Red Post Collection: Ask Riot: Preseason Edition, Volume 2, A Rather Spooky Vaulting of Skins, & More!

Today's red post collection includes a new Ask Riot covering more preseason questions, an article on skins going to the skins vault, an update on the Worlds prize pool, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

• Champion Roadmap: October 2017

• Red Post Collection: Quick Gameplay Thoughts October 18, Evelynn AMA, League of Legends Live! & more
• Legends Never Die Animated Music Video
• Worlds 2017 Knockout Stage, Quarterfinals [October 19 - October 22]
• 10/18 PBE Update: Death Sworn Splash Art, Continued Runes Testing, & More

Table of Contents

• Ask Riot: Preseason Edition, Volume 2
• A Rather Spooky Vaulting of Skins
• Worlds Prize Pool Update
• Quick Hits
• Reminders

Ask Riot: Preseason Edition, Volume 2

Here is this week's Ask Riot, covering everything you wanted to know about preseason, and even more:

"This week, we’re back at it again, answering your questions on upcoming preseason content. Check out the previous Ask Riot on preseason here.

I spent a lot of time and effort unlocking Runes, and didn’t focus too much on champs. In the new leveling system, it looks like we’re going to get a reward every time we level up. For those of us who are already lvl 30, what are we going to get, beyond blue essence?

Most of the capsules that you’ll get for leveling up will contain champion shards, which can be crafted into champions (at a discount) or disenchanted into Blue Essence. For those of you who already own all the champions you want, we’ll continue bringing back the Blue Essence store where you can spend your excess BE on chromas, icons, emotes and other rewards. 

At special milestone levels, you’ll also get bonus cosmetic goodies. These include some exclusive rewards that you can only get through leveling, like a special high-level ward skin or various emotes. There are also some non-exclusive rewards, like icons, ward skins, or even gemstones at high levels. 

AMIRELLE

Product Manager, Core Gameplay

How will rune pages work in the new system?

Rune pages will work (mostly) like they do in the old runes system. You’ll have editable pages you get for free—currently you get two—and you can purchase more from the store. One difference from the old runes is that now you can edit or choose your pages freely in champion select. 

There will also be a new kind of page. Everyone will have five “preset” pages, one for each Path, that are uneditable and don’t count toward your inventory total. These pages are good general options that ensure that players always go into game with a full page of runes—whether that’s because you had an unfinished/invalid page or because you’re new to runes and would like to start with something more templated. We will be providing the option to hide these pages if you like a tidy inventory, but not until after Runes launches. 

Basically, if you have five pages in runes right now, you’ll have five editable pages in the new system plus the five uneditable preset pages. 

DJANGO UNJANED

Product Manager, Game Systems

In regards to being given a 1350 skin for every four rune pages bought with RP, will the skins be randomly chosen? Or based on something like my top 10 played champs? Also, I bought three rune pages with RP. Would I still get a skin?

The criteria for which 1350 skin you’ll receive is going to be randomly selected from eligible skins based on the criteria below: 

• It needs to be a 1350 skin for a champion you already own
• It needs to be a skin you don’t already own 

Yes, the rune pages will be rounded up, meaning if you unlocked between one and four rune pages with RP, you’ll get one epic skin. If you bought between five and eight rune pages with RP you’ll get two skins, etc. 

RIOT BUBOBUBO

Senior Manager, Ecommerce

With the new mastery and runes update, what will happen to champions who rely almost entirely on magic pen or armor pen? I play Zyra mid and support, and I run a full magic pen page, except for health seals. With the new rework, I won’t be able to do something like this. I’m really concerned. Please help ease my worries?

This is one example of a problem we’ve been working on throughout Runes Reforged. We’ve reduced the ability to concentrate a champion into a single focus. This isn’t a problem as much for Jinx or Ziggs, but we have definitely heard from Zyra mains, Riven mains, Malphite mains, and others how important that had been to their experience. This is a very complex space for us to navigate. For example, not every Riven main agrees how much CDR you have to have at level one, while pretty much every Kayle player agrees that you max out on every last point of attack speed that you can find. 

This means that we don’t have silver bullets to fix this problem, and we’ll be using a mix of angles to add options back in. We’ve been adjusting champion’s base stats and abilities to accommodate where there are clearly individual problems. We’re exploring ways to add pen back into a handful of spots where it already lives, though this is a recent exploration and not guaranteed to ship. We’ve also shifted around the stats offered by particular Runes, so champions that are really hungry for a particular stat have some access to it in the system, even if they can’t stack it like they used to. Finally, we’re also watching champions most affected by changes, and will making changes as needed throughout preseason. 

With changes this massive, we can’t have it all dialed in for launch, so we’re leaving lots of time to adjust after we ship. Once Runes Reforged is live, let us know how your champion feels. We look forward to talking about it. 

RIOT FEARLESS

Senior Designer, Game Systems

After merging the IP and blue essences systems, will you put out daily quests with rewards of blue essence (or something else)?

We’re planning on converting the First Win of the Day bonus into a daily mission that grants bonus XP towards your next level up. 

At the moment, we don’t have any plans to offer blue essence directly through missions. We’d like to see the new leveling system in action first and we’ll make adjustments from there. 

AMIRELLE

Product Manager, Core Gameplay 

Are we going to be able to see opponent’s runes in a match? With effects like the channel-blink or swapping out summoner spells, there is a potentially enormous information gap in-game unlike anything before. Many runes are things players need to know in-game, more so than previous stat-based runes or non-keystone masteries.

