Red Post Collection: The Master Tier for ranked, NA Sale delayed 24 hours, and more!

Tonight's red post collection features information on the new "Master" ranked tier, Vesh with a few more comments on Soraka's upcoming rework, WizardCrab on the candy icons, a note that the NA champion and skin sale for August 12th through the 15th is delayed by 24 hours, and more!
Continue reading for more information!



New "Master" Ranked Tier Coming Soon

Earlier today, diamond one and challenger tier players shared that Riot has emailed them a heads-up on a new "Master" ranked tier they will be implementing soon.

Here is the full email, taken from snoopeh's twitter account:
"Your spot in Diamond 1 or Challenger tier means we wanted you to be among the first to know we've updated the design of our ranked play system specifically to address feedback around the end of Season 3 and Challenger.

We take ranked competition seriously, and we know challenger immunity caused issues with transparency around standings at the end of last season. Not knowing whether or not you were about to get kicked out of the tier you'd worked so hard to reach, or earning 0 LP three times in a row sucks.

So we've developed a new ward to challenge your skills, The Master Tier, which brings with it some improvements to the old system. Master Tier will share the same LP ladder as Challenger, but unlike Challenger, there is no hard player limited to Master tier. Once released, players who reach their promotion series at the top of the Diamond 1 will enter Mater Tier if they are successful. And yes, that means that on release there will be no players in Master Tier,  but it will begin to fill as soon as players start winning their promos.

When Master Tier Launches, players in Challenger will remain in their current position but the competition kicks off right away as Challenger will now rotate on a twenty-four hour schedule with no immunity.

Each time the clock hits zero, it will recalculate the top 200 players or 50 teams; promoting any players from Master who are now in the top 200 or teams in the top 50 in LP, and removing players who have fallen below the top 200 and demoting them to Master.

We'll be making a wider announcement in the coming weeks ( for example we've also eliminated LP clamping ) along with more about the end of the season, but as one of the players most impacted by this change, we wanted to each out to you directly.

Thanks for playing ranked, and GLHF for the rest of the 2014 season."

In the reddit thread discussing Master Tier, Riot Socrates popped in to comment:
"Hey all, to clarify on one point: there is no hard limit to the number of players in master tier like the current challenger 200 spots. This doesn't mean these players will be immune from demotion once they achieve the tier. So master tier could be the top 511 or 534 players in a region based on the amount of participation in ranked, etc. Players who achieve Master tier will have a short immunity period and then be vulnerable to demotion if they don't maintain their performance at that level."
He continued:
"Demotion will work similarly to other tiers, where there are a few checks before you fall. A player will fall back into diamond 1 if they lose enough games in master tier. 
We expect to be on PBE in the next few days."
He also confirmed Master tier will have it's own loading screen border:
"Yes, there will be a unique loading screen border for master tier."

[Continued] Soraka rework discussion

Vesh again returned to his thread on Soraka's rework to briefly discuss more about the future update:

When asked why Soraka's heal currently has an armor and if they would stay on her reworked kit, Vesh commented:
"The armor was placed on the W so that it had a clear combat-only success case.

The new model will actually allow us to move away from that since Soraka will still be paying meaningful costs if she uses it to "sustain" her ally."

Vesh also commented on giving Soraka meaningful trade offs :

"If we had a champion that had no abilities except a 1 second cooldown "heal ally for 50" button, would that be a fun or satisfying character in our game? 
Sure we could give her tradeoffs by giving her NOTHING else, but that would not create good gameplay. The game as a whole would be worse off. What we want to give her are meaningful tradeoffs that create fun and engaging gameplay for all 10 players in the game."
He continued:
I also play healers in every game I play. I think one of the core things that make healers feel awesome is getting to make giant impacts on the health bars of your allies. If we want to allow Soraka to heal a guy from 1% to 50% or more, she is going to have to make some serious tradeoffs for that kind of (particularly frustrating) power. She will need to put her self at more risk the more crazy her healing is on a target. I was particularly skeptical of this type of healing pattern at first too, but as I started implementing and testing stuff I was really excited by how fun it was. It feels really great to heal someone crazy amounts, and this paradigm allows her to do that in a healthy way that enemies can feel is more fair (because they can just switch to Soraka and kill her if she starts dumping heals on someone)

He sure to check out our earlier Red Post Collections for a run down of everything else we know about Soraka's upcoming rework.

Lyte on Warnings and the report system

Lyte also jumped on the forums to answer a few questions on how warnings and reports work, including what the future may hold for punishments.
"Quote:
1. If you are in game and say nothing that is toxic but get reported. The warning, is that because of player reports or because of the system thinking you are toxic? 
Warnings are given for a string of games. A common misunderstanding is that the warning was for the immediate last game, so players wonder how they got a warning if they never chatted or did anything the immediate last game. However, if you do get a warning, it means you've been reported and the system thinks you've been trending negatively in your last stretch of games.

