On the note of VFX Artists, is the job seriously that highly in demand that it's a struggle to Hire one? To clarify I'm not asking in a faux sarcastic tone, I'm genuinely curious. This information could be an avenue for aspiring Gamers that wanna join the Gaming Biz.
Yes, good VFX artists have been in very high demand in every studio I've worked at. Most of the more technical/specialized art roles are.
All that team would've had to have done was unearth their dusty forum posts from when they were teenagers and then tweet them. No additional work required.
I mean, you're not wrong...
Never seen things through that perspective, it must be hard seeing people hate your work and working around such a toxic community such as League's, I guess I am just salty because I really disliked the Lillia rework (plz bring old prance back Lillia is legitimately depressing to play)
It would be a lot harder to see people just not care than to have a lot of people love it but some people really hate it.
I'm comfortable with the fact that sometimes I'm going to explain where we're coming from and it's going to piss someone off. I wasn't under any illusions that I was going to farm upvotes by explaining why we aren't able to do as many updates as people ask for, for example. It's still better to put it out there.
Read moreWe would like to do more VGUs than we've done for 2021, but the rate isn't likely to go up enormously in the near future.
Weird, cuz y'all had previously said you were only doin 1 vgu in 2021 cuz of covid?
Sucks major ass tbh, esp wit the current poll system. The votin def the best way to get the communities opinion, which I appreciate y'all doin greatly! But it also means y'all recognize that there are 5+ champs that NEED updatin & ignorin all but 1 for an entire yr. Like what does that say about your priorities if y'all acknowledge issues & then do nothin bout em, sometimes for 2+ yrs like in the case of shyv & nocturne. Not trynna flame you directly or anythin, I understand there's prob a whole slew of people involved in makin these decisions, but it really is awful to have your fav char look like dogshit for...
Yeah - something is being lost in translation here?
I said:
We would like to do more VGUs than we've done for 2021, but the rate isn't likely to go up enormously in the near future.
Expanding on that a bit - we want to do more than 1 in a year and are pretty likely to do more than 1 next year. It's not going to replace all new champions for a given year or anything like that. If we can find clever resourcing tricks to get the rate higher, particularly on less disruptive stuff (true VUs, or Ezreal-style light VGUs for champions like Jax), we would certainly pursue that.
When you f**k up reworks of course people drop those champs, for example, Amumu has been an actual good rework, minor tweaks, and some interesting changes, while with Lillia you guys f**ked up her early game and gutted her mos fun mechanic (Prance), is it really surprising that people would stop playing a champ you guys make unrecognizable instead of actually solving their issues and talking to mains to at least make them feel similar?
No but seriously, it isn't just when we mess up reworks. Even the reworks that have gone over best cause churn. The Sion VGU caused churn. Pantheon did. Irelia did. Volibear did. It's the reality of this opportunity space. All of those things did more good than harm, but they do have additional downsides that content like new champions don't.
We still do them because we believe that doing them raises the quality bar of League of Legends over time. We do less of them than some folks tend to ask for because we're balancing the good that they do against the downsides, and also because our resources are finite and the opportunity cost is higher than most other content we could do.
Read moreI do not (or at least "hope not") think that Riot is reducing it to 1 a year. This year was unique because of Covid and because of their dislike of VGUs in general they were put on the back burner.
VU IMO are very important in that a EZ/Morg level update would help so many champions feel better.
VGUs on the other hand just need to be peeled like a bandaid. Riot just needs to do it and get them over with.
Corki, Shyvana, Shaco, Quinn etc... they know the list already, just do it and complete it. VUs will always be accepted better than VGUs as no one will generally complain that Chogath is changed from the 2009 pixel mess he is now to an actual void creature that does the same thing kit-wise.
Riot needs to weigh the opportunity cost of losing half of a .5% play rate champion and realize the amount of players they could get instead if the champions fantasy was more modern. They need to stop making excuses that they "care" about the players of those c...
Just to be clear, we don't dislike VGUs. We're facing two issues that limit how many we can/want to do at a time, though:
1) They cause churn among existing players of the champions. Even the respectful, lower disruption ones cause some players of the champion to quit. Everyone wants more VGUs of the champions they don't play, but few people want their main's gameplay to change meaningfully (except when it'd be a revert of a previous mini-update or something). We need to bear in mind that while a well-executed VGU gives something cool to play with, it also takes something away that someone loved.
2) They're far more costly than a new champion due to updating all of the skins. And yes, we do see a sales spike on those skins... but not nearly what we'd see just doing the same number of new skins. This cost is largely on the art side, so shipping VUs instead of VGUs doesn't help us much here. (And yeah, I get the "smol indie company" memes, but the reality of ...
Read moreSince you're lead champ designer, can you share how you feel his design has held up over the years, since he hasn't seemed to require any changes
From what angle? He's an extremely strong execution on a niche but very compelling fantasy. There are some minor issues with the fantasy itself (mainly how it interrelates to other players - he's one of the only champs in the game who gives his players a legitimate beef over kill stealing) but overall clearly worth it imo. Slightly unusual scaling (among the purest of pure AD scaling champs) requires occasional retouching but that's not a big deal.
When we're assessing success of a champion, we're looking at whether we can land them in a spot where they really perfectly serve the audience and the fantasy of the character we're making. It's not really about popularity per se. It's also emphatically not about short term balance - it's better if we can land champions on target balance-wise asap, but if it takes some time to work them into shape but we get a great delivery on the space, that's still a win for us.
