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Appreciate the communication. So without COVID, would there have been more VGU’s this year?
yes, that was originally the plan, that's why we said we wanted to do a VGU poll last year
Appreciate the communication. So without COVID, would there have been more VGU’s this year?
yes, that was originally the plan, that's why we said we wanted to do a VGU poll last year
I work in development as well and we havent really slowed down after everyone got used to working from home. So this is a bit odd to me.
More so, if they are working on new characters, why are vgu different(I am not saying this as if they arent but I wonder why other balance and updates arent being halted but vgu's are.)
At this point now that everyone is accumustmed and has things setup at home we are not really moving slower, that's true. The transition from office to WFH was where it hit us, and when you have many projects in development at once like Champs team does a week or 2 adds up to many weeks of lost time (Champs team usually has 3-4 champs in production at any given moment) That time has to come from somewhere, and with the lengths of time champ development takes the consequences are usually seen like a year later in the schedule, not immediately.
For those of us who are new or returning from very long breaks (I just picked up after a 6 year absence), can you define vgu? I can't seem to find a definition anywhere
Visual and Gameplay Update, its where we take a old outdated Champ and rebuild them from scratch as a new champion (basically) while trying to preserve the spirit of the old champion and as much of the old champion as we can in the process
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I'm not sure where this perception that Champs make so much more then VGUs came from. Some VGUS have made more money then new champs,(especially ones with big skin catalogs that get updated with the VGU) some niche champs make much less then the base line VGU makes. Also, after we VGU a champ we can still make skins for it, just like a new champ. At the end of the day it doesn't matter though. The Champions Team is part of the Gameplay initiative at Riot, whos main goal is engagement not revenue. Skins in general make waaaay more then any new champion ever makes, and it's not really a goal for the Champions team to make revenue. Our main goal is engagement, which is to say we want to make products that keep people playing LoL. One of the reasons we toned down VGUs was that we saw data that showed that whenever we do a VGU some amount of players quite the game completely, usually mains of the champ that don't like the rework. If we do A LOT of VGUs in a year like we did in the past...
Read moreSS CG?
the Season Start CG with Viego in it
How are people saying this makes sense? They’re still releasing 6 new champs? Why would VGU’s slow down?
Isn’t the argument people make that resources should be diverted from new champs to VGU’s? I’m so tired of corporations using COVID as an excuse.
The reason we had to delay the 2nd VGU on this year to 2022 specifically is because we couldn't really delay other new champs in the roadmap. We had already planned the Return of the Ruined King story, and as I mentioned in the SS blog the next 3 champs are also all related to the story of Viegos return. When Covid hit and effected our schedule it would have been very difficult to delay Viego who we were already making a SS CG for (Which takes along time to make) but also the 3 new champs after him were interconnected with his story. All champs before those 4 were already in production so cutting them would be a lot more painful then delaying something that had barely just started. We had to basically have some other team members help ship Viego and some of our other projects for the 2nd half of last year which had effects on the schedule for this year.
Does this mean you still plan on trying to get a second VGU out for next year? Or is the plan currently only Udyr for 2022?
currently we want to do 2 VGUs in 2022, yes, not just Udyr. Obviously things can always change but our current goal is at least 2 VGUs for 2022, yes
Can you say without spoiling too much why you guys had to cut the 2nd VGU? Like, at sometime we didn't like the approach, etc
It was a resource issue, we were already behind due to covid and then we lost a designer on the team (not from Riot but they went to another team within Riot)
Oh, ok, I understand. That's a load off my mind. Thank you for responding, I hope I didn't overstep my bounds with this post.
no worries, its understandable, I was pretty sad when we had to cut the 2nd VGU for this year as well, as I love working on VGUs just as much as you all love seeing them released.
To be clear, we didn't intentionally drop down to 1, from a strategy perspective. We had orinally planned to do the VGU poll much earlier and ship 2 VGUs this year, Mundo and whoever won the poll, even when the voting tech had to be redone when we depreciated nexus, we still started up what would have been the 2nd VGU for 2021 without the voting poll. Unfortunately the realities of Covid and switching to a WFH model effected our production schedule. It's not something we plan on continuing every year in the future
Wait, I might have read it wrong but I'm confused- There's another VGU in the works other than Mundo and Udyr?
Not currently no
Do you think udyr is going to remain a niche champ or does he have the the potential to be more broad
I mean most champs become at least a bit more broad after we VGU them, I think Udyr has some potential to be more broad then he is now, for sure.
Hey Reav3! So the other independent VGU you mentioned is aimed for 2022 aswell as the blog mentions "The First VGU of 2022", right?
correct
The post said the team is looking to lower champion complexity? Man champions like Apehlios is why I play League. It's OK if you have to learn something new to play or play against. I hope there is still a balance between complex vs. non-complex champions..
yes we still want to make complex champs, this is more to say we want to also keep making champs like Sett/Seraphine, simple and approachable ones. In the past we think we did to many complex champs, and rarely made simple kits, so this is more about having better kit complexity diversity overall
May I ask your opinion about the champion who has consistently the lowest depth of all: Corki? You shared some ideas about Kog in the past (cute-y but maybe evolve-y), but nothing about him. Very curious if there is some small idea in mind for him
Not sure about small ideas but he is for sure on our VGU list, he probably doesnt need major gameplay changes, but does need a bit on the art and theme side for sure
When you release the results could you share the data on how each of the five mains voted for their champ vs voted for the other four?
Like do Udyr mains think their champ is fine and Skarner needs it the most? Or Quinn mains want the rework the most despite not winning the overall vote?
Results should be pretty soon
u/Reav3 So after this post I have only 1 question - whats about Mordekaiser? He was "Aatrox" ed too, but he become waaay more poppular(but at the same time hated by old mains).
With champs like old Morde or current Skarner they have some deep seeded issues we would need to resolve to make them healthy for the game. With Morde we tried to preserve as much as we could (Top lane AP juggernaut that hits you with a big mace) but some champs will need to change more then others for game health reasons. The goal is just to preserve as much as we can, but also to do DevBlogs that give visibility into the champs as well as communicate our goals more with players
/u/Reav3 does this mean you guys no longer see yourselves doing large kit overhauls anymore with VGUs
No, not at all, it just means we will try and preserve as much of the original playstyle as possible even if we do a big overhaul
Hi Reav3, should we assume that the results of the VGU poll will be aviable by the end of the month/early next month?
yeah should be roughly 2 weeks-ish hopefully
Hey Reav3, could you please show the breath/depth of Skarner, Nocturne, Udyr, Shyvana, Quinn? Just really curious where they are standing currently. Always love checking these graphs. Have a nice day!