- Red Post Collection: Mystery Skins & March Bundles, March 16th Patch Update, Meddler on Shen, and much more!
- 3/18 PBE Update: Urf Triumphant Ward
Table of Contents
- New Ashe Passive in the works
- Darius R changes on PBE
- Context on Veigar PBE changes
- Quinn Bug Fixes not in 5.6
- Jaredan on Lore Progression
- An Important note about Gamescom
- Bard Price Reduction
New Ashe Passive in the works
"Ashe is actually getting a few small changes that include a new passive sometime this year. We'll probably be ready to talk about it in detail in a month or two. Sit tight until then, Ashe players. There's a new passive coming."When asked about the changes overall, Meddler noted:
"Pretty small changes overall. So, you know, we're just going to turn her into a melee range, male tank that hits people with clubs made of ashen wood he holds in each hand. And he'll be from Shurima of course.
Bad jokes aside we're not looking to change the core of Ashe. Same slow on auto attacks, same global stun ult, same long attack range etc. Changes are focused primarily on making her passive and Q a bit more engaging, consistently relevant. In terms of scale think roughly along the lines of the recent Zilean changes or the Viktor changes from a few months back."
Darius R changes on PBE
Meddler has commented that they still plan to do these changes but with the mana being refunded rather than the reduced cost but it will not be in 5.6:
"We're still effectively planning to make that change to Darius' ult. We decided today it would be better to have the ult refund 0/50/100% of its cost though, rather than having its cost drop (still allows ult chaining, but also means an OOM Darius can't ult which is something we'd like to preserve). Since we're right at the lock point for gameplay changes for the next patch we'll need to shift these changes a patch later to make that modification.
TLDR: Still coming, probably in two patches time."When asked what he meant by "lock point", he continued:
"We need to lock down changes a while before a patch goes out so that we've got enough time to do a bunch of testing on a stable version of the patch. Additionally it also takes some time to localize different versions of the game for the all the various regions we're patching in (translations for non english speaking regions, modified versions of some art assets for countries where we use other visual effects instead of blood on some spells etc)."
Context on Veigar PBE changes
"Ok, thinking behind the current changes:
- We do want Veigar to remain a burst mage and feel we haven't given him sufficient reliability for that.
- Right now we're testing changes to his Q to give him better farming access so he can more consistently get to at least a moderate amount of stacked up AP to burst with.
- We are testing a range increase, 950 range is still pretty short for a skillshot on a ranged champ though. The goal there is to allow him to exist mid lane without needing to kill or be killed when farming in many match ups.
- We're not expecting this will address all of Veigar's issues - he's still a work in progress."
Quinn Bug Fixes Not in 5.6
Following her earlier comments on a fixing a bug with Quinn's blind, Riot Reinboom returned to the boards to comment on her upcoming bug fixes for Quinn, noting they will not be going out in 5.6:
"I have another follow up for this!
The fix is fundamentally working but is requiring a bunch of individual tweaks to some champions. Basically, anything that set "critical" explicitly (think Pantheon E passive, though there are more than what may be obvious) would have that critical go through the new blind and hit anyways.
Each individual fix isn't really significant but there's enough of them that we would rather be safe for a patch than miss something.
So the blind fix won't be in for 5.6 so that we have enough time to gain confidence in it."
Jaredan on Lore Progression
In response to a lengthy thread inquiring on the current status of League of Legend's lore and the whereabouts of updated champion bios, Jaredan replied:"Quote:
"Are things progressing?
A simple question that doesn't need too much information for an answer.
And by progressing,I mean:
Are the dreaded tech issues being worked on?
Are lores being written?
Are discussions happening?
Are fans opinions being looked at?
Like I said,are things progressing?Yes or no?
I'm not asking for ETAs.I learned already that Riot hate giving out ETAs.
I'm not asking for every detail on the work that's being done for the progression of the lore.
I don't even care if whoever answer works on/with the Narrative or not.
I just want a simple answer.Though,I doubt the answer will give me too much faith."
The rest of the world has been something in process and exploration for a while. The announcement was done at the time it was because players were noticing things when we left doors open in content for what we were working on. We wanted to let you know this, and wanted to be able to communicate as soon as we could, which is why the original post by Tommy Gnox (which was actually by many people across Riot) attempted to make it clear that things are WIP, but it's a direction we are committed to.He continued, replying to several other points:
It was either communicate before we had a full raft of content set up, or wait until it was ready (and that would have meant a longer period of silence, which we wanted to avoid).
By the way, for clarity: When I say "we" in these things, I'm talking about Riot, not just Narrative alone. We don't work that way.
In regard to Narrative answering the questions, I'm sorry, it's taken me a day to get to the boards due to being a bit swamped at the mo for reasons I can't wait to share with you. I was hoping to respond last night, but it wasn't possible.
