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It’s funny that the article quotes me as if it’s taken word for word but changes a lot of the wording of my comments
It’s funny that the article quotes me as if it’s taken word for word but changes a lot of the wording of my comments
No graph needed, but I'm curious. What champion surprised you the most with how they trended?
Probably Volibear. We expected him to be more popular after the rework, but he jumped a lot higher in engagement then we had expected
Any chance you could share Taliyah's please? c:
on an unrelated note, can you please share the popularity of Yone since his release?
Hey Reav3, thanks for all of your transparency through the Sentinels event and sticking to reddit even though i know you guys caught a lot of shit for the event. I know it must be really difficult to stay connected when it seems a lot of people are ungrateful.
Just a quick question - what are you thoughts on going through with your newer designers on the team and having them focus on more VU’s for champions like Orianna, Janna, Jarvan, Jax, etc? Seems like it could be a win for players but not require quite as many resources as full VGU’s. I think a lot of people would appreciate more Ezreal style updates.
VUs are something we talk about A LOT these days, especially since our outsourcing pipeline has gotten more and more robust. It actually take A LOT of resources to do fully in house since the vast majority of a the resources working on champions are artists. Basically each VU we do on Champions team would mean one less New Champ or VGU that year. Now if we can get to a point where we only do like 10-20% of a VU in house and the rest through outsourcing then it becomes reasonable. Believe me, I would love to bring back VU's, and hopefully it's something we can restart again in the future.
So basically the things that were said earlier aren't actually happening and are just getting pushed back more? It's almost impossible for more humanoids to come out next year and a creature champion and niche humans if nothing is changing until the end of the year. As someone who has been playing since 2012, this feeling of having my interests and wants be shoved to the side as a player really makes me want to quit being invested in a game that has been part of a very large portion of my life. I know that this is likely not your fault, and that you probably don't want this either, but the vague language being used earlier followed by this slap in the face feels like a betrayal of the one thing that was giving me hope in League as everything else I cared about was being torn down and stomped on.
No, I think u will start to see the shift in 2022, but you will see it shift even more in 2023
Interesting, so was Vex planned to be released in the same event as Akshan? Like Lillia-Yone in Spirit Blossom. Just asking, because I can't imagine an unbound-like event on its own
Yes, she was originally planned to ship during the first patch of the event
So, what I got out of that is.
Designers think Shyvana is hard. (in general)
No one is passionate about Shyvana and thus... back burner.
Quinn and Shyvana are screwed.
I can see the "new person" point as doing something you see as "hard" isn't a good start for them. So the only way Shyvana or Quinn are ever getting reworked likely is if they win a poll getting lucky to be on it and thus forcing Riot to work on it vs them wanting to do it.
But also note that these points only get harder over time, the more skins they get, that is more you need to rework. If their kits age more that's more that you need to solve. So why are you guys slowing down so much? 2 VGUs is a very low number for 2022 (unless you are planning more) Many champions feel awful even if they play okay.
Additionally if Shyvana is screwed over for another year (likely more) then why can't she get at least her kit updated to smooth out her AP/AD/Tank builds?
Actually many people are super passionate about Shyvana on the team, and had Udyr not won we might have worked on her as the next VGU, since she is also high demand from players. Doing two multiple form VGUs in a row would have been a huge amount of work, especially for our outsourcing partners who help us with the skins.
hey Reav3! Little question about skins. At what point of production is the release skin chosen? Since Vex was delayed (meant to come after Gwen), was she planned for a different skinline, or is this defined later in dev? This also goes back to Seraphine too, who was held back to match K/DA's comeback. Was another skinline originally planned for Sera? There are some rumors about Spirit Blossom Seraphine going around lately
We never planned another skin for Seraphine, since we decided to put her in K/DA before we got to the skin selection phase. We generally choose the skin later in production after the base champion is pretty far along. Vex was originally going to have like a Unbound Vex skin. Basically the idea was that after you faced her in Freljord, she would go back to Viego, and he would give her a bunch of black mist and basically power her up. And then when you see her again in Pilt/Zaun she would be in her skin form. Once we realized we had to push her back we ended up cutting that since we didn't feel like the skin would have as much impact out side of the event.
