Season 2024 has begun, and devs from across League of Legends are here to answer your questions. From the CG to the announcements in our look ahead to the new gameplay changes and more, let us know what you've got on your mind!
We'll be around from 9 AM - 11 AM Pacific Time.
::Edit:: It's currently 11:30, and while the AMA is 'officially' over, a bunch of us will be continuing to catch up with the thread and share more answers over the course of the day! Thanks for coming out!
External link →Season 2024 has begun, and devs from across League of Legends are here to answer your questions. From the CG to the announcements in our look ahead to the new gameplay changes and more, let us know what you've got on your mind!
We'll be around from 9 AM - 11 AM Pacific Time.
::Edit:: It's currently 11:30, and while the AMA is 'officially' over, a bunch of us will be continuing to catch up with the thread and share more answers over the course of the day! Thanks for coming out!
External link →Do you have any plans for Ryze personally, i think an Asol style CGU would suit for him, or you can make a small update like (ultimate change, adding shield or healing on his kit), but please do something about this champion.I also have two rework concepts for Ryze, you can check them out if you want.
1:https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/106obno/a\_ryze\_rework\_inspired\_by\_invoker\_in\_dota/
2:https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/11y4u4x/a\_ryze\_rework\_inspired\_by\_invoker\_in\_dota\_2/
I agree! I think the team wants to level up a bit (we have a handful of new to champs team designers and myself) before attempting. Considering this is like what... the 13th rework he is getting? XD
Riot Yelough joking tells me that he will do it when he is ready for a promotion in a couple of years.
What are riot thoughts on Viktor? Champ is pretty dead in high elo and pro play for a long time now
Surprisingly, overall his playrates are not that low. His playrate could be higher in higher elo etc, but it's not too problematic. Usually it's more problematic for a champion to appear too much in pro.
I think we would see how the new season shakes out first!
Hi, dev team. There are over 60 champions in League who could use an ASU or VGU due to outdated visuals, themes, or gameplay. Currently, the pace at which we’re receiving these updates is roughly 1-2 per year, which means we may be waiting several decades for our favorite champions to get their much-needed overhauls.
While I know the most strategic avenue for the business is to space these updates out to keep players invested and looking forward to something new every year, is there anything being done to make sure some of us get to see these reworks within our lifetimes?
Here’s a list of champions who could at the very least use an ASU, if not a full-blown VGU:
1.) Alistar 2.) Amumu 3.) Anivia 4.) Ashe 5.) Blitzcrank 6.) Brand 7.) Cassiopeia 8.) Cho’Gath 9.) Corki 10.) Darius 11.) Diana 12.) Draven 13.) Fizz 14.) Gragas 15.) Graves 16.) Hecarim 17.) Janna 18.) Jarvan IV 19.) Kassadin 20.) Katarina 21.) Kennen 22.) Kog’Maw 23.) LeBlanc 24.) Lee Sin 25.) Leona 26.) Lulu 27.) Lux 28.) Malphite 29.) Malzahar 30.) Master Yi 31.) Nami 32.) Nautilus 33.) Nidalee 34.) Nocturne 35.) Olaf 36.) Orianna 37.) Quinn & Valor 38.) Rammus 39.) Renekton 40.) Rengar 41.) Riven 42.) Rumble 43.) Shaco 44.) Singed 45.) Syndra 46.) Talon 47.) Thresh 48.) Tryndamere 49.) Varus 50.) Vayne 51.) Veigar 52.) Viktor 53.) Vladimir 54.) Wukong 55.) Xerath 56.) Xin Zhao 57.) Zed 58.) Ziggs 59.) Zilean 60.) Zyra
While some of these champs may feel “fine” to some, they certainly don’t hold up to the standards of today’s releases, be that in terms of gameplay, visual fidelity, realization of thematic potential, overall uniqueness/integration into the League IP, etc.
This isn’t even counting champs like Fiora, Shen, and Miss Fortune, who received impartial VGUs without the voiceover updates or animation work that would normally accompany an update of this scale, or champions like Vi and Jinx, who are just as old as some of the champions on the above list and should probably get something to bring them into the new canon. Similarly, there are champs who’ve already received large VUs in the recent past, like Annie, Garen, Sona, Soraka, and Twisted Fate, but would probably be good candidates for another ASU or VGU anyway due to the fact their designs were created before the big League universe reboot/reimagining and thus have untapped potential or just no longer fit as well in the current setting.
