Recent News
- Red Post Collection: IronStylus & Feral Pony on Sion relaunch, WG2010 Skins back Feb 7th - Feb 23rd, Lots of Continued discussions, and more!
- 2/4 PBE Update - Vision Mini-map Bugs & Minor Changes
- 02/04/2014 Leagues & Gameplay Update
The Path of Truth/Power/Freedom Standings
Riot has published an update on each region's current standings for the Lunar Revel's "Choose Your Path" promotion, where summoner's vote on which of three icons icon their region will receive for free after the Lunar Revel ends:"Have you cast your vote for the warrior’s path your region will follow in 2014? Head to the Lunar Revel experience now to make your voice heard. Is the path you want to walk not in the lead? Share your choice with your friends and add their voices to yours!"
Here's a set of links for each of the different regions "Choose your path" updates. Remember to go vote before Feb 11th!
For those worried about missing out on their favorite icon, Riot Zephyreal commented :
"The good news is all icons will be available for purchase (both IP and RP) after the event. Winning icon gets a special border though"
Check out this PBE post for a better look at the different versions of each of the three icons.
Update on Rengar Rework
"Don't want to leave you guys hanging for too long. Just coming to update and say that we are doing small iterations and testing Rengar daily.
-We're tuning lots of numbers to get his laning, ganking and late game power in a reasonable place.
-We have also made the trinket available in yellow, red, and blue with each being the corresponding vision active (ward, sweeper, clairvoyance)
We're moving at a good rate with him and I'm still checking this thread for all of your feedback."
He continued, commenting on Rengar's passive duration:
"Ya, after some testing 10 seconds did feel a bit too punishing. Right now he has 12 seconds, and it's based around combat instead of Ferocity gain. With those changes, it's pretty reasonable to keep the Ferocity going as long as you keep yourself in combat."He also elaborated more on the BTN change, saying:
"I'm leaning towards having it upgrade with the kill stacks. So 6 kills gets the +1 vision upgrade and 9 or 14 gets the +2 vision upgrade."
[ Continued ] Rework Discussion
While it's not as lengthy as the discussion we've see in the last few days, several Rioters did return comment more on specific champion reworks!When asked about changes for Viktor, RiotScruffy commented:
"Honestly we would like to make improvements on so many champions (Viktor included), but right now he is not an active project. It is definitely noted that there are so many people interested in and hoping for some Viktor changes."
RiotScruffy also briefly mentioned Gangplank's future rework, saying:
"Gangplank is actually someone that we are working on, so yes! We will start talking about him in the future, but he's still in the early stages."
As for Kassadin, ZenonTheStoic commented that Statikk is hard at work trying to fix him up ( which has been evident due to the recent Kassadin changes popping up on the PBE! )
"We've got plans for Kassadin. Statikk is on the case. There's no ETA for them yet, but I'm quite hopeful. the TL;DR is to force Kassadin to spend more time in melee range if he actually wants to do damage. I've watched some internal playtests and the direction is definitely sound."
ZenonTheStoic also replied to a question about Xerath's reworked ult, using Lux's long range ult as a comparison:
"Lux's kit is problematic in that she is a "fish for root, 100 to 0" pattern. This means we don't have a lot of levers to adjust her if she ever does become problematic. Her pattern is all or nothing. Sure her ult fits in that, but I think Lux's ult is much more interesting when used at long range.
I'm hoping that the amount of damage and range Xerath gets (it IS the highest range in the game) make the ult compelling. But most importantly, even if that is not the case when he goes live, we've created a kit that ALLOWS us to tweak these levers. By divorcing the ultimate from the full burst case of the basic kit we've made it ADJUSTABLE. I'm not saying it'll be perfectly well adjusted when it goes live, but we have the tools we need now."
