Surrender at 20: Red Post Collection: Runes Reforged Coming This Preseason, 10 bans live in NA, Ask Riot, honor Discussion, & more!

Tonight's red post includes an early look at the Runes Reforged update heading our way next preseason, a new Ask Riot, 10 bans live in NA Normal Draft, Honor update discussion, and more!

Continue reading for more information.

6/1 PBE Update: Legendary Versus missions, crafting, & loot, Blood Moon returns for PBE testing, and more!

Coming This Preseason: Runes Reforged

As announced in the most recent Riot Pls, here's Riot Wrekz with a rundown on what's upcoming for Runes Reforged:

"Runes and Masteries have problems. These systems are complicated, hard to balance, and don't give you enough room to customize your playstyle or adapt to the situation in champ select. Recently, we've been talking about our plans for preseason and why we're combining Runes and Masteries into one streamlined pre-game system. Today, we'll dig into the specifics of how the new system will work.

Combined and Streamlined

Forging a better Runes system first means concentrating the system's power into fewer choices so that each selection matters more. In the current Runes and Masteries systems, there are roughly 60 distinct slots, but very few of those choices have a significant impact on how your champion plays. Most of these slots are used up equipping your character with "required" stats like attack speed, armor, and magic resist. This makes much of Rune/Mastery selection more of a chore than a choice. Additionally, splitting all of the power across so many pieces prevents us from making any of your choices important—or powerful—enough, to really be cool.

With this in mind we're moving those “required” stats into the background so you can focus on the parts that matter. Keystone Masteries were our first test of this new theory, concentrating more of the power into individual choices. As with Keystone Masteries, the new Runes system will focus less on passive stats (although there will still be some of that) and more on playstyle-defining effects.

How does it work?

You’ll head into each game with six Runes. These break down into three types: Keystone, Major, and Minor.

Keystones

You only get one Keystone Rune, it’s the strongest, and a direct evolution of Keystone Masteries. It shows up on the loading screen, the scoreboard, and will be most impactful in your moment to moment gameplay. Keystones are big, powerful effects that can shift what your champion does. Do you want to play patiently in fights and then explode with a burst of attack speed to crush the enemy team? How about having a pet that follows you around and helps you attack enemies or protect allies? Those are examples we're currently testing.

Major Runes

Major Runes are the next tier down in power, and this is where we see the biggest break from the old Runes and Masteries systems. Here you’ll see effects that aren’t quite as tactical as keystones, but are much more potent than the types of things we’ve been able to do before. Major Runes will have visual/audio representation in the game, so you’ll be able to have feedback when they are happening and recognize their impact. We’ll look at two examples here. Both are still in progress but we really want to share these even though they’re still being worked on.

First, a tamer option, Overheal:

Overheal gives you strong synergy with champions that can heal you, or with your own healing/lifesteal. It can change the way you view fights as trying to poke or waveclear will keep your shield charged and give you that extra edge of durability for the next fight.

Next is a pretty different choice, Zombie Ward:

Zombie wards changes how you play the counter-vision game. As you go clear enemy vision, you'll leave your own vision behind, breaking your own ward cap.

Minor Runes

Minor Runes are quieter effects—they have a smaller impact on moment to moment gameplay but give you fun ways to specialize your champions. You’ll see effects of all kinds here, including things that help you scale, increase damage or defense, or give you free items, among many others options. Each minor Rune can help you to double down on a strength, react to an enemy matchup, or shore up a weakness.

Overcharger grants cooldown reduction as you level up and converts any CDR beyond the cap into AD or AP. This opens the door to brand new item builds.

Essence Thief is an investment in late-game durability. Every nearby enemy minion that dies grants you a bonus, even if you aren’t the one that killed it.

