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Will there be bans for the new 2v2v2v2 game mode?
Yes. More details coming out next week
Will there be bans for the new 2v2v2v2 game mode?
Yes. More details coming out next week
Have you already considered making the mode permanent if it's well received? It's a new game mode with new maps and you're even adding a rating system, it's sounds refreshing but it would be such a waste to make it another time limited mode and to be completely honest I'm tired of not having a fun mode whenever I feel like playing league. ARAM can get sweaty and it just doesn't hit the same for me anymore. Is there a reason why you guys shy away from making more permanent modes? I've heard the population argument but I don't get it, competitive players will mostly still play ranked and the same goes for aram players so what gives?
Biggest knock against permanent modes is making sure that there is player desire for it. We don’t want to say something is going to be permanent only to have it be only lukewarm on release. If players don’t like it that much I’d rather us put that energy towards finding something they love rather than maintaining something they like.
Out of curiosity, you guys said you're looking to release it in the summer. Is that referring to the final polished release, or will the experimental version be the one released in the summer?
Summer will be the experimental one
Is there any discussion internally for some form of return of a twisted treeline mode?
Nothing explicit. Curious what you're missing from that mode. Were you more interested in the shorter game time or the map itself?
why do new game modes have to be immediately competitive with SR/ARAM just to not get axed
Historically the modes team has been pretty small, meaning that the work in to value out ratio had to be pretty high. I think that viewpoint is fading somewhat, but the question often comes back to player value. Should we re-run a mode with a very short tail, or should we re-run a mode that players enjoy playing for longer? Which modes should we invest time into maintaining? We're committing to doing more novel things because it's clear that players want not just deep experiences, but variant experiences. We're hyper focused on getting a new mode out the door to pay off that desire for novelty, but we still have to explore what comes after that.
But many champs need big swings, you guys tried removing some of the bonuses on assassins and it was a disaster, those champs are now barely playable.
I mean big swings more on the level of 'large systemic changes' like hexgates/rubble. We'll continue to balance champ by champ to a level where they're healthier for the mode.
Thanks for the quick answer! I really appreciate your increase in community interaction!
If I understand you correctly, doesn't this necessary level of script expertise also block you from access to more content in general, because of the high and long training cost ? Just loosing one expert would put you behind a lot.
Would investing in and developing a bit simpler script not be possible to solve some of the current challenges (and also possibly enable enhanced custom games) or (edit) do you think the tradeoff between training more people faster to work on new content and highly flexible creative tools is is too high at the moment?
It can for sure, but there's a large amount of knowledge at Riot right now and thousands of scripts for reference that we can't share out for security reasons to train people up.
You definitely don't need to convince me to invest in better tools :D, but I just want to highlight that a public release of tools like this needs a MUCH higher bar of stability.
The new mode sounds interesting. I hope you haven't been held back too much by the hackattack. I was hoping you could answer a more general question about new game modes:
Could you explain a bit why "custom game" was almost never made a more powerful tool to give players a chance to tinker themselves more with game modes? Wouldn't that also decrease the expectation of bugginess and balance issues? Is that just too difficult and time consuming to program? As you probably know for many multiplayer games the editor tool is often the reason for their long term success. Are you considering improving custom games at all at some point?
Custom games are a different team, but the major blocker to this is whether or not the tools protect the user from crashing the game. Our tools are very good at giving us a wide range of things we can do, allowing us to make things like the 2v2v2v2 version, but that level of freedom exists because we expand our capabilities all the time and rely on script expertise to not crash servers.
I think the core thing most people want from a new permament mode is a shorter mode similar to Summoner's Rift but not random. Basically a middle ground from SR and Aram. Nexus Blitz was the closest to that, I know it ultimately failed to do great, but I think that's the main reason people are so passionate about it compared to other game modes that haven't returned.
I hear ya. I think there's potential there for sure. I know we want to reexamine Nexus Blitz eventually to see where we can make improvements to give it more staying power. Might not be for the next release of it though.
Can I ask why is it such a hassle to bring this game modes back while working on the new one? Shouldn't they be simply a toggle on and let people play? I know there is maintenance cost to them but after so many runs they should just be fine to play all the time even. I get not having them online forever to make events more special or whatever, but to not even be able to just turn them on and let them run for any event is kinda strange
It's a lot more complicated than just turning them on. The biggest cost is the change that's happened in the game surrounding the mode. New champs, new items, new systems all have interactions with the mode's rules and can cause a lot of bugs that make the game either hard to play or even crash. We spend a fair bit of time resolving those issues every time we bring something back (even the ones we run a lot). There's also a cost in pure engineering in setting up the queues that I'm not super qualified to talk about.
