Red Post Collection: Snowdown Shop Returns 12/12, Quick Gameplay Thoughts: 12/8, & more

Table of Contents

• Your Snowdown Shop returns until January 8, 2018 
• Quick Gameplay Thoughts: December 8th
• /Dev: The Visual Design of League Leveling
• Quick Hits
• Reminders

Your Snowdown Shop returns until January 8, 2018 

Here's Kantayams with the announcement that Your Shop is coming back this Snowdown:

Stock up on discounted champs and skins curated for you this Snowdown season, starting December 12, 2017 at 8:00 AM PT. Your Snowdown Shop features up to six unique champions or skins (excluding Legendary, Limited, Loot-exclusive, and Ultimate) released more than three months ago—all discounted at up to 70% off. Grab your favorites before doors close on January 8, 2018 at 11:59 PM PT. 

Questions? Visit our FAQ."

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: December 8th

Here's Meddler with his Quick Gameplay Thoughts for December 8th, including info on Forbidden Idol, Grasp of the Undying, and more:

"Hi all, 

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 

Forbidden Idol 

We're testing a nerf to Forbidden Idol, and items that build from it, where they give less Heal/Shield power. That's driven by the belief that too much of Enchanter power especially is coming from that stat, which was previously balanced at those numbers when Enchanters had less gold income and therefore weren't stacking the effect as much. 

We feel pretty good about that nerf long term. A complicating factor though is that Enchanters aren't generally looking out of line at present. We're confident it's a good change overall, but not necessarily in the short term however. We're still discussing whether it's something we should ship now, and then adjust around it in following patches. Or whether we should hold it until we have other changes to go with it. Or until enchanter strength is high. Or at the least we until won't have as large a gap between patches as the upcoming holiday period, so if follow up is needed it's not as delayed. 

Grasp of the Undying 

We're also been testing out a possible change to Grasp of the Undying, where instead of giving bonus health permanently on hit it gives temporary, stacking, adaptive AP/AD. Primary goal of that testing has been to see whether we can better serve various fighters as well in the Resolve tree, without overly penalizing existing Grasp users. We've also got a secondary goal of seeing whether the permanent health gain on Grasp is ultimately a problematic mechanic, given how variable it can be game to game (e.g. amount you stack in a melee versus melee fight, versus amount you don't get to stack laning against a ranged opponent as melee). 

If that revised version of Grasp doesn't work out we'll then most likely go back to existing Grasp and try testing a gradual stacking Adaptive AP/AD Resolve keystone at some point. Some of the interest there is that a ramping power/outlast your opponent approach potentially makes more sense being time based and in the tree about living longer (Resolve), compared to the previous infinite stacking of Press the Attack in the precision tree. 

Resolve Style Bonus 

And for our third thing in testing discussion - the resolve tree style bonus. We're going to be testing that as a mixture of HP and the stat from your other tree, rather than all HP. For people going resolve primary that should give a bit more early offensive power and, sometimes crucially, last hitting ability. For people going resolve secondary that should help deliver a bit more baseline defense, which is generally what we're seeing be wanted from Resolve as a secondary pick. We're hoping that proves to be particularly helpful for fighters feeling they can't at present get the right split of offense and defense. 

This is still a pretty experimental change, that's barely been into any tests and may not hit the PBE for a while (or ever, if it fails initial testing hard enough). Really interested to hear people's thoughts about the concept though. At least for now other trees stat bonuses won't be getting split, this is just a change being tested for Resolve at present."

When asked for thought on Teemo and Ezreal, Meddler commented:

"Quote:

Hey Meddler! Teemo has been pretty oppressive in top lane, is the reduction to his base AD all that he's getting, and if so, do you think it will truly be enough to get him in line? 

ALSO: Ezreal still seems strong. Opinion?

We've been testing a reduction to Teemo's Health per level as well, thinking there being that base AD hit alone's probably not enough by itself. Having said that he's too strong, but not radically so, so don't want to hammer him too hard. 