Paths and Slots

We’ve been over the different types of Runes but not how you actually make your selections. Runes are assigned to Paths, each with its own theme, identity, and set of mechanics to explore. The Domination Path, for example, is about hunting down and blowing up targets. Inside each Path you’ll find a collection of choices, or slots, where you select one Rune from around three options. Each slot has a purpose for what you’ll be getting from it. Overcharger, for example, comes from a damage focused slot and is one of three damage oriented Runes.

Each Path has one Keystone slot, one Major slot, and two Minor slots.

Each Path has its own unique theme, identity, and set of slots. Runes are still a project in progress, but below is some concept art for the new Paths.

Here is an example of what a full slot might look like from the Domination path.

We’re trying a spin on an existing classic, Bounty Hunter. Bounty Hunter has been a popular mastery, but it’s difficult to give it an effect more specific than damage due to some of the limitations of current masteries. All three of these new Bounty Hunter options use the same stacking pattern (get a kill or assist on each enemy champion) but offer different rewards that let you adapt to what you anticipate your needs will be in that game.

By making what we call “apples to apples” comparisons like this the decisions are easier to understand and adjust on the fly, while still asking deep, predictive questions about the game to come and what rewards you’ll need.

Not all of the slot comparisons are as direct as Bounty Hunter. Here is an example from the Resolve path showcasing a set of utility options.

Here you'd select between two situational defensive runes and Panic!, which increases your ability to stick to enemies or reach your allies who are in danger. The tradeoff is that opting into Panic! means sacrificing durability by not taking Essence Thief or Don’t Panic.

Each Rune page lets you fill out one complete Path while also choosing some elements from a different Path. We’ll talk more about how that aspect of the system works later.

Looking Forward to Preseason

These are big changes, and we think any new Runes should be more accessible than today's Runes so you can really explore the system. You shouldn’t have to choose between trying out a new rune build and buying a new champion. So the new runes will be free. This is a change that should positively affect everyone, since it allows us more freedom to tweak and balance Runes—something we were always hesitant to do with the old system. You'll also be able to freely edit them in champ select.

Runes today are a significant portion of what players unlock with IP, and making them free will have ripple effects on a lot of other things. Our current earning and rewards systems have a fair share of problems: new players face a huge grind before they can be competitive, and many veterans have piles of IP without anything to spend it on. So we’re going to take a step back and look at our earnings and rewards systems as a whole. We'll talk more about that stuff as we get closer to preseason.

This change has been a long time in the making, and the whole team is thrilled to discuss it with you now. Please let us know what you think and reach out with any questions you have. We'll share more details on Runes Reforged in the coming months."

When asked about what will happen with people who have already spent money on Runes and Rune pages, Riot Sparkle replied:

"Quote:

Any specifications on the rewards for players who purchased Runes and Rune Pages with IP/RP?
Full disclosure - we're still working on the plan for transitioning, so we won't be talking about this quite yet. As soon as we have something to share we will, but in the mean time hit us with your feedback around what you think would be exciting (or not!)"

Keeper Arcanus continued on the same topic:

"We're not ready to go into details on this yet, but we'll share more details on this as soon as we feel confident in the plan. There's a lot of variables at play and just refunding the IP and RP isn't going to cut it."

On champs that rely on runes, Riot Sparkle responded:

"Quote:

any plans to buff champs that relied on runes to be competitive? or are you planning on having runes that bring early game strength? for example some junglers rely on armor runes
This has been mentioned in other places before, but we're going to be doing a significant pass on base stats to make sure that champions feel like themselves (especially the ones really reliant on stats from the old Runes).

For junglers specifically, we're also open to looking at additional item or camp changes to support them."

On the icons used for the masteries, Riot Sparkle verified they were placeholder images:

"Quote:

can you not make the masteries look like any champion abilities or skins
Heya! Just wanna be clear here - the icons and the VFX we're showing are temporary placeholders.

When we get real art in there, we will try our best to make sure that they don't overlap with anything that already exists in our game.

TL;DR - Yes, we'll make them different."

