Red Post Collection: PBE Forum Switchover, Team Builder Discussion, Note on Alistar's problems, and MORE!

"Hey Summoners, 

As you may have noticed, we’ve closed down the regional PBE forums and have moved to a single PBE community. In combination with the recent update to PBE applications and access, this step will benefit the overall PBE effort through better collection of feedback & bug reporting by:

• Connecting the single worldwide PBE game platform to a single worldwide PBE discussion hub
• Better raising visibility of the biggest tester concerns through the community platform
• Allowing Rioters to concentrate their efforts and more quickly identify widespread issues

Going forward, players from all regions will be able look through PBE community discussions, but only PBE accounts with currently enabled PBE access will be able to post. We want the PBE community to maintain a razor-sharp focus on feedback & reporting by testers with hands-on experience of current PBE content. There are plenty of spaces where players actively discuss PBE content previews without the burden of providing exhaustive feedback, bug repro steps, etc. and we’re NOT abandoning those discussions. We just want to disentangle them from the feedback loops we specifically charge PBE testers with contributing to. 

The PBE community is ultimately an extension of the PBE itself, and we’re confident these changes will facilitate better PBE bug & feedback reporting and community collaboration."

"As we mentioned last week, Team Builder’s a new way to queue for normal blind pick games that matches players based on their preferred roles and their chosen champion’s play style. Whether you’re looking to suit up a perfect five-man poke comp around Jayce and Nid, or you’re itching to unleash a wombo combo or two, Team Builder’s got the tools to bring the right players together.

Fire up Team Builder and join or create a game either as a captain or a solo player. After selecting their own role, position and champion, captains create their team by indicating what’s needed in each remaining position. They can go with something familiar if they want, or they can try to break the enemy team’s brains by assembling five assassins in the jungle. It’s totally up to them. Meanwhile, solo players indicate the role, position and champion they’re looking to try out, and Team Builder works away in the background to find a suitable team.

Once a team is found, Team Builder brings the players into the game lobby to meet the rest of their teammates. Captains accept or decline players to fill the slots they specified, and accepted players then choose whether they want to join or leave the lobby. Leaving places them back into the Team Builder queue, while players that join can start selecting their runes and masteries, and chat with their new teammates. When the team’s ready to roll, the captain sends the team into matchmaking.

As with all PBE releases, Team Builder’s in its infancy, and we’ll cultivate it based on your feedback and testing . The feature’s going to have a big impact in-game, so we’re going to keep it on PBE until the time’s right. It’s available for testing for the next three days from 1 – 5pm PST, so now’s the perfect time to give it a spin and let us know what you think."

"There's a lot of changes and new features to Champion Select in Team Builder, and we expect a period of learning. For example, we've never had a mini-map that displays your team composition and strategy, and never had "ready checks" in League of Legends before. As players learn where to find and how to use this information, we'll see some of the initial confusion die down."

As for the team builder queue times being long, he reminded:

"Because PBE is a smaller server, queue times will be longer than usual and not representative of a live environment. Because common compositions tend to be more popular, they'll definitely have shorter queue times."

Riot Lobster also stepped in to reply to someone suggesting a Play Again option after you complete a game with friends or an awesome team:

"Currently Team Builder does not support the Play Again option, but we know how helpful it is in getting back into game quickly so we're keeping track of that work. Thanks for the report kazuya!"

If you are itching for more on the team builder, check our recent PBE video preview or check out the 10/25 PBE coverage post!

A Warm Welcome from Relaunch

With all the discussion shifting to the new PBE community, Ququroon popped up with a warm welcome from the relaunch team and a request for feedback on the relaunch team!

"Salutations to you, PBE bros and ladybros! 

I am Ququroon, and I do QA for the Relaunch team! As a team, we actively strive to ensure that the quality of existing champions is brought in line with our raised quality bar. Relaunches receive a lot of love and care from the PBE, so I wanted to greet all the new folks who are now a part of the PBE. 

Currently we have Sivir on the PBE. She will be out on Live really soon, and it’s thanks to reports from you guys. Thank you very much! While we wait for the next Relaunch to hit the PBE (Soon!™), I wanted to post a warm-up discussion for feedback. This should also help getting everybody (myself included) comfortable with the new forum style.

• Who would you like to see Relaunched?

