Red Post Collection: Vision Ping Details, Origins: Riven, Gameplay Thoughts June 16th, and more!

Origins: Riven

A new Origins article is out, chronicling the journey to create Riven, the Exile:

"From sand mages to precise blade-legs, each of League’s 136 champions started somewhere. This is Riven’s story. 

A NOXIAN FIGHTER 

These days, new champions are released every couple months—with six new challengers approaching in 2016—but 2011 was a different story. Back then, new champions hit the Rift (almost) every patch. Our goal then was to expand the game by aggressively adding new champs to League’s roster, and the entire development process usually took under six weeks from concept to launch. 

Many of the champions designed that year were meant to fill out the missing subclasses for each region of Runeterra: What would a tank from Bilgewater look like, or a mage from Ionia? “We wanted to show how factions would express certain playstyles,” says senior game designer Kuo-Yen “Xypherous” Lo, “while making sure the regions didn’t feel too one-dimensional.” 

A lot of early Demacian characters fell into that cookie-cutter mold, and it was starting to seem like the region was full of perfectly moral citizens (which is fine, until everyoneis like that). In an attempt to show that Demacians are more than just lawful ninnies, devs set out to make a Demacian champion with a wild side. 

Around the same time, Xypherous designed a three-part melee ability that led to sick combos (now fondly known as Riven’s Q). The team set out to create a Demacian fighter who could use this new ability but realized there were already multiple melee brawlers from Demacia (Garen, Jarvan, Xin Zhao). Keeping the same goal of breaking a faction’s typical mold, they shifted to designing a Noxian fighter who could show that not all people from Noxus are insufferably evil. 

Noxian Capital

Inspired by the story of a wandering monk in Planescape Torment—whose weapon changed based on his state of mind—Xypherous envisioned a character whose sword was as fractured as her mentality. Riven was once a dedicated soldier of Noxus who believed strength (in any form) was the ultimate measure of someone’s worth, but she lost faith in her convictions during the invasion of Ionia, when Singed fired bombs against Noxians and Ionians alike. It caused massive destruction without the need for strength or skill, yet the Noxian leaders still rallied behind the biochemical warfare. “Afterwards, Riven basically said, ‘F- this,’ broke her sword, and deserted Noxus in the hopes of finding herself,” artist Anton “RiotManton” Kolyukh says. 

Riven’s two release skins were meant to show two possible outcomes of her wandering: Redeemed Riven forged her own path and became semi-holy, while Crimson Elite Riven returned to Noxus and became a commander.

 MY SPIRIT IS NOT LOST

When RiotManton began sketching Riven’s concept art, it was unclear whether the character was going to be a boy or a girl—so he drew both. They ended up going with a female character for two main reasons: 1) Most of the previous champs with melee weapons were males. 2) Many female champions in League were scantily clad and pretty sexualized, so this was a chance to deepen League’s portrayal of female characters. “I was passionate about Riven being a female because she’s a badass and she’s covered up,” RiotManton says. 

Male and Female Concept Exploration

Since Riven was a soldier, she probably once wore a full suit of Noxian armor—but after choosing the life of an exile, it was unlikely she’d continue to wear the gear. Still, it seemed Riven would keep parts of her old armor as a way of remembering the past. “Ultimately, the decision of which pieces to include came down to what looked best in game,” RiotManton says, “which was the bulky shoulder pad and the leg piece.”

Riven Concept Art

Noxus’ colors weren’t always shades of red and black. Green and purple were once the primary colors of Noxus (Swain, Cassiopeia, Urgot), which is why Riven’s armor and sword are both green. The original Summoner’s Rift was also quite green, so RiotManton moved towards a more teal color palette to make her character pop in-game.

Bonus fact: Resources for champion development used to be much more limited. To save time, some of the drawings of Riven’s runes were used as the basis for her VFX, and some of her particle effects were basically copy-pasted textures from concept art.

Exile Turnaround Redux (2)

REFORGING THE BLADE 

Even in the earliest of concepts, Riven’s shattered sword re-formed during her ultimate. Initially, her runes were going to glow a different color while the outline of her sword appeared, and then *VFOOM,* the blade would become whole again. To really sell this transformation, a good chunk of in-game time was needed for the VFX and animation to take center stage. 

In-game mock-up of Riven’s sword during her ultimate.

When it came down to actual gameplay, there was only about half a second for the effects to take place, so the dramatic transformation was scrapped. Instead, Riven was given unique voice over lines that only play while Blade of the Exile is activated—the first time this VO tech was used in League. 