On junglers and balancing around no runes, Fearless replied:

"Quote:

Is there any plan to what will be happening with junglers. No blues/yellows means defensive base stats going into a game will be lower which I think can be generally considered fair for laner vs laner but in the jungle most of them are forced to invest in the early base defensive stats for making it through that early clear. Can't simply be buffing the base stats of junglers across the board or they will rip the laners apart, can't do a blanket nerf to jungler monsters or laners will poach the monsters and junglers go back to glorified supports. That is on top of the lowered offensive stats that junglers will be needing too.

Maybe can consider removing one of the starting jungle items and simply attaching the full tooth and nail effect onto the remaining one?
We have been looking at multiple ways to balance the jungle in a world without 9 armor and few of the other masteries. We have a few levers like the jungle starting items and monster hunter bonuses on abilities. We also have the ability to change the damage profiles of the monsters themselves, and all sorts of other under the hood approaches.

We'll have more details as we move towards the focused tuning stages, which is still months off."

Reinboom added:

"There will be other changes, where needed, to help with things like jungling. Base stat changes, adjustments to the jungle monsters themselves, and potentially early game items are all on the table to be adjusted as needed."

On the rune system being available to low level players, Luqizilla explained:

"Quote:

Will the new rune system be available to players at summoner level 1, or will they be awarded through the climb to level 30 like summoner spells?

also, are they completely interchangeable or when we start a certain "path" are we stuck to runes of that type only? I apologize I didn't quite understand.
Players at level 1 will have access to default "standard" rune pages and as they level up, they'll unlock the ability to customize then.

And yes, when you choose a path, you're in that one. So if you get Domination, you go full into domination runes. Much like the current masteries systems you also get to choose a second path for minor runes as well."

On whether this update covered both runes and masteries, RiotWrekz reiterated:

"Quote:

Ok, I'm a bit slow, so can you clear this up for me. Does this replace both the runes and mastery system we have now with one single system?
Yes, runes reforged replaces both runes and masteries"

As for variety in the rune choices, Reinboom noted:

"There's a lot more runes than just what's in the article here, we'll have more to show you in the time to come.

A lot of the current decisions will either take different form (see: overcharger), be incorporated into base stats when it's a requirement for a champion to function, or be replaced by new types of play style enablers. You won't have the same decisions, but you should totally be able to make play style focused adjustments."

She continued:

"There's more keystone runes than there were keystone masteries, currently. We would like to get more diversity in decisions than what keystone masteries provides now."

When asked about the variety in the new paths, Meddler replied:

"More details to follow, but for now if it helps you won't be picking all of your runes from the same path and paths aren't mono focused. The Resolve tree for example's got a bunch of tanky stuff in it like Essence Thief, it's also got some more offensive stuff as well aimed at helping initiation or damage."

As for variety in various runes, Meddler also reiterated:

"Yep, we'll be talking about a bunch more runes over time. Probably showing some new ones every couple of weeks (possibly also mentioning previous ones that have been cut or heavily modified too)."

When asked about relative balance of the new system and champions who depend more on current runes or masteries than others, Meddler noted:

"Balance will likely take a while to get smoothed out yeah, hence the pre-season release (we originally considered a mid-season date, but amongst other things amount of gameplay disruption felt really high for that).

In terms of champs currently depending on specific masteries or runes to function properly we'll be doing an extended pass on that to avoid leaving champs abandoned. Hoping we get most of those pre ship, will certainly adjust post ship if needed too though."

He continued, discussing the accessibility of keystones for AP or AD champions:

"Perxie, like a number of other keystones, is intended to be accessible to champions scaling with AD or AP. It's got AP and AD scaling on both the damage and shield as a result. There will be some runes that require more specific playstyles, whether that's auto attacking a lot, having/using mana, affinities for particular item types or whatever. All champs should feel they've got access to some non universal perks though certainly, not just auto attackers. "

Ask Riot: Practice Tool Stays Solo

Ask Riot is back with a new article covering topics like how to deal with trolls and feeders, how Runeterra tracks time, and the practice tool being a single player experience:

"Let’s talk trolls, Practice Tool, and Runeterra’s passing of time.