• We have a very large backlog, but a few of them do stand out!

• If you could change one thing about a prior Relaunch (sans balance stuff), what would you change?

• This could help us be aware of areas for improvement! We’re constantly striving to improve as a team. 

I look forward to your awesome posts in the present, and in the future! This’ll be a blast!"

On relaunch content getting the same love as new champions ( i.e promos, videos, etc ), Ququroon commented:

"I'd love to see this too! We're constantly ramping up the stuff Relaunches get (Spotlights are pretty common these days!), so I hope we keep improving in this area."

As for a Tristana VU, he commented:

"I think that Yordles as a whole could receive a little pass on things. tasteyimpulse above mentioned Poppy, and I think that Tristana and Poppy are equally in need of some new visuals. 

As far as kit goes though, I think one of those probably needs it a bit more than the other."

When a Warwick VU was suggested, he replied:

"He's on our radar, do not fret! I think he could be a fierce beast. What would you expect to see if we tuned him up?"

As for a rework of Galio's kit, he commented:

"Agreed. He fills a very niche role, but perhaps it's a little too niche right now. 

As far as his visuals go, are you satisfied with them now, or would you want to see that too?"

Combat Text, Ceremony, and Particle Changes on PBE

Continuing to fill up the PBE community after the forum switchover, Super Nomegeta has posted up a thread regarding the new combat text, ceremony, and particle changes now on the PBE for testing.

"Hey guys, 

Over the next few patches, we'll be making incremental updates to League of Legends that should not only raise the visual bar, but also improve functionality, clarity, and satisfaction. What you'll find on PBE right now are a few of these upcoming changes.

• New Combat Text! Both font and colors have been updated. We feel these changes better suit the style of League of Legends (and are more readable).
• Improved Last-Hit Ceremony! Font animations, gold particle, and sound have been tweaked to provide more satisfying last hits.
• Improved Level-Up Ceremony! Likewise, a new particle and sound have been added to make leveling feel more impactful.
• New Health and Mana Potion Particles! Gaze in wonder as you're enveloped by green and blue stars and swirls.
• New Revive Particle! Hipster Karthus players rejoice! Don't worry, the other Summoner Spells will be updated too.

As always, check them out and give us your feedback!"

If you are curious what some of these look like, check out our PBE coverage ( be aware, some of these may have been tweaked since recording! ) : New Combat Text / Last-Hit Ceremony, Improved Level-up Ceremony and New Heath and Mana Potion particles, and New revive particle.

Non Linear scaling

When asked why abilities always scale linearly ( i.e the same increment every rank up -  10/20/30/40/50 ) instead of non-lineraly ( i.e by different increments each rank 10/15/25/50/85 ), Morello replied:

"Great question.

I actually DON'T value linear-only scaling for the reasons you mention. I think there are issues that exist because of this, and the benefits of clarity are so minor than I think they take a back seat to good pacing and balance here.

You'll probably see more non-linear scaling arrive in balance when we think it can fix the problem. It's not a silver bullet, of course, but I think a valuable tool (ESPECIALLY on ults since you can predict early- mid- and late-game based on that) to us to use."

What about Alistar?

With all the preseason support talk, one summoner inquired about Alistar and if the design team has any plans for him in the near future. Morello replied:

"We agree Alistar needs work on this front. Statikk specifically has wanted to do some heavy lifting here. 

The core problems that need to be fixed, outside of a nerfs/buffs thing: 

1) Alistar is a nightmare when he can roam or jungle. Him being powerful now pushes him out of support and into this role (we've seen this cycle). We need to make changes that make him a great duo lane tank/support, but not let him be a roamer. 

2) Alistar's E needs some gameplay decision-making. It costs a lot of mana, but needs to be used a lot - not super satisfying or interesting. 

3) Alistar's identity is awesome; linebacker to the max. We want to keep this identity.
No details, and no pure numerics yet, though I do believe we want to get to this during preseason."

Rammus Sculpt from Pax Prime Demo

grumpy monkey popped up over on reddit to share a sculpt he did of Rammus during PAX Prime earlier this year.

"Sup guys! I was at the Wacom booth doing demos during pax prime, and I sculpted this little Rammus. I went ahead and gave him a little bit of love. Just thought I'd share!

http://cghub.com/images/view/693533/"