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Everyone: New champ is Isolde obviously
Riot: lmao y'all got jebaited
Everyone: New champ is Isolde obviously
Riot: lmao y'all got jebaited
It was so hard to not say anything
Thank you for not saying anything though. Definitely a pleasant surprise. I was unsure how Isolde as a champion would fit in lorewise, but this is really good stuff!
Edit: As a side, can we expect any Yorick-Viego-Isolde related lore updates or cinematics?
All im going to say for now is , the story is far from over
gameplay looks sick, thematic well... getting tiring repeating the same thing tbh.
I remember a post back in January saying how this year team is doubling down on different thematics even though less popular.
While we are shifting to do less straight humans, (though this doesnt mean less humanoids, it just means we want to do more stuff like Renekton/Aatrox/Lillia as in humanoids) the effects of that shift won't really be seen until 2022, since champ timelines are so long. And this doesnt mean we don't want to make creatures anymore, we do, it just doesnt mean we plan on suddenly making tons of creatures, just less pure humans.
Could you share if there is a new champion roadmap in the works or when we can expect one? After the new Bandlecity Mage champion or before? Or after the Ruination event?
Im working on one right now, targeting sometime after Gwen goes live
Honestly I'm stoked to hear that. I've been worried for a while that the definition of "monster/creature" was expanding to include Champs like Renek or Lillia. Hearing that they count as humanoid fills me with hope for future Champion designs.
yeah we are defining it now as Human, Humanoid, and Creature, and going to be more deliberate to make sure we are making champs in all 3, though we will still likely be doing mainly Human/Humanoid Champions with creatures thrown in (Since creatures tend to be much lower playrate in general. We still want to make them, it's just a smaller audience, so we will generally make less)
and on another note; are you doing the roles thing again? viego being jungle, gwen being top, the mage being mid and so on. does this mean we will get an adc and support, I guess later this year?
As I mentioned in the SS video, we are still doing the roles thing again this year
So will the percentages and stuff that you told us before be changing as well? Like will we be guaranteed at least one creature every year, and then a certain percentage of humanoids and humans? Also it's good to hear that the terminology will be changing. I know that a lot of people have been very upset that champs like Lulu, Xayah, Aatrox, and Rek'sai were all in the same category and fighting for spots.
I wouldn't expect a creature every year. Though we are planning to make sure we get one in 2022 since it's bee awhile (And not a cutsy one like Yuumi) For this year the non-human is what we would put in Humanoid (like Lillia, Aatrox, Yordles, Etc..) What we want to do starting in 2022 is do less pure humans, not necessarily more creatures (So more humanoid/humanish champs)
Again, I don't know if you can share this but does the next champion (the mage) count as Humanoid or Creature and is she basically the "monster" champion of the year?
Also are you happy with how Viego has landed so far in terms of popularity?
Do you expect Gwen to be widely popular or more niche?
The mage would be under humanoid. So far Viego has landed exactly as we predicated, so yeah we are pretty happy with his reception. We expect Gwen to be somewhat popular but not like super popular. We are currently predicating she will land somewhere near Fioras overall playrate
Using existing champions as examples, which champs would sit on the cusp of human/humanoid and humanoid/creature? Also, what would Urgot, Sejuani (as a rider of a creature) and Udyr's placement be?
Sejuani would be human, Urgot would be humanoid. Creatures would be like Yuumi, Rek'Sai, Vel'Koz, Kindred, Kha'Zix, etc
Would this have an effect on who gets the second 2022 VGU slot? Last year you said VGUs still totally count at how you look at the upcoming years roster, or has it changed like the categories to Human, Humanoid and Creature?
While VGUs do count, I think at this point, regardless of VGUs, it's been to long since we did a NEW creature champ (Yuumi being the last one)
As someone who loves the monster champs and has been really frustrated by the last several years of releases I'm hoping there's one thing you can answer: Do "new" releases count reworks? Because as cool as the Voli and Fiddles reworks are, they were, or so I've read, considered part of the "new" monster champs for that year.
Is this the case? And if it is...could it not?
When I said new a meant a new champ, not a VGU
Is this really wise? I mean, someone asking for more champions like Yuumi and someone asking for more champions like Rek'Sai are probably wanting two very different things.
Is what wise? I'm just saying what would be considered a creature. You can say that for any category (Someone that likes Aatoxx is probably different then someone that likes Lillia, or someone that likes Yone/Zed is different then someone that likes Zoe/Lux) I'm aware Yuumi and Rek'Sai are a different audience. Once of the reasons we made Yuumi was that we felt that game was lacking cute creatures, not because we were trying to appeal to the monstrous creature crowd.
Unless your internal data is seriously off from what we have available, the difference in play rate between humans and creatures is low (1.5% on average), and humanoids and creatures have the exact same playrate on average (5.75%). So, why are creatures being made a lot less, if they actually arent less popular and dont have a smaller audience?
Ontop of that, do you also include such aspects as "how good are the champions in the category on average" (Kog'Maw for example has been underpowered for a long time now), as well as "how saturated is their class on average" (Creatures tend to be mostly tanks and bruisers, which have on average lower pick rate just due to being overrepresented, while humans lean more into the smaller pools of ADCs and supprts)?
Yes we look at a character target playrate range, which covers the range of playrate from underpowerd up to overpowered. We see that unless a champ is grossly OP or grossly UP they usually have a pretty clear floor and ceiling based on being strong or weaker. Are u looking at ALL playrate, including blind pick (or most popular Queue) or are u looking at ranked only? I ask because in ranked theme matters less and power matters more (and the higher up you go in rank the more power matters and the less theme matters) Where as in blind pick theme seems to be the main driving point for what people play.