What do I do if I get teamed up with trolls or feeders?

tl;dr: Stay focused, work with your team, mute the troll, report them after.
Getting into a game with a purposefully unhelpful player is super frustrating (we absolutely own that our current systems aren’t flawless, and we’re working on ways to minimize this kind of scenario). But even then, you’re still on a team with (hopefully) three other people who are playing to win. Let’s dive into some ways you can do that with a troll on your team.

COMMUNICATE

Communication can be a really effective way to pull your team together and see if it’s possible to play around the uncooperative team member. A 4v5 game is annoying, but still winnable. Keeping a cool head and working with your teammates can help you rally to a surprise victory.

It’s also worth making an effort to communicate with the troll, at least at first. Are they trying to win, just in an unusual way? That’s different from intentionally feeding or deliberately sabotaging a game; if you can find some middle ground you’ll be a lot closer to a win.

MUTE THEM

If the troll is distracting and unhelpful, but your team wants to win, mute the player and/or their pings to keep your focus on the game.

REPORT THE PLAYER AT THE END OF GAME

Flag this player for feeding/trolling so we can try and limit their impact on other games.

SURRENDER

Unfortunately, some games are unwinnable. If you think this is the case and your team agrees, surrender as soon as you can. Getting out of a bad game quickly can minimize that game’s impact on your mood, and on your next game.

QUEUE DODGE

Dodging is an option, but it does carry consequences. It’s definitely not an ideal solution, and if you dodge because you’re in champ select with a troll and get penalized, it feels really bad (something we know is a problem and have eyes on). If it looks like the game is going to be impossible to win because of a troll player, dodging is a last-ditch way to protect yourself.

Unhelpful players are a reality of the game and it definitely takes added effort to focus on victory when they’re on your team. It’s a problem we spend a lot of time and energy trying to solve, but in the absence of a perfect solution (no more trolls ever!!), keep your head up and play to win.

If you have specific scenarios you’re curious about, drop them in the comments.

RIOT NAKYLE

Player Behavior Comms, Metagame Systems

Does Runeterra have a calendar? How do people track time?

We are doing a wide range of creative world-building behind the scenes at the moment, bringing you a much deeper, complex, and rich setting in Runeterra, and this absolutely includes the calendar and how time is measured by those who live in our world.

Developing a concept of time and the tools a culture uses to measure it is a unique challenge. Make something like a calendar system too different and complex, it becomes an abstraction that can distract people from a story.

It is natural for the audience to want to translate from the fictional time to an approximation of our real-world time, so that we get a stronger sense of place (is it cold and wintery or is it high summer?). If the effort to perform that mental calculation is too significant or convoluted, we break the narrative flow of a story. Make it too similar and you risk looking like you’re taking a shortcut and missing the opportunity to do something cool and interesting with your world.

As is often the case, the best answers are often found in placing yourself in the world and seeing it from the point of view of the people in it. Time is important for different reasons; if you are a seafaring culture, the rhythm of the sea is the driving force in your measurement of time. Your calendar would be focused on tides, storm seasons, trade winds, and the position of the moon. Alternatively, if your culture is highly spiritual and focused on deity worship, your calendar may be structured around strict observance of key celestial events, alignments of the sun, or periods of fasting or important festivals.

The exciting part of exploring and creating these for the world of Runeterra is the diversity of cultures we have and how focused they are on fundamentally different values. Of course, the likelihood is there will be one dominant calendar used on a broadly global scale (we are having interesting debates over which culture that would come from!), but this would be supplemented by the local culture’s system as well. I look forward to the worldbuilding group being able to share more insight into this area in the future via Universe.

RED TRINITY01

Product Lead, Story Strategy & Development

Why is Practice Tool limited to one player?

