Red Post Collection: 9/4 Patch Update, Arcade Community Creations, New /ALL Chat, and more!

Tonight's red post collection includes the September 4th patch update, Meddler discussing Syndra, Darius Q nerfs coming to the PBE, a ton of Arcade themed community creations, a new /ALL Chat, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

[Banner art by FFSADE and ryjenic]


Table of Contents


September 4th Patch Update

The official 5.17 patch notes have been updated to reflect a bug fix that went out on September 4th:
"9/4/2015

Crash fix 
THIS IS SORT OF VAGUE - Mitigated a crash issue that sometimes occurred when reconnecting immediately after specific actions occurred in-game."

Context on Syndra PBE Changes

In the 9/3 PBE update, Syndra's mana per level was increased to 63 from 50.

When asked about these changes and if there will be any more  for 5.18, Meddler noted:
"Yeah, we took a look at mana spent over time if chain casting and Syndra's right up there with mages like Anivia and Karthus. Buffing her mana pool seemed like a good thing to look at as a result, hence we're testing that, give her a bit more staying power in longer engagements/an extra spell per back in lane (on average). We've also got a fix in for certain cases where spheres near, but not past, max E range wouldn't get knocked back. 
That might be it for 5.18, though the balance team's still got a few more days to iterate before we need to lock the patch down. Worlds stability is pretty important this patch, so we're generally going for lighter than normal changes where appropriate."
As for anything new with the passive changes seen during the 5.17 PBE cycle, Scarizard noted:
"Just that we were still investigating them. We're still looking at ways to make the passive cooler (more for W+E), but no sign of the ETA."

Darius Q mana cost nerf coming to PBE

Meddler also commented that Darius will have a mana cost increase to his Q coming in the next PBE build:
"Agreed. We're going to try out a 30-50 scaling mana cost by Q rank in the next PBE build, see if that puts his mana usage in a more appropriate spot."

Ezreal's E AD Ratio on PBE

As for context on the new bonus AD ratio added to Ezreal's E on the PBE, Meddler shared:
"The intent with the E buff is to add some more power to Ezreal's kit in a way that encourages some risk taking to take full advantage of it (using E more offensively at times, rather than almost always sitting on it as an escape). 
That does still leave AD Ezreal's W feeling pretty underwhelming, our primary focus for 5.18 though is balance (Worlds patch), rather than addressing other issues like satisfaction."

Jag On Kha'Zix Evolutions

When asked on reddit about the team's thoughts on Kha'Zix, RiotJag noted they'd tentatively be taking another look at Kha'Zix evolutions:
"Quote:
Sorry if here isn't the best place to ask this, but I'm simply curious, you have any plans for Kha'zix at the moment? I don't believe he's weak, because if even at the end of the game he is one of the champions that deals least damage overall, he still has a great 1v1. My problem is that he lacks reasons to picked over other AD junglers. Also his clears aren't the best comparing to the other junglers as well, and adding the stuff I said above he gets very punished and stays way too behind in game due that when countered on jungle. Are you considering something to him like more heal on W when using it at jungle camps or a better upgrade option to his R? 
I don't want him to return to the state he was before being changed, but at least give him reasons to be picked. Actually, many champions aren't picked on competitive not due their power, but due not having reasons to do so. Any champion should have something they excel on.
There's a chance we're going to dig back into his evolutions over the next few weeks and see if there's some value we can add there. It's really hard to work on Kha'zix because the work always ends up getting really involved, so can't promise anything there."

Repertoir on Reworks

In a conversation on older champions behind reworked, Repertoir popped in to comment:
"We totally agree with you on this. The unfortunate fact of the matter is there is a lot of "old" stuff in the game to update, and it really does take a good share of time to get to them all. I know the player base doesn't always agree with some of the champions we choose for updates, but we do try to choose ones that we think are in the most need. As to champions like Anivia or Pantheon, these are characters that commonly come up in "who should we update next" meetings, so they're definitely not off the radar. 
As to Juggernauts and player sentiment around them, my personal opinion is that we probably still have some fine tuning follow-up to do to them in the upcoming patches,
and then hopefully they'll be in a good long term spot. The goal of big changes like the Juggernaut changes is definitely to find these somewhat antiquated characters a new niche/home in the game, and we are pretty fully aware we won't hit the mark on all of them, especially on the first try. I'm personally pretty excited for pre-season, because as a designer on champions, it means I have a lot more freedom to explore ideas for champions without them being such a huge risk to game balance down the stretch.
When asked  what decides who gets what update, Repertoir commented:
"Quote:
How does one champ get decided over another? Do you guys go for the more popular champs? Lowest hanging fruits (easiest to fix)? Ones that don't need a VU as well? Do you pick the unpopular but hard to fix champs first? Do you look at the recent reworks that failed and get back to them? Do you pick problems similar to ones you just worked on? For example, the juggernauts just got reworked. So what about the old school immobile mages, are they up next?
It's a combination of things usually. To name a few things...
  • What designer(s) are available?
  • What kind of production assets are available?
  • Does the champion need a Sion-level rework? Or something more like Fiora? Or even as small as Ashe?
  • Are there immediate game health concerns with the champion?
  • Could we accomplish similar results with small kit-based changes?"
As for if there are still any plans for QuinnRepertoir noted:
"We haven't forgotten about Quinn. I spent several hours of my day doing some stuff for her today. Hopefully we'll have more info to share in the near future."

