[2023] [Twitter] - A follow-up message from Riot Brightmoon and Riot Meddler on behalf of the League team - League Cinematic

In retrospect, yeah, most of this should have either been in the recent dev videos or should have been things we brought up with you all last year.

There are also a couple of things, like the recently prototyped game mode I mention, that didn't exist when we were producing those videos in November and December.

We tried to cover as much as we could in a short amount of time (I already think 8 min is a long ask) so while we didn't cover everything we will continue to have updates on more parts of the game in the coming weeks and months

Based off what we've prototyped so far I think that one will be a game mode that works really well for some players and isn't of much interest to others. If you're looking for things like a focus on tactical champ v champ combat, figuring out which pairings of champions work best together and how builds should change in this context, this mode could be pretty exciting. If you're looking for different experiences, then yeah, might not be the right fit.

We're working to get back to offering a wider variety of modes for a range of different tastes. This is the example we were best placed to talk about today and we figured more transparency and specificity on what we trying than we've been offering recently was important, even if this example wouldn't appeal to everyone watching

Lemme ask about getting it onto YouTube as well if it's not already being done.

Yeah, that's the intent. 4 teams of 2 players, matchmaking against a random other pair each round, buy items and gain levels between rounds. Lose enough rounds and you get eliminated. Still figuring out a lot of the details in terms of how many rounds, map layout etc.

Going to do our damnedest. Looking to be a lot more proactive where we haven't been recently, I expect there'll also be some emergent stuff where reactive discussions are also needed too though (in addition, not instead)

What's your preference on format? I tend to favor text blogs or similar just personally (hate being on camera most of the time), but I realize a lot of people tend to prefer video content regardless.

Ah, apologies if we put a bit too much weight on the cinematic in our delivery. We wanted to cover that up front as the most recent thing, the trigger for talking like this in a much rougher than usual format, as something that was extra painful given other misses. Didn't want to convey we thought it was the central or key issue.

We absolutely should have. I pushed for us to make something when it became clear we wouldn't have a cinematic. Brink of Infinity wasn't meant to be a replacement for the CG but it certainly felt that way and taught me to never bring a blueberry muffin to a birthday if everyone is expecting I'm going to bring a birthday cake

It's something we'd like to offer, hence inclusion in Wild Rift for example. With the way Summoner's Rift was built it would require some pretty substantial overhaul's to the map's art unfortunately. Whenever's the right time to update the map as a whole we'll definitely do camera stuff like that.

I think the current version of SR has held up really well visually, but it's certainly going to hit a point sometime where the amount of stuff, both overall appearance and opportunities like that one, makes the case for another full update

1. Working on a game you also really love, missing the mark on stuff, seeing everyone else sad and upset about that does feel really bad

2. I'm not the most emotive person to begin with when doing stuff like this and tend to hate being on camera, so apologies there...

One of the things we're doing is team changes so we can have more than one ASU underway at once. We're aiming to share a few details soon on that (hopefully a couple of champs we're targeting and our best guess as to timelines)

Uh....

Puppet shows?

Things I'm confident enough to mention: - Game mode (2v2v2v2) as per the video, that I'm personally really optimistic will be a very fun experience - We're not doing a visual novel. We're prototyping a different take on a meta experience instead. Happy mentioning that, work isn't yet far enough along to offer any more, though will do so in following months be it what's working or what didn't - A new thematic for the event that pairs well with the 2v2v2v2 game mode concept (so not a return of any of the existing ones).

Beyond that - Not sure yet, will keep you folks posted. I don't think we'll hit the scope of the Odyssey event, but are certainly working to rebuild ability to run varied events regularly.

It was planned, got scripted, we got partway through development. The reason it didn't get finished is something I can't share specifics on, and I'm really sorry about that because I know it's a frustrating answer. I can say I'm very certain we won't hit the same issue with a cinematic for next year's season start.

Edit: Actually, to add a bit of tangibility - we saw some speculation that Aatrox would be in the season start cinematic because of the Aatrox ward skin, just like Ornn and the Ornn ward skin last year. That was indeed the plan, Aatrox was one of the featured champions.

Brink of Infinity (what shipped earlier this week) isn't what we were originally building. Once we knew we wouldn't be able to deliver a cinematic like other season starts we looked at what we could do with limited time, Brink of Infinity was the result. It wasn't intended to be a replacement or at the same level as a regular cinematic, thinking was it would be better to try something that do nothing. In retrospect we should have definitely talked to you all in advance about how things had gone wrong and arguably might still have been better off not shipping Brink of Infinity (was something not up to standard much worse than nothing etc)

Chatting with some folks to see what I can share on the lore side of things. Might not have an answer for you today, but posting to at least clarity not ignoring or missing this question.