With Practice Tool, we wanted to focus on giving the best value to the widest group of players possible. Last hitting, combo mechanics, jungling, etc. are beneficial for all players from Bronze to Challenger, especially if you just want to quickly test something out on a champ.

Expanding beyond this functionality into a full scrimming tool, or a multiplayer sandbox, or a ‘custom game maker’ are each a significantly larger undertaking than the original Practice Tool, and at the moment there are just higher priorities and bigger opportunities for us to focus on — especially since Practice Tool in it’s current ‘training gym’ form still serves most of the needs for ‘shooting hoops’ in League.

For the short-term, Practice Tool isn’t perfect as it stands right now (far from it). We want to update it with some quality-of-life tweaks and will of course continue to support any new large gameplay systems (like jungle plants) that get added. Some things currently on our radar (not a guarantee but we’re looking at them) include some more target dummy controls for tankiness or movement, being able to add more enemy AI bots, global range for item shopping and fixing stacking items to work with the Cooldown refresh.

L4T3NCY

Lead Designer, Rotating Game Modes

Thanks for reading this week’s Ask Riot. Have a question?

Head over to Ask Riot and sign into your League account. Check out the Pro Tips, then ask away.

We promise to read every question, but we can’t guarantee they’ll all get answers. Some questions may already be answered elsewhere, and some won’t be right for Ask Riot. This isn’t the best place to announce new features, for example, and we might skip conversations on issues we’ve talked about in depth before (though we can clarify individual points).

We are listening, though, so keep asking. We’ll make sure your questions are heard by the Rioters working on the stuff you’re curious about."

10 bans live in Normal Draft

Here's Draggles with the announcement that 10 bans are now live in normal draft on the NA server:

"We are bringing 10 bans to Normal Draft starting with patch 7.11.

Our plan is to have 10 bans live for about a week for testing before rolling out to Ranked Solo/Duo and Flex. We’ll be releasing on the NA server first, followed by other regions.

For more information on how the new ban phase will work (and how it differs from the format used in the LCS), check out the announcement post here."

Patch Chat with the Playtest Team - Patch 7.11

Riot King Cobra is back again this patch for a new Patch Chat covering Patch 7.11:

"Header by inkiness

Hey, everyone! I'm Riot King Cobra and it's time for another round of Patch Chat! These threads serve as opportunity for us to talk about the patches that come out every two weeks. You can find the most recent patch by following this link: Patch 7.11 Notes.

I'm on Riot's Playtest Team, a group of high elo players who play with the new champions, reworks, balance tweaks, items, and map updates before they are released.

It's our job to the test the changes that our designers come up with and ensure that we're introducing positive changes to League in terms of both balance and fun. Ask us questions - we'll try to answer as many as we can!

In Patch 7.11, we've introduced updates to Rek'Sai, Kindred, and Malzahar! We also used this patch as an opportunity to follow up on midseason with changes to some struggling tanks and Maokai and Zac. Beyond this, we also are toning down some champions like Ahri, Caitlyn, Lucian, Syndra, and Yasuo. There's other changes as well, be sure to read the patch notes! :)

All of us on the Playtest Team are avid gamers so feel free to talk to us as fellow LoL players!

Ben “Cezium” Burkhardt

Don “Aesah” Ding

Nicolas “Gleeb” Haddad

Dan “penguin” Hardison

Robert “ROBERTxLEE” Lee

Rob "King Cobra" Rosa

Nicholas “Nickwu” Smith

Blake “S0be” Soberanis

Trevor “ThEntropist” Thernes

Arnor "Hjarta" Halldorsson

Brian "Madness Heroo" Pressoir"

Check out the boards thread for continued discussion:

RiotKingCobra mentioned they are looking at 3 Doran's stacking.
Riot Aesah noted Doran's Shield is being looked at.
Penguin noted that Rumble still has changes in the works.