Ezreal does look a bit strong still. We've been talking about whether or not to nerf him in 7.24b or wait and see where he's at for 8.1. Last I heard the team had yet to come to a conclusion on that, in part since waiting for 8.1 lets us put that time into another champ instead and gives us a better understanding of what to hit/how hard."

Meddler provided context on the Yasuo MR changes that are in testing this PBE cycle:

"Quote:

I'm curious. I thought Yasuo had low MR growth precisely because of his frequent shield, which is the same reason that Kassadin has low MR growth (that and his magic damage reducing passive). So why is his MR growth being increased?

We've kept Yasuo's (and Kassadin's) MR low historically because they've had sufficient defenses in the rest of their kit. All else being equal we'd standardize them to other melee. We discussed that in 7.9, but concluded it wasn't appropriate, given their survivability and power level at that time. Right now by contrast Yasuo's not performing that well, particularly in mid lane. We'd like to buff him more in mid than top, both because of that weaker performance there and because we believe he's generally got better counterplay in mid, hence the MR buff which is expected to provide more power generally there than top."

Meddler continued:

"Quote:

But better against tank tops no? Since they are mostly magic based.

Yeah, it'll be a buff in some circumstances top too of course, and post laning phase generally. He's a bit weak top as well though, so we've got some room for that."

On Morgana. Meddler commented:

"Quote:

Why Morgana's HP growth got nerfed? Is it a compensation for the reworked passive? Doesn't support Morgana get hurt by this because she doesn't get as much AP as in mid? 

I feel like there's heavy balancing around base stats for the last several months. Any details on that?

Because we overbuffed Morgana across the board (not just mid, even if that was the strongest case) and wanted to bring her power back down. HP/level was chosen there to reduce her safety somewhat. 

We have been making quite a few base stat adjustments recently. That's in large part due to the move from old runes/mastery to new runes, which has thrown stat baselines around a bit leaving us needing to do quite a bit of polish."

When asked for updated on Volibear, Meddler replied:

"Quote:

whats now with volibear, i still dont see any buffs on pbe XD. Was the buff postponed

Delayed until probably 8.1. We want to look at some broader options beyond just the AS buff on W previously tested, conclusion was that wasn't hitting the mark."

When asked about champions he had a hand in designing, Meddler commented:

"Quote:

Hey Meddler wanted ask for your thoughts on several of your own champs 

Curious as to why Ziggs seems to be the favorite of all the you've designed 

Do you regret designing Lissandra's passive the way you did since it hasn't aged well 

What role would you say Elise is since she doesn't really behave like most other Divers

Ziggs will probably always hold a place in my heart simply because he was the first champ I got to do most of the design work on. A secondary benefit is that I still really enjoy his personality. 

Yeah, Lissandra's passive doesn't deliver well enough. I'm pretty happy with the rest of the kit, the passive's a product of the much more limited design time per champ we had back then, with Lissandra's design time getting squeezed between late Elise changes and the Sejuani update work. 

I think Elise is closest to a diver still, though there some assassin and pick mage elements in there too." 

Riot Popc0rner also popped in to comment on Lethal Tempo being disabled in URF:

"Quote:

Sorry if someone asked it already but why is lethal tempo banned in urf? I know it would be extreamly broken but isnt nerfing it a bit for the gamemode only a more fun option?

Runes were hot off the presses when we were working on Snow Battle ARURF -- we didn't really have enough time to adjust all the ones that didn't play nice with URF's rules. I totally agree that disabling some runes feels pretty bad; hopefully we'll be able to dream up a more balanced version of Lethal Tempo for next time."

Meddler commented on long term goals for the Runes system:

"Quote:

long term, is the goal to stay at a low number of runes like now and focus on fine adjustments to optimize the current runes or a higher number and focus on letting different champions have more divergent rune paths?

We'll likely add a moderate number more (around 4 per slot instead of 3 eventually maybe)."

