How much of Arena in Smite have you guys played? Someone said Brawl was like that and I got SUPER excited.
The only thing that's taken time away from me playing league well over a decade is Arena in Smite.
A fair amount, way back in the day. Was definitely my favorite part of that game.
How will balancing work in Brawl? How can you balance Hwei, for example, who has great wave clear and beast in team fighting and, for example, zed whose teamfighting and wave clear is not as good?
We'll be doing a bit of proactive balance around pulling down high power champs (like best in class make the mode unfun types) and making sure that characters with mechanics like stack gathering or lategame scaling still feel good and functional in the mode. After that, we'll be targeting adjustments to keep the mode fun for everyone.
Same general approach for items and runes, there are just a lot of pieces of content tuned for a different combat style/cadence and different gametime than Brawl, so we need to do our due diligence there. I'm sure we won't catch everything, but we'll be giving a good stab at it and you can expect more changes post-release.
How much shroom could a Teemoshroom shroom if a Teemoshroom could shroom shrooms?
A Teemoshroom could shroom all the shrooms once a Teemoshroom shrooms a shroom.
All the pvp maps that have been released have been small in size compared to SR. Would you ever consider releasing a map larger than SR?
It's not off the table, but we would need a really good pitch for a mode that absolutely has to be big. Making bigger maps at similar quality is going to be more expensive and take time, and we'd typically prefer to focus on using our resources to deliver more new modes instead.
Read moreFirst of all: I want to thank you sincerely for bringing this game mode to life (before I've even played it). Based on description, this is the exact league experience I have been wanting for YEARS now. I mainly play aram because I want fast, action packed games where I don't have to suffer through laning phase or draft before I get to have fun, but I have always wished there was a game mode that l could play the champions I actually want to play and still have that same experience. I am SO excited for this game mode, and I sincerely hope that the team will push to make this a permanent mode (yes, all of this hype before I've played it. I CANNOT WAIT!!!!)
Second: actual questions!
I'm very curious about the choice of Bandle City as a setting! I've always pictured Bandle City as this massive, unimaginable metropolis that spans an unfathomable amount of land/area. But this new mode seems to be quite a small map, perhaps something more akin to a ravine in the...
To answer the second question, I think that a mode where you start at full build could work, but would need a lot more design work to make it interesting throughout. Scaling up from weak to strong is a core part of League's gameplay fantasy and results in different combat outcomes over the course of the game (fighting someone at levels 4, 8, and 16 will have dramatically different texture and outcomes). The pitch for Brawl was closer to "the teamfight and skirmish action of Summoner's Rift, without the macro," so we opted to keep all of that power growth in for this mode.
add bans please, then it's playable
We were optimizing for getting into games fast and players being able to pick what they want which ended up leaning toward quickplay queue structure and thus no bans. If 20% of your Brawl gametime is in lobby it's probably a bit tiring to play the mode, for example.
That being said, I think there's some real opportunity longterm for figuring out a way to give people a ban or something like it. That'd be a sweet exploration space for the future but would have to really figure out how to balance it against impact on queue times and player desire for the feature.
Funniest Brawl unique bug you ran into during testing?
Jungle camps used to have 0 patience. You'd start attacking them and they would freak out and go back to their starting position near instantly. :)
Another one was that Chaos siege minions specifically at one point would just arrive at the portal and just... stand there. They wouldn't jump in the portals, they'd just stay there and wait for someone to kill them.
What makes Brawl a better game mode for new player ?
I've tried showing League to a few friends and the experience was so miserable for them despite my best effort
To add to Sirhaian's answer with some more nitty-gritty design...
It's critical that new players can understand why learning the game is worthwhile and experience a sample of that first-hand. ARAM actually does a pretty good job on both of these, but the inability to pick a champion undermines new players' ability to find their fave and have a familiar foundation going into each game. We believe that an ARAM-adjacent mode like this with free champion pick, stronger acceleration (you WILL get to play a strong version of your champ) and a lower-stakes vibe can be more successful for new players.
I heard each game would be around 10 minutes long. How fast will someone get to late game items and levels, like if I pick kayle or kassadin will I just be useless the whole game since it ends so fast.
