Red Post Collection: ARURF Weekend, Clash Cancellations, Quick Gameplay Thoughts: 5/25, May bundles & More

Posted on at 12:52 PM by Aznbeat
Tonight's red post collection includes details on ARURF being turned on for the weekend, the unfortunate Clash cancellations, Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for 5/25 including a few things for 8.12, a response to feedback on the 2019 Ranked changes, May bundles, and more!
Continue reading for more information!




Table of Contents




ARURF Weekend Begins 

Here's Riot IAmWalrus with details on the ARURF weekend in place of Clash:
"Hey all, 
Obviously Clash's opening weekend was a bust. This is in no way a one-for-one replacement, but we’re turning on ARURF globally until the end of Sunday. 
We realise this isn’t the same sort of competitive experience that you were expecting this weekend, but we wanted to offer something in the interim that we could quickly hotfix up to a playable standard while we work out our next steps for the players affected by Clash's cancellation. As ARURF is one of our most requested modes, we hope this will bring some respite to an otherwise rough weekend. 
To be clear, working out what caused Clash to fail and how we're going to fix it is our main priority. We're not done with the discussion yet, and we're weighing options on next steps for affected players. 
Heads up: There are likely gonna be bugs and some weird interactions as we haven’t had a huge amount of time to test on this patch, so we might be disabling some runes and champs pretty early on. 
We’ll have more information regarding the next steps for Clash in the coming days."

Clash NA launch canceled due to technical issues 

Here's Riot Hyasri with details on the cancellation of the Clash NA launch this weekend:
"We are sorry to tell you that we’ve decided to cancel this weekend’s Clash launch due to unexpected technical issues that appeared when rolling it out across regions earlier today. We want your first play through of Clash to be as amazing as possible, but unfortunately we are not confident in the event experience that you and your teams would have had. 
We know that you have made an incredible commitment clearing your schedules and practicing with teammates to prepare for Clash, and our team is focused on finding a solution to get Clash back on track. This work will continue and there will likely be Clash tests in certain regions around the world as we explore fixes, but this Clash weekend is officially canceled here in North America. We will continue to keep you updated. 
To those of you wondering, your Clash ticket will still be in your inventory and can be used when Clash is available in the future."
For the latest status update on Clash, see your server status page.

[Updated] Clash EU cancelled this weekend

UPDATE: EU Clash has been cancelled in it's entirety for this weekend.
Here's Riot Shalkar with an updated announcement on this weekend's EUW/EUNE Clash cancellation :
[UPDATED 22:40 GMT] 
Hey all,
When we began launching Clash last night in Asia, we immediately saw critical, technical issues on all servers except a handful. This issue hadn't been seen in any of our prior beta testing and we are cancelling Clash's opening weekend in all remaining parts of the world. 
The team's been solely focused on finding a solution to get Clash back on track, and we're extremely conscious that many of you planned your weekends around Clash and deeply sorry to have blown up your plans at the last minute. You'll get any spent Clash tickets back. Also, there will likely be Clash tests in certain regions around the world as we explore fixes, but Clash weekend 1 is officially cancelled here in EUW."
From the LoLEU Twitter:
[1] "Clash Update: as much as it pains us to make this call, we've decided to cancel the entirety of this weekend's Clash tournament in EU due to critical technical issues. We know many of you arranged your weekend schedules around the tournament and we're sorry to let you down. (1/2)" 
[2] "You will get any spent tickets back. The team is working hard to get things back on track and there will likely be Clash tests in certain regions around the world as we explore fixes, but Clash weekend 1 is officially cancelled here in Europe. Clash is down, but not out. (2/2)"

Note: The Clash launch on the BR server has also been delayed as confirmed on the LoLBR twitter. Be sure to check the Server status page for your region for the latest Clash updates!