Repost alert! We’re answering this one more in depth after we saw that players had a lot of follow up questions on our last answer. : ) 

Our goal is to give players the relevant runes information we expect you to play around at a given time. This may take slightly different forms for different runes, since they’re unique enough to warrant individual treatment as opposed to a “one size fits all” approach. 

Some of the ways we communicate runes may be things you’ve seen before—we’re explicitly showing the strategic choices of keystone and the secondary path for every player joining the game in the loading screen for example (you’ll be able to make an educated playstyle guess if you see a Meteor/Domination Sona coming for you in bot lane). We’re also leaning far more heavily on timely VFX and SFX to communicate relevant tactical information than we have for systems like the old masteries. If a rune gives a shield, we want you to know an opponent has that shield by seeing it on the buff bar and then seeing the shield breaking VFX/SFX. If a rune gives out stats, we’re showing those stats to players in the places you’re already used to looking for them (champion stats). 

We’re committed to iterating to get all runes to the right level of visibility and we recognize we may not get it right for every single rune on the first try. So we will be listening to player feedback here and making iterations to make sure rune users, allies and enemies have the correct level of visibility for all runes. 

We don’t want you to feel you need to look at an opponent’s runes at the beginning of the game and try to memorize them all and then spend the whole game trying to predict/remember everything that person picked. We do want to present the information you need to play around a rune when and where you need to play around it. 

For the specific runes you mentioned, we’re actually using some new channels (hah): Channel-Blink has an icon that replaces Flash’s when it’s on cooldown. For Unsealed Spellbook, we’re testing out showing a global in-chat message for all swaps. Also for both runes, you’ll see the swapped summoner spell icons on the scoreboard. 

TL;DR We will work to make all players aware of relevant rune information WHEN and WHERE they need it, but it may not necessarily be through UI alone. 

RIOT SPARKLE

Experience Designer, Game Systems

Thanks for reading this week’s Ask Riot. Have a question? 

Head over to Ask Riot and sign into your League account. Check out the Pro Tips, then ask away. 

We promise to read every question, but we can’t guarantee they’ll all get answers. Some questions may already be answered elsewhere, and some won’t be right for Ask Riot. This isn’t the best place to announce new features, for example, and we might skip conversations on issues we’ve talked about in depth before (though we can clarify individual points). 

We are listening, though, so keep asking. We’ll make sure your questions are heard by the Rioters working on the stuff you’re curious about."

A Rather Spooky Vaulting of Skins

Here's Riot Evaelin with an announcement of skins heading to the legacy vault:

"There have been reports of skins in the shop screaming (and calling it “cheering”), turning others into cupcakes, levitating, and doing all sorts of spooky things. It might be due to rumors of ghastly new skins coming to town, causing these classic skins to want to show off—but skins acting up is never something the skins keeper tolerates. We’ve decided, for all of our sakes, to kindly ask these skins to descend into the Legacy Vault. 

But before they completely dematerialize into the Legacy Vault, you can grab them in the store for 50% off from October 26 at 11:00 a.m. PT until November 1 at 11:59 p.m. PT—and let them conduct their funny business in your collection forevermore."

Worlds Prize Pool Update

Here's Riot Feargorm with an update on the worlds prize pool as well as the charity fund:

"While the battles rage on between the top teams from around the globe at the 2017 World Championship, let’s take a quick look at how your contributions are impacting the Worlds 2017 prize pool and the global charity fund. 

Worlds Prize Pool 

As we previously announced, 25% of Championship Ashe and Championship Ward purchases will go toward the prize pool and be split among the teams participating at Worlds 2017 based on their final placement, check out the breakdown below: 

• 1st place: 37.5%
• 2nd place: 13.5%
• 3rd/4th place: 7% (14% total)
• 5th-8th place: 4% (16% total)
• 9th-12th place: 2.25% (9% total)
• 13th-16th place: 1.25% (5% total)
• 17th-20th place: 0.75% (3% total)
• 21st-24th place: 0.5% (2% total)

Charity 

Additionally, Riot will match 25% of all Championship Ashe sales during Worlds 2017 to be donated to three global charities. You can vote on which cause you support the most—the higher your Honor level, the more weight your vote carries. The highest-voted charity will get 50% of the total pool, and the remaining amount will be split equally between the other two. 

Right now, the total prize pool is $4,072,101 and fans have contributed $1,850,000! All purchases of Championship Ashe and the Championship Ward will continue to funnel into the prize pool until November 5 at 11:59 PM PT. Keep your eyes peeled for more updates and continue sending your energy to the team you deem worthy! 

Support your Team 

You can also support your favorite team directly through a purchase of team icons or emotes. Keep in mind, these in-game items are not factored into the prize pool. 

• Emote/icon bundle: 30%
• Emote: 30%
• Icon: 50% 

Stay tuned to Lolesports not to miss any of the 2017 World Championship as teams fight for the Summoner’s Cup."

Quick Hits

• KateyKhaos provided the artists for each of the new Death Sworn splash arts, as well as provided 1920x1080 versions:

"Viktor -Alvin Lee | https://www.artstation.com/alvinlee  

Zed -Kelly Aleshire | https://www.artstation.com/kaleshire  

Kat -Jennifer Wuestling | https://www.artstation.com/izaskun"