[ Continued ] Relaunch Team Discussion
"We're pretty adequately staffed. Relaunch is basically the size of a champion pod which will handle a single champion at the time. We've got dedicate resources for every discipline. I think we could probably use another 3D artist and texture artist, I myself am trying to train up in that regard, but we're pretty lean and mean. Sometimes that's how teams work effectively. Throwing people at the challenge doesn't always make the most sense. Still takes 9 months to make a baby no matter how many mothers you have trying to do so :P"He continued:
"Ideally that's what we'd want I think. Champion right now has enough resources to stagger productions. They use "pods", or teams that see a character all the way through concept to production. Right now Relaunch is basically equivalent to one of those pods. Having multiple pods would allow Relaunch to up cadence. We'll see. Sometimes we swap resources in and out, or sometimes people jump onto a different character or skin that they're interested. Certain resources are fluid.
Some hiring might help, but to actually accelerate we'd need specific artists especially in the realm of technical animation/rigging and VFX where some bottlenecks lie. Sooo... let me know if anyone of you guys does any of those things!"
As for syncing up visual upgrades and reworks ( such as Xerath's rework including new VFX/SFX ), IronStylus commented:
"What we'd like to do going forward is always package reworks with VU's when applicable. Ideally, yeah, I'd have liked to do something with Xerath but it simply wasn't in the time table. Similar to Heimerdinger. Hit kit rework had to ship before any sort of VU could be on the table. It just wasn't feasible to ship together.
We sort of have a separate initiative to add recalls and other such things to the champions, but that;s more of a "side project" for some guys on animation.
Going forward though, we're trying to ship stuff together. So that it's not a piece at a time. We're still not yet quite caught up with that cadence though."
He also commented about texture updates, saying:
"You can bug RiotPenguin about skins ;)
Generally TU's are sort of what 3D artists work on for a "break" or personal project. They just happen to be so good that we ship them as content. It's sort of a tertiary initiative in Relaunch, but doesn't exactly have a dedicated resource assigned to the effort.
As for base Quinn touchups, probably no time soon. But who knows. Maybe I can try a texture update on her and treat is a TU for practice. We'll see."
When asked about old skins they are changed up after a visual update ( such as Assassin Master Yi going from a simple recolor to a more fitting concept ), IronStylus explained:
"What we do is we take the existing skins and usually just update them to fit the geometry of the new model. Generally, like in the case of Master Yi, we changed the recolors to add some new geometry and details so that they weren't just texture swaps.
If the champion is sort of new, we might just take the old skins and stretch them over the new rig, like in the case of Sejuani. For the most part, the skins don't change too terribly much."
IronStylus also replied to someone asking for an update on Twitch and if he'll ever get some visual love:
"He certainly does need a VU."
When asked about his involvement with the relaunch team and if this means we won't see any more champions from him, IronStylus commented:
"Welp.. I'm concepting a bunch of champions, but it's no guarantee they'll ever see the light of day. I'll probably have more work shown off through relaunch stuff in the meantime. My work has shifted a bit. Now I sort of shepard the concept phase of Relaunch, but I'll pick up concept work on Champions and Skins. But since there's already a lot of champions plotted out for this year, I'm mainly taking time to hone my 3D skills so I can offer more help to the Character team. Also, I'm trying to help in prototyping, giving us a way to visualize character creating in game rather than doing so much polished concept work. That's sort of a separate thing.
All that said, You might see something from me later this year, but that's only a small possibility. There might be some of my stuff in the 2015 lineup. We'll see!"
Negative Feedback is OK. Being a jerk about it isn't
IronStylus also shared his thoughts on negative feedback, encouraging players to be polite and non-toxic if they are seeking to have their feedback taken seriously."Pretty much this.
This is the philosophy I abide by. I'm not going to address negative feedback which is delivered in a toxic, non-polite fashion even if it does have valid points. If those points are buried in vitriol, it automatically is passed by. That's just my policy. I don't have time to address rudeness, period.
If someone gives me feedback which disagrees with what we're doing, is phrased politely, presented rationally, and gives me the same respect I'm giving others, then I will approach it. We may completely disagree, we might never come to consensus, but it will remain civil and respect will be maintained. At least a discussion will be had.
There are too few hours in the day to be throttled by feedback that's wrapped in anger and negativity. It's a time sink for all of us. To have that negative feedback, presented by those negative individuals, given equal weight as those who take the time to center their emotions, compose their posts politely and engage in a discussion that is mutually respectful, is unfair.