To be honest, I don’t play much League anymore so I don’t have a stake in this game, but if there’s one thing that keeps me interested and coming back to this community, it’s getting to see these old, janky, yet beloved characters get the proper treatment they deserve by reviving them and bringing them forward into the new world. While I know redesigning what is essentially 60+ online products at once isn’t necessarily smart or realistic, I hope you guys at Riot are listening and taking note that we do want to see more of these reworks faster, because the characters and world you’ve built matter to us.
You are right when you say that updates makes no business sense. Updates are pretty costly, we are not just updating the base but re-doing years of investment into a champions (skins etc). I don't think there are lots of other companies or industries that will turn old releases into new ones without selling something or other. We also found that large updates actually have a pretty good chance to turn away returning players (your most loved champion isn't like what you remembered and thus higher barrier to return) and turn off some mains of that champions (you love the way the champion is now). Not to mention
The reality is, no update on a single champion will move the needle for a player to come back, engage in the game more etc. I know lots of players that are vocal on reddit do believe that updates encourage them to play more, but the reality is that new champions are a bigger draw with no comparison.
However, to maintain long-term overall health and game fidelity, we are committed to look for ways to update and refresh champions when we can! I do think VGU and VU/ASU are in different categories. I do think there are a couple on your list that probably need a VGU more than a VU/ASU which will have a longer wait but the list should thin out as we progress.
The team is evaluating and trying to find ways to deliver more VUs. Jax was a test case that we are hoping to do more of from the champions team!
You have said before you had a project involving heavy AI you couldn't do yet, any chance you still want to do that?
Our tech is not at the place where we can do that just yet.
The vastaya from freljord was described as mid range mage, what current mage would be considered mid range, sylas, ryze, annie?
And I really loved Hwei, I hope his designer Emizery will work on another new champion!
Last question: Will we get another champ roadmap in april? I really want to know more about how ambessa will play, I assume she will be a bruiser but so far no role etc has been announced so waiting for more info.
Also I loved the cinematic, great job!
I want to talk a bit more about the updates on deck in the next roadmap (Ex: Shyvana). Not sure when the best time to talk more yet. Maybe April, maybe later. I think with Ambessa, I'm not looking to spoil too much :D We have some neat things planned for her and spoiling it too early will not be as fun!
Sylas was the champion we ended up making last time we attempted to make this mage.
Have you guys ever considered doing texture updates to base skins to modernize them without having to do a full asu?
For example just a better base texture for gragas so he doesn't look like a minecraft person, or updating base ekko's hair to be more like it is in arcane?
Feel like you could do a lot with just a little
We have done things like VFX and splash updates. However, some of these champions are pretty gnarly behind the scenes, thus if we were to update even textures...we would want to update everything if possible.
I don't think there are lots of other companies or industries that will turn old releases into new ones without selling something or other
League is much more of a "changing" game than other games. So, it's more often that an old champion will stop meeting the needs/wants of the current playerbase. I feel like other games tend to have characters that fulfill this need throughout the lifetime of the game, thus a VGU isn't necessarily needed in those cases.
League's gameloop inherently creates the problem of needing champion VGUs so that old champions don't fall into irrelevancy. It's Riot's job to notice this issue, and not sweep it under the rug by saying "other games don't do it as often, you should be glad we're caring for you guys!"
I'm not trying to say that, I'm going to be real with you. Others are not doing it because there is very real cost and thus most companies would look for something in return (New game release that you would have to purchase, DLCs etc).
League is ultimately is a free game. If we pause everything to attempted to do this many reworks...I don't think we would be in business for very long. It also isn't sustainable.
Ex: If we scale up rapidly in this economy (when most companies are downsizing), sure we can support that for a couple of years. But what happens when all of the champions are updated? Where do these devs go then? Unlike other companies, Riot does not heavily let go their devs whenever projects release.
If we don't scale up rapidly, as we trickle in the update content... there is a very real question of which is more important and what tradeoffs we are making. Do the next couple of new hires go towards updates, or new mode, or new champion or new season? Generally, if we compare these initiatives, whoever has the most value will receive people first. Value compared, I don't think updates wins most of the time. Hence you can see how that interrupts the time line. Especially when compared to things like Modes or new champions, the engagement is also not great.
