Red Post Collection: Ask Riot: Honor Capsules Pls, Honor Capsule Update Delivers New Drop Rate, & More

Tonight's red post includes a new Ask Riot, covering honor capsules, Ornn's winrate, and more, as well as an update to the Honor capsule droprates, and more!
Continue reading for more info!

• Red Post Collection: /Dev: Building Star Guardian: Invasion, Runes Corner, Patch Chat with the Playtest Team, & More
• Champion & Skin Sale 9/15 - 9/18
• Primetime Draven Chroma now available!

• 9/14 PBE Update: Eternal Sword Yi Chroma, New Summoner Icon, and More Tentative Balance Changes

Table of Contents

• Ask Riot: Honor Capsules Pls 
• Honor Capsule update delivers new drop rate 
• Quick Hits
• Reminders

Ask Riot: Honor Capsules Pls 

This week's Ask Riot is now live, covering Honor capsules, Ornn's winrate at launch, and more:

"This week, it’s honor capsules, Ornn’s low winrate at launch, and the rare delicacy that is poro meat.

Why haven’t I received any Honor capsules even though I’m already Honor level 4?

Capsule drops haven’t been as consistent as we’d like, so we updated the way capsule drops work to add bad luck protection. Now the longest you should go without a capsule is about two months. If you wanna go nitty-gritty on the changes, check out our full post. 

RIOT NAKYLE

Comms, Player Behavior

Why do you think Ornn had such a low winrate at launch?

Release champion balance has always been an imperfect science. Before a champion is revealed, we playtest new champions and make iterations constantly, trying to make sure we get as close as possible to “perfect” balance as we can. Sometimes we’re off in either direction—too weak (Ornn most recently) or too strong (Camille). Sometimes we get it right (Kled). 

One of the more important factors that affects a champion’s power on release is their mastery curve. Simply put, a champion’s mastery curve is their expected growth in power relative to how many games a player puts in on them. Since champions must be balanced assuming the person playing them is experienced, a champion with a high mastery curve (such as Yasuo) will have a very low win rate for first time players that rises significantly over time; a champion with a low mastery curve (such as Braum) will start higher but have much less growth relative to their true balance state. 

The aspects of champions that create high mastery curves are usually the same reasons it can be difficult to gauge how powerful a champion will be on release. New mechanics that don’t have strong analogues in the game already (such as Ornn’s passives), subtle mechanics that require a lot of optimization that may not be obvious (such as Ornn’s brittle effect or his items), and difficult to execute mechanics (such as Ornn’s second cast of his ult) all combine to add to the difficulty of estimating power levels. Quite frankly, these factors can all make it easy for us to make mistakes—especially considering the limited amount of data we have to work with relative to the millions of games we have on Live. 

Compounding all of this is the human element. For example, our best Ornn player internally routinely smashed games right up to release, performing better on Ornn than any other champion he played. We took this as a sign of Ornn’s strength, but it is possible that he was an Ornn one trick in the making. Conversely, our Aurelion Sol players never discovered some of the optimizations that are now routine for seasoned ASol vets, which contributed to a champion who was overbearingly powerful a month or so after release. 

At the end of the day, no one on champion team wants their champion to release unbalanced. Weak can mean poor reception, and strong can mean nerfs that will cause player pain going forward. We try to get as close as we can, and we’re lucky enough that we are able to respond fairly quickly if we’re off. 

SQUAD5

Game Designer, Champion Team

Do people eat poros?

As you slip the squishy, pastel meat into your mouth, your mind floods with every imaginable color: magenta, indigo, seafoam, chartreuse! With each juicy gnash of your teeth, a different flavor overwhelms your palate: cotton candy, chokecherry, salted sea bass, toasted coconut! You swallow the tender morsel and your throat tickles as it slides down your gullet. You get the feeling like you have to sneeze, but can’t. As you pinch another bite from the plate, eager in anticipation of all the colors and flavors it will unlock, you feel a tiny itch ripple in your stomach. You can’t help but cough—a little at first, then A LOT. Sprays of fluff and fur erupt from your mouth like confetti. The itch in your stomach grows into a sharp, stabbing pain, like something tiny is trying to beat down the door of your innards with fists made of knives. Your guts swell and stretch as you cry out to your gods for mercy, for death, for anything that could bring an end to the blinding pain. Through your tears, you watch as two pointed horns rip through your skin’s membrane, thrashing and mighty like a bull through a matador’s cape. A basketball-shaped creature struts from your gaping stomach, slick and sticky with your blood, then plumes its fur in one swift PUFF. Blood splatters across your face. Your shaking eyes finally behold the creature in all its splendor—standing soft and sweet as a sunlit dandelion atop your retching, soon-to-be corpse. It unfurls its big pink tongue and licks your pallid cheek. That’s the last thing you see. 

Or so the story goes. So yeah, not a lot of people try it anymore. 

RIOT TIGER LILY

Editor, Worldbuilding Team 

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."

Honor Capsule update delivers new drop rate 

Honor capsules now have some bad luck protection, which has already hit live! Here's Sephyre with all the details:

"We’re adding some bad luck protection to Honor Capsules to make their drop rate more reliable. We’re also sharing the updated rules around drops because we found our lack of clarity disturbing. Here’s how Honor Capsule drops work now: 

• You have a chance to earn an Honor Capsule with every key fragment drop.
• Your chances for getting an Honor Capsule double each week as you play games.
• You’re guaranteed an Honor Capsule within two months.
• Your drop rate resets after getting a capsule.
• You can only earn one capsule every three weeks. 

This update is now live. We’re looking forward to sharing more updates to Honor."

Quick Hits

• RiotVitzkrieg commented on the boards, giving his thoughts on the Invasion mode monsters becoming permanent skins:

"Heyo, sorry for the confusion! Let me help clarify where we're at with those custom SG monsters. 

As I mentioned before, we didn't build these to be champion skins. What that means is that aside from some tech limitations (they're actually new characters instead of skins, and use some new tech that hasn't been back ported to the original champions), we didn't even consider how they'd fit the champs as playable characters. That means we didn't do our due diligence we'd normally do for any new skin (concepting any abilities other than the ones you saw, checking skin readability on SR, cleaning up VFX clarity/performance, etc etc). 

All that means is we can't just sell you guys what we have in existence right now. There's been a very loud and clear request to be able to play as these badass monsters, and we hear you! I want to make it clear that I'm not promising anything, but I've started conversations with our skins team about what it'd take to turn these into real skins. We'll see where it goes from here :)

• The theme for Worlds 2017 has been revealed! Check out Legends Never Die, a collaboration between Riot and Against the Current:

• The schedule for the Worlds Play-In Stage is now available! Check it out on LoLEsports!

• Chase Your Legend - Doublelift | Worlds 2017

"Ambition is a relentless drive to succeed, and one of many attributes of a champion. 

The pursuit of mastery is an endless journey, but those who persevere etch their names in history."

• The Summoner Showcase is now on Youtube! Here's the playlist of the currently released episodes, and if you need to catch up, here is the most recent episode, Episode 114:

Reminders

• The Star Guardian content is now available! Check out our coverage of the release, and make sure to get in a game of Invasion, the newest game mode released. It will be available through 9/25 at 11:59 PT!