Red Post Collection: URF bows out and ZenonTheStoic on Yorick & Reworks

Tonight's red post collection features a reminder that the popular Ultra Rapid Fire featured gameplay mode has tagged out for now, as well as ZenonTheStoic chatting about the status of Yorick's previously discussed rework, why Warwick is getting a rework, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

Recent News:

PAX East has concluded and there was a LOT to see! Make sure you didn't miss out on anything:

Ultra Rapid Fire bows out

As is life, all good things must come to an end and Ultra Rapid Fire mode has been disabled.

Here's Brackhar with more info:

"Like a manatee waving a spatula as he fades into the distance, Ultra Rapid Fire is saying sayonara. U.R.F. was never meant to be more than an April Fool’s gag, but the community’s response has been anything but a joke, so goodbyes need not be final. 

Ultra Rapid Fire will come back in one form or another, but like all Featured Game Modes it wasn’t designed to live forever. Later this week, we’ll be sharing more of our philosophy around Featured Game Modes and a behind-the-curtain look at the development of U.R.F. itself. In the meantime, recap all of the top community plays as well as professional Ultra Rapid Fire action. "

ZenonTheStoic on Reworks: What Happened to Yorick, Why Warwick, and more!

ZenonTheStoic popped up on reddit to chat a bit about reworks!
He started off by answering a question on what happened to the Yorick rework we saw Xelnath discussing several months ago:

"That is the danger of talking about things too early. Xelnath had some very early ideas that sounded at least interesting on paper, but we never had anything in a playtest, which is where you learn very quickly if your ideas work or not (I threw out my first kit for Warwick after a week or two of testing) When Xelnath discovered he wouldn't have the time to do this rework himself he handed it off, but scruffy is super busy as well. Scruffy is the design lead on reworks, so he coordinates with all current reworks (sion and Warwick being the big ones; fiora has just started up and there's at least two others we have not talked about yet) so it was unlikely that he would get to Yorick soon - he did skarner, took over Rengar, did some work on taric, etc. Additionally, Yorick is a big scale rework. My opinion is that we will have to throw out all skills on the rework. Even Warwick got to keep the core of two skills. This is a huge project that'll take months of design work and a full group of art rioters to support the relaunch. We can only ever do one of those at a time, and sion and Warwick are definitely getting done first. 

Tldr: that thread was about very early ideas, no one is currently working on this, don't expect it any time soon. 

What I will say is that when we get to it, we'll do Yorick justice. We'll figure out the exact archetype we want to bring out and support it with a healthy kit that we can allow to be powerful. It'll just be a while. Wanna change that? Apply for a job and come help us! The number one reason we can't move faster is because we need more people! www.riotgames.com/careers"

He continued, reiterating:

"We're not even sure if the kit worked! We never tested it. We just didn't have a full design resource to commit to it."

As for summoner's being concerned about reworks changing their favorite champions, ZenonTheStoic commented:

"Let's talk about this! 

There is always pain when we remake something you guys were used to. As players who are "heads down" most of the time, that is thinking mostly about this current game and the one before, it's hard to pick up patterns that show that certain champions are just plain bad for the game. We generally undertune those champions so they don't get picked. Let's take pre-change Skarner: this was a champion who, once he got ahead, would always get to you and always perma-slow you until you or he died. His numbers HAD to be low because if they'd been competitive, he would have ruined games left and right. 

We learned a thing with the Skarner remake: it's not enough to just fix the problems with a champion if those problems were what made his fans pick him in the first place. We'll find an answer to the question of "why would you want to pick Skarner?", don't worry. 

It's the same for Rengar. As long as "burst you down from 100 to 0" Rengar existed, he could never have competitive tuning on his abilities. The new Rengar Scruffy made can be made competitive--I'm not sure that he is right now, but we'll get there."

When asked his thoughts on the Rengar, Skarner, and Gragas reworks, ZenonTheStoic replied:

"It's a common mistake I see here on the forums to judge a rework by its power level. Those two are very different things. I think all three champions you mentioned got a LOT healthier for the game due to their reworks. Is their tuning where it needs to be? I'm not sure. I assume no? But there's always a learning curve with new play patterns."

As for where the Warwick and Sion reworks are currently at, he commented:

"We have skillsets for both. I've iceboxed my kit because Sion goes first in terms of art etc. I feel my kit's in a good place, and once a champion pod (read: concept artist, modeller, animator, sound, etc) comes online I'll thaw him up and finish him. 

I'm not sure what stage Sion is on right now. We've had a kit in testing for a month or two that had really cool parts and some problematic parts. I know the designer on him went back to the drawing board on some aspects of the kit, but not sure on how much. Could just be some tweaks. Currently art resources are tied up in the Twitch and Karthus remakes (none of which get any design updates because we actually feel they're in decent spots)."

As the designer working on Warwick, ZenonTheStoic also fielded a question on why WW needs a rework:

"Sure! 

Warwick has one and a half buttons with meaningful decision-making associated with them. You want to ult the right person, and you may want to Q a high health champ to stay alive. But usually you just Q who you want to kill if you can and if you can't you Q whoever. 

That's a pretty flat kit. Now don't get me wrong--I love playing current Warwick because he fulfills a central fantasy: the drain tank. He just doesn't do it very well. What's the reason you need to kill Warwick in a teamfight? Well, after he ulted? I guess his team-wide AS buff. That is so weak sauce it makes me sad. 

Our main reason for wanting to rework the wolf is to better fulfill the drain tank fantasy. I'm gating it decently hard (you need to keep fighting dudes to get access to your heal--no more run near a minion wave and cheeky Q for a 1/5th health top up) but that means we can now put a lot more power into the perfectly played drain. On-hit WW was a sort of weird gimmicky off build (because his ult procs it) which we're now fully supporting. And finally WW gets disruption, both for his pre-6 ganks and for sustained threat in teamfights. Imagine if Volibear's fear feared champions? Yeah, that. (with numbers tuned to match)"