Red Post Collection: Riot 10 Year Thank You - free Riot Kayle & Summoner Icon + IP weekend, "Mechs vs. Minions", and more!

Thank You - Riot's 10 Year Anniversary. Gifts & bonus IP weekend!

2016 is Riot's 10 year anniversary and in celebration, all summoners who played a game within the last 60 days will be receiving gifts - a new poro summoner icon, Riot Kayle (or mystery skin for those who own her already)! To be eligible, you must have played a game in the last 60 days or through the 19th.

Here is the full text, including a video looking back on 10 years of Riot Games.

"When we started this journey 10 years ago, we had no idea what Riot and League would become. Luckily, we were carried forward by the passion of a player community that continues to grow and evolve, ten years later. 

There’s nothing more to say beyond thank you.

To mark our first decade as a company and show our appreciation to you for building the game alongside us, we’re throwing a (small) celebration. Here are the details: 

10-Year Gifts 

Every League of Legends player who has played a game within the last couple of months will receive a new summoner icon along with the Riot Kayle skin. If you don’t own Kayle, you’ll get her, too. If you already own both, you’ll receive a mystery gift. Players who can’t receive mystery gifts will instead receive the RP value of a mystery gift in their region. 

The gifting process will take a few days, so hold tight if you haven’t received anything quite yet. And don’t worry if you haven’t played in a bit—we’ll make another pass next week to snag anyone else who logs on and grabs a game. 

Bonus IP Weekend 

We’re also enabling a bonus IP weekend. Starting at 12:01 a.m. PT on 9/16, your base IP gains will be doubled until 11:59 p.m. PT on 9/18 (so, Friday-Sunday). Note that this is a flat boost—premades and parties will receive the same bonus as solo players. 

Thanks for the last 10 years! We can’t wait to see where we go next. 

GIFT FAQ 

I haven’t played a game in a while—can I still get a gift? 

Yep! Play a game this week (any time through 9/19) and we’ll catch you when we do the last pass next week. 

I should be eligible for a gift, but I don’t have anything. What gives? 

Due to the nature of this particular gift and the way it varies by account, we’re not able to simultaneously grant it to everyone. This means it may take a few days for the gift to show on your account. We’re asking for a bit of patience through next week as we pick up all the stragglers—if you don’t have it by 9/23, let Player Support know. Additionally, players using the alpha League client may receive the gift but not a notice—double-check your account before opening a ticket. 

I was recently penalized by Instant Feedback. Can I still get a gift? 

Yes. Normally we limit gifts to good sports, but we're making an exception for the 10-year mark. Let's call it a gesture of good faith. 

What are the exact restrictions on the gift? 

10-year gifts will be sent to all players who are at least level five and have played a game within 60 days of this post. We’ll do another pass on 9/23 to pick up anyone who plays a game this week (deadline: 9/19)."

Tummers hopped on to Reddit to verify when gifting would start:

"Just to get ahead of the curve -- gifting should start later this afternoon :)"

He continued, reiterating the timeframe in which you need to play to be eligible for the icon & skin:

"Played within 60, or play this week (cutoff is the 19)"

NOTE that the PH server will have slightly different rewards.

New "Mechs Vs. Minions" board game revealed

Earlier today the popular board game site shutupandsitdown.com published a small preview for a previously unannounced "Mechs Vs. Minions", an upcoming board game from Riot Games. The article was quickly amended to removed the preview but lucky for us redditor Unubore snagged screenshots and the text from the article: [gallery here].

"Our top story today is that Riot Games, the preposterously large and successful video game developer that makes League of Legends, has unveiled a board game set in the world of LoL. It’s called Mechs Vs. Minions, it’s shipping to customers in just a couple of months and it’s the most exciting release of 2016 that nobody knew about. 

Mechs Vs. Minions is a co-operative campaign game where up to 4 players each program robots that then go stomping, blasting and carving their way through a crowd of tiny warriors trying to kill you. If I’m being flattering, it’s Robo Rally meets Descent, with a few fun Legacy-style surprises as you advance through each of the campaign’s missions. And look at it! This box as opulent as the world’s most ridiculous Kickstarters, with pre-painted miniatures, metal cogs and the most impressive inlay ever made. 

In terms of what you get in the box Mechs Vs. Minions is a strong contender for the most lavish board game ever made (wait until you see the inlay), but it’s also the best value for money I’ve ever seen. At around $80, the retail price is literally 50% of what I’d expect another publisher to charge. In other words, you’re going to be hearing a lot about this game. 

…But! You won’t be hearing about it on this site. At least not from me, because the second thing you need to know is that I did some design consultancy on this game. So as interesting and generous as Mechs Vs. Minions is, it’s also represents a giant conflict of interest that we can’t go near. 

So definitely do check out some other reviews of it. You just won’t be getting that review on SU&SD.

As mentioned, the above comes from a now deleted article from SD&SU that was shared on reddit by user Unubore. This article & information presumably went out earlier than intended and no official details are available yet! Keep an eye out for more information soon!

Meddler Grab Bag - Pre-season Support Itemization & Kindred

Meddler is back with posts on pre-season support itemization changes and an upcoming Kindred QOL tweak that came about due to tech made for an upcoming champion!


In a boards thread discussing changing Kindred's jungle camp mark to only show for enemies after the camp is killed, Meddler responded:

"Good suggestion, we'll get that into an upcoming patch.

It's like that at present because right now we don't have the coding set up to show that particular type of minimap effect to just a single team. We are planning on getting that tech for an upcoming champion anyway though so will be able to make this change to Kindred at that time."