Fight with Honor on PBE

The Honor system update is now on the PBE for testing! To get you up to speed on what's new, here's DuckCurry with more information in Fight with Honor on PBE:

"Hey everyone, the big update to Honor that New001 mentioned yesterday is now on PBE! Here’s some details so you know what to expect when you see the new Honor ceremony and categories, rise in Honor levels, and unlock rewards along the way.

Honor Ceremony

A new voting screen appears after every matchmade, non-remake game.

Honor one teammate per game, we’re planning to add a way to shout out opponents after launch.

Mouse over a teammate, choose a category, then click to vote before time runs out. The new categories are:

Stayed cool: That tilt-proof top laner who took a beating but didn’t give up

Great Shotcalling: The adc who made a slick Baron call after cleaning up a teamfight.

GG <3: The player who saved your butt or even just cracked a good joke.

Everyone has one of those days, so there’s a vote skip button.

The game client now automatically closes ~8s after nexus destruction.

End of Game

At the End of Game screen, you’ll see the honors you’ve received.

If you got a majority of the team’s honors, everyone sees a celebration over your summoner name.

At level 3+, a small gemstone will signal when you’ve unlocked loading screen flair in your next game (details on this below!)

Honor Level

You have an Honor level that lasts all season! Everyone starts fresh at Honor Level 2. Yay!

You max out your Honor level at 5 by playing games and consistently playing to win. For testing purposes, leveling up will be faster on PBE than when Honor launches.

Earning Honor game to game will level you up slightly faster, but honors are not required to level up. It’s about consistency, not one standout performance.

You only lose Honor levels by getting hit with penalties. Simply not receiving Honor will not level you down.

Profile page

Profile elements have been re-arranged to incorporate the Honor emblem.

Mouse over your Ranked emblem to see your other Ranked stats as usual.

Other players’ honor levels are hidden for privacy! No peeking! >.>

Penalties

Getting hit with penalties level you down, and temporarily lock you out of rewards.

Your Honor lock state can be seen on your profile (only visible to you ) and can be lifted by consistent sportsmanlike games.

You’ll get a notification when you’ve “unlocked”, and your profile will update at the same time

Rewards:

Key fragments now drop through Honor.

Everyone who’s level 2 (starting level) or above gets all their free key fragments by just playing games without getting hit with penalties

Earning Honor votes is not required to get your keys

Winning is no longer required to earn keys.

Keys no longer drop at end-of-game, but periodically while outside of queue.

Honor level 3+ players earn loading screen flair by receiving honors.

This flair lasts for one game.

You get flair in your next game if two premade teammates, or one non-premade teammate honors you

There’s no cooldown on flair, so you earn it every game you meet the honor conditions above

Your flair unlocks at level 3, grows at level 4, and fully blooms at level 5.

There will be more rewards coming to live. We’ll be sharing more rewards details as we approach launch ;)

We’d love to get your feedback! We’ll also be hanging around to answer questions, so drop a line!"

When asked about the changes to the current key system, Simurgh responded:

"Quote:

Could you expand on this?
It'll be pretty similar to the current key drop experience, except not just at end of game. Could be on login, while you're on the home screen, etc. As long as you're playing games and being a cool person, you'll get them occasionally."

On the change of the key drop system, Simurgh replied:

"Quote:

Why are you changing it to be like this? Is this just to make it more difficult to track the drops?
Key frag drops aren't tied to your specific behavior in a particular game, but to the overall consistency of behavior. We didn't want to keep them strictly linked to end of game, because people might think that there's direct causation.

On the key fragment limit, Simurgh confirmed it would not be changing:

"Quote:

Is there still 12 key fragments limit?
Yes"

On whether they will have systems in place to stop honor abuse in premades, Simurgh responded:

"Quote:

Really nice, can I ask for what you guys plan to do to make sure premades dont abuse the system to farm honors?
We've got some strategies in place here. We've made sure behind the scenes that premades won't be able to spam each other with Honors and reap undue rewards. We're going to be evaluating the behavior holistically as players make progress through the system.