I will have no problem seeing vitriol decrease. You will have more dev presence if it does indeed decrease.
Which do you want? Negative feedback that's presented in a toxic way having equal weight as negative feedback presented in a positive way and the dev presence fall off, or constructive and possibly negative feedback, presented politely and rationally, treated as higher value and encourage devs to interact?
I know which behavior I'll be responding to.
Thanks for the discussion on this topic. There's a lot I can take back to the community dev team and hopefully we can incorporate some helpful features. I appreciate the passion, feedback and suggestions. Time to move on to some other business."
Champion Design vs Core Gameplay teams
ZenonTheStoic also took some time to explain the difference between the champion design and the gameplay teams:"Champion Design and Core Gameplay are two different teams, but we're very close to each other. We sit literally right next to each other, we regularly have conversations about pretty much anything, and Rioters move back and forth between the teams.
As for a champion's balance: pre-release the champion designer works with a balance signoff from core gameplay to make sure the champion's about as balanced as it will get. Ideally the two work together early in the champion's conception, identifying patterns that will or won't be healthy for the game rather than just tweaking numbers on a completed kit. In my case with Lucian, I trusted Scarizard to make a lot of the calls. He even suggested some of the pattern changes that made it into the kit.
Post-release, game health is theoretically in core gameplay's domain, but I can tell you that designers are very attached to their champions and normally the first to be vocally unhappy when their champion is OP. Pretty much all of the nerfs to Thresh came from CertainlyT directly, for instance. Core gameplay will look at those and say, yep, that's pretty much what we would have done, playtest the change in their competitive games and then sign off on it. In the case of Lucian, I'm still unhappy with how unavoidable his Q is and how player expectation does not match raw damage output of his R, so I'm finding some ways of addressing these, once again with Scarizard's help."
Summoner's Rift Feedback
Continuing to build on his initial list, RiotForSciene returned to compile more of the community's feedback on Summoner's Rift and address a few of the points:"Moving forward with condensing feedback here is the next block of issues. Again points without asterix are basic great ideas. Ones with asterix are things that I need to give some clarity on.
16. The minions need a VU
17. We should flip the golem camp so that they face the other direction***
18. More destructible content like HA
19. Make SR look like the beta-site background Illustration***
20. Make brush move dynamically
21. Add damage states to the turrets
22. More variety in tree types
23. There needs to be a clear (but not clean) boundary between terrain and path
24. The River needs to make more sense
25. The different sections of the map need slightly different themes
26. There needs to be SFX for walking through grass or water ***
27. The terrain could get more worn as the game progresses ***
28. The houses feel really unnatural in the forest, the statues don’t make much sense
29. Summoner’s Rift needs to actually feel like a Rift
30. Trees should wobble when you shoot a skillshot through them ***
Concerning the idea of flipping golem camp. Stone Bros serve a function of allowing additional farm when your lane is pushed. However, due to the meta this gives a distinct advantage to duo-bot lanes. Part of the reason why we added the Wight-camp is to mitigate this concern. Hopefully we solved the problem, but not in the way you were expecting.
Concerning the forum background illustration. I have written about this quite a lot. This image was created without the context of gameplay concerns so is not the best basis for a hypothetical new iteration of the map. It is crucial that all of our content be very readable and clear. This image is beautiful, but does not do what we need.
"there needs to be SFX for walking through grass or water" Yes, absolutely... eventually... I read on the forums about how players can get frustrated by how long it takes us to add pretty simple tech to our game. The simple answer is that there is a "Tech-debt" backlog that needs to get cleared before we have the capacity to add new features. This one is a no-brainer and will be a very high-priority... when we can get to it.
"The terrain could get more worn as the game progresses" A cool idea, I love how it would help create an evolving game narrative. However, it also has gameplay interaction that would need to be thoroughly tested. Also, we have some optimization tech that might make it really difficult to do that.
Trees should wobble when you shoot a skillshot through them" This is obviously a lower priority than having really awesome looking trees to start with, but I could see this as being a fun thing to do. You would still have the same suspension of disbelief issue when a skillshot penetrates a non-tree object like a rock or building though."
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