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Red Post Collection: /Dev: Position Ranks in 2019, Quick Gameplay Thoughts July 27 & August 1st, & more!

This evening's red post collection includes a new /Dev on position ranks in Ranked 2019, the winners of the Champ Memotions contest, Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for July 27 and August 1st, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents


/Dev: Position Ranks in 2019 

Here's Riot SapMagic with an update on Ranked in 2019;
"Hey everyone! Ed “SapMagic” Altorfer, the lead for Ranked, back again. Earlier this year, we detailed a broad set of updates to Ranked aimed at making your games more fair, your rank more accurate, and the grind less, well, grindy. A month ago, we ran you through additional changes we made based on your feedback, and now we want to take a moment to share next steps on position ranks and Ranked as a whole. In short, most of the Ranked changes have been well received and will go out as planned. You’ve given more feedback on position ranks, and we want to get it right, so we’re planning to run a handful of single-split, regional previews to get hands-on feedback from you before we roll it out everywhere. 
YOUR FEEDBACK SO FAR 
Since Riot Pls and with each dev blog, we’ve been following the sentiment on the Ranked changes. We saw pretty much the same feedback from every region: You told us you felt good about most of the changes, like tiers, splits, rewards, and placements. At the same time, some of you were worried the benefits of position ranks, such as better matchmaking and a more accurate rank, could be outweighed by new abuse cases and compromised competitive integrity. 
As a direct result of that feedback, we hauled position ranks back into the workshop and introduced focused changes that uphold competitive intent and curtail abuse cases. We feel good about the adjustments, but we know we’re going to need your hands-on feedback—something we can’t get before the start of the season. 
SO, WHAT’S HAPPENING? 
We’re going to roll out position ranks in a way that lets us gather feedback before going broader to all players. This means a handful of regions will get a preview of position ranks for the first split. While the previews run, we’ll iterate based on your feedback. We’ll also track both single and position ranks so we can switch between them as needed. 
We’re also going to release positional matchmaking and detection in Normal Draft in the next couple months. This will help us make any necessary adjustments and gain confidence it’s working as expected before we turn it on in Ranked queues. 
The other Ranked features will go out to all regions later this year: a full rework of placements, a revamped season structure, new and evolving rewards, and two new tiers. We’re working now on solidifying our preseason plans and we’ll share more details soon. 
UP NEXT 
In the coming months, we’re going to break down the rest of Ranked for Season 2019 and introduce you to the team behind the changes. Next up is (still) tier and division changes, as well as placements. As always, thanks for taking the time to read these dev blogs and share your feedback—keep it coming! 
Oh, and if you’re having a hard time remembering everything we’ve announced so far on Ranked for 2019, don’t worry. We have your back! Check out our other blogs below: 

Check out the Champ Memotion Winners!

Here's SandalwoodGrips with the winners of the Champ Memotions contest:
"The community submitted over 4,000 entries to the Champ Memotions contest and we've spent all week combing through them looking for the best and brightest. Throughout the process we were blown away by your talent, passion, and deep appreciation for high quality memes. Narrowing this massive field of submissions down to just a handful of finalists was tough, but we're excited to present the Champion Memotion Contest winners! 
Grand Prize 
TE4MOON
Vonyalo
Runner-Ups 
Chai Tea Latte
 
Ezreai
FsMaverick
Honorable Mentions

  • Paper Pixie
  • KatoVisual
  • ArchangelKeii
  • Meix2
  • FaeSorceressLulu
  • Zark Starnotz
  • Tibodungeon
  • Ryuuna
  • beechs
  • Manga Delta
  • Zevrin
  • Papikana
  • RSpanner
  • ScruffytheTurtle
  • D3us 3xMachina
  • SPINIPS
  • hyo oppa
  • cybersmack
  • moskvitchok
  • tanukiM
  • Kringlas
  • Achro XIII
  • Chris Duck
  • King Xeno
  • Moogle Main 
To everyone who participated, y'all are awesome! We'd like to also thank our prize sponsor Microsoft for providing the awesome Surface Book 2 and Surface Pro prizes for the Grand Prize and Runner-Up winners. Check out the Republic of Gamers Arena for live League of Legends Tournaments in your area. 
We will be reaching out via email to the Grand Prize and Runner-Up winners over the next week. For all Honorable Mention recipients, expect to see your prizes awarded to your League account within the next week as well. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to player support."

