League of Legends Dev Tracker

OPL and LPL started their split, but the VODs have not been uploaded to watch.lolesports.com just yet. they should be available within a couple days. if you catch them live, you'll be able to earn rewards.

Champs I have been thinking about for the poll have been Skarner, Shyv, Nocturne, Rammus, Udyr, Quinn, Shaco, Trynd, Cho'Gath. Not sure who will make the cut yet

He is up there as well, he very likely could end up on the next voting poll

Yeah, the Aatrox removal was not taken lightly. In cases like that, it's a bit easier to see looking back but a lot of their troubled post-release development comes from a dedication to preserving the cool things that make each champ unique. Sometimes, though, the right call in the end is to make the cut (I would argue that Aatrox ended up being one of these cases). If a champion is hewing really close to their thematic pillars but is inaccessible to most of the players who would enjoy that theme because of balance, we're still unfortunately failing to deliver that theme properly to players.

While it's true Udyr would be expensive, that doesn't mean we wont ever VGU him. We still discuss him a lot when we discuss VGU candidates. I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up on the next VGU poll

What about Pyke, my data shows his still primarily played as a support with like a 85% support playrate compared to other roles.

Maxwell

Maxwell is working on the Jungler and EndlessPillows is working on the Assassin

Not exactly. I think both that title and Two Coats came out of a story sketch I wrote. (A story sketch is a idea I came up with while on champ team, which was writing short stories during development to illustrate a possible personality and possible theming to the team... and to hopefully create alignment. I called them "Story Sketches" to highlight their impermanence and their non-directive nature. I.e. to clarify it was a type concept art... (but with words instead of lines.). But because I wrote so many of those story sketches --they all kinda bleed together in my head. ( I think I wrote somewhere between 16 and 18 short stories just for Tahm.) I do remember the name Tahm came from Matt Dunn. (who apparently has a friend named that).

As someone who used to work on that team, and still works closely with them—theme is definitely a consideration. The team always tries to keep theme intact (or even enhance it where possible), though the work is often all about trade-offs in the end because no balance change is going to be perfect and they all cost something to someone.

I will say that if any change is going to more severely undercut theme, the mandate will often be to find another way to get the job done, because theme is clearly an important part of our champions.

Hey! these missions can be completed by watching VODs or live games from this split only. unfortunately, there was no way for you to know that and that's on us, and it probably feels especially worse since several leagues have not started their split yet.

we're looking at improving clarity so you know when a match you're watching is eligible for rewards and if it's not, why it's not eligible to make things less confusing.

We were discussing a major gameplay update to Malphite a few years ago, but when we looked into it we found that he's an INCREDIBLY popular champ worldwide (upper quarter of the roster). In China he's top 10 for popularity. IMO he could use a visual update for sure, but there's a reason the most recent changes to his gameplay were pretty minimal. A lot of players love what's already there.

It's more of a Assassin/skirmisher hybrid, but as we got further on in development we realized it leaned a bit more towards Assassin. I think if you like melee carry skirmishers you will still love this champ

AS a side note... hopefully at some point balance team will solve how to power limit/gate his ally consume. (personally I always thought he should have to eat an enemy to "reload" eating an ally again --in addition to the cooldown) But whatever I'm not a GDesigner.

Yeah... he was not the easiest character to pitch to our department heads and owners. (Though our PO Omar was onboard really quick) But actually a lot of Tahm's theming and personality was me trying to find a middle-ground between what Game design (The talented Daniel Klein) was leaning towards (an evil demon that eats you) and what Concept Art (The talented Chris Campbell) was leaning towards (a comedic big mouth character). While Chris got the basic image down (which Gem Lim then polished) I began wandering around the office doing the voice and accent with the catch phrase. "Now, I would hate be loquacious in my preambulatory..." while writing short stories. And Chris saw the character was more fun with an undercurrent of threat, while Daniel saw he could have the demon he wanted with comedy... while he was also realizing Tahm could be fun with an ally consume. (Which we called his APC ability at the time). And then it all sorta jelled. (Excluding a long fought battle ...

Oooooh
I know what that means
LEC IS ABOUT TO RESTART
SEND US THE CONTENT
MAKE IT RAAAAAIIIIINNNNNN

Serious Lady Maria vibes on the SA Kayn. Love it!

EU ADC on NA server..... what a beast

This is genius

I really hope he takes good care of himself before considering to come back!