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: May 25 

Check out Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for May 25th, including 8.12 changes, Ryze and Azir work being pulled, and more:
"Hi 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 
Some things we're looking at for 8.12 
A lot of our time during the 8.12 cycle is going to go to monitoring the impact of the 8.11 midseason changes and making adjustments as needed. We're also planning on doing some other work as well though, some of that below. 
Gifted Shields
  • Over the next few patches we'll be looking at Heals/Shields champions put on others. First thing we'll be testing, for possible inclusion in 8.12, is lowering the duration on some shields so that waiting them out's more feasible and timing for the user matters more.
Ornn
  • We're potentially doing some work on Ornn. Goal there, rather than increasing or decreasing overall power, is to make him less of a safe pick when you don't yet know who he'll be facing in lane. That likely means giving him a clearer weakness enemy picks can capitalize on and giving him strength elsewhere.
Sejuani
  • Sej buffs didn't make it into 8.11 since 8.10 analysis and followup ended up taking more time than expected. They should be in 8.12 instead as a result.
New AD items
  • As I'd imagine most of you have already seen we're working on a couple of new items that should appeal to fighters in particular. Balance and polish is still underway, expectation is we'll ship both Spear of Shojin and Atma's Reckoning in 8.12 though. 
Pulling the Ryze and Azir investigations 
A little while back we mentioned that we were going to put less time into trying to close the regular play versus organized play divide on Ryze, Azir and Kalista so that we could put more time into other champs. Before that came into effect we wanted to try some changes we'd been discussing for Ryze and Azir for a while. Those showed some promise, but also looked like they'd require a fair bit more work to ship, with likelihood of some additional followup being needed too. We're iceboxing those changes as a result and won't be working on anything for those three champs that isn't just a regular balance adjustment for a fair while. 
Bounty Changes and Average Position Income 
In addition to concentrating gold on specific champions (more solo carry/individual snowball, but less team snowball) the 8.10 bounty changes also resulted in a slight decrease in average gold income in every position since that change decreased overall bounty gold in the system. Breakdown of that below for anyone interested. As you'd expect higher income loss happens in positions that tend to have less kill focused champs in them since they were hit hardest by the loss of team-wide bounties (enchanters/tanks in support, tanks/split pushers in top). 
Average change in 8.10 versus 8.9 at 35 minutes:
Top -325
Mid -260
Jungle -250 (though with very high variance from that average depending on the champion in question)
Bot -250
Support -420 
That gold loss is low enough we don't have immediate plans to counteract it, especially given we've increased income a bit over time in other ways, so pulling a bit out’s reasonable. Will be watching it though, in particular to see if it pushes power spikes for particular positions or champs back too far in some cases."

Meddler talked about things they were looking into for shielding:
"Quote:
I think shields should reward fast reaction and good anticipation of incoming damage; keep them strong but low duration. I don't think you need to differentiate between gifted and self-shielding for this.
We're looking at gifted shielding in particular because that's where shield stacking most occurs, which tends to be one of the bigger issues."

Meddler continued:
"Decaying shields are one of the tools we've been considering. Likely we'll test one or two on a decaying model (internally/PBE, not necessarily in a live patch). Somewhat doubtful it's the correct approach for most shields, but could be a good match for some circumstances."


On Sona, Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Hey Meddler, since you guys have been talking about healing and shielding a lot, I'm curious to know where you believe Sona stands in that regard? I'm just wondering what us Sona players can possibly expect from these changes.
At a guess (haven't built a change list yet) probably no impact, or very minimal at most, on Sona in 8.12. 
Later changes might be more impactful, given we'll potentially be doing some work on the +heal/shield items, which would affect a range of champs."

When asked about Assassins with the changes coming for Last Whisper, Meddler replied:
"Quote:
Do you think ad assassins will have to take a nerf because of the updated Last Whisper?
I think it's a very real possibility. Not confident enough they will though, or if they will how large a nerf, to do so preemptively though. Need to see where 8.11 lands first as a result, given it will also impact game balance in other ways too."

On Singed, Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Hey Meddler, hope you're doing well! Any thoughts on Singed? Seems very strong right now, and pretty obnoxious to play against. Part of that might be Shureliyas being overtuned, but I think he's still too strong despite that
I think Shurelia's being too strong on him's what's pushed him over the edge here. Want to assess once we've changed that (8.11) and see if he's still out of line or back to a stable state."

When asked about Zyra, Meddler replied:
"Quote:
I was wondering why you decided to go for a rootdurationbuff on Zyra, when its usually the spell she maxes first and her earlygame clearly doesnt need any more help? Zyra is in a bad spot, because she doesnt deal enough damage when her laning phase is over so level 9+. Isnt there anything you could do about her scaling?
We wanted to increase her ability to lock targets down, whether that's for her own damage (plants especially) or to catch enemies for her team to followup. Duration's buffed at max level, not just earlier levels, so that some power's added over the course of the game, not just early."

And on Rumble, Meddler noted:
"Quote:
Do you have anything planned for Rumble?
We think he's weak and needs a buff. Can't promise an exact patch for that. 8.12 is possible, but midseason followup takes priority over almost everything else so hard to predict right now ."

