[2023] What happened to the yearly "Choose-a-champ" for VGU?

Originally posted by SCsprinter13

Riots end goal will be a new champ that has an ultimate that can only be used once, but it wins the game immediately at like 30 minutes

Waiting on Pingu

Originally posted by Spideraxe30

Hey Lexi could share more about when you’d like to drop the next roadmap, would it be like after Briar or some time for season start

Originally posted by CptDecaf

It's so obvious to anyone who understands how these companies work that there are probably about 33 Jira tickets for Skarner's redesign and every single one of them is marked at the lowest priority below things like, "border on store purchase icon is 1 pixel too large on medium screens."

The work on Skarner isn't unfinished because it's hard. It's not done because they are barely working on it.

Originally posted by GrumpyShisa

Why don't you do open voting for skins then? I think it would be cool with the community. A Thematic and a Legendary skin vote, while you guys can't add more ASU/reworks/VGU.

Originally posted by AobaSona

I know this isn't your fault, but "there's not enough time if we're doing it right" doesn't feel like enough when, a few years ago, Riot was able to do like 4 VGUs a year, while also releasing 4-5 champions.

Instead of accepting this situation as "this is just how it is", I think Riot should be looking at how to make that pace possible again, or at least half of it. Cause we didn't just go from 4 to 2 per year, we went to 1 or ZERO.

While the poll might have been a bit of a mistake, let's remember that in the first or second VGU poll we had TWO WINNERS and Riot managed to get both out without significant delays.

I know you've also said that it's not as easy as "just hire more people", but with the news that some of the champions team got put into gamemodes, that does seem necessary too. I personally don't mind getting less new champions for more gamemodes, but the way that it hurts VGUs (which are already on a bad situation) makes me sad :/

If we were getting many ASUs I wouldn't mind it as much, cause the gameplay part isn't the main thing for me, but the pacing for those is also super slow. The number of outdated stuff in the game has always hurt for those of us who care a lot about the art/lore/state of champions, but in recent years, I think seeing so many champions getting updated for Legends of Runeterra, Wild Rift and concept art/design guides (whatever those are called) has made the issue painfully clear to everyone.

Originally posted by Disloyaltee

I know you guys are doing your best, but you have to look at things from our perspective.

All you are saying is "It's hard to make it work" and "It's not as easy as people think" but you give zero reasoning for why it is harder. From our - the consumers - perspective, you released 5 entirely new champions while working on a single rework. Many people (including me) are dissatisfied with the pace, but not because we hate Riot, because to us it seems absolutely unreasonable for this to take longer than 5 entire champions.

Also, going back 10 years, you used to release 20 champs a year, of course not as high quality as nowadays, but that doesn't help the case.

I'd greatly appreciate if you could tell us more about WHY it isn't possible to do quicker, maybe even a behind the scenes YouTube video comparing the development process of reworks vs new champions, might be interesting.

Originally posted by Disloyaltee

I know you guys are doing your best, but you have to look at things from our perspective.

All you are saying is "It's hard to make it work" and "It's not as easy as people think" but you give zero reasoning for why it is harder. From our - the consumers - perspective, you released 5 entirely new champions while working on a single rework. Many people (including me) are dissatisfied with the pace, but not because we hate Riot, because to us it seems absolutely unreasonable for this to take longer than 5 entire champions.

Also, going back 10 years, you used to release 20 champs a year, of course not as high quality as nowadays, but that doesn't help the case.

I'd greatly appreciate if you could tell us more about WHY it isn't possible to do quicker, maybe even a behind the scenes YouTube video comparing the development process of reworks vs new champions, might be interesting.

Originally posted by Macaulyn

With all due respect, specially because I know that these decisions aren't exactly in your hand... I call bullshit. We used to get more stuff than this, I cannot possibly believe that there were years in which we got multiple VGUs and champion releases and nowadays the former is literally not happening this year and the latter has been drastically reduced in number.

Originally posted by Disloyaltee

Thanks for the answer, that makes it more understandable.

So then is it fair to say that redesigning skins is taking longer than the development of the rework itself? And are new skins just prioritized over the redesign of Skarner's already existing skins?

