Red Post Collection: Quick Gameplay Thoughts: 11/1, League of Legends Live VOD, Preseason Starts November 8th, & More

Posted on at 11:28 AM by Moobeat
Today's red post collection includes Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for 11/3, a VOD of the League of Legends Live concert experience, a dev blog on the recent comics released on Universe, and more!
Continue reading for more information!




Table of Contents


Quick Gameplay Thoughts: November 3rd

Here's Meddler with his quick gameplay thoughts for November 3rd, covering Pre-season's imminent appearance, Urgot, new word clouds, and more:
"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 
Pre-Season just around the corner 
Bit of a quiet before the storm period for us at the moment. We've just recently locked down the final changes of the pre-season patch and are extremely excited to see it go out after working for a long time on Runes. The second half of next week onwards is likely to be really busy again as we make needed adjustments based off how Runes etc are performing, looking forward to talking about our thoughts on that. For now though there's a bit less to discuss so a brief period of comparative quiet. 
More Word Clouds 
The last set seemed pretty well received with a number of people asking to see some more, so I figured I'd throw some extras in here. As before this is hopefully a mixture of the instantly recognizeable and the harder to immediately identify. Most of these clouds are also a different format to the ones from Wednesday's post. The first one here, and the ones from Wednesday are based off a general survey that asks what players associate with a champion. The other new ones by contrast ask specifically what players feel is iconic about a champ, so they end up with a different feel to them. They're also based off translated data from multiple languages, so there's some non english speaking memeing going on there too (e.g. 'Science'), compared to the previous set that were just based off english survey responses."
    
Urgot 
Almost all the champion changes in 7.22 are adjustments due to the impact of the new Runes system. One champ who's getting some other work on top of that though is Urgot. We had some Urgot buffs in 7.21 and, while we liked the direction of them, looks like they went a bit far. We'll probably be increasing the delay on Urgot's Q a bit as a result, making it a bit more dodgeable. It'll still be significantly faster than pre-7.21, but not quite as reliable as at present (currently testing 0.5s -> 0.6s, was 0.85s previously). Urgot might still be too strong after that changes, we'll wait and see where pre-season puts him though before considering raw power, rather than timing, changes though. 
What do you want to see more of in these posts? 
I figure it's good to ask this every so often, and now's a good time since there's a bit less to discuss today given we've talked so much about pre-season already. So, what would you like to see more of in these posts? 
A few notes:
  • I'm not gonna leak upcoming skins, champions, features etc.
  • I work with the teams that work on the in game gameplay experiences (champions, items, balance, gold income, the jungle, UI like healthbar etc). The further something is from that the less likely it is I'll be able to answer usefully. I'm not going to be able to respond too effectively for example to discussion around how matchmaking works, what's up with Chat Bans, how you earn Chests/Keys etc.
  • These posts get written a couple of days in advance so they can get translated into other languages, so anything really recent as a topic will need to get covered in the comments instead (or the next post)."

League of Legends Live: A Concert Experience at Worlds 

While most of us probably couldn't make it to China to see the concert live, the League of Legends Live concert experience was broadcast this morning for all to see. Here's a VOD of the whole show, including the teaser for Zoe, the Aspect of Twilight, our next upcoming champion:

"Soaring scores and victorious anthems are an integral part of the League of Legends universe, and we're bringing them to China to celebrate the 2017 World Championship. League of Legends Live is a concert experience featuring international artists and League of Legends community musicians taking place on the eve of the 2017 World Championship Finals. Performers include: Alan Walker, Mako, Pentakill, The Crystal Method, Yundi, PG One, Nicki Taylor, Lunity, Albert Chang of sleightlymusical, TJ Brown, Rainbow Chamber Singers, DJ Xu Meng Yuan, The Hollywood Chamber Orchestra, and more…"