Not alot of champions that are not on VGU list are irrelevant. However, those VUs are probably the ones players want the most. Updates also give players who had the old skins a fresh set of skins to engage in and thus the skin you already have will compete with any new skins that is delivered with the champion.
Remember that meme with a person getting thrown out of the building from a meeting room?
Imagine me going in there and saying:
Soooo I have a proposition that will lose you revenue, player engagement and is not sustainable plus cost millions. I'm already thankful that I haven't been thrown out yet XD
Hi Riot Devs,
With the intention to introduce Vanguard to League, has a decision been made about Linux support in any capacity?
I understand that Linux is not currently supported by Riot, but the community has been able to keep it running well for many years now, and there's a growing worry that Vanguard will spell the end of this for us Linux users.
Thanks for taking the time!
corbin
Yeah you're right that currently we still don't support Linux and at least at the moment we don't have any plans for that to change. That's not to say that it will always be the case, it's just one of those harder decisions to make when it comes to supporting operating systems.
The impact from cheaters/scripter/botters has been pretty substantial over the years and Vanguard will put a massive damper on that. Unfortunately some fringe user cases like playing League on Linux will likely be stopped almost entirely in order to better combat the cheaters who want to ruin everyone else's time.
The ways that Linux users currently are accessing League will likely break and/or will no longer be able to play League. In order to continue playing League you'll need to migrate either to Windows or Mac. I know it's definitely not the answer you're looking for but unfortunately it's the only option for now. :(
But lexi, might i ask why we r getting way less content if so? Like what r we getting instead of all these cuts and fewer releases? We used to get 5 new champs, 3/4 vgus, and multiple NEW mods a year in 2016-2018
I think there are alot of factors.
1) We have higher and higher bar with higher organizational complexities. Discipline bars (engineering, art, design, sound etc etc) have all increased over the years thus it is harder and harder to do. Moreover, we just have more people to align (especially Lore wise) as multiple teams are working in the same universe.
2) Champs team had lots of veterans that we are branching out and helping re-staff other teams. Eg: Modes. We did refill those headcounts, so as time progress things might speed up. Teams need time to settle in and work well together.
3) Active decrease of champions. We actively decreased the amount of new champions each year because we were looking to staff up these other initiatives.
I don't know much about how we got to the point where there wasn't a modes team etc. That was before my time here :)
Hi, my main question is when will the support item be hotfixed? It's way too easy to abuse the item and will affect comp/pro if not fixed soon no?
Also is there any intention of ever adding VC to the game?
When will Vanguard be added to league? (already seen a few scripters)
Popping over here to cover the Vanguard question! I'll try and poke folks for the others.
Currently it's planned to be deployed with the 14.4 patch, but that could always change depending on development shenanigans. You should start seeing prompts to download and install Vanguard starting in 14.2 (also with the usual development things can change caveat).
Getting to see a little bit into the thought process of the how & why is really interesting here.
Appreciate the League Team for doing this AMA.
To be honest, if updates were a grand slam in terms of engagement (players coming back to play them, continue playing them, uptick in players in longterm of playing them), I do think there will be a lot bigger draw to doing them. Unfortunately, we have done enough of them to see that they may uptick shortly but have no long term impact or even mid term impact.
It buys us goodwill and sentiment, but only on some reddit threads and twitter. Some countries are more change adverse than others 
Hey there! I'm not sure if this is the place to ask, but what's the best way to get your foot in the door into game dev, especially as someone whose education and/or experience is only tangentially related?
The best answer to this question is honestly going to be "it depends". There's so many different paths into the industry that it's kind of hard to nail down a "this is the way".
The best advice any of us of our respective crafts can give you is just... start doing the thing you want to be an expert in, and learn everything there is about it. Want to be an artist? start making art. Want to be a game design? Start making stuff.
Literally start creating stuff or practicing the craft.
It may work out, or it may not, but if you don't start doing the thing you want to do, then it's never going to just come to you. Just because you're in something now, doesn't mean you can't change. Pretty sure all of us can name someone who was in a different career field before they just popped into games.
Any status on if/when LPP applications will be re-opening? Been wanting to apply for years now :(
Hey Nicky! <3 Hope you are doing well!
