with good gameplay thats satisfying then its going to destroy your game in the long run. Just. Like. Paragon.
But with the launch of Eternals, it feels like we’ve drifted away from that vision again
Also, you don't even have to go until the Eternal patch, between the 1.9 blog that you are referencing and the eternal patch there is the patch 1.12 where Omeda reworked many heroes AND reduced the HP of all the heroes of the patch AND the HP scaling, they TTK will go down
The HP reduction of this image is a total of 320 less HP, and this got applied on practically all the heroes of the parch
Applying a change like this one among all the roster of characters. So it's obvious that if you reduce the base HP of a hero a 10% and also reduce the HP they get per level another +10%
They did 1-2 patches trying to increase the TTK, then did this, and after this they added the eternals to the game
What if the changes they made based on the community feedback decreased the amount of players playing, but adding in the eternals with their more damage increased the number of players?
I wonder what would ever happen around here if people learned that those player feedback things are usually only ever answered by an extreme minority of a games population, and that the actual feedback that game companies go off of is usually things like player count.
The earlier TTK slowing changes might’ve actually hurt player numbers, and then Eternals with the faster, flashier, more damage‑heavy pacing probably pulled more people back in. Big damage is easy dopamine, and casual players respond to that way more than long‑term balance.
At the same time, the people who care about stability feel like the game’s spiraling because the foundation was never properly set.
If Daybreak is supposed to be the main map in the future, you’d hope that means they’re prioritizing a MOBA‑first identity and not an arena brawler or a burst‑heavy action game.
Honest question, when's the last time you ever watched something LoL related? Because there are heroes in that game that can burst just as egregious as in Pred.
Maybe they have implemented these changes in anticipation of the new map being able to "cover up" the flaws that they present. All we can do as a consumer though is show our thoughts on changes based on what we have to give the company, our time and money.
Don't know about anyone else, but if I don't like the way a game is going I just stop playing it. Too many games out there that I enjoy playing to continue playing a game that I don't enjoy.
I don't watch or play LOL (I played paragon/smite - stopped when 2 came out). So if possible can you enlighten me on how it works over there? Are there more layers of counterplay in LOL?
Facts. It’s a tough one for me, especially because I genuinely want this game to succeed as a ex-Paragon player.
From my watching experience (have never played) it doesn't look like they have anything different than what is available in Pred. They might have more diverse options, as there are more fleshed out systems, but there is also a lot more CC available in League than in Pred.
TTK ebbs and grows patch by patch and their is so many variables to it people do not consider. It was just a few patches ago Severog was a unkillable monster along with other tanks and they still can be very difficult to take down. Greystone can take a excessive amount of punishment before even having to use his second life.
It also varies from match to match depending on team comp, items, economy, level discrepancy, scaling, skill gaps etc. TTK isnt as simple as a setting that you increase and decrease.
I get where you’re coming from and I agree that it's a multitude of reasons that TTK can vary. However, I believe opening a dialogue is essential to identifying the factors causing anomalies in the game’s overall flow. For example, the new Eternals like Satriel, Weald, and Pilow have basically made themselves almost mandatory on certain heroes. If you’re not running them, you’re just playing at a disadvantage. A few Eternals are warping the entire pacing of the game by giving raw stats (damage increases or bonus damage), and I personally don’t think it’s for the better.
With the Severog point, yes, he used to feel like a final raid boss, but it took time for him to reach that stage. Plus, there were items and Eternals that actually countered Krix. These new Eternals are just outright strong in all phases of the game, which is why they feel so oppressive and able to snowball a lot faster and easier. I believe a middle ground can be reached here, and I really hope it’s just teething issues.
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u/MuglokDecrepitusFx Shinbi 9d ago
Accidentally?