Glad we're back to 2015 2016 again
I know a lot of players like the 2015-16 era. but I don't think we will ever swing so drastically back in that direction. While their was some "out their" and unique champ designs, many of them are some of the lowest played champions in the game. Making some really unique Champions that are praised for their creativity but that no one plays would not be successful imo. Every Champ doesn't have to be super popular with a super high playrate, but the playrate of some of the 15-16 champs is so low that you almost never see them in the game. Due to that we swung more hard towards broad appeal in the last couple years. For 2021 we made it a goal to add more ethnic and cultural diversity to the game, which also led to more broad appeal humans. We used tricks and techniques we KNOW work for making champion themes broadly appealing since we wanted to make sure the game itself felt more diverse, which means when you actually play a game of League you see more cultural diversity, which means...
Read moreIf the champions on the VGU polls are supposed to be the ones that are seen as "high-priorities for updates", why is the next VGU a champion not on the poll? Why wait on them even longer?
And if the champion that was picked really needs it more than any of them... why weren't they just on the poll instead in the first place?
Because choosing champions for VGUs is a lot more complicated then just choosing any high priority champion from the list. A lot goes into choosing a VGU champion. How many skins the Champion has, what the team is passionate about, what our resources are currently, etc. Like, for example, if we got a new designer on the team, and we want to give them a project, we wouldnt just throw them on Shyvana, since she is a pretty complicated project. We might put them on a easier project, and let them ramp up onto the team. Also we might want to do 2 VGUs in the year, and we might not have resources to do 2 VGUs with a ton of skins, or something like Shyvana who would have 2 forms for each skin, which would have a extended dev cycle. Udyr is already incredibly time consuming to make since he has multiple forms and also has a ultimate skin. So we wanted to choose something for the 2nd VGU that was possible to get done that year, and less intensive overall then a multiple form champion or a C...
Read moreWhy was there a Harrowing in Bandle City? Wasn't the reason why Poppy didn't get to be a sentinel specifically because the Spirit Realm was unaffected by the mists? Doesn't Vex's entire existence now contradict this?
I'm so tired of the consistent contradictions. But I guess this is what happens when Riot fires all the people responsible for the actual good writing of their universe.
The Ruination didn't happen in Bandle City. A portal opened up from the Shadow Isles (long before the global ruination.) Mist from the Shadow Isles was seeping through the portal. (This was shown in the champion roadmap where we first talked about Vex) Vex followed the mist to the source and went through it to the Shadow Isles
Is it the VGU that was in development last year before the poll?
No
Been loving these graphs. I think League needs more niche champions. Not every champion needs to broadly appeal. What is your opinion on that?
For sure. I think for 2022/23 you are going to start seeing a bit more niche champs. Less broad appeal humans in general.
Uhm then why does Vex's bio mention it reached Bandle City then?
A Portal opened up in Bandle City from the Shadow Isles. Black mist was seeping through it into Bandle City (this was prior to the global ruination) She followed the mist to its source and went through the portal to the Shadow Isles
Hey a bit off topic but I was wondering if you'd be willing to share the breadth, depth, niche and popularity of the lil kidly champions, Zoe, Nunu and Annie? I don't recall ever seeing them anywhere
Is it possible this champion may have been on the last rework poll? Asking for a friend. A feathery friend, to be specific. :>
It's not a Champion from the last poll
Is it the same champion that the previously canceled/abandoned VGU was? Or was that VGU going to be Udyr and that's why he was on the poll this year?
No that was Volibear along time ago. And then we iceboxed that, and then later he won the poll and we did him then
Uhm then why does Vex's bio mention it reached Bandle City then?
It was seeping out of one of the portals, as seen in the Vex teaser from a couple of roadmaps back, and then she went through that portal to the shadow Isles
Vex would never be friends with that try hard Veigar