We recently updated the webpage with a more current timeline. Right now it just says "early 2024."
This page goes over a bit more of WHY its been closed for so long, but high level- we didn't hit our goals of 2021 when we first updated the page. There was a lot more we needed to get ready before we could open them back up and we underestimated how long that would take. https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-au/event/league-of-legends-partner-program/
Hopefully, this transparency gives you a bit more confidence that we are taking it seriously. I agree, its been a long time coming, and I know in particular you have been waiting a while.
The reality is, no update on a single champion will move the needle for a player to come back, engage in the game more etc
This sounds so blatantly made up just like Phreak's basement cherry picked stats.
We did pretty heavy analysis for multiple updates. Most will try out the update for one or two patches and return to the champion they love best.
Can you give an example of a recent VU/ASU for a popular champion? did Ahri see a significant uptick in players mid or long term? cause if she didn't, what can we expect of unpopular champions' VU/ASU?
Ahri and Jax both saw 1-2 patches of players trying the champion and then return to base line.
The biggest impact was probably Asol! He has a much better baseline now compared to previous (though currently still in the yorick and even slightly lower depth than velkox) and we don't worry about pro issues as much.
However, the amount of champion that has an S tier theme and is heavily held back by their design is minimal.
Evelynn, Warwick and Akali are probably the champions that were the biggest winners from VGUs. But even that the engagements doesn't compare to releases like Kai'Sa, Senna, Kayne and Sett.
Have you considered porting models from Wild Rift, just with better textures? I don't mean the showcase ones, certain champions like Syndra and Lulu actually have new in-game models too.
I really think Riot should consider some kind of visual update besides a full ASU. Something I've been thinking for a while is that for champions who already have decent animations, they could get texture updates + the addition of face animations, and model/texture/ tweaks.
For example: Jinx, Diana, Varus, Nidalee. Their rig and animations are already decent, but they're still outdated compared to more recent champions. Some of those would need new splashes and VO, but some like Nidalee who got one recently wouldn't.
We have considered it and experimenting! It's not as easy as taking it and just putting it in.
I think the bet analogy would be early day google translate. You can write in language and then the translator will spit out somewhat similar thing in a different language, but it doesn't really work and will need someone to comb through it and figure out what is wrong and what the original person is trying to say. Sometimes it saves time... sometimes you are better off rewriting everything.
We are still bottlenecked by some disciplines that are usually short. Thus, we are looking at ones that require lower work from those disciplines. Trying to figure out what works and what doesn't...what might be better vs worse.
I'm sorry but hearing this is infuriating. Champions are getting updated designs in places like Legends of Runeterra, Wild Rift, cinematics, but League, the original game and source material for everything, is just left with ugly outdated and sometimes NON-CANON version of the champions?
This shouldn't be acceptable. It should honestly be considered a responsability Riot has with the community, not a favor. The "goodwill and sentiment" you get should be a bonus reward, not the whole point.
I'm sorry if I'm being rude but like I said, it's so frustrating to read. I care so much about the champions and their lore and visuals and IP and everything surrounding those characters and world, and to hear that Riot doesn't care unless it's gonna get them enough money is legitimately heartbreaking.
We do the updates because we care. Last year we updated Asol, Ahri, Jax and a handful of midscopes.
I'm trying to point out the reality of "can we get 10 updates a year" etc.
Oof... Your answers to this topic always give a "League is a business first" vibe. I feel like you're missing the point of what having 12-year-old models walking around the Rift does to the overall perceived quality of the game and brand. Most of your competitors have gone through entire engine changes (Smite, CS, Dota2). League ends up looking cheap/low budget in comparison. Imagine playing Counter-Strike Go 2 with some 1.6 gun models mixed in-between the modern ones. That's what playing with a Zilean on my team feels like.
I also imagine it's far less appealing to buy skins for old models too (Malphite will ALWAYS look like a nose regardless of skin). I dare you to show Corporate Mundo sales before and after the update. It also can't be good for newcomers. Think of all the people who watched Arcane or the new cinematic getting into the game only to find Jayce, Viktor, Vi, Ashe, and Tryndamere looking like LEGOs in-game. There is no way you're saying that from a business standpoint it makes sense to keep these models as they are.
Skins don't see uplift sales after updates, Coporate Mundo included. Its next to nothing compared to a new skin on the crustiest champion.