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: July 27

Check out Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for July 27th, including thoughts on tanks, the stats tab, 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 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 thoughts on tanks + thoughts on damage part 1 
We've seen quite a bit of player discussion around damage currently feeling really high. Also seen fair amount of discussion around tanks, and how some are struggling. Wanted to start today by talking about the tank side of things, given it's also part of the damage discussion. Further thoughts on damage in general to follow next week, there are quite a few different angles worth talking about, so wanted to split the conversation over more than one post. Talk next week will include some of our thinking on damage contributions from kits versus other sources in particular (e.g. where is ability to stack damage from items, runes etc healthy or problematic?). 
Some current thoughts on tanks then:
  1. Tanks played as supports are generally performing pretty solidly. Jungle and top tanks by contrast are more likely to struggle. A lot of that reflects what a team expects from higher gold/XP positions. Many tank patterns front load a lot of their contribution, which tends to be pretty consistent in power (CC that isn't very item/level dependent in particular). That means support tanks are more likely to still justify their spot even if tanks overall may be weaker.
  2. Most players are drawn much more to damage focused classes than non damage ones. Play rates for many tanks tend to be low relative to other options when they're equally balanced.
  3. That combination of some tanks (jungle and top struggling) and lower general appeal means metas occur, such as the present one, where there are few tanks being played. That contributes to damage feeling high for a couple of reasons. Teams without tanks lack a front line, so tend to get burst more due to the lack of soak/zoning. Metas without tanks also mean it's more likely that each team has 4, or even 5, damage threats on it as well though, especially if enchanters (the main other non damage group) are also being played less. Even if any individual champion’s damage isn’t any higher the game's going to feel much more lethal when there are 1, or even 2, more high damage champs per team.
  4. Given the above impact on how high damage the game feels, plus other benefits tanks bring (they give structure to team fights, help create more distinction between different members of a team etc) we think it’s generally good for a team to have around one tank on average. That’s not to say teams without tanks are bad and something we want to remove entirely, or that teams with multiple tanks are always problematic. Tanks being too common or too rare tends to create problems though, with one a team on average tending to lead to good metas.
  5. Some tanks are proving to have some of the difficulties being balanced between pro and regular play that a few other champs (Ryze etc) have. Gragas has also been such a case, Zac and Sejuani are now also creating some problems in that regard too, indicating our approach with their updates last year had some significant issues. 
So, having tanks be good choice who get picked is something we think’s important for the game, both to help keep damage output in check and for other reasons. In terms of what we're planning to do to support healthy amounts of tank play:
  1. We'll be looking at damage sources that are anti tank, particularly those that counter Armor/MR. Feeling is we've pushed too far in terms of amount of pen/true damage offered. The reduction in true damage from IE's passive in 8.15 is the first part of that. Following changes will depend on how large an impact that does/doesn’t have, plus the general state of the game. Need to be careful here not to swing back so hard that stacking tanks becomes optimal again, without sufficient ways to respond to it.
  2. We'll be buffing some individual tanks in 8.16, particularly those who've been historically healthy even when strong and/or that we've overnerfed this year.
  3. We'll be looking to reduce the organized team versus random team difference in effectiveness some tanks show. Not certain yet on timing of that.
  4. Longer term again we also want to work on kit satisfaction (feel, rather than power) for some tanks. Not sure when that will happen yet, could be quite a while off (e.g. not this year) depending on what other work on champions is also needed. 
Tanks we'll be testing buffs for in 8.16 below. Not guaranteed all of these ship, possible others also get added, though this is our best estimate right now of the appropriate candidates. 
  • Amumu
  • Nautilus
  • Sion
  • Leona
  • Rammus
  • Maokai (probably pretty jungle focused to avoid him defining top lane too much again) 
Stats Tab 
We've been testing a new stats tab in some regions recently. So far that's been doing pretty well. Plan as a result is to roll it out wider with a patch or two, barring any unexpected issues arising. 
Next Champion Roadmap 
Should be in early to mid August."