On Ornn, Meddler replied:

"Quote:

Any plans to nerf Ornn since every region and every elo think he's too strong?

Just nerfed him this week in 7.24, open to hitting him again in 7.24b or 8.1 depending on how latest changes affect him."

Meddler commented more on the changes in testing for the Sorcery line of runes:

"Quote:

If Sorcery is getting nerfed to target some of the marksmen using comet, then why it's AP getting nerfed too?

Not sure at this point if we'll necessarily hit Comet. Sorcery's looking strong in general though, relative to other trees, with amount of start of game AP/AD it offers being a large part of that, hence we're looking at bringing its path bonus down so it's only slightly higher than Domination's."

/Dev: The Visual Design of League Leveling

Check out this week's new /Dev, covering the visual design of the uncapped leveling system:

"Hey guys, we’re Riot_Mort and SpicyMemeDreamz, here to talk about some of the key design elements behind League’s new leveling system. 

With the uncapped leveling system, our goal was to recognize and reward you for playing League regardless of your playstyle or skill level. We also wanted to give you the ability to progressively show off your dedication to the game in the years to come. 

UNCAPPING LEAGUE’S LEVELING 

Since our intention was to build an uncapped leveling system that could grow with you, we had to think early about how the visual language could scale with those conventions. In plain speak, how do we make you look cooler as you level up? We looked at a lot of systems in other games (and in real life) to see how progression feels across them all, and found that there seems to always be a point where visual representations of progression go overboard. Whether it’s an adornment of stars or additional medals and materials tacking onto the sides, a visual representation of progression always runs the risk of looking the same (or unintelligible) after a certain point. 

Various sketch explorations looking to define the overall look of the progression system

LEVERAGING CURRENT SYSTEMS 

For League’s system, we looked for an expression of progression that would continually feel fresh for you, but also had clear points of distinction when you were comparing your progress against that of others. To accomplish that, we first examined our existing progressions systems. We wanted strong design elements we could leverage into something new, while still maintaining a sense of familiarity. It was also a big focus of ours to provide you with goals, or checkpoints, as you level, to give you that awesome feeling of accomplishment. Being able to reach meaningful thresholds allows everyone to feel like they’re working towards an achievable goal instead of grinding to infinity. 

The newly-launched Honor System brought a uniform color tier progression to League that will eventually be used for all methods of progress and rarity. While this was a core element that was imperative for us to implement into our own system, it also came with a unique challenge based on the system we were building. With leveling being uncapped, it would make it nearly impossible to ever reach that highest tier color (as well as create a situation where you feel like you’re forever trapped in a single color).

League’s universal color tier system, scaling left to right from lowest to highest

Our solution was to still leverage the color tier system, but to build in a reset system where the colors would go back to the lowest color tier and scale back up at certain level milestones. This gave us room to scale up levels as high as we wanted while keeping the clear visual signifier of progression. To make sure you don’t stagnate too long in a current color tier, we set a reset to happen every 100 levels. With exception to our first level progression (which starts at level 30 and changes at at 50), you’ll progress every 25 levels. 

USING THEMES AS PROGRESSION INDICATORS 

Now that we had a clear way of showing tiers through colors, we still had to solve for how to make one level of green look better than the next. To solve that, we looked through the universe surrounding League of Legends to find visual elements that could accompany this color tier system and help differentiate one from another. We did many explorations that utilized elements from our game, Runeterra itself, and even skin line themes. Going through these explorations, we discovered we could dress up the surrounding areas of progression borders, as long as a few core principles stayed in place: 

Hextech Annie and other artwork from the region of Piltover heavily influenced our Hextech Magic theme, pulling a variety of elements to create this arc conductor device surrounding the border

We pulled a variety of reference from both champions and skin lines to develop our “fire magic” theme, with one of the main sources of inspiration being Infernal Diana.