Ah, that is a good point, I don't think I included blind pick. Also, its still the most popular queue? Interesting.
That being said I don't entirely agree with the floor or ceiling aspect, because, for example, Cho'Gath fluctuated wildly based on just being underpowered, or good, without ever reaching either end. It seems likely that the floor and ceiling can stretch very far.
Though, I assume even in blind pick, the matter of different roles still affects the playrate, i.e. a bruiser will have less playrate just because there are something like 40 of them, vs marksmen which have half as many champions available. Or whatever the actual numbers are.
Yes the bubble in pretty big, but it 100% exits. You can see in the Breadth/Depth charts that show a champions B/D over MANY years. Here is Cho'Gath for, example
As you can see his playrate usually remains around the same circular area, with variance based on how strong his is in a given patch. Here is Teemo
It becomes SUPER apparent when you look at a VGU, where u can see the bubble before the VGU (where the line is thin, the thinner the line the further back in time it is) and after the VGU like Urgot, as you can see his range of playrate just basically moved up to another location which we see with all VGUs
Champs like Akali have wider fluctuations since we have nerfed her to a level of grossly UP several times, though even so she stays relatively near her bubble
Also Lee Sin is a bruiser and he is generally in the highest played champs in the game at all time, generally more then most Marksmen, and Yasuo is generally the highest picked champ in the game globally, also not marksmen
Ah, I see, you're basing it on the number of unique players, that makes sense. That probably gives a better idea of popularity.
But Lee Sin is explicitely an extreme outlier, not the rule. If I read the chart correctly, at the very end you see at least 5 Marksmen, as opposed to the one bruiser in Lee Sin. And Yasuo is an Assassin, another low saturation role that creatures don't tend to be used for (And the one creature assassin we do have, Kha'Zix, is quite very popular indeed). So on average the hypothesis that creatures are unpopular by virtue of being in on average significantly less popular roles seems quite plausible.
Maybe, I would say that Kha is popular because the role has less saturation, but he has become less popular overtime as we have added more broadly appealing humans to the role. So you could assume that if a role liek Marksmen already had a good deal of broadly appealing human that a monster/creature would be less popular if added to the role, since it has tougher competition. Like if jungle has many more champs like Ahri/Lux/Yasuo, etc would that push Kha out more? Not sure
Every time you post these I hurt my eyes to find Vlad and I fail, secretly hoping you publish the official graph again at some point
here u go
Hey Reav3 could I bother you for some breadth and depths of some humanoids like Volibear or Aatrox (dealer’s choice) since the commitment you guys made towards doing more humanoids has me curious since I’ve always guessed that that pack was always middle of the road in terms of popularity
I don't think thats true? Jungle was perhaps the role that always had broadly appealing humans in the role, Elise, Lee Sin, Xin Zhao-ish (Not sure how long he was a jungler), Master Yi, and so on. And for that matter, there have been very few, if any, appealing humans added to jungle recently. We have Viego, and before that the last one was Kayn, I think? Who was released ... 4 years ago. Wow that long?
So if Khas popularity has decreased, which Im not even sure it has, I think he is more popular now than he has been in a long time, it had nothing to do with more humans being added. Hell, Lee Sins play rate has dropped significantly (from 30-40% to only 12%) ever since more non-humans were added to the jungle, I don't think its possible to draw a direct conclusion from that.
Its possible, but I'm not convinced that would happen. In fact, I imagine the opposite would happen, a new monster ADC could become popular just by virtue of being something new and entirely different. And not being as bad as Kog'Maw is.
For sure, Creature Marksmen is definitely something we want to do at some point in the future, for the exact reason
Thanks! Confirms my prediction that humanoids are reasonably popular but not super. Could I ask if you know why champ depth is more compressed this patch since I noticed that most champs are closer to middle line compared to past charts
Its just because it early in the patch. Depth measures how many times people play the same champ in a row on the same patch, so it goes up overtime as the patch goes on
Hi Reav3!
Could you show how Yasuo is doing? I heard his popularity has dropped recently, though on the graphs you posted it seems he's still the rightmost champ?
Also, is that chart available online? I remember there was one in the article from a few years ago, and I always found it very interesting, I'd love to have an updated table available :)
Here u go.
He has been lower ever since Yone released, but not that much lower. Him and Kai'Sa usually compete for #1 and #2 highest playrate
Based on these datas, I see Shaco pretty high in breadth and depth, especially in depth, yet his name keeps popping up in VGU tier lists; what kind of size would you aim for him, since I assume he is up for bigger work than a Morgana/Ezreal? From dev points, what are the biggest cautions regarding a project such as him?
Yeah he is super deep. I think we would be looking at doing something more like Pantheon/Mundo where we freshen up his kit ,but mostly focus on upgrading his visuals.
HI Reav,What's the status of Mundo now? I thought you said he would be released after Gwen :)
He's still planned as the next release. I'll give a update on him in the Champion Roadmap coming shortly after Gwens release
will we get more information about the sentinel of light? i want to know what position you are targeting them for.
also what do you think about a vgu for tryndamere? is it possible to happen or there are a lot of champions before him?
He needs one someday for sure. I almost put him on the last vote. It's always possible though I can't say when. Yeah I will talk a lot more about the mage and marksmen and go into specifically what lane they are for.
Hey Reav3, is the roadmap being published this week?
No