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I like the design idea for the new 2v2v2v2 mode, as someone who plays a bit of TFT.
Seems both casual friendly and a lot of opportunity for developing expertise!
I wonder how crazy the augments will get though, and how the fanbase will receive it. 
I like the design idea for the new 2v2v2v2 mode, as someone who plays a bit of TFT.
Seems both casual friendly and a lot of opportunity for developing expertise!
I wonder how crazy the augments will get though, and how the fanbase will receive it.
We're figuring that just how far we can push them at the moment. Currently seeing some pretty big swings depending on what you roll, what your team comp is, who you get matched against etc. I think a lot of variance will end up working quite well, given this is a shorter, less pure competitive/"esports" mode and skill still matters an enormous amount. But very interested to see everyone's takes once it's live
TL;DR:
No Rotating Game Modes until the 2v2v2v2 comes out in Summer.
ARAM satisfaction will be adjusted, reverting death timers, different approaches to balance (Less %dmg, %dmg taken, more %energy, +/- Ability Haste), Tower Rubble scaled back/removed.
2v2v2v2 game mode inspired by Double Up in TFT, involves augments to champs
Nexus Blitz still on the horizon... eventually.
One note - there's a slim chance we do manage to also do one of the existing modes (URF or something) before the summer mode. If it's a trade off between landing that new mode well and running an old one again we'll focus on the new. Some small possibility we might have something existing to bridge the gap though
We've come full circle, TFT being a league "official mod" into now league taking the double-up and auguments from TFT
Next step, adding controllable units to TFT, let's just keep looping it around and around
Next step, adding controllable units to TFT, let's just keep looping it around and around
To be clear, this is very much NOT the plan
is the modes team the group that deals with clash? has there been any news on when it will be back?
Different team. Clash got delayed when we lost a patch due to that security breach recently. It should be back in March and we'll bring ARAM clash back as well sometime since that was popular with a lot of positive feedback
Augments sounds like fun. I want medic Ziggs back. I imagine the 2s mode will have a new map? Maybe like Ascension with a center focus point to force players into each other?
New map or a VERY heavily modified version of an existing one. Think multiple separate arenas where 2v2 fights happen - it's not a free for all 2v2v2v2 all at once thing, but a series of 2v2 rounds
You sure you don't want to add a controllable Yasuo but you can only field him alone on the team?
Let me throw it back, do you want enemy team yasuo in your TFT games?
2v2v2v2 mode looks like a lot of fun. Augments were the best thing TFT added. Plus now we can say we got Mortdogged in league.
oh god
Hope they consider adding modes that are available permanently or on a regukar bases (like every weekend.) As cool as these sound, I find it hard to get exited about (never mind invested in) something that I know will be disappearing for 6+ months in a matter of weeks.
The bar for adding a new permanent queue is very high, but it's something in the back of our minds. I don't think we've hit a mode yet that has the staying power + audience necessary to justify a whole queue, but based on audience feedback, we might try and invest in a version of one of them that can make it there.
Of course once again riot is refusing to comment anything on nexus blitz “ until next time” leave it up to the boneheads behind the screen who just want us to play the same boring stale game modes that we’ve been playing. People don’t want limited time game modes to play on summoners rift. I want to play a limited time game mode like odyssey again. A completely new map and mode that was actually fun
2v2v2v2 is planned to be time limited on a new map. Nexus Blitz is something we want to run again, but we're prioritizing getting that brand new experience out to yall this summer. Plan is that we'd do nexus blitz again at some point this year after the 2v2v2v2.
For a long time ARAM has biased strongly towards poke champs, ADCs, and enchanters in terms of both pick rate and power level. This led to an environment where melee champions felt quite bad to play. There was also the challenge where champions like Talon or Kayn had less terrain to interact with (and therefore not utilize portions of their kit).
This is still pretty true. Bruiser items are pretty nerfed now, most % balance changes on melees are pretty toned down too, and sustain is just so gutted with the penalty on minions. Eclipse has no more omnivamp, Ravenous is lifesteal instead of omnivamp, Hammer was nerfed as well.
60% effectiveness on minions is just too little, I hope they're at least open to further adjustments. It's a nightmare playing ADC's with shorter range and barely being able to keep up with poke even with BT.
Yep, we're going to keep adjusting balance, just going to be taking fewer big swings after the tower rubble changes.
Are there any ideas on how scaling champs (swain, sion, viegar, nasus) who rely on longer games to get strong will do so in the 2v2v2v2?
Still working on the details; this mode is coming in HOT for summer and a lot hasn't been figured out yet. Some things we're trying:
Subjective first reaction, as someone who's played League for 15 years and does about 60%/40% ARAM + ranked nowadays: I was excited about the new game mode up until reading about augments. There's a huge hole in game modes to be able to pick the champ you want to play, play it in a match that typically takes <15 minutes, and not have massive mechanical gimmicks that makes everything play like a different champ. I do understand that's a challenging mix to make work with League pacing, but having a quick game mode to pick a champ and have roughly transferable practice/muscle memory to rift matches feels like such a clear opportunity that's currently missed.