Philosophically, we believe that its more meaningful for you to receive an Honor from some stranger you haven't met than from someone you already are friends with - this is why the rules around receiving Honor flair (in the post above) give you a bit of a bonus from receiving recognition from non-premades. We still want players to be able to recognize their friends when they have good moments in game though. Its important for us to strike a balance."

Simurgh continued on the same topic:

"Quote:

What does that do for those of us who mostly play in large groups though. Sure we can honor each other in a circle but it will be hard to consistently show "honorable play" if I play as a 4 or 5 man and my teammates votes are consistently devalued.

Also, on a different note, do you believe any of this will improve the experience with toxic players? I'm all for rewarding good behavior but at the end of a good game I want to play the next one and at the end of a bad game I usually am just praying my report matters this time. In my experience toxic players ruin games far more than honorable ones improve them.
If you mostly play in premades, your behavior is already probably pretty good, so I would expect you'd find no problems making significant progress through the system. That being said, the person who is the bastion of calm and positivity in SoloQ will probably find themselves recognized more frequently via flair and climbing faster, since receiving Honors in those queues is more difficult than if you're just playing with your buddies.

As for your second question, we want to approach behavior in League from multiple angles. Positive reinforcement can be just as effective as punishment in many cases."

Simurgh went on:

"Quote:

His point is that if your premade votes don't count or mostly don't count, and you don't play with pubs, then how do you make progress through the system?
Getting honored isn't the only way to increase your rank. Getting meaningful honors frequently will help you climb faster, but if you generally stay quiet or generally play with premades, you'll be moving through the system as well. We try to look at your behavior as a whole - generally people who play with friends have pretty good games, so they shouldn't run into any problems gaining levels."

As for plans for people who have a lot invested in the old Honor system, Simurgh replied:

"Quote:

Any plans for the current honor system?

Will those with a lot of honor racked up get something to show for it or will it just get wiped and forgotten?
We've got plans to take care of people who heavily engaged in the old Honor system, but we haven't finalized them yet. Stay tuned!"

On the emblems you can recieve, Simurgh responded:

"Quote:

What exactly do you mean by flare? Like, the border of the champion has some interesting design going on or what?
On the loading screen, players at higher honor levels can show off a cool emblem (think an upgraded version of today's Honor ribbons)"

On whether you can AFK and recieve key fragments, Simurgh explained:

"Quote:

Okay, so then we can acquire them offline over time since we can potentially get them on login? Otherwise, what's stopping players from sitting on the home screen all day farming key frags?
You won't gain keyfrags by just "staying logged in" - if you try to farm it by staying logged in all day, nothing will happen. You'll need to be playing games as you normally would. The only change with how they drop in Honor is that they won't only appear at the end of game."

On whether you will lose honor for being reported, Simurgh responded:

"Quote:

Do we lose honor by getting reported or does the report have to be justified? (teammates don't want to you to splitpush as for example)
You're only going to lose Honor through penalties from the Instant Feedback system."

On whether there is a honor level lower than 1, Simurgh responded:

"Quote:

Will there be an honor level 1 and and honor level 0?? :D
If you find yourself punished by the Instant Feedback system, you'll end up at level 0 or 1. We're calling level 0 'Dishonorable', since its the lowest you can drop in the Honor system. You'll need to work your way back up to earn back your rewards and standing."

On whether the emblems will be visible to both teams, Simurgh responded:

"Quote:

Will the emblems be visible to both teams or only yours?
Both teams"

On why you cant honor more than one person on your team, Simurgh replied:

"Quote:

Why can't we honor more than one person in our team? I don't get that...
I mean, I always honor my team (especially after a win) and it is sort of saddening to see we only get to honor one person. Why not let us honor all four?
I totally feel you. I have plenty of games where I have a bunch of people I want to Honor. However, with the revamp, we wanted Honors to feel more meaningful and impactful when you receive them - limiting them to a single vote per person gives them more weight. Similarly, we wanted to surface Honor to everyone after every game, and wanted to keep the experience quick and easy - limiting it to one vote here kept this feeling good as well.