On that note, Meddler also popped up in a thread if Talon has a rework planned to comment::
"We do think Talon could do with a bit of work at some point, aimed at making him more distinct from other assassins and improving counterplay available for some enemies. Overall though there are quite a lot of other characters that need the work more, so he's not a rework priority."
As for Blitzcrank, Meddler noted no plans:
"We don't have any plans to change Blitz at the moment."

Lyte on Report Feedback

In a reddit thread discussing the pop ups that can occur to let you know a player you've reported has been punished, Lyte noted
"Quote
You only get it if your report triggered the punishment.
For now, this is true. Only the reports in the game that triggered the punishment will result in a pop-up. We're going to be implement Chat and Ranked Restrictions into the Report Feedback feature, and Intentional Feeder Detection into the Report Feedback feature, so you'll be able to get pop-ups when your reports punish a lot more types of behaviors. Because of this, we started the Report Feedback system pretty conservative and didn't want to spam players. 
Although many players on Reddit are OK getting pop-ups when anyone they have ever reported is punished by any system, turns out anywhere from 20-30% of players do not want any pop-ups at all when their reports trigger a penalty. 
Some players suggest just doing a toggle, or a "summary" that gets sent once a month, but we wanted to get the Report Feedback system to players earlier and then iterate on it as we collect data and see how it's working. Once we get the new punishments into the Report Feedback system, we'll re-assess the spamminess and figure out a longer-term solution."

Behind the Laugh: Singed 

Next up is a funny little article about Singed's laugh auto playing when he uses his FLING ability:
"Waaaaay back when 5.13’s patch notes went live, you might have noticed that we made a tiny tweak to League’s most toxic champion, Teemo Singed: 
“Singed now laughs whenever he flings an enemy.” 
This 100% necessary and important update was set into motion by QA analyst Joe “ManWolfAxeBoss” Lansford, who was struck in the middle of the night by a bolt of Singedspiration: 
“Everyone knows that laughs per minute is the best indicator of Singed skill. New Singed players tend to have a difficult time grasping this, so we thought the change would be a great way to help them up their game (this is only mostly a joke). And while skill is important, Singed also just has one of the best laughs in the game, on top of Fling being kind of a goofy skill to begin with (skinny dude with a backpack chucking bears, children, demons, etc. all over the place). It felt like a match made in Runeterra. Beyond all that, I'm a Singed main myself. I thought, ‘What do Singed players want?’ ‘What do I want?’ ‘More laughing!’” 
Singed mains agree: Laughter is the best medicine."

/ALL Chat | League vs. New York

We also have a new episode of /ALL Chat straight from the NA LCS finals in New York!

"ALL Chat’s on the road this week! We flew to New York City for the NA finals, where we chatted with fans, cosplayers and some bewildered locals who didn’t expect League to sell out Madison Square Garden. 
We’re excited to introduce Sam, a new ALL Chat host that’ll help out when James is off with his esports friends doing cool kid stuff, or we need an extra pair of hands."

Arcade community creations! 

Last but not least we have Jynx with community arcade creations now that the arcade is open!
"Time to level up with some awesome arcade community art and cosplay! Click on the artists’ names to see more of their work. 
yomi_UR and yochris72 
SongJiKyo and Skull Tooth 

 ryjenic and RinRinDaishi

Polkadotzombie and Ofskysociety

 NoamyFrerius and Ninja-Dee

 Lighane and KilljoyDET

 Ka-ho and KisekiQuistKhymichiKai

justduet and finalbossveigar-replies

Duckui and Danielle Beaulieu

ArtKirby-XIV and  AninhaT-T
Naigos 

Community collaboration with Hyun's Dojo 

Chibiin

Share more of your favorite arcade creations in the comments below!"

Refer-a-Friend now retired 

As previously announced, the Refer a Friend system is now shut down.
"UPDATE: The Refer-a-Friend program is now shut down. We will be unable to provide support for issues with redeeming RAF rewards after October 5 2015, so please make sure to send in any support tickets before then. Thanks for participating over the years, and stay tuned for more ways to connect with your friends! 
Refer-a-Friend, a system built to make it easy and rewarding to bring your friends into League originally launched in 2010. It was an old dog, so we updated Refer-a-Friend a few times over the years to make prize tiers more achievable and reduce botting. Since relaunching RAF we’ve been tracking how new and referring players play with the feature and the results show it’s not helping players find new people to game with. In fact, we experimented with turning RAF off in some regions, and there was no discernible change in social behaviors. League’s social systems should make it easier and more rewarding to hit the Rift with friends, but RAF just doesn’t meet that bar anymore. Because of that, we’re retiring the program in thirty days
Recent features like Party IPfriend discovery and last month’s Team Up and Pool Party helped players play with friends and unlock cool rewards while doing it. We plan on forging ahead, concepting, building, and supporting social systems and features that do all the above. 
In the meantime, RAF remains fully operational, so you can still earn up to 5000 IP, as well as Grey Warwick and Medieval Twitch by referring five friends before August 20. Once the program wraps, the two skins become limited edition, but may return as rewards for another social system somewhere down the line. High-volume referrers from legacy versions of RAF remain on our radar as well. We’re actively working with each individual to fulfill their rewards and won’t consider RAF genuinely wrapped until that work is complete. 
RAF closes down on September 5. We’ll hang around the comments to clear anything up!" 

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