So they've been posting about the client cleanup for a while but all they've done to fix the most annoying problem this client has are some surveys? lol they do know how to spend their time. No wonder why they later go cry at Twitter that people call them incompetent.
Appreciate the comment!
We wanted to take a different approach with this post. From feedback received in previous posts, players weren't that interested in a chart showing our re-architecture work (even though internally it's very important for us).
during our most recent milestone, we got a lot of architecture work done, addressed around 60 bugs, and improved our startup times for players around the world that have slower machines, and we got really close to our goal.
The purpose of the survey is that we wanted to get a global view of what the players wanted us to work on, we used that data, and now are going to work on two of the more critical parts of the game loop, which is champ select & end of game. Given these are very frustrating for players when they encounter problems, we plan to deliver changes to make both experiences more reliable over the next couple months.
Thank you
at the current pace maybe we'll have a half decent client in 5 years. ty dedicated client team
Our goal is to deliver results quicker than that!
I have some thoughts and recommendations for the champ select experience (as one who used to play on an ultrabook and now plays on a full on desktop with dedicated graphics card):
Remove all of the current animations. Literally all of them. I know that it looks "cool" for things to smoothly transition and look alive, but the animations on champ select serve a significantly lesser purpose (and, quite frankly, are less important) than overall smooth champ select. I did not know that the rune screen has animations on the right hand side (the pool of water). I would rather have simple checkboxes instead of a pretty screen that freezes the screens of my teammates and causes lobbies to dodge because buttons are frozen.
Consider introducing animations for the champ select process that serve a purpose. Right now, we have animations that are either too subtle to be seen and/or are used for the purpose of aesthetics. I think there is an opportunity to introduce animated elements that exist for a significant and purposeful reason, such as "time is expiring and it is your turn to choose a champion." Function over fashion for the most important part of the pre-game (especially when LP is on the line).
Make low-spec mode an actual low-spec mode. I did not realize how many animations I was missing out on/getting a worse experience of until I switched to a PC with a ridiculous graphics card (and even then, there are still some issues). The biggest thing for me was finding out that the low-spec mode in champ select felt like a normal-spec mode but slower and/or missing UI elements. I would love a low-spec mode that functions exactly the same but lacks fluid animations altogether (and instead uses alternative static elements that indicate important events during champion select). If I'm playing League on a low spec computer, I would find it to be a lot more important to know what's coming next instead of slower animations for the purpose of getting a "similar experience."
Yes! love this post, because it is very similar to the approach we are taking with our UX discovery. For your points 1 & 2 , we (League Client Team) are identifying which animations are potential bottlenecks to performance, and we are working on collecting that data. On the other hand, your point #2, we are working in partnership with our champ select design team to understand what animations are most important to players and make sure if we have them, they do not cause reliability or performance issues. Right now, I can't say we can remove all animations, until we understand which ones are performance degrading and measure them against the value they provide our players.
For point three, I will need to work with the team to identify how and when we can look into low-spec mode.
Love the feedback!
Great example of busyness rather than work. How much time of "work" did it take to survey and graph the obvious thing to work on, rather than working on it immediately because it was a no-brainer.
Fair question;
We had to start the year cleaning up our plugin architecture before we can unlock performance improvements within the client (we still are working on the architecture cleanup). We wanted to pick a KPI (improve client bootstrap time for a majority of our players globally) so we can track our success to players.
The survey was an independent exercise we ran to understand the biggest pain points around the client globally. Some regions actually wanted to see an improvement in bootstrap time, while others had more frustration around champ select and end of game. Using this data, we can make decisions on what we want to work on that will improve client performance and reliability for all our players globally. To measure our success, we want to see the frustration trend downwards, and now we have data that tells us if we make improvements to champ select and end of game, we should see a positive trend.
Although our re-architecture work is not fully complete, we feel it is in a good place for us to start working in champ select and end of game to provide more value to you, our players!
Thanks,
At this point the only two things that bother me about the client are the long stalls at the end of each game, and the notifications from gifts sticking around every single time I open the client. I've gifted myself a ton of mystery skins from a second account and every single notification from every skin I've gifted myself keeps showing up in the top right every time I open the client, two at a time. It's a minor inconvenience but holy f**k is it annoying having to click through dozens of notifications every time I open the game.