The reason it's taking this long to produce content, outside of that produced around Champion releases and other products, is because we are exploring a variety of ways to tell story, developing new processes and product teams to deliver it, evaluating prioritization across Riot, restructuring and evolving Narrative as a discipline (as Bioluminescence stated, and as I have elsewhere, Narrative is a group that works on a number of different product teams in Riot), all in order to deliver higher quality than we have before.
While that is ongoing, we are still delivering new content such as Harrowing, Sion, Rek'Sai, Bard, etc.
The periodical story releases hit a roadblock in the initial tech issue problem (we're currently reviewing a solution), and other issues that arose due to prioritization, staff availability, and things being worked on by a number of teams that I can't go into out of respect for their process.
No slight on Bio at all (she, as I've stated elsewhere, is awesome), but some of her statements of what "might" be the reasons behind certain things are not accurate. Fallout from the retcon is not a reason as the process and goals behind it are unchanged. There has been a change in leadership, but the overall goals for Riot have not changed in that time.
One of the reasons for a delay in the replacements for current bios, and the more extended stories from them (aside from the completed ones we haven't been able to release yet, such as Amumu) is partly that we have been reading your feedback and we're working on a format that will give more details than the current snapshot character intros, while still leaving room for us to explore the Champions in stories as they happen in a changing world. And yes, your feedback does matter.
I'm not sure what Bio's estimates pertain to specifically, we'll make sure to chat about it (there are several things in motion that may or may not hit the timeline she outlined), but it is likely you will see at least some of the stories we have worked on sooner rather than later. I know that sounds the wishy-est of washy, but after expecting to be able to release a few stories within a few days before, then things having to be delayed due to further tech issues, I have to be a bit cagey."
"Quote
I'm sorry you and the other reds feel like you're getting attacked and that we hate you. There are those who are very bitter, myself included, but it's mostly because of a lack of information on any progress and the other recent issues (legal reasons and all...)
At the risk of falling into the trap of saying the same thing every other Rioter says... I know that the anger and attacks are born of passion. The fact that you are taking the time to post, and putting in this amount of effort (no matter how it manifests) means that you care. You, and everybody else who posts on this cares deeply - so, so deeply - about this world we've created. That's insanely humbling, and it's something I continue to remind myself whenever I feel attacked. It's why I keep coming back.
We've been given nothing but the same lies and bullshit from Runaan, Opeli, and Kitae after the Freljord disaster that we've been getting from TommyGnox, Jaredan and Loping Cinder. It's old, it's frustrating and we deserve better treatment and results after waiting this long.
Even when Rioters tell us "we want to make Lore a priority," they NEVER actually do that, which just creates another lie that they've constantly told us.
So, when someone like Bio comes in and says "you should feel angry and you deserve to be angry because we've failed you for way too long." we gravitate to it. Hell, when Morello admits that, at a PAX panel streamed on Twitch, that lore fans deserve to feel bad about the failures from Riot over Lore, it's disappointing but refreshing because it justifies what we've been feeling for years now.I'll double-down on what Bioluminescence said - you deserve to feel angry. We've promised things, and then not delivered. It is not unreasonable for you to sit there and say "hey, what the hell Riot?"
The thing is, there is a whole reality of development that you don't see. There is SO much work going on behind the scenes. Not just in narrative, but across the board. We experiment on things, test them out, and then throw it away if it doesn't work. If it does work, we keep testing, iterating, refining.
We also rely on other teams to help get things out to players - so we need to share that context. Even when things go smoothly, it takes time to get everybody on board. It's even harder to share that outward, because we run the very real risk of promising something, and then not delivering. Which then causes you to sit there and say (again) "hey, what the hell Riot?"
It's a really hard thing. We could just not talk about anything until it's set and ready for release; but that feels unsatisfying. And odds are, we'd just be accused of not caring.
But If we speak on things too early, we'll likely end up shifting directions (if only subtly) before release. I know that every single person you called out was speaking the truth at the time they posted. But the truth can, and will, shift over time - and then we're branded as liars.
Unfortunately, it's a monster that the entire company created after four years of the same lies and broken promises and it doesn't look like it's getting better.I honestly don't know how to solve this, other than finally delivering on what we've promised. But that's just repeating something you already know, and I totally get that it's unsatisfying. Closing with that only adds more frustration.
So instead, I'll close with some of my personal feelings. This isn't me speaking as a Rioter, but as a fellow passionate player. These also aren't directed at you, TerraRising, but just my thoughts in general:
- Personally, I think the claim that there's been no lore development is a little unfair. This thread from a while back recapped everything that happened last year (including the retcon), and tried to extrapolate what it meant, and what we learned. I don't know how accurate the conclusions are, and I'm sure a lot of what's there is up for debate. But I also think it pretty solidly illustrates that there was a LOT of stuff released last year.