Mostly because those who want Corporate Mundo already have it ^^' they do not need to re-buy after an update.
Hi Lexi I want to ask about ASU hope you don't mind, after you guys showed the new concept for God Fist Lee Sin in the start season video, that means his legendary skin will be touched too right ? So I wonder if you have considered looking at the old ASUs for any missing updates.
Example like Pulsefire Caitlyn, you guys forgot to update it even it looks outdated than God Fist Lee Sin & Star Guardian Ahri only received a face texture while her tails & her model looks worse than the new one. Three of them released in the same year, 2017. Personally, I think if one can get update, the others should get too.
My team doesn't currently do ASUs! Skins team does!
We did pretty heavy analysis for multiple updates. Most will try out the update for one or two patches and return to the champion they love best.
Yeah but this also factors in the performance of the update. If the update is badly done obviously people won't play it. That's like when aatrox received his rework and people disliked him because he was finally strong the patches before the rework and didn't need it at the time. If you gut the core champ and make him boring/weaker then obviously people won't play him. Same with aurelion when you guys removed his stars and changed his E, he was a lot less fun to play and the core of him was removed. Obviously not as many will like him?
We factored that in and we look at every update distinctly!
It'd be nice if we could get a clear idea of how many and what kind of updates we should expect in the future in order to avoid needless disappointment.
We announced the ones that we can commit to. We are trying things out on the side to get more for players, however those have risks of not working out (we had cancelled updates before Jax included a couple of times).
Thank you for the very real insight. A lot of players will likely fail to understand the business side of this, so thank you for being so forthcoming.
I know it doesn't make me the most popular person ^^;
But I rather take some time and explain vs a very edited answer of: We are trying! We are continuously evaluating for potential or something.....
Hoping some will see is enough for me >w>
I thought Arcane Jinx/Vi/etc was basically their non-free update. I mean, it’s basically an updated base skin, that you pay for.
Those were free to unlock when Arcane released!
You are brave for posting answers here a lot of people don't want to hear, but I do think most people appreciate the honesty even if it might be disappointing to some people
<3 TT^TT
Oh sorry I didn't know that, I hope Rioters from skins team can respond my question
No worries! It's a bit confusing hahah.
Hey Lexi how was Providence, was the seafood good enough to inspire you enough to make oyster bill a champion
Good ol'oyster Bill. I love that guy!
Was good! But I think my very asian taste prefers something a bit less salty haha. I do see the craftsmanship though! Very thankful to my bf for taking me :D
Phroxzon already mentioned some reasoning to this question, but I want a more detailed response.
Why remove so many stat tracks from items? Why have only very few been left in the game. It's hard for me to tell what items are actually working and what are not at times. Sure veteran players will know what works, but for less experienced players, the stats were a very good indication of what works in what situation.
We had much more of a focus on clarity this season. For tenured League players, it's easy to overlook how difficult and confronting it is to look at tooltips in the first place, so we wanted to reduce this burden by some amount.
There was a bit of muddled wires in terms of communications around which items should/shouldn't keep stat trackers that got lost in the general chaos of releasing a big season, so we weren't super consistent across the board, but we have much clearer directional alignment internally now around the topic.
We do intend to add more stat trackers back into the game. We want to strike the balance of having good experiential and statistical ways to determine whether things are good. ie. You should be able to intuit and feel when Void Staff is a good purchase compared to Rabadons.
Why can't we just compromise and say that giving X champion a VU will result in future skins fitting the new model and maybe skins created in the last 2yrs will get updated but anything before will remain on the old model kinda like the old "Traditional" skins Karma, Lee Sin, Trundle, and Sejuani have?
For instance I'll use Cait as an example, her new model and old model still fit the same idea, body autonomy (she didn't grow an extra arm or tail), and uses the same weapon/tools. Easily this could have saved the trouble with remaking 5 or so skins that lets be honest are not being picked over her new ones and or aren't going to receive any new VFX anyways.
I know this would not work for EVERY update but it certainly could work for a good handful or so? I am certain the player base would much rather this than nothing at all.
When you change the base, alot of things on the champion itself is attached to the skins that was built on them. Thus, we can't port them over. This is also why WR conversions do not work all that well and require lots of work.
It is sometimes just easier to redo them. We look for time savings where we can like splash arts!