The first iteration of Nexus Blitz was the most fun because it was the closest to that model, and each successive version that introduced more Mario Party-style mechanics just interrupted the essence of what made it enjoyable/sticky. I think Ultimate Spellbook actually struck closest to the best balance on that otherwise.
Definitely interested in trying the new mode, but it doesn't sound like it's solving for the kind of design challenges I really was hoping to see from new game modes this deep into League's trajectory.
I think you might be pleasantly surprised, or at least I hope so. As an example here's a quick rundown of a playtest game I got in last week:
Obligatory disclaimer - it's all still very WIP, details will change etc etc. But that's the sort of feel we're going for
Can I ask why is it such a hassle to bring this game modes back while working on the new one? Shouldn't they be simply a toggle on and let people play? I know there is maintenance cost to them but after so many runs they should just be fine to play all the time even. I get not having them online forever to make events more special or whatever, but to not even be able to just turn them on and let them run for any event is kinda strange
It's a lot more complicated than just turning them on. The biggest cost is the change that's happened in the game surrounding the mode. New champs, new items, new systems all have interactions with the mode's rules and can cause a lot of bugs that make the game either hard to play or even crash. We spend a fair bit of time resolving those issues every time we bring something back (even the ones we run a lot). There's also a cost in pure engineering in setting up the queues that I'm not super qualified to talk about.
I think the core thing most people want from a new permament mode is a shorter mode similar to Summoner's Rift but not random. Basically a middle ground from SR and Aram. Nexus Blitz was the closest to that, I know it ultimately failed to do great, but I think that's the main reason people are so passionate about it compared to other game modes that haven't returned.
I hear ya. I think there's potential there for sure. I know we want to reexamine Nexus Blitz eventually to see where we can make improvements to give it more staying power. Might not be for the next release of it though.
The new mode sounds interesting. I hope you haven't been held back too much by the hackattack. I was hoping you could answer a more general question about new game modes:
Could you explain a bit why "custom game" was almost never made a more powerful tool to give players a chance to tinker themselves more with game modes? Wouldn't that also decrease the expectation of bugginess and balance issues? Is that just too difficult and time consuming to program? As you probably know for many multiplayer games the editor tool is often the reason for their long term success. Are you considering improving custom games at all at some point?
Custom games are a different team, but the major blocker to this is whether or not the tools protect the user from crashing the game. Our tools are very good at giving us a wide range of things we can do, allowing us to make things like the 2v2v2v2 version, but that level of freedom exists because we expand our capabilities all the time and rely on script expertise to not crash servers.
Hey Cadmus, are there any plans to ever bring Mastery tokens to ARAM? Once upon a time a Rioter commented on looking into it but nothing ever materialized.
I'll get u 213 more goats if it happens!
Stay tuned ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
To be clear, this is very much NOT the plan
I think you might be having too much fun today. What can I do to make you sadder?
Thanks for the quick answer! I really appreciate your increase in community interaction!
If I understand you correctly, doesn't this necessary level of script expertise also block you from access to more content in general, because of the high and long training cost ? Just loosing one expert would put you behind a lot.
Would investing in and developing a bit simpler script not be possible to solve some of the current challenges (and also possibly enable enhanced custom games) or (edit) do you think the tradeoff between training more people faster to work on new content and highly flexible creative tools is is too high at the moment?
It can for sure, but there's a large amount of knowledge at Riot right now and thousands of scripts for reference that we can't share out for security reasons to train people up.
You definitely don't need to convince me to invest in better tools :D, but I just want to highlight that a public release of tools like this needs a MUCH higher bar of stability.
But many champs need big swings, you guys tried removing some of the bonuses on assassins and it was a disaster, those champs are now barely playable.
I mean big swings more on the level of 'large systemic changes' like hexgates/rubble. We'll continue to balance champ by champ to a level where they're healthier for the mode.
why do new game modes have to be immediately competitive with SR/ARAM just to not get axed
Historically the modes team has been pretty small, meaning that the work in to value out ratio had to be pretty high. I think that viewpoint is fading somewhat, but the question often comes back to player value. Should we re-run a mode with a very short tail, or should we re-run a mode that players enjoy playing for longer? Which modes should we invest time into maintaining? We're committing to doing more novel things because it's clear that players want not just deep experiences, but variant experiences. We're hyper focused on getting a new mode out the door to pay off that desire for novelty, but we still have to explore what comes after that.
Is there any discussion internally for some form of return of a twisted treeline mode?
Nothing explicit. Curious what you're missing from that mode. Were you more interested in the shorter game time or the map itself?
Out of curiosity, you guys said you're looking to release it in the summer. Is that referring to the final polished release, or will the experimental version be the one released in the summer?
Summer will be the experimental one