Legends of Runeterra Dev Tracker

yes, absolutely this, for dedicated irelia players her current position of being "playable in ranked but on the weak side" is ABSOLUTELY preferable to "literally unplayable in standard ranked but maybe stronger in an unsupported format".

Just to be clear, her current position hasn't been mega-nerfed. She's just been nerfed, but is still a potential consideration in the format. She is still sharply restricting design space for token decks.

She would have to be nerfed way, way more to make her truly irrelevant in the competitive metagame. That's the point of mega-nerfing, to make something so weak it might as well not exist when it comes to competitive balance; so that the card is no longer restricting design space.

Sure thing. Vlad's problems are diving into a whole other wrinkle in all this, the tension of power related to region identity goals for standard vs more fluid region identity in eternal. Vlad's mechanical identity is awkward for our current vision for his region in standard and making him strong would cause problems within standard for that reason. Rotating him means we could buff him without causing problems to standard's region identity divisions.

Basically, Vlad isn't being rotated because he's too powerful. He's being rotated because making him strong would mess with region identity in his current design. We're interested in finding a new version for him (as discussed in part 1 of the article).

It's worth noting that things do change tiers in Poke'mon too, and that there are many examples of competitive formats in Poke'mon happening focusing on different tiers!

I... May have been watching a lot of poke'mon competitive lately. It's so relaxing to do while I work on designs.

So far I've been focusing on the reasons that we can benefit from having two formats instead of one, which is largely about the differences in power level. However, we can absolutely rotate and unrotate things - and we will when we think that'll be the most fun.

I can't tell you exactly what the frequency of un-rotating will be though, because we'll be paying attention to what works best once we're live. It's a valuable tool in the toolbox but we're still planning to buff/nerf/rework alongside it as we always have; and we'll want to pay attention to what works best when it's live. I know I'll also be paying attention to how things go when eternal ranked mode is live vs when it is...

This is a fantastic example. What game was this? I've seen similar things in many games but the nemesis region component makes me think I don't know this one.

Yes, this was a top point of feedback in the responses. We have a lot of tools at our disposal. Some people wrote that they'd love to see new versions of champions, such as version of Pyke that wasn't tied to Lurk and could be played in more decks. Some people said they wanted to visit their favorite champions in competitive occasionally, but didn't need to play with them all the time. Some people said they cared the most about the playstyle and mechanics, that the champion itself wasn't as big a deal. Some people said they were hyped to see new champions and original champions even more than one specific one.

I designed my own card actually to introduce myself when I was hired. I create cards on strike and level up once I've created 5 cards. :)

It's getting late and I want to make sure I can respond to some others too, so I just want to hit one part here: the assumption that Eternal is being set up to be abandoned. People in the community told me many times that Path of Champions was dead and never going to get anything more the moment we announced we were refocusing on pvp. So far we've more than doubled the number of new champions, run several path events, added procedural weekly adventures, new world adventures, and we aren't done yet.

Seeing the positive responses to each has encouraged us to do more whenever we find the time. And Path of Champions started because the original Lab of Legends got a lot of attention from players too. It was a small thing that grew big because players liked it.

If players play something and care about it, we notice.

Thanks. I'm glad people care so much about LoR, I know the concerns come from a good place.

I think the point about some archetypes feeling as meaningful as rotating out a whole hearthstone class is a great point. It's easy to think of archetypes as fragments of classes, but because they're often based around champions they have a deeper identity than Hearthstone's archetypes do.

This is actually one reason I bring up Azir/Irelia so much. A lot of people love that deck (even though many others don't love playing against it) but it's problematic for restricting design space. If we need to free up room, how do we preserve the deck for players that love it? Would it be better to meganerf Irelia and her support cards until the deck isn't competitively viable, but keep it technically possible to play it on a standard ranked ladder? Or would it be better to keep the cards very similar but move it out of the standard format? Or better to redesign irelia so she no longer ...

My pleasure. I know everyone here cares about the game and wants the best for it. We do too. I'm on vacation right now so I have extra time. :)

Um, no. Malygos posed a threat to design sustainability in standard's lower power level - not wild's higher power level.

Any LoR cards that pose a threat to sustainability in all formats will need to be nerfed or reworked. We can and will still nerf, buff, and rework cards.