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: August 1

Check out Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for August 1st, including thoughts on damage, experimental game modes, and Gold funneling:
"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 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 
More thoughts on damage later this week 
We're doing some planning around where damage comes from in LoL at present as mentioned previously. Should have some further thoughts to share in more detail later this week. Things we're particularly looking at are: 
  • Different systems damage is coming from (how much from kits, versus items, versus runes etc)
  • How much damage, from non kit sources in particular, is front loaded (burst versus sustain)
  • Which damage sources should/shouldn't stack together (non stacking unique passive on items for example) 
For anyone that missed it also talked last week about how lack of tanks (defensive ones especially) being played can also contribute to damage being high (less champs to soak, more champs per team with high damage output).
https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/2RzBfAcE-quick-gameplay-thoughts-july-27 
Experimental Game Modes 
As you've probably seen we're trying something new at the moment where we're putting out a somewhat rough prototype. Goal there is to get early feedback from you folks on what is/isn't working, help figure out whether a mode has the potential to be a permanent addition to LoL or not. Feedback on the mode (currently called Nexus Blitz), much appreciated. Would be particularly helpful to hear which of the elements that aren't like other game modes you do or don't enjoy. Also really interested to hear how your thoughts compare before playing it and after. Are there things that sounded good on paper that weren't fun in practice, or vice versa? 
We'd also love to hear what sort of things you'd like to see tried if we do any further public prototypes like this. Depending on how this goes we might give it another shot with a different mode at some point. 
Announcement post for Nexus Blitz for those that haven't seen it already:
https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/yKk22n3O-experimental-modes-nexus-blitz 
Gold Funneling penalty in 8.15 
We made a couple of adjustments to the gold funneling penalty on jungle items in 8.15. The first is having it also apply to Twisted Treeline, based particularly off feedback collected from the regions with higher rates of TT play (EUW, EUN, NA, BR, LAN). Let us know how that additon’s feeling for you if you play TT, we’re certainly open to adjusting it further if needs be. 
The second change, which also affects SR, is having the penalty only apply when you’ve got the most CS on a team, rather than the most gold. That should remove a lot of cases where early kills result in junglers who aren’t being funneled get an early gold lead and therefore get inappropriately penalized. Feedback on that also much appreciated. In particular if you found the 8.14 approach really penalizing, would be great to hear whether this works better for you or whether it’s still feeling like you’re being penalized at times when playing normally."

On damage, Meddler noted::
"As mentioned we'll be talking about other aspects of damage later this week. 
Will have to disagree with you on which champs being played not being relevant to how high damage the game is and feels though. For example, if you're in a game where both team comps look like this:
  • Fighter
  • Assassin
  • Burst Mage
  • ADC
  • Poke Mage 
Then you'll have a pretty different experience than if they're something like this:
  • Fighter
  • Tank
  • Burst Mage
  • ADC
  • Enchanter
That's not to say there aren't issues with other aspects of damage output. At the same time, other issues also needing to be addressed doesn't invalidate that team comps have a significant impact on how high lethality is. "

On Lissandra, Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Hi, meddler. How is the work on the Lissandra going? When can we see live server or PBE?
In terms of timing, still waiting on artists to become available. 
In terms of gameplay, it's been pretty stable. We've been recently testing the passive triggering on nearby enemies and enemies Lissandra's recently damaged, not just recently damaged. Suspect that'll probably stick, that the new passive doesn't need to be too gated, given only triggers on champion death and the damage is delayed."
He continued::
"Likely change list:
  • Passive that makes statues from enemies on death that slow/explode
  • E missiles starts faster, slows down as it moves, getting to end point at same time
  • Various mana costs reduced
  • Whatever other tuning final balance testing suggests is needed 
W CD reduction on 3+ hits didn't work out as hoped. I'd been trying to find ways to incentivize more proactive uses, particularly in lane. Main effect the partial reset gave was just shorter windows to play against Lissandra. Appreciability of a partial reset also wasn't particularly high, so people playing Liss weren't all that excited by it in game, even if they really liked the idea beforehand."

On Nami and tanks, Meddler replied:
"No current plans for Nami, though certainly keeping an eye on her. 
We've just put some tank buffs into testing. So far they're almost all focused on buffing each tanks kit inherent defenses. Those changes will get a bit of internal testing this week and then potentially go to the PBE in a bit. Aiming to have whichever changes hit the mark in 8.16."

On bot lane diversity, Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Hey Meddler, do you guys think that the diversity in bot lane from midseason has been lost in pro play? Marksmen seem to be picked the majority of the time and I think this might be solidified with their items being buffed. Will there be any plans to keep it diverse or will stability be prioritized instead?
Yeah, I think we've potentially swung back a bit too far and may have lost more diversity in pro than we were hoping there. Would rather correct some needed satisfaction issues for some ADCs and then inch power back if needs be though than let things linger too long. 
In terms of diversity in regular play haven't seen diversity revert so much yet, though non ADC play rates were always much lower there than in pro, with most games still ADC versus ADC regardless of the patch."

