Red Post Collection: 3/11 Patch Update, Jhin color text & others soon, Lee Sin Mix, Tribeca Games LoL Panels, & more

"Can you give us a small tease of whats coming on the future?" -  Luis Lopez 

 "Hextech crafting is going to be live in North America very soon. We are really excited about the response to the feature so far. We continue to work on improving the new dynamic queue. We’ve talked a lot about the new client which will give a really different (and better we hope!) look for League. We have a clubs and parties feature on the horizon. We’re doing a mage update around mid-season. We have some crazy new champs in the pipe - I hope they pan out." - Greg

"Who's your favorite champion in terms of kit and design?" - Jeremiah Rios 

"That’s always a tough one. It’s like picking your favorite pet or child. I like the thematic and story of Bard and Kindred a lot. I appreciate the gameplay of Orianna. I like how resonant Riven and Jinx are with players. 

I used to play mains like many players do, but after I came to Riot, I realized that I needed more broad exposure to lots of champions. Unfortunately the game kind of steers you towards mastering a few and when you play a variety, you lose a lot." - Greg

"By what point would too many champions be too many? Of course I love the new champion hype because it always make me want to learn how to play against them or with them." -  Jeremiah Rios

"We think there is a point at which League will have too many champions, but at the rate we release new champions, that date is still years away. 

If you think of a player who only plays say ADC, he or she may only get 1 new champion a year. We know new champions are one of the best ways to freshen up the game in a way that’s still easy for someone who has been away from the game for a time to still be able to easily wade back in." - Greg

"What kind of well known stories are champions being pulled from now?" - Stephen Douglas Ely

"Overall we like to say that we build archetypes, not stereotypes. In other words, we like for things to be familiar enough for players to relate to, but still feel enough of a twist to get there interest. Some of our earlier champions were a little too generic. I pick on Volibear a lot for being a big armored bear. Ideally their stories have more depth than that. (And the bear will get an update someday!)" - Greg

"Heard over a Twitch Stream that already the DNA Pods had "dragon" and two others in flux at the time. How many concepts do those teams have going at one time?" - Lance Ferrantino

"There are 3 pods on the team. We have 3 champions in the iteration and playtest state at any one time, but champions frequently get put on ice or go back to the drawing board. We also have brainstorm meetings where a lot of ideas get discussed." - Greg

"If today's technology limitations weren't an issue, what would be one of your dream features or mechanics in a game?" -  Tarik Diaz

"I’d love to play a traditional tabletop RPG online and recapture the feel of playing D&D around a table with friends (I mean with a DM and everything). There have been a few attempts here. It will happen someday." - Greg

"What type of problems made Ao Shin impossible? What changed in the design and how did he end up becoming Aurelion.? "- Tarik Diaz 

"The serpentine body was a big one. We tried a few different ways of handling that, such as a head that you interact with and a long tail more like a kite that was “just art” but it didn’t feel right and moved weird. The champion just started diverging in a different direction and we felt like he wasn’t going to meet expectations from players about what Ao Shin should be." - Greg

"What are the future plans for League of legends balance between champions being release and champions being balanced? 

I know they are two different teams but, Do you guys feel like slowing down on champions getting release and focus more on giving the player a more balanced game?" - Luis Lopez 

"We actually split gameplay changes among several teams. The ones you are likely most familiar with are live gameplay, new champions, champion updates, and systems changes (like say items, gold or towers). 

We have slowed down on champion releases a lot. We used to do like 12+ a year. Recently it has only been like 5-6 and we’d like to improve that a little. 