MAKE EACH BORDER LOOK BETTER THAN THE LAST 

• Utilize volume, color values, and different materials to escalate higher tiers from lower ones 

Visual difference between the first green tier (level 30) and the second (level 125)

Follow similar shape language for core areas of the borders 

• To make sure you are always looking in the same place for your current progression, it’s best to keep a uniform area where progression starts and stops for each level. For higher tiers in a progression ladder, utilizing different shapes helps differentiate them from the rest.

Start and end points for the progress meters, as well as level plate designs for higher and low tier levels

Use themes to decorate, not obfuscate, the progression of a player 

• Though we wanted to make sure each of the progression themes looked fantastic, the focus is still on where you sit in your current level and how much you have to go until the next. Having these themes cover up or take away from that primary goal would eliminate the purpose of continuous leveling. 

WHERE IT LIVES 

Since this progression is about you, we wanted to ensure that all elements of the system stayed as close to information about you as possible. This heavily influenced where and how we show leveling for yourself (and others) around the client. 

ALWAYS VISIBLE 

At any given time, we want to make sure that you are aware of where you are in terms of progression. Bringing the level meter back to an always-visible section of the client was important to us — it gives you an easy-to-see visual element to help you decide if it’s worth getting one more game in to level-up. It’s always ideal if you can find information without having to try and track it down. 

AT A GLANCE 

One of the things we agreed on pretty early was that you and your friends should be able to see each others’ level. Bringing level and current progression into the player hovercard gives you a quick way to check in on your friends, see how they’re doing, and compare your own level progress. That said, we also decided your level wasn’t important to any particular game, so from Champ Select until the Victory (hopefully) screen, we didn’t want your level shown. Level is a fun progression system, but is not a measure of your skill. That’s what ranked is for! You WILL have a way to show your progression off (if you want, and we’ll cover that in a sec), but it won’t be exposed by any in-game system. 

ON YOUR PROFILE 

Your current level and progress will be shown on your profile, with a border that evolves as you get to higher levels. 

AFTER A MATCH

We wanted to make sure your progress is quickly visible whenever you finish a match. Bringing your progression into the end-of-game screen creates a destination during a core part of our game loop that lets you know how much you gained for that match and how close you are to reaching your next level. 

IN GAME 

For the icing on the cake, we wanted to give you the extra ability to show your level progression to others in the fields of battle. Since this system is meant to be an indicator of knowledge acquired and time played, it made sense to create a series of emotes for every major tier of the themes. So whenever you get a sweet outplay or want to show off how much time you’ve spent on the Rift, go ahead and smash that emote button. 

We talked about a single emote that would upgrade as you leveled up. However we felt (and have seen with other things like the Honor Wards) that players favor a specific reward and like to keep using it, even if they’ve earned something else. If we removed that when you leveled-up, it wouldn’t be ideal. Instead, if you really love the Level 50 emote, you can have it and use it forever. 

WHAT COMES NEXT 

We hope everyone enjoys having a little extra progression in League. You might be struggling in ranked to make progress, but now you’ll always be moving forward in some way. We think that’s going to feel a lot better. As always though, we’re open to feedback. If you have any questions or comments, drop a note in the comments or pop by the boards!"

Quick Hits

• Riot KateyKhaos noted that the Essence Collector ward missing from inventories was a bug and is being worked on:

"Hi hi! 

Super sorry about this. It's a known issue on our end, and something we broke. ;-; We're in the process of fixing it. No worries, it isn't gone from your inventory forever!"

• The newest Summoner Showcase is now live! Check out Summoner Showcase 132:

"This week on the Summoner Showcase we’re doing another ALL submissions episode of the show; we pulled every one of these from the comments and submissions that you personally made and sent in. Just watch the video already. 

Join us on the Facebook page where you can submit content, share your favorite artists, and chat with the team: 

Riot Swimbananas - Riot Recruiter by day, Summoner Showcase host by night!
gomatgo – Producer, Show Runner
Riot Jynx - Producer, Creator Support, and cosplay mama 

Tell us what you’d like to see on a future episode in the comments below!"