- I think there's room to channel the frustrations more productively. Jumping at people with these frustrations, while understandable, is a total turnoff. It feels as though some people are so determined to be mad that they'll twist anything that is said to justify being mad. I've literally been working on this post for 2 hours trying to make sure I don't say anything that's just going to get taken out of context and make matters worse. I truly feel that my intentions - and those of my fellow Rioters - are coming from the right place. So if something in here comes off sounding bad, it's most likely me doing a bad job of expressing myself.
- I would love to find more threads talking about broad topics. It's easier for me to engage when we aren't getting bogged down into very specific executions. What themes do you enjoy seeing? Are there certain parts of the world you want to see developed? Heck, do you even care about world-building? Or are champ stories the only thing that matters? Did you prefer any particular story style? Let's talk about those things.
- And lastly, as much as we all love League - we're also all people. Let's engage on those levels too! What stories had the biggest impact on you? What are your goals in life? What are your favorite games of all time, and why? There are so many ways we can engage as people and as players here on the boards, and I think that will go a long way to establishing a baseline connection which we can leverage to have these harder conversations in a healthy and productive way.
That was a giant wall of text, but I hope it was helpful in some way. I don't think there's much more I can add on this topic, so I'm going to hop out of this topic. Also, I spent so long on this that I forgot to eat dinner, so I need to find some food... But hey, if anybody takes anything positive away from this post, then it was totally worth. =)As for the development of specific regions rather than just champions, Jaredan noted:
It's always a pleasure chatting with you all. You can be sure that I'll keep looking out for more places to jump in and talk."
"I can give you a direct answer to your question on regions: We are working on all of them. We've started to sprinkle a little of the work done so far in some releases (the artifact maps for the Shuriman Empire and Bilgewater are small examples). The work we are doing in the team known as Foundations is intended to support the efforts of product teams across Riot. Narrative works on Foundations (among other discipline representatives), as well as other teams that are creating various products that will expand the story of Runeterra.
The posts that Cupcake Trap has done in order to discuss the core aspects of current regions are among the posts that have been looked at. We can't always respond to them, but they are being read. All of the cultures and areas of Valoran are being worked on, to some degree, right now. None of them are completely set in stone (it's not a dictatorial team in that way), as individual teams will have the freedom and opportunity to expand upon the work being done.
When you say you want to stop us from making the next Trundle, we can't promise that. We might make decisions you will disagree with, but we do want to know your opinions on the champions and the world, and include that in our thinking."[...]
An Important note about Gamescom
"Greetings, League fans. Gamescom is now just over five months away and we know some of you may be wondering whether or not we will be there. We’ve had a wonderful time at gamescom over the years and would encourage anyone who loves games to consider going, but we also feel we have a responsibility to let you know as early as possible that we’ve decided to focus on other events in 2015 and so will not be attending.
We know this news will come as a disappointment to some of you, so we wanted to explain the decision a little. The main reason is that, from a community perspective, this year we want to deliver more exciting and dynamic League of Legends experiences in a broader range of locations, unbounded by the restrictions that typically come with exhibiting in massive, shared convention settings.
So what are we doing in 2015, if not gamescom? The plan is to run community events focused on things like regional and university tournaments, in addition to gatherings that celebrate and bring League of Legends players together in a more targeted, local manner. We are also excited to be hosting our World Championships in Europe this year, which means four different stages, each in a different major European city, as well as live Spring and Summer Finals events. Our goal is to help different communities across Europe, from cosplay to competitive, to have more opportunities to get together at live events in a variety of locations. We're not going to gamescom, then, but overall we believe what we do instead will result in a better experience for players all over Europe. There will be more opportunities throughout the year to attend live events and engage with the community through specifically tailored League of Legends experiences.
OK, we know some of that still sounds a bit woolly. We’d really love to give you specifics on everything right now – we are excited about what we’re planning and we know you will be too – but we’re still confirming details and don’t want to promise things before they’re set in stone. Even so, we thought it was important to let you know about gamescom immediately, because we don’t want to put anybody in a position where they book travel and accommodation in the expectation of doing League things only for us not to be there. We hope you understand and will be patient with us while we cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s that will let us clue you in on all the things we will be doing instead.
In the meantime, we’re still developing the content of the different community event formats we’re looking at, which means there’s plenty of time for you to tell us what you want, so have a think about what you’d like to see us do in other locations and let us know. We’ll be reading and taking note. Then hopefully when we do see you in 2015, it’ll be in settings and scenarios that we’ve been able to refine using your suggestions. That’s the idea anyway.
TL;DR: Riot isn’t going to gamescom this year because we believe that hosting events in a variety of different locations will give more players the opportunity to get involved with League of Legends. We can’t give you more details right now, but we wanted to give you the gamescom news immediately so you don’t end up out of pocket if your decision to attend is based around the presence of League."
Bard Price Reduction
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