Red Post Collection: Player Behavior Design Values - Reform Dev Blog, Rune Combiner & T1/T2 Runes update, PBE Jungle Context, The Poro King Comes to the LCS

• Skill improvement and ladder progress -- Playing to get better at the game and have fun climbing ranks
• Serious competition -- Playing ranked because it is the most competitive mode where everyone has opted in to trying their hardest to win
• Social comparison -- Playing to compare rank to other players
• Rewards and tangible accomplishments -- Playing to earn rewards at the end of the ranked season

Before ranked restrictions, we weren’t giving the hyper-competitive solo-queue player the right type of feedback at the right time and they might play through any number of warnings or punishments up until his inevitable permaban. By locking these players out of ranked queue, we throw up a barrier between them and what they are most motivated by. To take the barrier down, they have to improve their behavior to be more in line with what the community expects, reinforcing positive behaviors and promoting reform.

With ranked restrictions, we used an advanced machine-learning model to instantly recognize negative behaviors the community rejects. Through end-of-game reports, honors and historical Tribunal records, we were able to analyze millions of games in order to identify negative behaviors and build a faster feedback loop.

We don’t always share numbers, but because we are only talking about ranked games (meaning all accounts are active in ranked queue and Level 30) we felt these are pretty easy to make sense of without a ton of extra context. Since introducing ranked restrictions, verbal harassment reports in ranked games dropped 18%.

After identifying some of the motivations behind ranked play and designing a system that provides meaningful penalties related to those motivations, the percentage of ranked games with moderate negativity fell 28% (from approximately 1 in 8 games to less than 1 in 10), and the percentage of ranked games with high levels of negativity (such as death threats, sexism, racism or homophobia) plummeted 47% to 0.8% of all ranked games.


Feedback is Everything

"In this blog, I re-emphasized our philosophy around reform and why we reject the notion of a silver bullet to slay negative behavior. Then Socrates explored how ranked restrictions work and why they are so effective. In the next blog, Drevarius plunges into a deeper dive on punishment, and how we approach penalizing negative behavior differently. For example, our decision to remove ranked rewards from the most negative players was in line with the motivations Socrates discussed in this blog, and represents a different approach than always resorting to the banhammer.

Thanks for reading; we’ll see you on the battlefield!"

- Lyte"

• Dev Blog: Exploring Player Behavior Design Values

Update on Rune Combiner & T1/T2 Runes

Here's Iniquitee with more information: 

"Tl;dr – In Patch 5.1 we’ll be simplifying the new player rune experience by removing all scaling and most secondary Tier 1 & Tier 2 runes from the store, reducing and standardizing prices on the remainder, and removing the Rune Combiner from the client. The price changes won’t be retroactive, and no runes will be removed from accounts.

We’d like to give you a heads up regarding some changes coming in patch 5.1 that are aimed at streamlining the rune experience for new players. To clarify, these changes aren’t part of our long-term plans for the overall rune system (still working on those!) and generally won’t affect most level 30s – they’re a quick fix specifically focused on making things smoother for new players.

First of all, we’re slimming down the number of purchasable Tier 1 and Tier 2 runes. These runes are intended to be an introduction to the level 30 rune experience, but duplicating the entire Tier 3 rune roster is overkill given that players will pretty quickly move on to T3 runes. In particular, more advanced decisions like the appropriate use of scaling or secondary (AP marks, Armor glyphs, Crit EVERYTHING, etc) runes are something we think can wait until players have mastered the basics of League. With that in mind, we’re pulling all scaling and most secondary T1/T2 runes from the store and thereby reducing the number of purchasable T1/T2 runes from 88 to just 23. This will be a store-only change so no runes will be removed from accounts.

To complement these changes, we’re also adjusting the remaining T1/T2 runes with lower, standardized pricing that will reduce individual T1/T2 rune prices by anywhere from 55% to 90+% depending on current cost. These prices changes are also store-only and won’t be retroactive.

Finally, we’re removing the Rune Combiner. For the unfamiliar, the Rune Combiner is a tool accessible through the Runes profile tab that lets players combine runes in order to receive a new one. It was initially conceived as a progression tool and a way for players to recycle lower-tier runes, but has ended up being a bit of a trap for low-level players as well as a tool for mischief in the case of shared or compromised accounts. So, we’re retiring it – pretty simple. Make sure to use it before Patch 5.1 if you’re the gambling type or simply want to get rid of some unused runes.

You can see the full change list below (subject to change): 

• Rune Combiner removed

• Players occasionally used the Rune Combiner to delete excess runes upon reaching the rune cap (700). In the future, please contact Player Support for assistance.