Quote:
2. Follow up to question 1. How does the system filter between actual toxic and troll reports? 
Every report is basically validated by the Report System. If the system believes a behavior is toxic, and you reported it, your report weight goes up. If you report a behavior that isn't considered toxic, your report weight goes down. There's a lot of nuance to this system, but that's the simple explanation.

Quote:
3. Once chat restricted, do you have to communicate or can you finish your chat restriction without saying anything? So if you finish, your 10 chat restrictions without saying a word, will that count as improvement and free you of the chat restriction or no will you get the same amount as before? 
It's possible to finish your chat restriction without communicating anything. Most players don't type much in games and just use smart pings, and that's a perfectly OK way to play League.

Quote:
4. In the past we had 1 day, 3day, 7day, 14day followed by perma banned i believe. Is now the only thing 14 day into perma banned? 
In the future when Tribunal comes back up, we'll probably only have a few tiers of punishments. We generally see that players willing to improve do so in the first 2 tiers of punishments. 
Right now and in the future, if your offenses are severe enough, you can get escalated straight to a 14-day punishment, or even a permanent ban.

Quote:
5. In regards to the new system, i went 0- something one game with barely any assists, had a terrible day. How will it tell if i am having a bad day or trolling? Especially if i am NOT communicating anything.  
Thank you! 
We won't be going too much into detail for the intentional feeder system yet, but one of the main goals is to avoid punishing players just having a regular bad game."

[ NA ] Champion and skin sales delayed in NA

WizardCrab has posted that the 8/12 - 8/15 champion and skin sale for North America will be delayed 24 hours due to store maintenance.
"Hey Summoners, 
Due to some store maintenance, we've had to delay the regular champion and skin sales for 24 hours. Instead of starting 8/12 and going through the 8/15, they will begin 8/13 and run through the 8/16. Thanks for your understanding. 
-WC"

Regarding the Sugar Rush Candy Icons


In a thread regarding the new Candy-Coated Cupcake icon available as part of Sugar Rush, WizardCrab scuttled on to the boards to reply to summoner's calling him a liar regarding his earlier comments about event icon pricing, clarifying his definition of an event and what to expect going forward.
"Hey guys.

This thread is a bit of a minefield so I'll probably only post in here once (although I'll continue to read it).

I would like you to look back and read the post that I wrote. I still stand by every single word I said there. I did not make you a "promise" there. I made it very clear that I wasn't making a promise. The only thing I didn't outright say is "This is not a promise" but I don't feel I need to say that. If I'm promising you something, I promise you that I'll use the phrase "I promise." I very clearly stated that we are forming a strategy that is "malleable" and would likely take a form similar to what I said.

And I stand by that it still takes exactly that form. This is why I tried to explain that an "event" that would cause us to put an IP price on an icon was more than a promotional site or themed skin release. Do you really think Sugar Rush is like the Freljord event, one with a big lore tie-in? Or Harrowing/Snowdown/Lunar Revel, events related to real world holidays that many people participate in? Or something truly special like the release of a full-on, in house music album? Or on the scale of something like possibly the biggest global sporting competition that only happens every four years? When I said that an event "for just this context" is more, I meant that. AND the reason I added that bold phrase about it being for that specific context in my original post is because I meant that it was for just that specific context. The word event can be used by anyone at anytime to mean anything. PAX is an event, but it doesn't apply here, because I'm only talking about this context. The super moon yesterday was an event but it doesn't apply because I'm only talking about this context. I'm begging that you read the words I've written and take them at face value, because I 100% will not lie to you because I just don't ****ing do that.

I will also try my best to be as clear as I can so I don't mislead you by accident, which it appears that I've done here. I'm sorry that I unintentionally misled you. I really did not mean to. But don't come in here and tell me that I'm lying to you when I'm not. I really don't appreciate that.

For this particular candy-themed adventure, you can purchase one icon for RP, and unlock another through participation in gifting. There will be many more icons, many of which will be available for IP. If you don't feel that the RP only icon is worth the money, please don't buy it. Buy the stuff you like, leave the rest on the (virtual) shelf.

/saltycrab"

LoL at Gamescom 2014

As most of you already know, Riot is headed to gamescom 2014 for the upcoming EU LCS playoffs! What you may not know is they have a ton of other activities plans for attending summoners, such as  community stage games, cosplay events, a youtuber Q&A, developer presentations, and more!

Check out the "Dive into the world of LoL at gamescom 2014" article for more information!

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