From that perspective Draven's one of the 10/10 champions...
Read moreHey /u/RiotAxes I had a random question. From the outside it seems that the LoL teams champs, gameplay, art etc… are losing a lot of people. Has the LoL team gotten smaller? or are the departures being replaced properly?
Not getting smaller.
What happened to the Draven
Still love him but don't play him that much anymore and definitely don't outperform Tristana on him.
If it makes you feel better, I only rocket jump forwards.
Pantheon
Yuumi (ok so its probably Rammus or something but you don't want to see me jungle)
Akshan (its pantheon again, but my Akshan is probably closer to my Pantheon mid than my 2nd best top is)
Tristana
Yuumi
Read moreThank you for your contribution. I can understand that you don't want to strictly put a champion into one class, because in many cases only one class doesn't fit.
What I was trying say is, that imo Tahm Kench went from a pure support warden to a solo lane vanguard (Just look at pro play, he went from support to toplane almost exclusively). We have 6 champions (Tahm included) that are primarily classified Warden, while we have 14 Vanguards. I see that many Vanguards have Warden attributes, but it works the same the other way around (Poppy E, Galio E, even Braum can Flash R), but that doesn't make them Vanguard. Your examples are primarily Vanguards that excell in engaging, but can also peel with hard CC.
Of course it is possible to use your hard CC reactively and thus guarding your carry, but if you do that, you possibly lose a better opportunity like locking down an enemy carry.
I just like champions that are better defending than they ar...
I hear you on the pain point there. I think Kench was always going to have to change more than Kench enthusiasts wanted, but losing a support is painful and he's definitely less Warden than he was before.
Read moreThe labels like "Warden" and so on are tenuous and arbitrary at best and deciding who fits where is splitting hairs.
I've noticed you've had people give examples like Thresh or Rell in the comments, only to have you say "They're not Wardens, they're XYZ", which I think misses the point.
As much as anything else, Warden is a playstyle, not a defining characteristic of a champion, beyond a kit that says "This champ can be played as a warden".
Leona, Maokai, Galio, Rell, Thresh, Poppy, Shen, etc.
Yes, some of these champs can "Engage", but all of them punish aggresive plays made against them. You dive a poppy or a leona and you suffer for it, you ignore a shen and you suffer for it. All of these champs can be played effectively in a defensive style, so too can the examples you've given be played aggressively (Taric ulting yi to initiate a teamfight, for example).
If there's something you think the game is missing, don't use buzz words; describe ...
I want to piggyback off this a little.
We don't make that many 'pure' class members (ADCs being probably the biggest exception?) - that's not really what our classes are for. The classes give us a starting point for strengths and weaknesses that we know works for League of Legends. For actual champion projects, the trick is finding what's going to be special for them - which generally means what they do that's different from the most similar champions, and thus is often a non-class strength - and then figuring out what that means they have to give up, and figuring out how to strike the right balance from a feels perspective.
Darius and Mordekaiser are about as pure Juggernaut as you can get, but when we went to make Sett ("Grappler" as a prototype), it was always clear that he was going to be somewhere between Juggernaut and one of the tank subclasses. If you want to play the Juggernaut, pick Darius. If you want a different experience or need a di...
Read moreSuper satisfying to watch
Hey Axes are you back on champ team, now that Draven is finally back in TFT
I started as lead champion designer in October following TFT Fates release.
P.s. Draven should be evergreen.
I assume he means "hook" in a metaphorical sense, like the basic concept/mechanic that hooks people on this champ.
That, yeah. The core concept for the champion. Sometimes in terms of thematic appeal (Sett is the grappler / brawler), sometimes as a descriptor of some central gameplay element (Nocturne causes darkness), but something worth building around.
I would normally be sad that they decided to pull back on the mage's artillery aspect but keep in mind said mage is supposedly able to deal with dashes and hates mobility.
I don't know if an artillery mage who can deal with mobility is exactly a great design choice because their weakness tends to be the fact that they have a hard time dealing with getting dove by mobility.
This is a big part of it.
We changed the mage because the hook plays better with a more medium range profile, both from a coolness perspective and from a counterplay perspective. We're still interested in artillery mages, it just wasn't the right direction for this particular kit.
Not for Shaco but my gf permabans Elise bec. can't look at spiders, even if they are animated
Relatable. I can't play against Elise - except the Death Blossom skin. I dodge her in solo queue, and people have to use that skin in playtests with me internally.
I'm fine with her in TFT though...? And I don't know why because it's the same assets.
i don't know but i'm going to give mark yetter a hug when i see him next
i'm so happy
When he mentioned the changes to me, I warned him to be ready for you.
good shit my dude.
guessing by your username the deadbeat draven rumor is probably intentional ;)
Draven's not Sett's dad.
God is Draven cool though.
Does it make you feel proud or disappointed that new Pantheon was heavily banned in pro-play for a long stretch?
Personally I love new Pantheon. So close to old but also very new, fairly simple pattern but with some little hidden tricks, and highly benefits from map knowledge. Plus that base move speed is so precisely perfect for his pattern it feels like even a slight nerf would ruin it but you can move around comfortably where it's at.
Before it got a couple nerfs I used to rock the support Pantheon pick. It was stupid fun.
Neither proud nor disappointed. He was badly OP on that patch in solo queue (particularly high elo) as well as pro play and the nerfs were easily justified.
I'm a little sad that his first time being enabled for pro was on the worlds patch, where we couldn't do anything to fix it and he ended up hurting the quality of the tournament.
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