As for the funneling changes, Meddler replied:
"Agreed, it's not an ideal solution. This was a compromise between needing to address the problem now and not wanting to make any more really disruptive changes before pre-season if we can help it. It's a band aid as a result that we're aiming to replace once the season finishes."

On Annie, Meddler commented::
"Ok, sounds like we'll be getting back to testing possible Annie buffs in 8.16. They slipped out of 8.15 due to a lack of testing time."

2018 World Championship Korea Cities & Dates

Check out the full schedule for Worlds 2018 in Korea:
As announced in February, the 2018 League of Legends World Championship is heading back to South Korea where the 24 top teams in the world will compete for the Summoner’s Cup! We’re excited to hold our first ‘All-Korea’ Worlds, and will be traveling to key corners of the country over the course of the event.
Below is an overview of host cities and event dates. 
PLAY-IN STAGE: 
We’ll kick Worlds off in South Korea’s capital Seoul, where 12 teams will compete for the 4 remaining Group Stage spots. Dates for the Play-In Stage are as follows:
  • Oct 1-4
  • Oct 6-7
GROUP STAGE & QUARTERFINALS: 
After the conclusion of the Play-In Stage in Seoul we’ll head southeast to Busan - Korea’s second most populous city known for its beaches, mountains and temples. Dates for the Group Stage and Quarterfinals are as follows:
  • Oct 10-17 (Group Stage)
  • Oct 20-21 (Quarterfinals)
SEMIFINALS: 
Once the four remaining teams have been determined, we’ll travel southwest to Gwangju for Semifinals. Semis dates are as follows: 
  • Oct 27-28
FINALS: 
The Worlds 2018 winner will hoist the trophy in Incheon on November 3rd.
FAQ: 
How and when can I buy tickets? 
Event tickets will be sold globally through Interpark. More information regarding ticket sales dates, as well as venues will be provided over the next several weeks! 
It looks like this Worlds is a little shorter than usual, how come? 
We’re looking to reduce the amount of time pro players and their team staff have to be on the road (particularly when it comes to downtime), as Worlds can represent a commitment of up to a month or longer spent in a foreign country. 
What this change specifically means is: Group Stage games will now take place over the course of 8 consecutive days (rather than over 2 weeks with a break in between), and Quarterfinal games will take place over 2 days, rather than 4. Aside from the changes to Quarterfinals, the total number of match days (compared to Worlds 2017) isn’t being changed. 
Last year you announced venues, cities, and dates for Worlds as early as February. Why did this announcement take so long? 
Short answer: we were scouting for cities and venues (and entering into negotiations) as early as late last year, but chose a finals location that fell through late in the process. 
Since then, we put all of our efforts into locking down a location worthy of the League of Legends World Championship Finals. 
We’re deeply sorry to those whose travel plans have been impacted by this short notice. This was a series of unfortunate events - many due to decisions that we made - and we have plans to fix this in the future, including a multi-year roadmap for which regions and cities we’ll be visiting. 
If you'd like to hear more about the situation, you can read a letter from our global events lead HERE."

