[2023] Mid-Year Check-In | Dev Update - League of Legends

We going big

You'll see her on PBE at least between now and the next dev update. Dev updates are generally 4-6 weeks apart, though timing will vary depending on what else is going on and how much we've got ready to talk about

Co-op versus AI - we've got work on bots underway. The first step of that will be a new bot or two on PBE for testing for an extended period. More about that whenever we're at the point of starting said testing

Language swapping - being worked on and on our list of topics to cover whenever we've got something concrete to share in terms of date

Lore - That one's out of our (the League team's) hands, given it's a wider Riot topic. A lot of different teams contribute to the IP (use of champions, factions, story states etc). Talking about it isn't a forgotten issue in the slightest, it's not something I can offer an update on or take a stance on by myself or at present though

We'll talk about preseason, and potentially even a bit of season start related stuff in the next update. We do want to make some meaningful updates, we're not going to just change things for the sake of short term novelty either though of course (so targeted evolution, not random change etc)

It can make future updates a bit easier/quicker in some cases yeah. Other times though an update will change a champion's overall theme, kit etc though, so sometimes even new icons will still need an update. Workflows like icon updates will often try and prioritize champions with a solid core who just have some outdated elements as a result (personal take - Orianna as a great example, kit and theme have held up, art and audio are showing their age though)

When I’m done buffing her

Yeah, sometimes we'll have more to cover than other times. Want to still be in the habit of talking, even if some of it ends up being a bit more reflections and comings next type stuff like larger updates on approach and changes. Should have a noticeably chunkier list of topics for the next video

True. I think overall there's a lot of benefit to bundling all that stuff together where possible, feels more impactful, cohesive, exciting etc. But certainly better to make gradual progress if that gets improvements out meaningfully faster overall

In August's case, usually a few thousand rounds of nerfs.

On average, we probably still end up taking power out overall more often than not. Often have to push power up to get a good read on new mechanics being tested if someone's playing a new champion against people on champs they've played many, many times.

I have no idea what you're possibly referring to.

Unrelated link

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/rf1029/ixtal_does_not_exist_qiyana_is_lying_to_everyone/

We did look recently at both potential changes to duo MMR/tier restrictions and at the solo only nature of the highest tiers, since we'd like to remove barriers to social play where possible. Conclusion, at least right now, was the edge cases and abuse cases would be high enough to make it a bad idea unfortunately. Wouldn't take it off the table entirely in the future, but don't want to reintroduce the range of issues we used to see in the past

I'd be very surprised, he's working on an a new, unannounced game at the moment and seems to be having a great time with it. While I'd be thrilled to see him contribute some more stuff to League, I think he's very focused on trying new things in other genres instead (though as a side note, he was a really helpful advisor for some of Arena's development, so he's not completely uninvolved with LoL)

hey i nerfed Jhin at least 4 times after the 44 buffs

Our first priority, and likely focus for quite a while, is going to be on better bots to help players get into the game. To state the obvious, accessibility for new players is a real weakness on League's part. A healthy flow of new players is essential for long lived games though so that's very much on our minds, given we want the game to have a vibrant community for a really long time if possible

Assuming that new player work goes well, we would like to try for other use cases after it though (to be clear, I'm speculating about future years). Things like better practice environment for players who know League but want to learn a new kit or like taking over from a disconnected/AFK player at whatever levels that can lead to a fair experience for both teams etc. Maybe someday a challenging experience for high skill players? Would very much like to, but our focus for bots is going to be on other use cases first, with other features and updates aimed at/prioritizing higher skill players.

Piece of trivia - League was originally 6v6 back in internal alpha (2008, maybe early 2009?), and the old Nexus art reflected that (hence 6 statues on it instead of 5). It's the reason Hexakill was relatively easy to add in the early days (code was all set up for teams of 6 already). Change to teams of 5 was well before my time at Riot, my understanding though is that teamfight clarity and lethality were both really problematic in testing at the time, and cutting a player per team did a lot to help things out.

She'll be out before Worlds yeah. I don't believe she'll be playable at Worlds however since she'll be a very recent release (possible I'm wrong on that and she'll be disabled for playoffs but available at Worlds, will check)

I mean, if an example from more than 7 years ago is the best case you've got...

Yeah, hard to say given how much has evolved over time. Looking at current state of things, I'd imagine a 6th player would mean a lot of additional roaming support style play from said position, probably with some jungle camps being taken as well? Guess could also be a second duo lane with some degree of roaming, but I suspect two champs generally out of FoW + more ability to contest jungle camps including on invades probably trumps presence in lane

We'll share updated thoughts on Mythics in terms of what we've learned, future plans etc whenever we talk preseason gameplay in detail (plausibly this next update, depending on how many other topics we have possible that ends up in a deep dive slightly later)

Oh sorry, when I say "League" here I'm just shorthanding "League of Legends the PC game", not implying that he's on something unrelated to the League IP

We don't know exact dates yet. 4-6 weeks is our general target. We'll go more like 4 weeks if there's a lot of stuff we've identified we can/should talk about, more like 6 if we've got less for this particular round but want to stay in the habit and cover some stuff. Going to start looking at potential topics next week, I suspect we'll have a fair bit this time so might be closer to 4 than 6, can't make any promises yet though

Yeah, Naafiri will be playable at Worlds, Briar will not be

Naafiri will be available for Worlds

A Brand VFX update did get started by a VFX artist as a side project a while back. It's not currently on hold, given said artist had to swap all their time to some other higher priority stuff. I expect we'll get it finished and shipped at some point, but whether that's soon or a really long way out no idea at present, depends on other VFX projects.

It still is on track, yes

For your final point: would love to include more visual teasers, but because the turnaround time for these videos is roughly 7-10 days (including weekends) from filming to publishing (including a few days for localization, which requires the video to be LOCKED), and we don't 100% have talking points locked until we actually film, it's hard to get visuals since we don't necessarily have topics locked.

We want the artists to focus on getting content into game, and while we'd love some teasers and stuff, sometimes we just don't have anything ready.

That said, we'll try to find places to add more art if we have good opportunities to do so!

You will have to wait and see, just like everyone else

same

Shots fired

I mean some will and some won't. I still believe that new games modes are a very important part of gameplays strategy going forward, so given that I still want to make sure the modes team is healthy and can keep making exciting things for players. That does mean that other teams might need to be a bit smaller then they have been historically so that modes can continue to make awesome things for players.

^{^}

Very first version the spectator champs they were using as a workaround for broadcast were targetable, from memory one got killed by a Karthus ult giving extra gold to one of the teams even. Version after that had them untargetable and invulnerable. Then we got the actual proper spectator system in.

and frogs

Is this "Ixtal" in the room with us now?