2/19 PBE Update: Experimental Items Removed, Party Rewards, Relative Team Colors Option fixes, and more

[2/20 Update ~12 PM PST: Small patch went out on 2/20 but is pretty small. Memory leak fix!]

A small update has been pushed to the PBE! We have a new Party Rewards feature up for testing, the removal of the experimental  Item 3285 and Mandrake Ward, and more!

Continue reading for more information!

(Warning: PBE Content is tentative and iterative - what you see may not reflect what eventually gets pushed to live servers! Manage your expectations accordingly. )

[PBE] Play with friends and earn bonus IP with Party Rewards

Here's Riot Socrates with information on the new "Party Rewards" feature that is currently testing on the PBE:

"Hey everyone, 

We all know queuing up with friends makes League more fun. The feature Player Behavior’s testing adds a chance at bonus IP rewards based on the size of your premade party. Basically, playing with more friends means you’ll win more IP. 

Here’s how it works: 

If you enter (any) queue with a premade party, the group earns a chance at a chunk of bonus IP at the end of the game. There is a chance that your group earns no Party Reward, but larger premade parties win higher tiers of IP rewards. Some lucky players will even earn rare, but massive IP prizes. If you queue alone, you won’t be eligible for Party Rewards, so party up! 

We’re still tweaking the exact values of Party Rewards, but we’re excited to share the feature and collect feedback from the PBE community. Let us know what you think!"

This is currently enabled and testing as of today's update!

Here's a few addition bits of information from the barrage of red posts following the announcement:

• The current maximum bonus is up to 16x the IP from the match but that will be super rare . The more common rewards will be smaller than that but scale up with party size.
• There is a queue modifier, SR match made have best rewards and other queues have smaller rewards, bots are lowest.
• the numbers for bonuses are NOT FINAL.
• Party Rewards work in ranked
• Party Rewards stack with IP Boosts
• Not sure if will be permanent - Currently thinking 2 week beta on live following PBE testing

Fixes for Relative Team Colors Option

The new "Use Relative Team Colors" option - which always displays your allied minions/structures as blue and the enemy as red regardless of which side of the map you are on - has received a few fixes and tweaks since we originally looked at it earlier in the cycle.

The previously missing Minion & Turret portrait icons have been added and now show up properly while the new option is enabled.

The missing textures for minion models were also fixed in a recent patch, they are no longer bugged out and just a solid blue.

Balance Changes

* Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.

Items

Mandrake Ward  & Item 3285 

• As expected, the experimental Mandrake Ward and Item 3285 have been REMOVED from the game as they are not coming out in 5.4. Expect them to return next PBE cycle.

• Check out ricklessabandon's PBE feedback thread for more information on the experimental Item 3285.
• Check out Xypherous' PBE feedback thread for more information on the experimental Mandrake Ward item.

Sweeping Lens

• Level 9 upgrade now reduces cooldown to 75 instead of 60.

Check out THIS PAGE for a comprehensive list of the new content in this PBE cycle or catch up with the individual update links below !

• [Comprehensive PBE Content List for the 5.4 Cycle]
• 2/10 PBE Update: Zilean Kit Changes and New Ability Icons
• 2/12 PBE Update: New Katarina splash, "Relative Team Colors Option", & more
• 2/13 PBE Update: Mordekaiser and Veigar Changes, New Tristana splash, and more
• 2/17 PBE Update: Experimental Mandrake Ward, Mordekaiser Changes, Semi-Locked Camera option, and more!
• 2/18 PBE Update: Item 3285 up for testing, Katarina and Kayle splash tweaks, redesigned Nemesis Draft summoner icon, and more!