With Riven’s sword restored, it was time to figure out her ult’s gameplay mechanics: What could she do during the transformation, and what could she do after? Stay awhile and listen as we present a list of ults-that-didn’t-make-it, with commentary by Xypherous. 

• Definitely-not-Shyvana: Riven had a “rage” bar that charged up when attacking; the more aggressive she played, the more she could stay in her empowered form. Why it didn’t make it: “That was just overkill—she’s already an aggressive champion.” 

• Wait, WTF?: Riven’s abilities reset her auto attacks, and her auto attacks reset her abilities. Why it didn’t make it: “It was just…kind of terrible.” 

• She-Woman: When Riven activated her ult, a sonic boom of power knocked back everyone around her. Why it didn’t make it: “That was like, ‘Oh…everyone’s gone now, and I have to attack them in melee form.’” 

• LASERS: Beams of light shot from Riven’s blade every time she used an ability. Why it didn’t make it: “This was just too much…so we condensed it into one move.”

Riven's Launch Splash Art

Riven was designed to play like a character from a fighting game—with lots of combos and fast movements—and allowing her to cancel animations fit into that gameplay pattern. (Plus, she’s a well-trained Noxian soldier, so of course she’s a master of fancy swordsmanship.) However, the extent players have been able to cancel Riven’s animations was never intended. Riven was only supposed to be able to cancel her longer animations, like Q and E, but the coding system used back then also allowed her to cancel auto attacks. “The engine just wasn’t well-designed for animation cancelling,” Xypherous says, “But if we ever decided to change it now, we’d look to adjust her numbers or add new combos.” 

Auto-attack cancelling and all, the Noxian exile was ready to duel on the Rift, where she’s since created button-mashing, salt-inducing fun for everyone.

ORIGINS is a series where we deep-dive into the development of champions. Feel free to drop some thoughts and feels on the series below and let us know which champs you’re most interested in hearing about!"

Previous Origins articles

• Origins: Azir
• Origins: Jinx

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: June 16 

Here's Meddler with his quick gameplay thoughts for June 16, including thoughts on Gnar, Diana, Kindred, and more as the 7.13 cycle continues PBE testing:

"Morning folks, 

Usual Disclaimers 

These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get put delayed or even stopped.
If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler 

Gnar 

We've been trying out some Gnar changes recently, looking at both adding a bit of power and whether his play pattern needs a bit of work too. That's included looking at things like moving his % health damage from his W to his Q. After some testing we'll probably be going with some simpler changes though, conclusion being he mainly just needs a bit of power. Likely targets are mini Q base damage and mega E range, might see those on PBE shortly. 

Diana 

We don't have work currently underway for Diana, wanted to mention her though since it's been quite a while since we mentioned her however. Our belief is whenever we next look at Diana we should be doing some changes beyond just balance, so probably a mini-update like Rek'Sai or Heimer's. Unsure when exactly that would be, but did want to mention we're not just forgetting she exists or unaware of player feeling she needs help. 

Kindred 

Early assessment of the 7.12 patch suggests the buffs there may not have been enough to put Kindred in a good spot. We're still evaluating whether that's the case or not, on the belief it probably is though we're going to be looking at some follow up buffs, likely in 7.13. Possible targets include E base damage and looking at number of marks needed for the AA range increase after the initial 4 marks. 

Spectator and Allied View team indicator circles 

Last year we did some clean up on which team indicators (green/red rings etc) show up to allies, or to spectators, on a number of champions. Result of that was things like the green ring around Trundle's W not being shown to some players or to viewers (didn't offer meaningful information, so was clutter without benefit). We'll be doing another pass like that shortly, in part because we're getting close to the time of the year where there's a lot of Esports viewership of particular patches. Sing out if there's something you've spotted in Spectator in particular that's ugly or distracting and just doesn't need to be there and we'll give it a glance. 

World's Patch 

Speaking of Esports, for anyone interested it looks highly likely that 7.18 will be the patch for Worlds this year. We'd originally been thinking 7.19, but that ended up being a bit too tight timing wise. That will mean 7.18's a smaller patch though most, with the goal of avoiding both late significant disruption and minimizing bug risk. Some changes will also be avoided where possible in the few patches beforehand (e.g. major systemic gameplay changes to things like objectives, whole categories of item etc)."