However, we recognize that there is a need here to honor multiple people in your game (and your opponents too!), so we have plans for a post-launch improvement that will give you ways to recognize other people in your games."

On honorable opponent honors missing, Simurgh responded:

"Quote:

I haven't seen anything regarding "Honorable Opponent" honors that can be given out. Are we only able to honor our teammates now? If so, please consider bringing that back or implementing it in the future. I take great pride in how many honorable opponents I've received and I also really like to give those out when enemies have earned it as well.
We have plans for a post-launch upgrade to include a way to give recognition to your opponents (and multiple players at once). Stay tuned!"

On staying at the victory/defeat screen after the game ends, DuckCurry responded:

"Quote:

That still leaves 4 people that deserve honor and only 1 vote. I have to make these decisions on an 8-second timer as well. I've already failed.
To clarify, its just the game client that closes automatically, so you can no longer hang around at the victory/defeat screen forever. However you'll have much more time to actually do your voting which occurs in the league client update.

DuckCurry continued:

"Quote:

Wait, does that mean we won't be able to listen to Lissandra's monologue on the Howling Abyss anymore D: !?
Yea... we have some ideas on what to do about this easter egg, but nothing set in stone yet."

Quick Hits - Blitzcrank Bot, Xayah and Rakan Cosplay, Evolution of NA LCS, & more

[Quick Hits is our own collection within a red post collection, often including easy to digest stories, specialized information, and/or repeat info you may have missed in other posts!]

1) A new Riot Games Engineering Blog article is up, this time introducing Blitzcrank Bot, Riot's automated ticket agent.

2) Cosplay Showcase: Xayah and Rakan ft Leon Chiro Cosplay and LittleJem Cosplay- see full article for more!

"To celebrate the arrival of Xayah and Rakan, we produced a special video feature with two of Europe’s most talented cosplayers. Leon Chiro and LittleJem joined us in the Wicklow mountains of Ireland to show off their breathtaking cosplays and bring League’s newest champions to life. Scroll down to check out the featured Cosplay Showcase, a Behind The Scenes mini-doc, interactive 360 video and a photo gallery of our amazing cosplayers."

3) LoLEsports has released a length article detailing significant upcoming changes to the NA LCS in terms of changes to the league's structure, team revenue, player voice and protections,

"Our plans to build a sustainable future for the NA LCS through permanent partnerships in 2018."

"Back in 2016, we talked about our vision for the future of esports (and how we plan to get there). Our end goal is to create a strong and stable system that's profitable for pro players and provides entertainment for fans in the long-term — and today we'll be taking some major steps forward in North America that helps us achieve that."

[SEE FULL ARTICLE FOR MORE INFORMATION]

4) EU LCS Update was also posted in regard to the above NA LCS announcement, noting:

"Recently, China and North America announced plans to move to a model where organisations become permanent partners with the league. We wanted to let you know the EU LCS will not be moving to a pan-European franchise model at this point, and give you some insight as to why.

Europe is a large and uniquely diverse region that spans multiple countries, cultures and ecosystems. While this can be challenging, it is also a great opportunity. We are excited to further explore ways to deepen and strengthen our competitive ecosystem to benefit the many talented players, organisations and fans from all over Europe.

We’ll be back later on this year with more information around our plans for Europe."

5) Wuks has posted a weekly community round up for May 31st 2017, including links to various stories and conversations around the boards.

Reminders

Last up, a few reminders on upcoming and ending soon promotions and sales!

YOUR SHOP is up on the client through June 6th!

As mentioned in 7.11 notes, Doom Bots of Doom returns to the RGMQ 6/2 - 6/6 and 6/9-6/13.

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Red Post Collection: Runes Reforged Coming This Preseason, 10 bans live in NA, Ask Riot, honor Discussion, & more!

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