Summary of PAX Q&A w/ Morello, Lyte, and Pabro.

Don't have roughly an hour to dedicate to listening to this excellent dicussion? Don't worry! Keep on reading for a summary of most of the major points discussed within, including champion inspiration, several mentions of item revamps coming in season three, what Riot thinks about Dominion & Twisted Tree Line, if Morello thinks Phreak is cute, and more! 

Let's begin by first looking at exactly who we are talking with:

I utilized my expert MS Paint skills to add each Rioters summoner icon above their name to help you identify them in the wild.

So here is my synopsis of the video. I tried to make it as clear and concise as possible. Below you'll find a brief summary for each topic/question and summary of the appropriate answer. Each point is denoted by the approximate time it was mentioned. On many occasions the Rioters tag teamed answering a question so the summaries don't explicitly say which specific Rioter answered. Similarly, there was a whole lot of "we don't have anything we can talk about yet" responses to questions, particularly those about future content, and those have mostly been omitted.

The Q&A session is split up into two parts. The first part is the group answering questions submitted ahead of time and the other are live questions from the audience.

[0:00] 

Very brief introductions and submitted questions start. These seem to have been prepared ahead of time and submitted by Summoners who were not able to make it to PAX.

[0:45] 

Q: Is it a long term goal to make champions available in competitive play?
A: In a long term perspective, this is something Riot definitely keeps in mind. However, one of their major concerns is making each champion a fun and unique experience. Sometimes this experience hits the mark and sometimes it needs to be rebalanced. He mentioned Diana and Zyra as examples of that but they have since been balanced to fit better into the competitive game. They both did new stuff so Riot wasn't sure exactly how it was going to turn out.

[2:00] 

Q: What are some new and different ideas coming into season 3?
A: This answer was very long so I'm going to break it into three parts.

First off, Riot wants to continue to push the envelope for champion design. They are really striding towards champion design, play style, and art all being very cohesive. Pabro mentioned that a good, recent example of this is Ziggs. Ziggs is crazy, loves bombs, and loves blowing you up. He makes sense and translates very well. A "bad" example or a champion they feel like missed the mark a little bit on that is Rumble. He says Rumble is in a big mech and, instead of being in the mix and punching stuff like you would expect, you need to play him a lot like a mage.

Secondly, Pabro talk a little bit about the upcoming Championship series were professional players can earn salaries and how it will definitely kick things up in the eSports scene.

Then the threw the mic to Morello, who talked a little about the item system and how Riot feels it's not as fun as it could be. He commented that currently you always see the same or similar builds and they want to introduce new items that promote new gameplay opportunities. He wants items that change your playstyle and thought process, not just stat sticks. He mentioned that Xypherous is behind the project and that that is a good thing.

[6:00] 

Q: What do you think of community skins and will we see more?
A: Pool Party Ziggs and Astronautilus are coming out soon and they are both community born ideas. Riot enjoys making them because they know summoners really enjoy them and they make the game fun. Some of them, Lady Gragas for example, are a bit of a shady area that Riot would be less inclined to be included. Riot listens to the demands of Summoners and want to make things that are good for the game as well things that people like. Skins like these definitely fit into that category.

[8:40] 

Q: Any news about Dominion and the possibility of ranked Dominion?
A: Riot admits they haven't paid as much attention as they should have to some their non Summoner's Rift game modes. The good news is that RiotNome is leading a team that is working to improve the Dominion and Twisted Treeline experience. Riot realizes that they haven't done best job with alternative modes and "soon" you will see results for TT, Dominion, and  even Murderbridge!

[10:00] 

Q: Any ideas on how to improve the attitude of players?
A: We know ranked modes are really competitive and hardcore but they can also come with  toxic personalities. Riot is working on "fix" for s3 that will hopefully take down the toxicity levels a little. Morello also believes there are ways to address some of this on the gameplay side of things

[11:50]

Q: So what about Magma Chamber?
A: Morello talked about 5v5 maps and gave the example that if you made a perfectly balanced and playable 5v5 map and released it tomorrow, it, at best, fractures your community. He mentions they would rather focus map efforts on stuff like ARAM and Dominion rather than just another flavor of 5v5. It is also mentioned that Magma Chamber sort of morphed into Dominion and Riot learned a lot from it's early announcement. Specifically, They learned a lot about how players react to new stuff and things they can't tangibly experience yet. This, for example, influenced their announcement of Dominion. When they announced it, it nearly complete and was playable soon thereafter.

[16:45] 

Q: Where does Riot get their inspiration for new champions?
A: Riot has a very open policy about submit ideas for champions. They accept creative ideas from everyone on their staff. For example, one of the support specialists said he wanted to see a gravedigger type champion and started to brainstorm. This, after being worked a lot by the different teams, was the direct inspiration for the Yorick. Another example is that Xypherous made a prototype kit for a characted called "Ball girl". They played with it in game, thought it was really fun, and started to brain storm about what type of character it could be. Eventually the art team and design team got together and transformed Ball Girl into our champion Orianna. Morello also mentioned that same champions are born out of ideas. For example, Diana was born out of a story Riot wanted to tell. Similarly, Draven was born out of the desire for a specific personality - "we wanted a cocky asshole."

[19:35] 

Q: How do you manage community expectations vs your own, internal expectations and how do you keep the game/ideas fresh?
A: Riot sets their bar high on quality and encourages everyone in the company to play the game and give all sorts of feedback. They also mention that the community gives lots of feedback, be it emails, on reddit, on the  forums, or whatever. They believe it's this community dialogue that has helped make the game so successful.