Meddler also gave his thoughts on Singed:

"Quote:

I have a few notes on spectator view:

• target frame : this cover the chat and info (who buy what and stuff) log (on the left down corner). i usually have to turn this frame off because I couldnt see the msg and those infos. It would be great if we move either the frame somewhere or pump the chat area higher.
• When you quit spectating mode , it should directly put you in the lobby instead of asking you to hit reconnect or quit. It is redundant since you have to wait 5 sec in game to escape spectating mode already.
• Also, there is a minor visual bug after you quit spectator mode is that on your friend list, the one who in game have yellow font indicator (in game) now have green indicator (online) even though the text itself says in game (and they are in fact in game).

Also a small question: Do you have any update on singed ? Singed main community has been eagerly waiting for some info about his update.

Thanks for the spectator feedback. I'll pass that on, though at present we're just looking at indicator displays to different players (UI stuff's handled by a separate bunch of folks).
Singed's still getting some work, think it's likely something's on PBE early ish next week."

Asyrite popped onto reddit to answer questions on Singed:

"Quote:

Where is my Singed changes? They were pulled from PBE 2 patches ago, would expect something about now. Gave me hope that he wasnt forgotten but hope is fading again..

Not forgotten, we're still just trying to figure out what the right changes are!"

When asked about Gnar and Frozen Mallet, Meddler commented:

"Quote:

What are your thought on the Gnar / Frozen Mallet combo?

That's been on our mind too. Changes to Frozen Mallet, possibly as simple as a weaker slow again for ranged, maybe something larger, are being discussed a bit. Nothing settled on yet."

Meddler continued:

"Quote:

Have you considered giving Mallet % base attack like steraks? I feel that would make it naturally better on beefier champs (I typically prefer to avoid melee ranged splits when possible.

Huh, seems like a plausible direction at first glance at least. I'll bounce that off the team, see if it's something they've looked at previously or not.

Meddler went on:

"Quote:

Does mega gnar E range affect the bounce from mini into mega? I still think exclusively buffing mega gnar is better since it's gated power and mini gnar buffs tend to make him a nuisance that eventually gets nerfed like last time.
Also, with timing of champ release the new champ will be playable at worlds while any further vgus won't? 

Finally, Thoughts on gargoyle stoneplate? I feel like it's simply too good at what it does now.

Just the Mega E by itself."

On champion balance priority, Meddler replied:

"Quote:

I think Azir and Yasuo are top priority for them right now, Yasuo for his ban rate and Azir for his problematic kit

That's true ish. We've got explorations into Azir and LeBlanc going on, when they'll come out though depends on what gets found (how much change is/isn't needed?). Yasuo we'll want to look at, could be quicker though, depending on whether it's actually an update or more a large set of balance changes that shift power/mechanics around."

When asked about similarities between Diana and Akali, Meddler replied:

"Quote:

Meddler in regards to diana  are you guys planning to massively change her playstyle? I ask because her playstyle is so similar to akali that when Diana is good theres really no reason to ever pick Akali because she has more burst and more innate tankiness which is why alot of people call Diana, Akali 2.0. Akali is on the list for a full vgu (hopefully soon) but was wondering if the plan with Dianas update is to while fixing her issues also maybe flesh her kit out a bit more so theres more difference in playstyle between the 2?

We'll want to separate Diana and Akali more, yeah. What that means for each of them isn't something we've got details on"

On the lethality itemization changes that were previously mentioned, Meddler replied they would likely be in 7.14:

"Quote:

What about the assassin items you said were being looked at? Can we expect anything this patch? If so, what?

Looks like next patch (7.14) is much more likely at this point. Still being worked on."

When asked again about Lissandra, Meddler replied:

"Quote:

What happens to the changes to Lissandra? There was word of her new passive being out in 7.8 but no word since then? 

When will we be seeing her changes ?

No work's currently being done on Lissandra or likely to be done in the short to medium term. We'd like to improve her passive still someday, but concluded time was better spent on other champions since progress wasn't fast and the need isn't as high as in other cases."

When a reddit user noticed the Pentakill album had been removed from Spotify, LeaoC popped in to provide context:

"Quote

LeaoC do you have any information about that? 

Btw if you had already downloaded it you can continue to listen it.

Yeah, we wanted to change the artist from "League of Legends" to "Pentakill" (may or may not be in preparation for the upcoming album ;)), so it takes a few days to populate it back. It will be back there in a few days, though :)"

LeaoC continued:

"Quote:

Is it more likely within 3 months or more than? Or can you not really say?

I prefer not to say it, but we're working hard to ship it as soon as possible"

LeaoC reminded us of the teaser song from the new album:

"Quote:

A new album? I'm excited!

Wait, did you not know about the new album? We even teased a song of it already!"

Quick Hits

[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 episode of Lane x Lane hit the LolEsports youtube - Lane x Lane: Trial by Combat