R0gueFool

We plan on doing what is best for Wild Rift, sometimes that'll mean working alongside LoLPC, or mirroring something they do, and other times doing our own thing, and maybe they mirror that (if they feel it works for LoLPC).

This version of Elemental Rift is very similar to LoLPC, and we think that is a great starting point for us, but we will be testing other versions to find what works best.

We currently don't have plans to introduce the Mythic system to Wild Rift, we think it works great for what the LoLPC team was trying to do, but each game is different and we don't think it would be a great fit for Wild Rift. Mythic actives would be particularly tricky.

This is because it isn't saved as a video file, and instead a series of actions that the game replays. This makes the file MUCH smaller, but it also means you can't rewind/skip around.

To be clear, we do not expect or want Elder Dragon to be a frequent occurrence and it should not be an expected way to end games. It is there as a tool to close out games that go long.

If the game is long and teams are even, then Elder Dragon can be used to close it out. Or as a comeback/close out if a team has taken Dragon Soul and still not been able to close out the game.

We still have more Elemental Rift testing to do, and versions to try out. So keep the feedback coming!

I wouldn't expect it to come back. We changed it because of the problems that came out of being able to rush 50% crit. I haven't looked at its performance since the changes, but I haven't heard of anything being out of line or casters needing some love.

Right those 2 changes, Homeguard + Respawn Timers, are very interconnected. We would not do one without the other. Base respawn needed to go up to account for the Homeguard change.

As for the details of the respawn modifier changes.

Respawn Modifier

• Game Time < = 12 minutes
  • For each level the player is ahead or behind the average level, the respawn timer is adjusted by 10%
    • RespawnModifier = (PlayerLevel - AveragePlayerLevel) * 0.1
  • The modifier cannot exceed 15%
    • -0.15 < Respawn Modifier < 0.15
• Game Time > 12 minutes
  • No modifier

Realistically this is not a change you would be able to notice, you would need to be +/-2 levels from the average instead of 3 for this to kick in. All it really means is that if you are far ahead or behind (in the early-mid game) your respawn will be more in line with everyone else.

I'm going to link some more details about the Homeguard+respawn changes here because I have seen some confusion due to how we worded the change and I want to try and clear that up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wildrift/comments/tys4jg/comment/i3xl1og/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

I think you have a nice breakdown here, I made that Warmog's change!

So we could have explained this a bit better. This is not about making a losing team lose more, in fact, the opposite.

Before this change:

• Homeguard
  • Allied champions gain MS, removed on dealing or suffering damage
  • 0:00-0:60
    • Area: Entire Base
    • 80% MS for 12 secs
  • 0:60~12m
    • Area: Fountain
    • 40% MS for 10 secs
    • About enough to get you to your T2 turret.
  • 12m+
    • Area: Fountain
    • 30% MS for 4 secs
    • About enough to get you to the edge of your base.

This change removes the 3rd group and now after 1 minute, when you leave your base you have more movement speed. This goes hand in hand with the respawn changes.

This means that for the slight increase in death time you are now able to get back into the action quicker. If you need to defend your base, contest an objective, or even just get back to farmin...

How does its existence make the other drakes make more sense? What about adding a 4th drake changes it from "Drake1 - Drake2 - Drake3 - Elder Drake" to "Infernal - Ocean - Mountain - Cloud - Elder Drake"?

We could, but what is it about the Cloud Drake that you like? If it is the MS then this doesn't really address that. If it is a different reason can you elaborate on that a bit for me? The question isn't so much "can we add Cloud Drake?" it's really "Should we add Cloud Drake" What does its existence add to the game.

Ya there is learning for sure. It being a new mode that asks you to take dragon to see all the fancy new things, so players will go for that (understandable). This isn't a problem right now and we don't expect people to have it all figured out in just a few days (I'd call that a bad thing). But so long as the tools are there, and in a decent spot, I trust the balance team will make some tweaks and get it into a good tuning spot.

We anticipated some level of "I wanted to try dragon soul / elder" so people are very likely to force it right now. But ultimately our goals we don't think that every dragon should mean "everyone go for dragon now" we have been playing that for the past year. But our hope is that teams will still care about getting the dragon and dragon soul, but also be willing to push for plays around the map.

By reducing the power of Dragons/ team objectives for example we increase an individuals power. Maybe this means you are willing to trade the first dragon for the first tower etc.

Elemental Rift Goals: 1) Increase individual agency and one's ability to impact the game. 2) Give players breathing room between fights. 3) Increase the power and impact of tactical gameplay + making strategic choices more visible. 4) Reduce the impact of the "weakest link" teammate on the outcome of the game.

Good to know, let me ask this question in a slightly different way.

We are open to changing the respawn times (or any numbers for that matter). Is there a preference for what you would like to see more often between Elder Dragon and Dragon Soul. As a bad example, we could make every other dragon an Elder Dragon, and players would see Elder more often. Maybe even an Elder Elemental Dragon so that Dragon Soul remains unaffected.

And what percentage of games do you think Dragon Soul or Elder Dragon should show up in?

Elder is designed to make sure games end. The soonest you can see it is 20+ min, and like you said it can spawn much later than that if the other team gets a dragon. So a long close game still needs to come to an end, and forcing an Elder fight should be a good way to do that.

Thanks for the feedback! Are you saying that you think Dragon Soul and/or elder should happen every game? Because right now the scenario you proposed suggests that the game would end before either team gets either, or if the game is more one sided it can obviously happen at the 15+ mark. Do you think that is wrong for a game to end without either?

Can you elaborate on that thought a bit for me?

Correct, we will be iterating on Elemental Rift and it could change a lot, based on player feedback. It makes sense to solidify her changes as we get closer to the final version.

It isn't something we plan on over looking, but the options were to ship changes that would imbalance her for ranked, for a passive more geared towards a game mode that we expect to iterate on (and thus we would need to reshape for each version). So we decided to leave her passive alone until we got closer to a more final version.

The thought was that we would test without cloud drake and see how that feels first. It doesn't mean we couldn't bring it back in a future test (and/or final version) it really depends on the feedback.

It's worth keeping in mind that more isn't always better, by removing it we will see the other more appreciable drakes/map changes more frequently. Maybe that is a good thing, maybe it's a bad thing.

As for the dates, I don't know of any plans to change those, it is possible that they get extended (not something I would be a part of deciding), but we expect to be testing multiple iterations.

Unfortunately, I don't know the details of the matchmaking system, but I believe each mode uses its own matchmaking.

We are also not super concerned about the balance/tuning yet. We really want to make sure people are able to try the mode, and that we are hitting the below goals. Tuning is a part of that for sure but we expect to be making changes to the system then tuning within that system.

Elemental Rift Goals:

1) Increase individual agency and one's ability to impact the game.

2) Give players breathing room between fights.

3) Increase the power and impact of tactical gameplay + making strategic choices more visible.

4) Reduce the impact of the "weakest link" teammate on the outcome of the game.

We are testing it as a game mode first. We plan on using player feedback to drive iteration, that will make it into the final Elemental Rift, that will replace the standard map.

You can still start with a Long Sword then build DS from there. You'll end up using the longsword in another item.