• Price reduction / standardization on remaining T1 / T2 runes (not retroactive)

• Tier 1

• New prices: 15 IP per quint, 5 IP per mark / seal / glyph

• Previous prices: 80 - 165 IP per quint, 15 - 65 IP per mark / seal / glyph

• Tier 2

• New prices: 100 IP per quint, 35 IP per mark /seal / glyph

• Previous prices: 410 - 820 IP per quint, 80 - 330 IP per mark / seal / glyph

• Remaining T1 / T2 runes (all flat)

• Marks - Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Armor Penetration, Magic Penetration

• Seals - Armor, Magic Resist, Health, Health Regeneration

• Glyphs - Ability Power, Cooldown Reduction, Mana Regeneration, Magic Resist

• Quints - Ability Power, Cooldown Reduction, Magic Penetration, Armor, Magic Resist, Health, Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Armor Penetration, Life Steal, Movement Speed

• Following T1 / T2 runes removed from store (existing owners retain them)

• All scaling runes

• Marks – Ability power, Armor, Cooldown Reduction, Critical Chance, Critical Damage, Health, Hybrid Penetration, Magic Resist, Mana, Mana Regeneration

• Seals – Ability Power, Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, Critical Chance, Critical Damage, Mana, Mana Regeneration, Percent Health

• Glyphs – Armor, Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Critical Chance, Critical Damage, Health, Health Regeneration, Manacreat

• Quints – Critical Chance, Critical Damage, Health Regeneration, Hybrid Penetration, Mana, Mana Regeneration, Percent Health"

Recent Jungle Experimentation Context Post

"Hey all, 

Way over due on this. As you've all noticed, we've been trying some very quick iteration cycles on the jungle camps to reduce the benefit of bot lanes poaching jungle camps at level one. The two iterations that were tested on PBE were Krug and Gromp having their own buffs until smote, and after that, a buff to the base stats of the camps, with machete buffed to compensate. 

The results of our testing in both cases led us to believe that the impact on the jungler from these changes was much too high, and in the second set of changes, might not have even pushed the lanes away from the level one poaching. 

The end result is that we aren't happy with the solutions so far, but we've been really happy to throw changes at PBE at a rapid clip, and be able to get your reactions and play testing. It's been incredibly useful for us to work at this pace and get the very quick feedback. Mainly wanted to do this post to say we're likely to keep this up for this project, as well as others in the future. Thanks everyone for the testing time and the thoughtful feedback!"

He continued:

"Generally looking to not do anything too heavy handed. One of the reasons we keep having similar issues with poaching is because we do very specific, heavy handed changes, and when we have to fix another part of the game that changes some of the details, very specific fixes break down. 

We're currently wondering if the cost of leaving the lane alone is just too low. Making the cost of poaching higher seems to be misguided, as we've never really been able to fix poaching this way before, we've just made it impossible (by making the camps spawn so late its not an option). We're almost out of time this year, so there's not likely going to be any more changes going to the PBE in 2014, but we'll continue to test some options internally. The explorations for now will likely be seeing if we can make the cost of leaving the lane higher if the other lane takes action, to offer more counter-play to poaching."

In response to the suggestion of simply pushing up the jungle camp spawn time, Fearless explained:

"We've tested some delays, and there are some very high costs, especially going for as long as 2:10. 2:10 feels like level one ambush/gank plays become the "right" way to play the game, because the jungler has too much free time, and the lanes have zero chance to leash.

We do also have some range junglers like Kayle and Twitch that are actually very auto dependent, and I'd prefer to not hit them to solve the poaching problem. Not saying we'd never consider it, but looking to explore other possibilities beforehand."

When asked why they don't just bump up the spawn time for Gromp and Krugs specifically, Fearless noted:

"The issue there would be that Krugs and Gromp are intended as possible starting points. If we remove those, junglers would be much more restrictive, and there is less strategic space for building routes."

As for fixing up the bot lane poaching Krugs by reducing damage they take from ranged attacks, he noted:

"We've talked about that. Potentially hurts some of the existing ranged junglers. Not off the table, but potentially hits problems of hitting our junglers as much if not more than the bot lanes."

He continued:

"Quote:

Since jungle camps are poached in bottom lane for the XP lead, wouldn't shifting some of that xp into machete be a possible option? Like say reduce all camps xp reward by X%, and make machete boost xp gained from camps by the same amount.

Yup. This goes very heavy handed, and as you speak about, really hurts the fall back patterns of losing lanes. It's preferable to find a solution that doesn't just tell laners "These camps aren't for you" and instead goes for "Are you sure you want to take these?""

[BUG] Firewall Error after Champ Select

For those having problems, Digital Ram has set up a thread with acknowledging and offering a work around for the "Firewall Error after Champion Select" bug.

Check it out here.

[BUG] Aura and Active Item Range Indicators

Riot Rayven also mentioned the team is currently aware of a problem with the range indicators on both aura and active items.

"Hey folks, we are looking into both aura range and active item range indicators. They used to work, but are currently bugged."

The Poro King Comes to the LCS

"The Legend of the Poro King game mode drops this week as part of Snowdown, and with it comes intense 5-on-5 Poro-slinging action. The Poro pummeling can be enjoyed by all, but one has to wonder, "What would happen if 10 of today's best League of Legends players threw down against the King?" Well, we're about to find out, as players from Cloud9, Curse, and LCS newcomer Team 8 are about to step into the Poro King's realm.

Team Poro:

• Hai (Cloud9)
• Meteos (Cloud9)
• IWdominate (Curse)
• Dodo8 (Team 8)
• Slooshi (Team 8)

Team King:

• Xpecial (Curse)
• Sneaky (Cloud9)
• Maplestreet (Team 8)
• CaliTrlolz (Team 8)
• PorpoisePops (Team 8)

You can catch the action live right here on Lolesports.com Wednesday at 1pm PST (10pm CEST). Head over to the Snowdown page to learn more about this year's Snowdown event!"