Casting Comics: The First Four 

 A new dev blog is now available, talking about the comics we saw being released over on Universe:
"What does a good League comic look like? It’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves a lot this year. 
Comics have a lot of variety around the world in terms of format, art styles, and preferred content. In the last decade, big names like Marvel and DC/Vertigo have broadened their ideas of what a contemporary comic can be—and that’s still just a portion of comics around the world. In other regions, like Korea, they have their own favorite format: digital comics designed for browser and mobile viewing, an entirely different experience than classic print. 
Which means that when it came to League comics, there was no end to the possibilities of what we could do. So long as the story and style were a great fit for each champion, we were open to trying all kinds of stuff, both technologically and artistically. That being said, we did have a few specific goals we wanted to accomplish: 
  • Tell stories on a more regular cadence. In the past, comics have been used as promotions for champions, rather than an ongoing series of stories. We wanted to try delivering a new comic every two weeks—and find out what it would take to sustain that pace in the future. Plus, comics can be made a lot quicker than CG pieces like Wild Magic.
  • More than “fight porn.” We’ve talked about this before, and it’s true for comics too. Generally speaking, we think it’s more interesting when characters end up in a different place than where they started at the beginning of a story. Showing the progression of both champions and the regions they belong to is how we move the narrative of League forward and continue the worldbuilding of Runeterra.
  • Champion interaction. You’ve been telling us for years that you want to see champions encounter one another outside the game and for the world of Runeterra to feel more connected. We felt like comics could be the perfect place for champions to cross paths and show what happens when their distinct personalities collide.
With these guidelines in mind, we created our first “wave” of four comics. While they were essentially experiments, we wanted to keep the champions and their stories at the center. So, we brought together Rioters with deep knowledge of League lore and some of our favorite artists from around the world in a process the comics industry calls “casting.” It’s pretty much like it sounds: We try to find a writer and an artist who will complement each other’s style and who are also the right fit for the style of a particular comic (or in our case, the personality of a particular champion). 
DARIUS — “BLOOD OF NOXUS”
For “Blood of Noxus,” we wanted to pair a writer who could handle an epic military drama with a sophisticated art style. Graham McNeill had worked on a lot of Warhammer stuff before coming to Riot, so he was a good fit for a comic about soldier-citizens of Noxus, and Sana Takeda provided gritty but polished illustrations that captured the harsh life of the Noxians. 
“Blood of Noxus” was also our attempt at defining a region through its champions: Darius, Draven, and Quiletta all have different perspectives of Noxus and its ideals that are revealed over the course of the comic. 

NAMI — “INTO THE ABYSS”
With Nami’s comic, we wanted to explore a format designed specifically for mobile: a vertical scroller comic. It’s much more common in Asian regions, but we were interested in seeing how players around the world responded to a digital comic that was designed first and foremost for viewing on their phones and in their browsers. 
We asked artist Viviana Medeiros to bring her expertise working in WebToons to “Into the Abyss,” pairing with writer Rayla Heide to tell a story of Nami journeying into an underwater trench to retrieve a pearl and save her people. The constantly scrolling format matches Nami’s physical descent with the reader’s movement in the comic and also reflects Nami’s increasingly paranoid, isolated, and introspective state as she dives deeper. 
ZIGGS & JINX — “PAINT THE TOWN”
Ziggs and Jinx may seem like one-note champions at first glance—they like to blow stuff up. With “Paint the Town,” we tried to explore what a friendship might be like between two champions that share explosions as a common interest, and deliver on the champion interaction players have been asking for (it was also our first foray into oddball team-ups, one of the greatest comic traditions of all!). 
Since Ziggs and Jinx are about as far from serious as you can get, we looked for a writer and artist that could capture their zany misadventures in both the dialogue and the visual action. Fabio Moon and Dave Stewart worked in an art style more cartoony than all our other comics to date, and Anthony Burch brought the humor befitting two of League’s most madcap champs. 
MISS FORTUNE — “FORTUNE SMILES” 
Finally, we wanted a comic that built upon one of Runeterra’s ongoing stories, so we decided to check in on Miss Fortune after the events of “Burning Tides.” This comic was made using a technique pioneered at Marvel: First we wrote the story and artist Ramon Perez decided how to divide it all up into panels and pages, and then writer Anthony Burch went back and rewrote the dialogue to better fit the drawings. 
That process meant that “Fortune Smiles” was highly optimized for mobile—words are bigger, pictures are bigger, and it’s an overall better experience on your phone. You never have to pinch and zoom to read text or see the fine details of a panel, like you sometimes do with other comics in more classic layouts. On the flipside, this meant it had a very non-traditional desktop format, which is something we wondered if players would find easy to follow or just confusing. 
MORE COMICS TO COME 
It’s pretty much impossible to make a comic that’s going to be equally beloved by everyone, especially in the huge international audience that is League players. Our goal on the comics team is to make enough diverse (but always excellent) comics such that everyone who wants to read a League comic can find at least one that they love. 
We learned a lot making these comics, and even more now that we get to hear from you about what you liked best (don’t forget to leave a comment below)! We want to know how we’re doing, how you’re reading (what kinds of platforms/devices?), and how we can continue to improve digital comics as a medium—because we’re just getting started."