Also these skins will not just automatically work, without having the previous base in the game.
I'm sorry to get so agitated over this. I know that it's technically hard, and that it doesn't depend just on you. But I just wish Riot would at least try to get better with this and prioritize them a bit more instead of just accepting the current situation as good enough.
It's very frustrating to voice these concerns so many times and to see other people doing it too and at every turn get the same "well but it doesn't give us a lot of engagement/money" answer. This extends to other topics about the game as well. To see our personal human feelings ignored because "but the data says [X]" makes it feels like our voices don't matter.
We are trying to! Which is why we invested into investigations like outsourcing and porting etc. These things do take time though.
There are lots of asks and human feelings when players ask for more modes, better cinematics, more skins etc. I'm not in a place to say yours is more or less important. I can only look at the raw engagement data as a source of "how many" are asking for it.
The way I see it, the amount of players actively choosing to play with the content are the ones we can bias towards or it would become a game of following the loudest voice.
The reason I explain these things are not to say they are not important, but more so bring the realities of there are many many important things that needs to be done and we only have so much time.
On a personal level, I'm glad that Riot isn't an org that works Devs to the bone and pay us next to nothing. It makes the whole industry more sustainable and make game development a good place that people can inspire to join. If money was at the forefront of decision I think the only updates we see on league is probably skins 
Oh.. okay that makes sense ..
but.. 🥺
what if 👉👈 lol
💚
I know lots of us bug y'all with the begging and pleading and I understand it's gotta be stressful to deal with the community so I really want to say I do appreciate you specifically, along with the others taking the time to answer our "questions."
I've been a player for 10yrs and hope to be for another 10 more! -hopefully LeBlanc will be updated by then uwu 🥹😆
Agreed! I think the long term success and perception of League is the one I center around when I make my case of getting more champion updates! It's a bit hard to quantify and usually not as compelling compared to: Here are the 100 fires that needs to fought today.
But I'm glad that the team members that do work on these updates are very well protected from the noise and are focused on the updates!
With nearly 170 champions, has there been any discussion about increasing to 2 bans per player?
Disregarding the taking longer in champion select and UX work to be done (which both are significant), we feel it's healthy for players to both be able to play their champions and by extension for players to see a broad range of champions. Having more bans would hurt this pretty significantly.
Champions are meant to be some amount of frustrating (ofc there's too much), but it's healthy for League to have villains and champions to be some amount of frustrating.
Hi, my main question is when will the support item be hotfixed? It's way too easy to abuse the item and will affect comp/pro if not fixed soon no?
Also is there any intention of ever adding VC to the game?
When will Vanguard be added to league? (already seen a few scripters)
We're not planning any more balance hotfixes for 14.1 but are looking at the support item today for 14.2, will probably be taking a swing at stacking multiple of them.
Hi devs, by widening the toplane, illaoi’s tentacles get less interaction during trades and farming unless it is under tower. Do you plan to do something to help her a bit?
Yes we are planning to look at Illaoi
Hello League Team, hope you are having a nice day.
- Are you currently happy with the amount of burst in the game?
- Do you think the Lethality change could result in being a mistake?
- Any thoughts on bringing Critical Strike Chance on items back up to 25% like they were pre-Mythics?
- What are the main things you think about/design pillars when wanting to add a new item? Is it similar to how the Valorant team thoroughly explores the need to include one and the space it would fit into?
- Are you currently happy with how red side bottom lane is performing? It feels hopeless to try and ward the tribrush that divides river and the path there.
- Do you foresee a possible collaboration similar to Zeri/Neon with other parts of Riot in the future? I suppose Ambessa is sort of going down that path, can we expect more of that?
- What is the upper limit for a Legendary complete cost? For example, something like Phantom Dancer right now feels awful with its complete cost, but Rabadon's is obviously poised that way for a reason.
- Was removing the stat trackers an intentional decision? If you look at Malignance's Ornn upgrade Enmity of Masses, you can see there were more stat trackers under GAT testing but then assumedly intentionally removed. Phlox mentioned that if people "wanted those numbers they could get them" but without the trackers and with Vanguard incoming, I feel that statement was quite a bit dismissive of how useful those numbers can be.