Meddler also mentioned tentative  pre-season changes to Locket of the Iron Solari:

"Yep. We'll probably remove Locket, or at least it's aura, in the pre-season. It's made it pretty difficult to offer supports genuine item choices because of just how mandatory an option it's been, even with the nerfed aura. 

A couple of things have stopped us from removing it earlier though. We talked about doing so back around 6.12, taking that much mid game MR away's potentially has some pretty big impact on the balance of entire classes though. That suggested that, unless it was an urgent change, pre-season would be a better time. The other issue was that while Locket creates some problems it does fill a valuable niche of tanky item that helps you protect your allies. As a result we didn't want to remove it without adding at least one replacement item that served that same function."

Meddler explained:

"Quote:

So is the issue really locket with it's aoe shield, or is the real issue actually the component aegis and its aura? Might there be an argument for keeping aegis with it's aura, but locket but losing the aura?
Perhaps make lockets active be protection from just magic damage instead of all damage? That would make it a "Ok theres lots of magic damage, let me protect my team from that" situational item, versus "The enemy team does damage, I need locket to protect them from that." do want item.

The MR aura's the big problem for us. AOE shield as an active's got both better appreciability and more balance levers. We're hoping to still keep some form of that around, though details might vary (duration, range, number of targets, shield strength, type of damage etc)."

Meddler added:

"Quote:

i bet the teamwide shield will stay, just not the invisible aura?

That's one of the options we're looking at yeah."

He continued:

"Quote:

Hopefully by increasing base MR.

Potentially, though it'd probably be MR per level rather than starting MR if so (you don't start with Locket after all). Still figuring out if that's appropriate or not though."

He added:

"Quote:

To be fair, it was probably good you did not remove it. It would make the likes of Leblanc a complete nightmare

Yeah, mages or AP assassins with strong mid games were the biggest concern. Also some risk it'd skew bot lane and top lane excessively towards heavy AP damage picks."

When asked why they liked to get rid of support items, Meddler responded:

"As per the linked post the goal here is to replace Locket with at least one alternative support item. Lack of such an item being ready is one of the reasons we didn't remove it earlier this year."

He continued:

"Quote:

My issue with this is, as someone who loved season 2 and 3 where support junglers were a thing, and became a jungle playstyle I gravitated toward and carried up until I quit League before the mage update, this would mean that the aura item the few of us left compulsively buy, is gone. We like building this item because it allows us to be the second roaming support, and use the extra defense aura while ganking to help protect our laners. in addition to that, the real support is free to buy another item and isn't forced into that build. 

I understand the support concern, but support junglers are affected as well.

I can understand that concern. I think there are at least moderate odds one of the support items we're testing feels like a reasonable option on some supportive junglers at least." 

Meddler continued:

"Quote:

An MR/Team based item, or something else//something not yet determined?

Some form of item, or items, that lets you as a support protect your allies." 

Meddler added:

"Quote:

Like, could it affect only you and one ally, like Zeke? Locket could become to Mr what Zeke is for armor, if you consider Zeke to be a good support item

Something along those lines is one of the options we've been discussing yeah, though a constant effect when near an ally, rather than a windowed one like Zeke's." 

"Rylai's is also on the list of items we'll be changing in pre-season. At present it's too universal a choice, whereas we'd prefer extra CC be something with more of a trade off to it. Not yet sure if that'll mean lowering it's damage (more of a tanky/utility thing), lowering it's health (making it a squishy kite option) or some alternate approach (making it only work with certain spell types or something like that). 

We don't want to give every champion three summoner spells, that probably just results in even more mobility (assuming Ghost/TP become the most common additions). 

Alternatively, even if other Summoner Spells are chosen equally we're then still pumping extra power in the Summoner Spell system at the expense of champion/item power effectively. We could make Flash mandatory and only give you one Summoner spell choice, but that just hurts those champs that sometimes don't want to take it. 

There's some interesting stuff in your proposed Irelia rework, intial reaction though is that it's too large a departure from Irelia's existing gameplay though. A telekinetic blade caster could work with Irelia's theme, shifting her that hard away from a fighter playstyle's a much larger change than we try to target with reworks though."

As for accompanying buffs and nerfs for champions who build Rylai's at the moment, Meddler continued:

"Plan is to figure out what Rylai's should be like to be healthier for the game as a whole and then to look at whether that means we should make any compensatory changes to individual champions who are either heavily reliant on its current form or who would benefit dramatically from its new form."

As for adding a new +20% CDR item,  Meddler noted:

"We'd still like to do one at some point, other item work's higher priority at present however (some changes to AD assassin items, Locket changes and possible replacement items, Rylai's changes etc). No ETA as a result."

Worlds 2016: Groups Schedule

With the group draw show and start of the Pick'em over the weekend, the 2016 World Championship group stage is [now available].

"With the Group Draw done, our 2016 World Championship teams have been sorted into their groups for the Group Stage. Find out when your team will be playing live from San Francisco."

Ghostcrawler Reddit AMA

Ghostcrawler scuttled over to reddit to answer your questions in an AMA - questions on systems design, LoL, his past jobs & experience, other games, and more!

Click here: [AMA: League design lead Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street]

/ALL Chat: How do you stop the tilt? 

/ALL Chat is back with another Baron Pit, where they discuss how not to tilt in game:

"The Baron Pit is ALL Chat’s discussion segment where we roundtable a question and then kick it to you for your opinions. This episode’s question: how do you prevent tilting off the face off the Earth? 

League of a competitive game and tensions can flare up, to say the least. No one has a 100% win rate, so why should you expect to? ALL chat hosts and special guest Patrick “Scarizard” Scarborough (P-Crabs) discuss how to approach losing a ranked game and how they stop from going into sad mode."