Gold and XP are greatly accelerated, and some late-game champions (e.g. stackers) will have manual tweaks so they fit the pace of the mode. We've found late-game champions effective, but if they end up being weak we'll buff them.
Is there any new spicy items coming to Brawl?
No, we felt the format and new map were the main draw and wanted to focus on that. We talked about those early on, but didn't feel like this was the right place, especially given one of the goals of helping new players have a safer, more fun place to learn.
I heard each game would be around 10 minutes long. How fast will someone get to late game items and levels, like if I pick kayle or kassadin will I just be useless the whole game since it ends so fast.
Gold and XP are greatly accelerated, and some late-game champions (e.g. stackers) will have manual tweaks so they fit the pace of the mode. We've found late-game champions effective, but if they end up being weak we'll buff them.
It's like ARAM but faster, with more fighting, and without structures!
And you can pick your champion!
I just want a Rioter to say hi to me :(
hi!
For /u/RiotCadmus how did you guys land on bandle city for the map, given this season is focused on Ionia. Did you guys explore any other map ideas and whats the story behind this place, does it also have a proper name?
For /u/RiotPhlox given this map is in bandle city can we expect intermittment pipes to play through the mode. Also what initial design goal for the mode?
The strategic goal of maximizing ear pain is one we hadn't considered for the mode, but I do like the idea of scattering intermittent pipe sounds around for targeting that value.
The initial design goal is best spoken to by /u/AzuBK, but generally it was to target a fast, lower-stress mode that can afford large skill differences while still letting you pick your champion
Thank you for answering! I think it is so cute especially since they are both on the 'elder' side of yordles (not that it truly manners with their kind :P)
I imagine them having so many stories to tell eachother - if there were any other decisions or details that u/RiotPoise wanted to add to the shops environment specifically, but didnt for whichever reason, I would love to hear about it! Hope you had a lovely birthday :D
Aww yes, I had a lovely birthday surrounded by friends! Thank you so much! :D
(They just demolished me at Top Golf but that's okay i still love 'em <3)
Are there any Veigar references for the minions or the portals they come from?
We went for typical yordle magic (golden gloopy magic) for the Order side vs Lulu-type magic (pink faerie magic) for the Chaos side. But some Veigar flavor would have been really nice, I agree!
Funniest Brawl unique bug you ran into during testing?
K'sante could permakill someone by ulting them off the map at one point.
can u tell phlox and sirhaian they're my goats thank u
pog
Do you think there will be unique balance changes for this mode like there are for aram and arena?
We designed the mode to be closer to Summoner's Rift gameplay than ARAM (being able to recall and heal makes a huge difference), so we expect fewer extreme balance outliers. We do plan to balance similarly to ARAM, and we're considering which champions are clearly powerful enough to pre-emptively balance.
Read moreAs someone who has poured alot of hours into Smite and at a relatively high level, I have 1 large concern and 1 smaller question regarding Brawl. The first being, what other measures are in place/being considered to prevent stalling and second, when will be able to see champion specific buffs/nerfs within a game mode in the client?
My main concern is what is in place to prevent stalling. In lower elo leaning games in Smite, players tend to play what they want irrespective of team comp, and people tend to play more to not die. I think these 2 issues are unavoidable, you can't (and shouldn't want to) dictate what people play, nor can you flip a switch in someone to fight to the death. This occasionally resulted in games stalemating due to the abundance of safe clear on ranged champions (Admittingly a larger issue in Smite's god design than League), and how easy it was to reset and heal in between waves. In higher elo games, people realize there is no punishment for staying cl...
The side camps are very powerful in terms of gold/xp value, so playing defensively is typically a losing play in our tests so far. We've had a lot of lower skill tests, and also had the Game Analysis Team do some focused testing, and in both the games were typically aggressive and bloody, even if individual players are more risk-averse. More optimized play typically resulted in shorter games with more decisive skirmishing around the edges of the map. I do think there are some comps that lend themselves to stalling, and if we see that emerge as a very common playstyle I expect we'll want to take action.
I don't have an answer for the champion-specific buffs/nerfs visibility, sorry.
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