What We Heard on Ranked 2019 

Here's Riot SapMagic with a followup on the ranked changes for the 2019 season:
"Hey everyone! SapMagic, the lead for Ranked, reporting back in. A couple weeks ago we announced some big updates to Ranked for next year. You spoke up with valuable feedback on forums, social media, and surveys across the world. On behalf of the team: thank you. Today, let’s talk about why we’re working on Ranked at all, what we heard from you, and lay out how we’re gonna build this together over the course of summer and fall. 
Why change Ranked now? 
One of the big questions we heard was, “Who’s asking for changes to Ranked?” We embarked on this journey because we saw a bunch of long-time Ranked players had started to burn out. That makes a lot of sense given they’re doing the same thing over and over again for the same result. And it makes even more sense when you consider that our last major update to Ranked was more than two years ago when we added Position Select. 
Whether it’s a champion update or a big system like Ranked, we try to stay focused on what makes that thing fun and special. Then, we try to look at those essential elements from as many angles as possible. Are players telling us there are parts of it that suck? Is it under-serving players it should be serving? Is it driving a certain way to play that makes League less fun overall? 
In the case of Ranked, it’s really a combination of all of these. New tiers and placements are aimed at fixing obvious problems, and other changes are aiming to better serve players of all skill levels and add fresh ways for you to challenge yourself in Ranked. 
We think these are the right goals, but we still have a lot of work to do. So let’s talk about what we heard from you. 
You’re worried we’re making Ranked too grindy. 
With the addition of position ranks, it feels like you’d need to play twice as many games to reach your rank across two positions, let alone three, four, or five. We’ll go into detail on this in our next blog, but flat out you won’t need to play double the games to hit your peak rank in two different positions. 
We also heard we need to keep true fill players in mind. For those players, the prospect of making way slower progress in Ranked than they do today feels really bad. This is a great point, and we’re doing some homework here. Alienating fill players would be a clear failure to meet one of our goals: to give better recognition for breadth of skill. 
You’re worried other players won’t take games seriously. 
Position ranks promise to let you challenge yourself in off-positions without hurting the accuracy of your main. For a while, we’ve worried that that if we do this, some players won’t try to win off-position games because there’s less on the line. Worse, a few players might actively try to ruin your experience because they know it won’t affect the rank they care about. 
Match quality and competitive intent are critical because they keep Ranked legitimate. We’ve explored a number of solutions already, but your feedback reinforces this concern. We need rock solid fixes before moving forward. 
You’re worried positional matchmaking can be abused. 
We’re worried about this too. It’s actually the thing we’ve spent the most time figuring out so far. Specifically, there are two major cases we need to handle. First, we’re worried that players could queue up for an off-position and swap in champion select for favorable matchmaking. Second, some players could take that a step further by queueing up with a duo partner and consistently swapping positions. 
I want to be direct: we believe in position ranks as a part of the overall changes to Ranked because if we get them right, they could help refresh the game’s challenges. We’re in the middle of finalizing our plans to solve or mitigate these abuse cases into non-issues, but if we don’t believe we can, we won’t ship position ranks as part of Season 2019. Period. 
The good stuff. 
Outside of grindiness and abuse cases, the majority of the Ranked changes went over well for most players. Smoothing out progression with a couple extra tiers was a big hit, as were revamped placements. Splits and revamped rewards need some more work. We plan to do a deep dive on those later in the summer when we have all the details ironed out. 
What’s up next? 
Our next dev blog will target crossing big concerns off your hit list. Then, we’ll do this whole loop over again. Pitch. Listen. Iterate. Repeat. All summer and fall long. Buckle up and come along for the ride. In the meantime, let us know if we missed anything major."
Look for a larger /Dev blog on this topic sometime soon!

It’s time for May bundles! 

Here's Riot Evaelin with the May bundles:
"Grab these limited-time skins bundles now through 5/31/18 at 11:59 p.m. PT. 
Moving Target Bundle - 50% off at 2324 RP (3983 RP if you need the champions)
Skins included:
  • Hired Gun Lucian
  • Omega Squad Tristana
  • Arclight Vayne
  • Star Guardian Ezreal
Champions included:

Surprise Party Bundle - 50% off at 2324 RP (4084 RP if you need the champions)
Skins included:
  • Dark Star Kha'Zix
  • Jade Dragon Wukong
  • Mecha Rengar
  • Dark Valkyrie Diana
Champions included:

Babysitters Bundle - 50% off at 2212 RP (3617 RP if you need the champions)
Skins included:
  • Urf the Nami-tee
  • Pentakill Sona
  • Star Guardian Soraka
  • Pool Party Lulu
Champions included:

Construct and Disrupt Bundle - 50% off at 2584 RP (4638 RP if you need the champions)
Skins included:
  • Festival Queen Anivia
  • Sewn Chaos Orianna
  • Freljord Taliyah
  • Dragon Sorceress Zyra
  • Ghost Bride Morgana
Champions included:

Quick Hits


Reminders

To round out this red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events!
  • The Rainbow Fluft icon, celebrating IDAHOTB, is available to purchase for 1 BE through Patch 8.10! This enables a rainbow spawn animation during the patch, so make sure to grab it while you can!

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