- Any intention to update the "Quest" UI? It is a bit crusty these days with all the new Quests these days, it really shows its age compared to all the nice UI elements we've gotten over the years.
Thank you if you answer any of my questions! As always I appreciate all you do, despite disagreements over it the effort put forth is always something to behold.
Hii, Are midscopes coming back?
We certainly are still interested in doing midscopes! Just need the right opportunities and the right expertise from the team in pulling them off
Are there any items you guys developed/experimented with for Patch 14.1 that didn't make the cut? If so could you post some examples? I love design's and explanations of why they didn't go live!
Early on in Assassin item testing I was trying to experiment with a high-skill item to replace old prowler's claw. (The targeted dash was really fun/high skill but also had some pretty severe counterplay issues)
There was a decent bit of testing around a riff on Spectral Cutlass -- the item we were testing had it so that when you hit an enemy you marked a position under the enemy enemy and could teleport back to that position at any time within 5 seconds (reactivating the mark). The goal was for it to be neither an engage tool or an escape tool, but an outplay combo tool.
This was a really really fun item, but had some pretty concerning edge cases like actually being an insane Jayce/Khazix gapclose item. There were a few iterations to solve this like making the mark appear between you and the target, and the like. It ended up being shippable, but we wanted to reduce dashing/complexity in the item system so we left it for another time.
How does the team feel about the sentiment around master tier at the moment? the higher elo community have started to really disregard its prestige and the players that reside in the rank have a huge variance of skill levels, are there plans to attempt to resolve the large population and skill discrepency? it also feels quite awful for master players to see that the next rank above them requires an 800 lp climb to achieve grand master
Master tier varies region by region. For big regions like EUW or KR, there's definitely a lot of Masters. We need to consider how to go about solving that problem, because certainly a lot of Masters in the tier are deflating the prestige a little. It's also not helped by a lot of positions on those ladders doing things like climbing to masters on their 5th account.
Yeah the 800LP climb to achieve GM is also due to how prestigious we are keeping those ranks, because they have number limits. I could believe that they're meant to be percentile based, but for now, it's a set amount and smaller for smaller regions.
You just need an early access system for VGUs. Update champions with only a couple of their skins, make it so people who buy those skins or own the current battle pass get access to the VGU, everyone else has to wait 4 months and has to use the old versions of the base or skins.
I have thought about this before. I think it will not win out skins in terms earnings and I might be burned at stake for trying it XD considering players don't like it when you take something they are used to having ( free access to game content) and lock it up behind a pay wall.
what are the disciplines that are usually short? vfx artists, splash artists or smthing completely different?
TBH its like whack a mole(different discipline at different time)...because of several factors:
1) Different teams are working on different things so at different moments one discipline might be more available than another. Ex: When Arena first launched we were operating with very little VFX support because it was all hands on deck to help out with all of the different augments.
2) We can't exactly lock people to the team XD Ex: After covid while everyone re-assessed their lives bunch of folks decided to leave Riot, try new teams or even stay but switch up what they are doing. Ex: We had to re-staff up animation.
3) Quality bar, things like Splash Art ... we are looking for unicorns in the industry. Taking them from other teams is just moving the problem around.
4) Training, to restart a discipline we have to get existing folks to train up new ones. There will always be onboarding time no matter how good the person is at their role. That require time from the veteran and also a period of time where the veteran is letting go.
We also found that large updates actually have a pretty good chance to turn away returning players (your most loved champion isn't like what you remembered and thus higher barrier to return) and turn off some mains of that champion
Wouldn't it be possible to just.. keep the old version of the champion as well? You'd for example have Fiddlesticks, and Fiddlesticks (Legacy). One has the new kit with his clone wards and AoE drain, one has the old bouncy bird. I'm in this camp you mention and I've lost two of my favourite champion kits to updates. Fiddle being one and self-root mpen Xerath being the other.
What is the difference of that to making a new champ (less baggage, less skins to update etc etc). All of the problems of the old champ will still be there (worse looking in the game, tech etc etc.)
You are also signing up for making double of all skins coming out.
Hey dev team, I really enjoyed the season launch missions from previous years, especially the mystery champion & riddles from last year. Was wondering why you didn't do them this year since they've been a tradition since 2018?
One of the things we are talking about a lot internally is how to tie together all of the different things we do into a cohesive narrative for folks to engage in. When we do this well it rules and when we don't it feels like League is a bunch of different teams all trying to do stuff.