Runes, Contextual Decisions, and Data Intelligence

With preseason right around the corner, here is Fearless with an article on Runes, Contextual Decisions, and Data Intelligence:
"Hello Everyone! Runes Reforged will be on live in a handful of days! We wanted to do one last communication piece for you all about how Runes Reforged has changed pregame decision making, and how you can expect to change up your runes before a game of League of Legends.
Quick run down of how Runes Reforged changes pregame power and decision making:
  • There are fewer runes in the new system, but their power is concentrated far more than we saw in previous Runes or Masteries.
  • Runes are now free, and can now be changed in champ select
  • Players that reactively select certain runes stand to gain substantial power over generic, less optimized builds
This last point is one that we haven’t talked about directly too much, though it’s a core element of the design. In order to ensure that most champions get to make decisions in most of their games, we’ve spread the types of decision between options that focus on your own champion and options that care about your allies and opponents. 
Let’s go through some examples:
Resolve features one slot that asks what defenses you need in the early game, or gives you the greedy option to beef up later, at the cost of nothing in the laning phase. This decision very directly asks who is your lane opponent, and how much of a threat they bring to you. 
Gathering Storm offer’s a similar question. Few runes offer as much power in the late game, but it offers much less if your game ends at twenty or twenty-five minutes. You might chose this on a Veigar or Karthus to live the late game dream, but you might also pick this in a lane where you don’t think early aggression will be fruitful.
A few reactions can be very particular. Perfect Timing is a great example of this. Against a Zed or Kayn, or other champions with highly telegraphed damage, this rune can safe your life, and put you up in the race to get a vital legendary item. However, in case where you don’t need the stasis, you have a filled inventory slot and full slot’s worth of opportunity cost. 
As an aside, we know this sort of decision making takes time. We’ve added time in champion select and will be watching the various queues to make sure each mode has enough time to avoid feeling rushed, especially for the later picks. 
With runes having a lot more situational power, it’s likely that guides and experts will need to adapt to a world where pregame choices don’t have simple “right” answers. We still expect that players will get a lot of benefit from using guides as a starting point, but more than ever, reactive decision making will be very powerful. This means that guides might have to give extra context on some suggestions, accept a level of inaccurate recommendations, or show a wider array of possibilities. We’ve worked with a number of the guide sites to give them info right away when the system launches, and give them a heads up about the more contextual nature of the system. 
Finally, I wanted to reiterate one last time that this really is just the beginning for us. We’ve done our best to get the system balanced for launch, but a change this big is going to have some bug, and some power imbalances that we just couldn’t find or fix fast enough for release. We also ran out of time for some features we’re really excited about, like how we show runes in end of game, or providing a really high polish option for runes selection out of champion select. 
We’re also aware that some particular champions have fewer options in the new system. Some champions will never have a multitude of options, but we do want champions to have at least a single Keystone and path that feel suited to their needs. Lastly, we’ve also only got the first attempts in for feedback stats for runes. You’ll be able to see these in your match history, and eventually we’ll get these in end of game. If there are stats you’d find valuable to understand the performance of a particular rune choice, we’re invested in build the tools for players to understand their choices and evolve their approach to the game. 
Thanks everyone! See you on the rift!"

Preseason Begins November 8th

Here's Riot Fearless with a reminder about Preseason starting soon:
"Preseason is coming in just a few days. 
Get ready to experiment with powerful new runes, discover new playstyles, and level to infinity. Check out this preseason page to see all the features arriving November 8th. 
The Runes Reforged update in particular is a massive change, and shipping it is really just the beginning. We know there will still be a lot to accomplish, especially with all the extra feedback we’ll get once everyone is playing with the new Runes. Along with normal balance work, bug fixing, clarity improvements, and polish, we’ll have to pay close attention to see which champions are struggling in the initial release. We’ll work diligently to add, retouch, and replace runes as we discover the most pressing needs brought by the new system. 
Over the course of many upcoming patches, we’ll also continue to work on features that we didn’t wrap up in time for the preseason update. For example, we’ll need to add keystone support for the in-game spectator mode and include runes in the end-of-game experience. We’ll also make managing rune pages easier and more streamlined with better filtering options and the ability to hide preset pages. 
This is the biggest gameplay change we’ve ever shipped. There'll be a lot to tweak and we'll be working on it well past live. Expect to hear from us a lot in the coming days, weeks, and months as we continue to listen and respond to player feedback. We look forward to talking with everyone on boards and all the usual social media spots. See you on the Rift!"

Quick Hits

"Here’s your last chance to vote in-client for the charity you support the most. We’re matching 25% of sales from Championship Ashe and the 2017 Championship Ward in a charity fund. The highest-voted charity will get half the donation, and the other two will split the remainder. As of two weeks ago, the total donation pool was $1,850,000, and it’s still growing. 
The global charities support mental health care, access to education, and access to technology. You can learn more about BasicNeeds, Learning Equality, and The Raspberry Pi Foundation in our announcement post. 
Vote in-client under the “Vote for Charity” tab. Each player gets one vote, which will be multiplied based on the player’s Honor level. We’ll announce the winner and the donation each charity receives later this year. 
Voting ends on November 5, 2017 at 11:59 PM PT."

Reminders

Last up, a few reminders on upcoming and ending soon promotions and sales!
  • With Worlds 2017 in full swing, Summoner's Rift is celebrating with new emotes, map accents, and much more as Worlds hits the Rift through the end of Worlds! Championship Ashe and her Golden Championship chroma, ward, legacy esports skins and much more are now available! Check out the post for all the details.

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