When I can preserve decks players enjoy I try to, even if it'd be easier for me to just nerf or rework them until they aren't something I need to worry about. :)

the more i read this the more i think "why not just nerf myalgos"? it seems to me like he poses a threat to design sustainability.

He does, and you can absolutely nerf Malygos. The question is which is better for players - and whether you want to let Muhammad Ali go to the Heavyweight division or break his arm to even the odds against the lower weightclass fighters. :)

Malygos decks were pretty fun for a lot of players and an iconic part of the game. I'm glad they still exist in a higher power format. I like being able to change formats and experience different metagames myself. Vintage is like my desert when I play MTG for example, I wouldn't want to grind it every day but I love being able to play with black lotus sometimes as a treat.

The nice thing about rotation is that cards don't have to exist in the same format as other cards forever. Malygos opened up some really cool design space for cheap spell damage effects being good!...

Can we get that dev blog then?

It's possible, but I feel like talk is cheap. We need to prove it. Once rotation is live we'll know for sure whether it's working and where it can be improved. We can keep making posts about why we think rotation is good for the game despite the understandable anxiety of many players, but if we're wrong then none of that matters and if we're right then the proof will be in the gameplay.

It's also worth noting that almost no decision in game design is unanimous. The fact I flipped opinions on a ranked ladder multiple times isn't uncommon, I often change my mind on design questions based on new and compelling arguments or various other factors. We can't discuss all factors all the time anyway, because some stuff isn't announced yet.

For example, we knew about new gauntlets for months - and that they'd also be introducing variety formats to contrast with whatever the ranked ladder was. But we couldn't ...

Sorry that it's discouraging, but don't you think it's also really discouraging for us?

Absolutely. I was a game player long before I was also a game designer. I remember how frustrating it is to feel like obvious mistakes are being made when you love the game and want it to succeed, and that your feedback is being ignored even when it's asked for. It's deeply weird to be on the other end of it, and it never really gets less weird.

The issue with rotation is that it's a solution to tactical design problems that the community often never sees. You can't see all the cards we cut over the months because of problems like the ones I'm referring to. You have to be in the room to know about them.

It's also hard because many players want very different things. Some players would rather have a larger format where massive buffs and nerfs happen all the time to all the cards. It keeps things fresh and continually interesting.

Other pl...

I'm very torn on that myself. There are big advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. We've talked about them back and forth internally for a lot of meetings, and I've often flipped opinions on this. I don't think I could begin to lay out all the thinking on this one question outside of a whole dev blog.

The simplest answer is that we want to build the best competitive metagame in the world. We think that focusing on standard as the premiere competitive format most of the time will let us do that.

This answer isn't sufficient on its own, and there are a LOT more factors involved in the discussion. It's possible we may eventually move to both having ranked ladders in the future based on how players end up engaging with both modes, but I think it makes sense to start by focusing on standard and see how things go. Some formats are more fun when people don't feel pressured to try-hard them (Commander in MTG is one example).

It's also worth noting that ran...

Unfortunately you don't need to really worry about that since the article that just came out really did the job rejecting all our feedback for you :(

I get that it probably feels like that, and I admit that seeing comments like this is pretty discouraging. It makes me feel like all the time we spent pouring over feedback and talking with fans is wasted, if people assume that we aren't doing it anyway.

We genuinely believe this approach is going to help make the game better for everyone overall. We might be wrong, but if we thought it was a better approach to just not do rotation it'd be the easiest decision in the world. It's much scarier to risk angering your most dedicated players in the short term. The only reason we're doing this is because we genuinely think it's going to help us make a better game for everyone.

But doesn't that just rotate them into Eternals and then the problem is there now? It's already a s...

Thanks for the detailed thoughts. I think there's some confusion about the specific design challenges we're talking about, because it's hard to know all the cards we don't make unless you're the ones not making them.

I understand you've been a player in both Hearthstone and LoR. Glad to have you! I've been a designer on both Hearthstone and LoR too, so this is a great chance to talk about the differences of each. I don't mean to write this as a 'takedown' or a rejection of your feedback, we all want the best for the game and I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on how to get there.

We likely won't know for sure until we have tried rotation for a little while if it's ultimately a good approach to building the game. I could definitely be wrong. I just want to provide some clarifications about the current reasoning.

Currently, the reasoning behind rotations is mainly to ensure that they don't have to re...