You're describing one tactic we might use to do this: narrative integration with missions.
Should be more to talk about next Season, but both sorry we missed the opportunity this year and excited about what's to come.
[Serious] Will there be a League of Legends 2?
There's an argument to be made that based on where it started and where we are that we are already playing League 3 or 4.
If it ever made more sense for us to create a new title rather than continuously update our existing one I suppose we would do that. Right now though, focused on making League the best it can be.
[Serious] Will there be a League of Legends 2?
There's an argument to be made that based on where it started and where we are that we are already playing League 3 or 4.
If it ever made more sense for us to create a new title rather than continuously update our existing one I suppose we would do that. Right now though, focused on making League the best it can be.
They've been a bit tricky to get made (production-wise), but we are exploring how we can bring those back - we love them as well! <insert tophat pengu here>
ty nugz
Can we get an improved practice tool?
As someone who comes from competitive fighting games, it's frustrating to not be able to appropriately "lab" situations out.
I think being able to copy items onto a dummy is already a massive first step, but I would like at least a couple more things if possible:
- Can we be able to set specific hp, armor, and mr values on dummies? The issue I find when testing, especially on champs with hybrid damage like Shyvana, is that AR and MR values always must be the same, but in reality at base values MR is usually around a bit more than half that of armor. So I feel it throws the numbers off a bit.
- Can we make dummies "killable" and be able to view combat stats on them afterwards? So thing like time in combat, damage breakdown, CC breakdown, basically the stats you can see after dying in an actual game
- Can we be able to change runes and sums without exiting the game? Would also be nice if we could de-level
- Can we also be able to set a number of "stacks" for champs where this is relevant? Maybe this is a bit more of a taller request, but sometimes I just can't be bothered to get 400 stacks on minions as Nasus before running my tests
Thanks for reading!
We've got four new buttons coming in 14.2, and I and the team are open to adding more. None of them are what you specifically requested here, but those are some good suggestions Ill take notes on. Generally this stuff is actually pretty difficult to add (while sticking to our strict bars on quality) but we are open to doing more in the future.
Are there plans to revert the change to watch rewards being only granted when watching live? Worlds took place at like 1 AM my local time and it was not feasible to watch while needing to sleep for work the next day.
Drops in its current state reward fans for watching our biggest moments in League of Legends Esports live. However, we are aware that our fans are global and not always able to watch in real time. We are actively exploring ways to reward those fans who catch up outside of the live broadcast!
Can you give what would be the criteria for players to be included in Hall of Legends? International success, longevity, peak, etc.
For Hall of Legends we are looking to honor players displaying incredible resilience, mastery of League of Legends gameplay, and who inspire millions of fans across the globe. We gathered an independent voting panel of esports industry veterans and experts from every region to vote and select our very first inductee. We will have more to share around the criteria as well as other details on HoL later this year, so stay tuned!
Auberaun, what ever happened to the high mmr manual moderation in NA trial? I tried searching for updates on that and couldn't find any updates in over a year.
Coulda sworn I posted something somewhere. Anyway, summary was that the methodology was to have agents manually looking at the most reported players per games played, since there's no reasonable way to actually just watch every high MMR game unprompted. In that order the accounts would be reviewed. What we found was that there are truly not that many accounts that grief on a consistent basis meaning, having a pattern of being reported in most matches they play and verifiably trolling, i.e. low hanging fruit. After those, we did apply a number of chat penalties and account locks for accounts that looked compromised, but didn't find a lot of cases where bans were appropriate. There's probably a few reasons for this:
So all that said, don't think we were in a place where we'd reach an outcome of "it feels like Riot is defending my experience" with the program. We had some valuable learnings and there could be a version of this that works but what we trialed wasn't effective enough to be worth continuing.
corpo speak for "not cost efficient, we deliberately didn't do it lol"
Nah. Reality is that there is a lot going on and it slipped our minds. I never heard a proposal for it that I shot down or anything like that on the basis of cost. Its also not a process for us yet. In 2018 some dev probably thought of it and folks rallied and helped them do it. If no one thinks of it, it doesn't get done.
On the flip side, we're taking this stuff more seriously from now on so its good to get the feedback that folks appreciate and missed things like this.
devtrackers.gg