Often our balance changes are limited by playtest time, believe it or not, because you often have to play a bunch of games to really notice a subtle change in the way someone’s Q works or whatever. Throwing a lot more designers on that team doesn’t necessarily help until you’re getting to the point where you’re able to have dozens of playtest games going, and then you probably have problems managing all of those games and processing all of the feedback." - Greg

"do you guys have any plans to make other champs like Bard and Aurelion sol? It seems that it would be a little upsetting to have a champ that's so prominent in the creation of runeterra be the only of his kind. And in his lore he hints at not being the only one." -
Joshua Petersen

 "I don’t want to leak new champions plans of course. smile emoticon I’ve loved the exploration that the team has done for really out-there champions from a lore perspective, like Kindred, Bard and Aurelion Sol. But there is still room for familiar Demacian and Piltover dudes as well." - Greg

"Would we ever get another story driven event like Bilgewater? I thought this way of exploring territory's in league was very fascinating. And would the reskin of a map (like aram during this event) extend to SR? Or Twisted Treeline?" - Jeremiah Rios 

"We keep exploring different ways to tell stories. Overall we don’t want to interfere with gameplay too much to tell a story (and yeah we did totally do this with Gangplank - sometimes it’s fun to color outside of the lines too). We’re telling a bit of a Targon story right now with the imminent release of our next champion." - Greg

"Since the introduction of chroma packs, their hasn't been that many released latly so is there a reason for that?" - Jeremiah Rios 

"Yes. We evaluated player feedback to the initial round of chromas and are pivoting a little on how we do them." - Greg

"Hey Greg! When new champions are being designed, how often would you say the team draws inspiration from other games or even other mobas? What external source do you is the biggest font of inspiration for champion design?" - Kyle Danger O'Connor 

"Overall, comics and movies are probably the largest inspiration. We definitely wouldn’t want to lift a character out of another game whole cloth. Sometimes the design comes from a cool mechanic idea and sometimes from a badass piece of art or writing from the team." - Greg

"Are there such thing as "overpowered" characters." - Everett Borislow 

"Absolutely. We don’t willingly design overpowered champions but it definitely happens. Sometimes players figure out ways to play champions that we didn’t expect, particularly depending on the lane they use or the items they choose. Sometimes players master a play style faster than we expected. Sometimes there is just a bug. 

It’s also worth pointing out that this kind of thing can lay dormant for months and then shift suddenly. Someone used the Zz’rot Portal in a pro game, and then everyone was using Zz’rot, exposing a bug that had been in there for some time. frown emoticon" - Greg

"Will there be an mobile version or a console version?" - Everett Borislow 

"It’s not something we are working on today. League is very married to having a mouse and keyboard. If we developed a version on another platform, it would need to be thought about totally differently. If you look at what Blizzard did with Diablo 3, the console version still felt very much like Diablo, but they changed it enough to make sense with a different control scheme. 

I’ll also plug that we don’t always want to be a one-game studio, and mobile and console may be better suited for a totally different game." - Greg

"Why graves can't have a cigar?" - Joshua Knights 

 "League ships in a lot of different countries and all of those places have different laws and depictions of tobacco use is one of those areas that gets tricky to navigate. It can depend a lot on how prominent the display is, which is why a cinematic might get different scrutiny than splash art. 

I’m not saying we’ll always just play safe every time either. Sometimes something is so iconic to a character that it’s worth fighting for. Maybe Graves’s cigar crosses that line? We’re still discussing." - Greg

"Is there consistency on the top tier characters vs medium or lower tier characters and how do you track that? Do you use a website,app or any other social media device to do that?" - Everett Borislow 

"We collect a great deal of data about how champions perform through the game itself. Sometimes this meshes with what players see on fansites and sometimes it doesn’t.

A lot goes into determinations of balance, including play rates, win rates for someone who is just learning a champ vs. someone who has played 100s of games with them, high vs. low elo, regional differences and so on. Sometimes we have champions that require more extensive overhauls before they can really perform well. There are definitely some champions that are super frustrating for players to deal with when their play rates and win rates creep up there. " - Greg

"Hi Greg! 

Do MMOs have a future and what does that future look like?" - James Duggan

"I think players like to see other players in their games. In that regard, the MMO space is almost limitless. Maybe there isn’t room for a whole lot more quest-based, subscription MMOs, but there is a lot of room to explore. Maybe that means the next big MMO is survivor horror or something. A lot of Rioters are playing The Division right now. Does that qualify as an MMO? Will future MMOs look really different? I will say from experience that making MMOs is hard and it’s so easy for players to plow through all your content quickly. smile emoticon" - Greg