[2021] Only one League VGU will be released this year due to the pandemic, Riot Reav3 says

The reason we had to delay the 2nd VGU on this year to 2022 specifically is because we couldn't really delay other new champs in the roadmap. We had already planned the Return of the Ruined King story, and as I mentioned in the SS blog the next 3 champs are also all related to the story of Viegos return. When Covid hit and effected our schedule it would have been very difficult to delay Viego who we were already making a SS CG for (Which takes along time to make) but also the 3 new champs after him were interconnected with his story. All champs before those 4 were already in production so cutting them would be a lot more painful then delaying something that had barely just started. We had to basically have some other team members help ship Viego and some of our other projects for the 2nd half of last year which had effects on the schedule for this year.

the Season Start CG with Viego in it

I'm not sure where this perception that Champs make so much more then VGUs came from. Some VGUS have made more money then new champs,(especially ones with big skin catalogs that get updated with the VGU) some niche champs make much less then the base line VGU makes. Also, after we VGU a champ we can still make skins for it, just like a new champ. At the end of the day it doesn't matter though. The Champions Team is part of the Gameplay initiative at Riot, whos main goal is engagement not revenue. Skins in general make waaaay more then any new champion ever makes, and it's not really a goal for the Champions team to make revenue. Our main goal is engagement, which is to say we want to make products that keep people playing LoL. One of the reasons we toned down VGUs was that we saw data that showed that whenever we do a VGU some amount of players quite the game completely, usually mains of the champ that don't like the rework. If we do A LOT of VGUs in a year like we did in the past, we actually start actively going against the main goal of champs team which is engagement since we would see less engagement with the game as a result of many players quitting due to the VGUs. Actually a couple years back when we did a lot of VGUS (and the class updates) we saw in player surveys at the time a pretty big upswing in players upset that we were changing way to much, way to fast that season. This has since come down a lot since we cut class updates and reduced VGUs. Now like I have mentioned in the past, we still want to do VGUs as we believe in the longevity of LoL and part of that is making sure the game feels modern and up to date, which means updating old champs that don't feel that way, but I dont think just saying "all players want vgu's" is a accurate statement, at least not according to real data we have from player surveys.

Visual and Gameplay Update, its where we take a old outdated Champ and rebuild them from scratch as a new champion (basically) while trying to preserve the spirit of the old champion and as much of the old champion as we can in the process

At this point now that everyone is accumustmed and has things setup at home we are not really moving slower, that's true. The transition from office to WFH was where it hit us, and when you have many projects in development at once like Champs team does a week or 2 adds up to many weeks of lost time (Champs team usually has 3-4 champs in production at any given moment) That time has to come from somewhere, and with the lengths of time champ development takes the consequences are usually seen like a year later in the schedule, not immediately.

yes, that was originally the plan, that's why we said we wanted to do a VGU poll last year

We still haven't decided what the 2nd VGU will be yet, we just have one slated. Who gets the VGU will depend on a lot of factors that we will consider once we get closer to starting ideation on it

We talk about doing things like Morg/Ez a lot, and it's something we want to do more of in the future, especially as our outsourcing pipeline gets stronger overtime. It's difficult to do those completely in-house like we did for Morg/Ez because both had massive skin catalogs that need to be updated as well, so doing them means we would have to cut/remove VGUs or New Champs (sometime more then 1 due to the scope of remaking all their skins) from the schedule which we believe have a overall higher value since they also drive engagement (where as VUs dont actually drive engagement) But like I said we have been building a much stronger outsourcing pipeline in the last couple years which makes VUs start to look more reasonable. Can't make any promises but it's something we talk about a lot internally.

I'm not sure where u read that, but at no point were we ever working on VUs or VGUs for Diana and Leona

Right this isn't me saying that we were actually working on one, just that it could be pretty cool to do

With Seraphine we wanted to make a simple accessible mage that would be appealing to Lux/Sona players. We felt we hadn't made a really simple mage in along time, and we thought she would be really popular among that crowd (which she has been) We wanted to make a popstar/singer archetype in the game for a long time as we felt it was a popular archetype that didn't yet exist in the game. Sona occupies more of a musician/bard archetype and Karthus more of a lich/wight. Contrary to popular belief on this subreddit, we actually locked Seraphines art/kit long before we even knew she was going to be part of K/DA. We were originally going to release her like halfway through 2020, but when we decided we were going to do K/DA again we thought she would thematically be a very strong match for K/DA, so we held back her release so she could be a part of K/DA. This is why we were able to start her publishing campaign so early in the year, because we had locked her art/kit already which we don't usually do early enough for publishing to start as early as it did with Seraphine

Well we felt she would really resonant with players that liked K/DA and we also wanted to experiment with launching a champ with a legendary or ultimate skin since we had never done that before. K/DA and Worlds felt like a big enough moment to try something crazy like that

We targeted her to be viable mid/support like Lux/Morgana. She ended up resonating more strongly with supports, but as long as she is viable in mid we are happy with whatever percentage lane she gets played in more or less. Currently she is viable in both lanes, so she still hits mid players if they choose to play her in that lane.

Sure I can talk about our thought process behind her outfit. We intentionally wanted her outfit to stand out and feel out of place, futuristic even. We looking at pop stars they usually (especially when they are performing like Seraphine is in her base outfit) wear outfits and clothing that don't look like they belong to the real world. Like you wouldn't see many people walking around the streets wearing the same outfit Elton John or Lady Gaga wear at a concert. We wanted her to have that feel, like she was setting trends and wearing clothes normal people would never have or think of. Seraphine is a artist in many senses and she doesn't only sing or dance she also makes her own clothes. So they aren't meant to be clothes you could just buy in a store in Piltover or Zaun. The idea was that she made really unique outfits for her performances that pushed the boundaries of pilt/zaun society. Anyway that was the thinking behind it, at least.

the recent rework? That was done but the SRT (Summoners Rift Team) that handles balance, and everything not champion related in SR basically. Wish we could take credit because they did amazing work to get him where we wanted him when we did his VGU