Thanks for the feedback, and yes, while working on champ select, we will also be working on making improvements to the end of game experience
Ignore the negative responses (: Thanks for the work you put in
Thanks for the support <3 We'll continue to work hard (:
Most of the complaints in this reddit is just circlejerking. You have people who literally uninstalled the game years ago still come here and talk shit about Riot because they have nothing better to do.
And then you have people who have no issues 99% of the time, suddenly have an issue that f**ks their promo's once and they come here raging like Riot collectively f**ked their entire family and set their home on fire.
These complaints are best ignored because they add no value.
It's not like Riot can't literally f**king see error reports and know exactly how often shit breaks. The client sends them data about every crash automatically.
Complaining on reddit is the absolute least effective means of communicating with developers. Not only are most posts missed, they're also f**king worthless because the developers get none of the data that actually helps fix the issues.
"My game crashed". Oh wow, so f**king helpful. What system configuration? Hardware? Software? Network? When did it happen? How did it happen? What's between the chair and monitor?
All of that is absent in random reddit whining. It's so pointless.
What's between the chair and monitor?
ROFL
Lol makes sense for them to prioritize bugs that impact their income streams. It'd be interesting to see any analysis of how these bug fixes affect their topline revenue.
We don't prioritize like that, we always think about players playing games first. Anything that prevents players from getting in game or having a good experience in game is what we prioritize. Of course we pay attention to the financial aspects, but expect to do well in that regard as the reward from delivering value first.
Now, though, we've realized if we want players to be happy, we're going to have to refactor key components of champion select.
Ha, refactoring, welp, the next two months are gonna get really bad for the devs, are you going to use the actual component as a blueprint and optimizing it or are you gonna build it from scratch?
Yep, exactly this. It'll get fun.
What tech did the guys use to determine the plug in loading times? Was it an apm product or something similar?
It is just simple telemetry code in the JS that records (sends a POST) when events of interest trigger.
I'm glad they're upgrading the client... But some advice to the guy making these articles, the bottommost chart is basically unreadable for colorblind people, the colors are way too close to each other and while also being very light. I'm having a very hard time reading that graph, and my colorblindness is very mild.
Sorry about that! I will make sure the feedback is received!
I wish i knew wtf they did to post game though, where it used to be quick and now takes ages to get out of the game.
This is something we plan to tackle in the coming months! stay tuned!
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I will have the team look into this, definitely an annoying bug.
u/Am1t8 Anything you can say about the Match Accepted bug? This is the biggest prblem for me. its literally game breaking. ...lets say elo breaking
Can you direct message me the exact issue (report steps if possible), I can have the team look into it, thanks!
u/Am1t8 It would be awesome if the folks working on this could share their findings on riot's tech blog. As a dev that has followed your blog since the firsts articles on the new client, I'd be eager to read about it
This is something I am considering, would live to share the technical details behind our work.
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You are right, we are making one of our success measures on reducing memory leaks, not only in champ select, where we will start, but all over the client.
Cactopus, Am1t & A Huevo with the hot potato here. Good luck guys, its a spicy topic!
Thank you! Im the new guy on the team, I know I'm in for a challenge, but reallllly want to make the client better for all of you!
TY boys,really right now client look like way better than it was before you start to work at it, I understand how hard to work with someones code and really respect your job, Its actually amazing how you managed to make visible this improvements.
Just interesting, is it possible to make client like valorant one that is integrated in game with actual league?
Thank you! We as a team believe we can deliver improvements in champ select and end of game over the next couple months that will provide a lot of player value, and ultimately see the frustration around the client trend downwards. We have a lot of work coming up, but are up for the challenge
"Players have long been asking for a snappier, more responsive champ select."
No. We want a champ select that doesn't cause dodges because of stupid bullshit spaghetti.
That's literally it.
Yes, the reliability of champ select is the most important thing, we do not want dodges due to client issues. We have data around dodge rates at a high level, but we are digging deeper to see if we can find the dodge rates due to client issues, and its tough!
either way, the work we plan on doing in champ select will help reduce client-related dodges, that's definitely a success measure for us
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