On The Worlds Korea Announcement Delay

Here's the statement from the global events lead about the delay of the Worlds schedule announcement:
"Hi everyone, 
I’m Derrick Asiedu, and I’m the global events lead for Riot Games’ central esports team. Last year I was the event lead for Worlds 2017 in China. 
First, an apology on our late timing in announcing dates, cities, and venues. Last year, we had all of the above announced as early as February, and here we are in late July, only able to announce our dates and cities. For many of you who wanted to set aside time to travel for Worlds, announcing so late means you’ll need to scramble to set up travel plans or book time off. Additionally, 5 weeks spent in a foreign country to cover a single sporting event is a huge ask for any journalist, content creator, or community influencer, and the later we give information, the less flexibility you all have in booking flights, accommodations, and content scheduling, as well as securing external sponsorships. 
Obviously this wasn’t our ideal timing either, so I wanted to explain how we got here, what we did wrong, and what we’ll do better for the future. 
Many of you have wondered why we don’t initiate negotiations or begin venue scouting earlier. For the past few years, we’ve had a fair degree of success and stability taking a one-year-ahead approach to venue scouting. For this company to stay lean, the same team that leads the technical production of Worlds is also the one best equipped to scout and evaluate future venues for esports events. In a typical year, we kick off scouting and venue negotiations immediately after Worlds to begin setting up the next one. This year was no different - we had already initiated dialogue with prospective venues by November 2017 to set up for Worlds 2018 in Korea. 
So what happened? 
To make things clear, none of the venues are to blame, and much of these delays were due to our desire to hold out for our top choice. As such, we’re going to have to speak a little vaguely about our reasons, as we don’t want to give any information that could pinpoint who we’re talking about. In short, however, we bet on a Finals venue and it didn’t work out. Both the venue and us were interested in hosting the World Championship Finals, but there were a few variables that meant we had to wait a few more months before getting a firm commitment. In the meantime, we hedged our bets, went searching for a ‘plan B,’ and initiated conversations. 
At this point, our preferred venue was unsure as to what dates they could sign to, which obviously had an impact on how we scheduled out the rest of the tournament. Through no fault of theirs, their timeline was being constantly extended and they couldn’t give a firm answer. Every week we’d come back together to see how much closer we were to confirming final dates, and every week we’d think we were just a bit closer. We weren’t. 
A few months ago, we decided we couldn’t ‘wait and see’ for much longer, so we approached our plan B venue, and went into negotiations. Those negotiations fell through for other reasons, and we came into June with no Finals venue secured for Worlds. 
We would have liked to have informed all of you earlier, if just to let you know this was a priority for us and to maintain transparency as to where we were in the process. Unfortunately, revealing this kind of information also gives leverage to the venues we negotiate with - especially if they know we’re on a tight timeline. We opted to stay silent, and are once again sorry for all of the confusion. 
We’re excited to have Finals in Incheon and have already made great progress in securing a venue that is worthy of the Summoner’s Cup. 
What are we doing to prevent this from happening again? 
We’ll have more firm news on later in the year, but the short of it is we think we are now able to commit to a multi-year roadmap, complete with cities and venues. This has been a major undertaking for us, as it includes working with local governments and cities for full visibility, but it’s something we’re excited to lay down as concrete plans for the future. 
Thank you all for your patience in this situation. Everything that could have gone wrong ended up going wrong, but at this point we’re excited with the venues we’ve found in Incheon. We expect this year’s Worlds to be one of the best yet. Stay tuned! 
- Derrick Asiedu"

Quick Hits

"Hey guys! I've been asking around re: this emote for the past few days and it definitely hasn't been shelved! Some things got rearranged as far as release schedule goes, but he'll definitely still be available at some point. Thanks so much for your patience!"
  • Over on reddit, draggles noted more Clash info was forthcoming:
"we'll likely have more info on clash next month (timeline, what we're doing, how everyone can help). there's a totally separate team working on Nexus Blitz, cos clash is neither an RGM or an experimental mode."
Meddler also noted:
"TLDR: Different teams where transferring people won't help Clash come quicker.

We've got a lot of folks working on Clash. Problems to solve there are technical ones, so that team needs a lot of engineers in particular. Prototypes like this by contrast are designer heavy so there's very little overlap in people who could work on either project."
  • Have questions about Riot Direct? Riot Laslow is holding an AMA on the boards for anyone curious:
"Hey all! It's been a while since anyone from the Riot Direct Network Team reached out via the NA forums and I was inspired by my EU colleague who made a post over there, so I figured let's get one going here. There hasn't been a lot of change since 3 years ago when Riot moved the NA servers to Chicago which is another reason it's been a bit quiet from us, but figured you guys may have some questions anyway. 
Things I CAN answer:
  • Network related questions
  • What we do at Riot Direct
  • Singed questions!
  • Etc. 
To set expectations, what I CAN'T answer: 
  • Game related questions (bugs/balance/etc/etc) - I'm not a game dev, so don't bother asking me to remove Teemo (I've already been working on this for years and they ignore me :P)
  • Player Behavior questions (unban me/why did I get chat restricted/etc) - I'm not on the PB team so I can't help there either
  • Basically anything not Network related :D
So fire away! 
EDIT: Shout out to our Lag Report tool btw. It got a lot of visibility back when it was released but wanna make sure people still know about it. https://lagreport.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/"

Reminders

To round out this red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events!
  • Dark Star Cho'Gath is now available, with 100% of proceeds going to regional charities! From now until August 10th, you can grab the skin, border, new summoner icons, and an emote! Check out our coverage for more!

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