Are there any ideas on how scaling champs (swain, sion, viegar, nasus) who rely on longer games to get strong will do so in the 2v2v2v2?
Still working on the details; this mode is coming in HOT for summer and a lot hasn't been figured out yet. Some things we're trying:
For a long time ARAM has biased strongly towards poke champs, ADCs, and enchanters in terms of both pick rate and power level. This led to an environment where melee champions felt quite bad to play. There was also the challenge where champions like Talon or Kayn had less terrain to interact with (and therefore not utilize portions of their kit).
This is still pretty true. Bruiser items are pretty nerfed now, most % balance changes on melees are pretty toned down too, and sustain is just so gutted with the penalty on minions. Eclipse has no more omnivamp, Ravenous is lifesteal instead of omnivamp, Hammer was nerfed as well.
60% effectiveness on minions is just too little, I hope they're at least open to further adjustments. It's a nightmare playing ADC's with shorter range and barely being able to keep up with poke even with BT.
Yep, we're going to keep adjusting balance, just going to be taking fewer big swings after the tower rubble changes.
Of course once again riot is refusing to comment anything on nexus blitz “ until next time” leave it up to the boneheads behind the screen who just want us to play the same boring stale game modes that we’ve been playing. People don’t want limited time game modes to play on summoners rift. I want to play a limited time game mode like odyssey again. A completely new map and mode that was actually fun
2v2v2v2 is planned to be time limited on a new map. Nexus Blitz is something we want to run again, but we're prioritizing getting that brand new experience out to yall this summer. Plan is that we'd do nexus blitz again at some point this year after the 2v2v2v2.
Hope they consider adding modes that are available permanently or on a regukar bases (like every weekend.) As cool as these sound, I find it hard to get exited about (never mind invested in) something that I know will be disappearing for 6+ months in a matter of weeks.
The bar for adding a new permanent queue is very high, but it's something in the back of our minds. I don't think we've hit a mode yet that has the staying power + audience necessary to justify a whole queue, but based on audience feedback, we might try and invest in a version of one of them that can make it there.
You sure you don't want to add a controllable Yasuo but you can only field him alone on the team?
Let me throw it back, do you want enemy team yasuo in your TFT games?
I don't know, it just doesn't feel well thought out.
If you're behind, and somehow manage to ace the enemy team while they're at or around your inhibitor. By the time you get to their first tier turret with a wave, they've respawned and hexgated to it already.
So the progress you've made in regards to objectives is close to null. In the past you would have at least gotten some damage onto the enemies first tier turret whilst they run back.
It makes comebacks feel nigh impossible, and makes games feel dreadful to play. I really think the balance team struggle with understanding games should be fun, and not just about a theoretical balance.
Right, that’s why the death timers were increased. I’m not arguing it was a perfect solution, I think it definitely needs some tuning or another solve, but the intention was to solve that problem
Yeah, while I understand the intent, losing one fight at like 15 minutes at the opponent's base and them having time to run all the way back and take your nexus feels real bad.
Agree if that involves taking the outer turrets as well. Death timers are only 3 seconds longer at that stage, so it’s not like you couldn’t go coast to coast in that time previously. Being able to take multiple turrets and end the game before they’re up is probably a bridge too far though
They've said part of what hexgates are solving is some champs (such as assassins) needing flanking opportunities to be powerful. By giving them said opportunities they can then take out some of the percent buffs they're receiving. Whether it's overall a better solution remains to be seen.
Yeah this is the intent here. The flanking positions should give assassins more play at a baseline, so they shouldn’t need the balance buffs. There is follow up to be done on that side.
The death timers (which again, we’re going to look at) were to address the knock on effect of changing the map proactively. Definitely possible we overshot and didn’t need it
Hello, in the tests did you guys verify the possibility of the inhibitor tower also blocking the passage falling on the opposite side of the first tower?
It was pretty clear that the one tower falling was going to have a large impact, so rather than mix up the whole map, we wanted the terrain to impact a specific part of the map and leave the rest as is.
I feel like a massive issue with the hexgates is the fact it gives the winner a major advantage. Before you had to carefully fight, and strategically take out the enemy team to take down the first turret if you were behind. Now they can just sit under tower and wait until their carry gets back. A lot harder with tanks now too.
It definitely does. I think the death timers, as frustrating as they are, are the counterbalance here. I don't think they're doing a great job (clearly they're frustrating), so we're going to be doing some resting on alternate solves.