[21:45] 

Q: There wasn't really a specific question here, more of an expansion on the feedback and data referenced in the last question.
A: Lyte mentioned specific examples of interesting numbers and facts pulled out of Riot's feedback reports. He mentions that 85% of  the active players don't visit forums. He also mentioned that Riot can certainly see the pregame lobby chat and it's startling how many players don't realize that. He also mentions that Riot is working on a better way to get feedback from Summoners, particularly that they might work on something accessible in client.

[24:20] 

Q: Can you elaborate on the recent bans players received for excessive reporting?
A:They advise "Don't be a jerk" and emphasized that only players who heavily abused the report feature got any sort of punishment. Lyte gives the example about "that guy", the one whose teammate gives up first blood and then he immediately responds with in chat with  "reported" and keeps up that negative mentality throughout the rest of the game. 

[26:00] 

Q: Something like, "why won't you nerf Darius?"
A: Morello responded that Darius isn't overpowered  and doesn't create balance issues but "holy shit"  is he frustrating to play against. He feels that Darius lacks some counter play and mentions that he is scheduled for some changes.

[28:15] 

The live Q&A started, featuring questions from Summoners attending the event in person.

[29:05] 

Q: What kind of interesting decisions have designers had to make to balance champions, directly or indirectly?
A: Morello took this charge of this one. He talked about how a change like +10 damage and - 10 damage is easy to figure out but more complicated changes, such as increasing reactivity and responsiveness, do not translate on paper very well. This leads to players failing to understand those changes and quickly grabbing their pitch forks to complain about unnecessary nerfs.

[30:40]

Q: Are there any upcoming improvements, for spectator mode, aimed towards helping amateur shout casters?
A: This was a big "dunno" but they did say that as Riot continues to support eSports and League of Legends as an eSport, they will do everything they can to improve the experience for the community. They also mentioned that any time a new feature is in development look at what we can do and do effectively; they will not half ass a big feature like that and will only release it when it is applicable and can be done well.

[32:20] 

Q: With Dota 2 offering all of it's champions for free, can you explain why League of Legends players still have to purchase this content when a similar game offers everything for free.
A: Morello tackles this question by saying that part of what makes LoL exciting is the constant steam of new content released regularly. He continues to mention that in a game like DotA, which has more rock, paper, scissors type of gameplay. you really need access to the entire champion roster to "hard counter" other heros. He argues that League has less of that so not having all the champions doesn't put you, necessarily, at a disadvantage.

[34:00] 

Q: There is a problem with user created content. If it doesn't get featured on reddit or shared on the official forums / facebook, it has a problem circulating. Is Riot working on a way to support community content?
A: The on going Featured Streamer stuff is one of the ways Riot can help spread things around the community but Riot feels the community sort of holds it's own when it comes to spreading stuff around within itself. The developers stressed they stumble on a lot of stuff the same way we all do - as it gets spread around and becomes popular.

[36:15] 

Q: I love the story and flavor of games. League has awesome lore and, outside of the discontinued journal of justice, we don't get many opportunities to see all of those awesome personalities interact.
A:Riot feels they can do a much better job of conveying lore than just using a "wall of text" to do it. They are constantly exploring new ways to do this, examples being the push that Draven and Darius are brothers or if you look in Rengar's lore you "there is something he might need to kill". Morello added that he thinks text is the worse way to spread lore and thinks there are better ways to spread the champion personalities, such as in game interactions that bring the lore to life.

[38:45]  

Q: How about leaving things in ( balanced or unbalanced ) that change the meta as opposed to just nerfing them out of viability?
A: Riot believes the meta isn't as stale as we think and deviations are still coming out. There is a lot of room to explore but Riot acknowledges they can do a better job at diversifying the meta.

[40:15]  

Q: Having a lot of rune pages is very helpful to playing different champs/roles. Could we see prices for additional Rune Pages come down?
A: Lyte answered that Riot has done a lot of data analysis and it seems a lot of pro players only have a few and it works out for them just fine. Riot is definitely following this closely and is looking for areas to expand and update. Nothing really new or planned to talk about though.

[42:00]  

Q: Will we see more unique play patterns among AD carries? Most of them all have similar itemization and become limited to just auto attacking after a certain point in the game.
A: Riot feels the newer ad carries are breaking this "attack attack only" pattern a bit ( namely Varus and Draven ) and they believe that items, which are being extensively looked into for S3, are a big part of the problem.

[43:00] 

Q: In a game based around micro transactions, are there any ideas on how to deviate away from continuously churning out more and more champions?  Is there a point where you have too many champions?
A: Riot has a "buy stuff you want not stuff you need" mentality to picking champions, so not all champions are needed to play the game effectively. Additionally, adding new champions changes how game is played and it keeps game very fresh. With new champions, you don't know whats going to happen and you need to adjust. There is, however, the problem of "how do I learn what all the champions do?" and Riot thinks there's lots of ways they can address this problem. They are looking into solutions.

[46:00]  

Q: Would Morello describe Phreak as cute or super cute?
A: Morello answers that him and Phreak have a "bromance" and that can be left open for interpretation.

[46:35] 

Q: Can we expect to see other "themes", such as the recently released Pulsefire Ezreal?
A: PFE was an experiment and team delivered something really cool and unique . There was nothing specific to announce or talk about but Pabro teased by saying they are "experimenting on things internally".

[48:50] 

Q: Why are female champions so generic and the majority have the chainmail bikini sort of stuff going on?
A: Basically they said they didn't know. They also advised Summoners to go find Ironstylus or another artist at the event and ask them.

Again, I can not stress enough that I summarized the answers and what is written above is not verbatim. A lot of the questions merited lengthy and somewhat convoluted or "dancing around the question"  answers, so I did my best to present an accurate yet concise version of the Q&A.