CertainlyT Talks Thresh and IronStylus talks Lighthearted

While some of may just be waking up, the forums have been bubbling with new red posts all night!
Continue reading for two sets of red posts, one from CertainlyT about Thresh and the other from IronStylus talking about the seemingly neglected lighthearted side of League.

CertainlyT talks Thresh.
As with most champions releases, the forums are flooded with questions and comments on our newest champion, Thresh. As any proud designer would, CertainlyT has been busy darting around the forums and joining in on several of the Thresh related discussions.

First off, CertainlyT shared his thoughts on Thresh's Q and it's lengthy wind up speed. He actually offered not only a mechanical explanation but also a flavorful one.

""Hmm... whose mind shall we snap" -- Thresh Q is all about the psychological battle. 

The spell has an inordinately long and easily detectable windup for such a spell (0.5 sec rather than the standard 0.25 or even 0.15 for some missiles, like Morgana's Dark Binding, Elise's Cocoon, or Zyra's Grasping Roots). It's also quite powerful -- we joke internally that  the spell's name, Death Sentence, is pretty spot on. How does this play into the psychological terror that Thresh is supposed to manifest? 

1. Obviously, the opponent doesn't get the benefit of seeing that long windup if cast from Fog of War/Brush. Any time Thresh isn't visible, the opponent has to live in a state of abject fear. Fortunately for them, Thresh's soul collection mechanic balances this stress by forcing  him to come out periodically to play on fairer terms. 

2. Death Sentence brings a subtle, but unique mechanic to the league: Thresh doesn't face the exact position toward which he is casting until the end of the cast. As such, the spell is balanced not around opponent reaction time, but around your ability as the Thresh player to  anticipate the direction the opponent will try to move in response to the wind up. In turn, the enemy's counterplay is to vary their movement and win the dodging mind game. Try psyching people out by consciously casting it from an initial facing direction slightly off from where you are actually directing the spell."

CertainlyT also addressed a few points about Thresh's passive and the souls it spawns then enemies die.

In relation to the chance that minions and small creeps have to drop souls, he explained that there isn't actually a static drop percentage but instead one that adjusts dynamically !

"Each "small" minion has a random chance to trigger a soul (33.33%). However, the probability adjusts dynamically. If you are below your expected quota of soul drops from small minions, the probability rises by a small amount until you are back at your quota of drops. Conversely, if you get a ton of drops from the first wave of minions, you are a bit less likely to get souls from the next wave. In typical play experience will, the probability only fluctuates by a few percent -- it is built to be random in the short term and non-random over the long run. Actual collection of souls has no bearing on the probability. Number of large minions that have dropped souls also has no effect. The randomization smoothing only cares about soul spawns from "small" minions and monsters."

He also mentioned just how large the spawn radius for souls is:

"1900 units -- a good deal longer than the lantern cast radius. For reference, Caitlyn's rank 1 ultimate is 2000 units."

In case you were worried about ganking as Thresh and having dropped souls reveal you, he dropped off this little tidbit about the visibility of Thresh's souls.

"Enemies cannot see the souls unless they can see Thresh"

Finally, regarding allegations that Thresh will soon be nerfed, CertainlyT said:

"It's obviously very early, but he seems pretty balanced at the moment."

Ironstylus on the lighthearted and silly.
Are you a fan of the lighthearted champions? Champs like Fizz or Lulu? Fortunately, Ironstylus squawked out a tiny teaser post just for you!

"Can't really get into specifics but you'll probably see some "funny" or more light-hearted stuff show up this year. I agree though. There are only so many badasses you can make."

On a similar note, Ironstylus threw his hat into the ring about the lack of silly or funny skins lately.

"Good ideas. That said, yes, we do have a bit of a gap in our releases I feel which should be filled with more light-hearted skins. I think one of the reasons we haven't done as many is because we're really trying to get global with our approach, making things broadly appealing to our world wide audience. That isn't to say we want to water down silly ideas or dial back, what we want to do is find the best universal silliness possible. 

The global community isn't necessarily on the same wavelength as maybe a skin like Brolaf or Gentleman Cho'gath. That doesn't make them not awesome, or make them off limits, it just means that we might want to expand what is appealing to a wider variety of people. Pool party Ziggs, Astronautilus, Battle Bunny Riven, those are all pretty universally appealing takes on humor. 

We get a lot more discerning nowadays.Since the skin quality has also upped recently, when we do do more of a "fun" or silly skin we deck it out to the nines where previously we might just have geo swap. That makes light-hearted skins just as work intensive. We want to make them have the most thematic penetration throughout thier custom animations or particles.

Yes, we've gone a bit serious recently, but that will change. We need to make room for everything and introduce a bit more of a steady silly cadence into our releases I feel."

Expanding on that idea even more, he responded to one summoner who suggested "baseball" as globally fun theme.

"Yep, baseball is pretty global, but it might not be what's most in the minds of our particular users. Themes like summer, space travel, holiday related themes, those all tend to be fertile ground for ideas. While we really like to get into our "memes" here in North America, it's easy to forget there's an entire world that plays League of Legends! As much as we in the US might be confused and possibly not interested in something so uniquely regional in another country, we have to remember that the rest of the world isn't always going to get what we here find amusing. Again, that's not to say we won't make a good idea, some ideas are just more universal, and I think we're better served by embracing what we universally find funny or silly.

It's pretty cool to see just how similar our sense of humor is when you look across the entire world!"