Originally posted by Disloyaltee

Then my last question would be: What is the most/least time it took to come up with a champions kit?

Originally posted by Disloyaltee

Is there a champ that has been in development ever since you joined?

Originally posted by bz6

Hey /u/neolexical

I heard a couple of times that August will take a break or leave the champs team after Briar. That being said, I wanted to ask you a question, do you think the current champions team is the “weakest” it’s ever been? I feel with all this help the team has been doing (with Modes and shit), the team has lost many many important members. It’s evident that losing designers like that affects the team, I mean CertainlyT was a huge loss. Are new champions still gathering sizeable audiences when it comes to depth and breadth? I also do feel champions are more miss than hit these days, which sucks.

Originally posted by bingbongzingzongz

btw Lexi thanks alot for your replies both here and twitter, sucks that you became lead producer of champs in troublesome times

I want to ask if older/recent VGUs are kind of considered as risky projects and that's why the team moved resources from them and into ASUs meaning they don't always have positive outcomes, yes they always have the benefit of modernizing the roster but it is kind of apparent that they won't always increase the playrate of the champion compared to ASUs:

Udyr has same playrate he had before his VGU 1 year ago, Mundo has almost same playrate as before his VGU

. (I don't mean to criticize the awesome peeps who worked on them, just an observation and I believe you were still in LoR back then)

ASUs on the other hand are always a success, Ahri's playrate increased by 50% after her ASU earlier this year and she retained that playerbase

So my question is Did you guys shift priorities away from VGUs due to that? Small increase in a champion's playrate at the cost of so much resources wasn't worth the effort?

Also this applies to "newer" champions, Renata for example has been bottom 5 pickrate champ for months despite a positive winrate

Playrate is often tied to winrate I know but there are many champions old and new who retained high playrate even with negative winrates (Lee, Kai'sa, wind bros, etc.)

TLDR: Do you consider new champions /VGUs who failed to retain the playrate to be not successful projects? Is it the reason why VGUs and new champs resources were diverted to other projects (ASUs and modes)?

Originally posted by Zarathielis

Is there a champion concept you or the team is really excited about but you can't quite make it right and have to pause it?

Originally posted by FruitfulRogue

Hi mentioning midscopes, can we get an update on them at all?

We haven't been given any info on if there are any new ones in production or if they've been paused for the time being.

I think midscopes have been/are some of the best things the team have done in the last few years, and as far as track record go I'd say about 90% of them have landed really well.

Itd just be nice to get some info on them, since we haven't heard anything since Rells landed (crashed?).

Originally posted by FriendlyGhostLady

Can u tell us how hard the creature marksman will be? Will he be hard or easier? 2) will u make a new AP toplaner in the future?

Originally posted by bz6

Hello /u/neolexical

August just said on his stream that most likely, Briar might be his last champion. Like this is so unfortunate. The champ team has already lost CertainlyT, and if you guys lose August, honestly I think the champ team is pretty much done.

I already sense that a lot of new champ releases have not been a success, I could be wrong, but I do have think that innovation has extremely dipped. You've been very communicative and transparent so far and I would really love to know your thoughts. Under /u/Reav3 the champ team felt prestigious and "serious-like". Now, I feel the team is pretty drained creatively, and just struggling to find inspiration.

Champions are SUPER important for the longevity of League as they perpetually increase the pursuit of Mastery and inject freshness into the game.

Originally posted by bz6

Thank you for your reply /u/NeoLexical

Not sure what to make of your answer. He's going to help other areas of SR League? Or is he being poached like the other important members of the Champs team to help on Modes? zzzz :p

I just feel SR League gets treated unfairly internally at Riot now, feels like its "old news". I just feel the Champs team in specific is so delicate, and I could be wrong, but its super difficult to replace people within the team when turnover happens.

Overall, and as I said earlier, I feel the quality of champs (to me) has dipped. Is there anyway you can share that one play rate chart that Yasuo dominated for years? How are the depth and breadth stats of the newer releases? Are they matching, exceeding, or failing expectations?