Ah ok, yeah, as some folks have mentioned below apparently thinking was that this is pretty janky, quickly thrown together stuff compared to what we normally use the YouTube channel for, so some potential weirdness and clash of expectations from putting it there. Still discussing, but was a deliberate choice not a failure to think about YouTube

I believe we've got some thoughts on the LCS being shared sometime next week

Client work is part of the tech investment section. Didn't have any specifics to mention, and some of the work will take quite a while, so didn't want to build up expectations by using it as an example. Definitely one of the areas of investment though

A brief timeline:

1. We identify TFT as something we want to build and think it's something a lot of League players will love. We draw on a few different teams, with the League Modes team being the largest source of developers for the project
2. TFT launches, I think hits the mark well, and initially we're pretty focused on stabilizing the game and team. There's extremely high overlap between League and TFT players at this point, so we feel we're serving mode interest well for League players
3. The games become more independent, playerbases separate etc. This is where I think we f*cked up in retrospect, failing to realize we needed to put more priority on rebuilding the modes team, since investment in TFT was great for TFT players but wasn't delivering for League players. We did get a replacement team in place, who did some great work under the circumstances IMO (e.g. I think Ultimate Spellbook's a really good mode, as is the art update Nexus Blitz got). It wasn't a large enough or well supported enough team to get more old modes back or build additional new modes however
4. That rebuilt team hit some issues in 2022. We've since rebuilt the team, with a lot of extra folks and filling in some missing expertise. This year should be better from a modes perspective as a result and we'll share details on a few different modes (some old, some new) we're looking at in March most likely

Thoughts appreciated on mediums and channels. Agree on visibility being an issue, though I do think we should be doing better on approach and what we talk about too, in addition to better visibility

2023 should have more in it than 2022. Some things do take quite a while to ramp up and deliver so will take multiple years, other stuff will be quicker however

"He technically did end up in the cinematic anyway... lol"

Oof. I mean, you're not wrong but...

I'm not sure yet. One of the options being discussed for that 2024 cinematic is to make what we intended to make for 2023 with some adjustments to tie into planned themes for 2024. Very possible we do that, also very possible we go in a different direction.

I miss those days, despite some issues I did enjoy doing posts through Boards. Going to get back into more comms this year, I stopped in large part because I felt I couldn't talk about the state of the meta and game balance sufficiently anymore (just not close enough to that work compared to before) and that's such a big focal point for player discussion. Definitely a lot of other topics worth covering too in retrospect, even if I'll have to defer to others on balance discussions etc

I'll represent that feedback (and the folks who'll be building a plan for said cinematic are likely lurking here too, so they should also be seeing your thoughts direct)

Yeah, I think the first time actually worked really well (it was novel, pardon the phrase...) but trying to run it back didn't work well.

I don't know when yet, but in addition to the 2v2v2v2 mode mentioned we'll also be bringing Nexus Blitz back. Realize we said that last year and failed to do so, so not going to guess a timeframe without some confidence, but do want to mention we haven't just forgotten it, aren't ignoring it or anything similar

Improvements to anti-cheat we mention in the video will improve bot detection amongst other things

Not going to try and make any promises about when, especially after missing last year, but we haven't forgotten/aren't ignoring NB and will be bringing it back

We don't currently have a VN underway or planned. Not saying we won't ever do one again, maybe we will if we can find a way to make it feel fresh again. Nothing current being worked on in that regard though

🤠

For next year’s release we’ll have brainstorming and writing sessions (as we always do, incl. the one we were mid-flight in until we couldnt deliver), and our goal will be to tell the best stories possible and ones that match the theme or logline we have in mind. So no guarantees, but the feedback here def. will be considered

The champions featured in the Season 2023 missions actually match the lines delivered in The Brink of Infinity. So the story we had planned to tell in the champion-driven cinematic (before it got shelved) is not related to all the champs in the missions.

Our goal will be to brainstorm and write the best stories possible, so even if your fav. champ doesnt appear we hope it’ll still be memorable

If we don't end up going forward with some or all of the original intent then yeah, I'd be down to work on getting a bunch of concept art out. Don't want to do so just yet in case we conclude best option is to complete things as originally planned (would undercut things if so)

The skins team was one of the groups that needed some rebuilding and support in 2022. We should be able to deliver about the same amount of personalization content in 2023 as in 2022, weren't in a position to have someone speak to it cohesively as much when we were filming those videos though. One thing we'll be particularly focused on as well is having new thematics for biggest events (Worlds, MSI, Summer etc), rather than going back to established ones like Project, Star Guardian etc again

Hey there! I'm Graydiance, a game designer who swapped over to Modes from Wild Rift with the new year! I'm one of the designers now working on ARAM, and I can confirm we're actively looking into timers and other frustration points, like the turret rubble. Coming from Wild Rift, I'm learning a lot about how the games are both very similar and very different. One thing holds true in both - League's a game where often the best way to make sure the game ends is to remove people from the map. But, this isn't exactly fun, and we recognize that and emphatically agree with how the community feels.

We are trying a variety of solutions to make sure that if we change something frustrating, we aren't creating a different pain immediately. I didn't want to overshoot a death timer change in 13.1 because we didn't have a lot of time to test whether games would stall out with the Hexgates. We're doing that diligence now and will have something to share soon. We may not get it right the first time, but I promise we're committed to listening and trying again until we do.

As for less polished things that are less balance-focused - I completely hear this and I was personally really excited to join this team because everyone is eager to experiment. It's going to take us some time - I'm learning as fast as I can! - but the enthusiasm of the community truly is mirrored by our new Modes team.

Oh I totally spaced out on this - I have a riot flair on the WR sub, but not here. I can reach out myself to them too! Thanks for the help haha