Red Post Collection: Quick Gameplay Thoughts: October 26,, Regional Clash Tests, LoL Twitch Prime Loot & More

[UPDATE: Worlds 2018 Finals Opening Ceremony Teaser]

Today's red post collection includes Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for 10/26, an update on the next scheduled Clash tests, new League loot available with Twitch Prime subs, details on the Worlds 2018 Finals opening ceremony, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

• Red Post Collection: Quick Gameplay Thoughts: Oct 24, Karma Gameplay Change Preview & More
• Universe: Nocturne, Vladimir, & Veigar Bio Update + New Short Stories
• 10/25 PBE Update: Skin Tweaks, Tentative Balance Changes & More
• October Early Sales [10/26 - 10/29]

Table of Contents

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: October 26 

Here's Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for October 26th, including thoughts on Runes changes this cycle, Yorick, & 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 

Runes we're looking at 

We're working on some runes, with the goal of shipping some changes during preseason. Run through of what we're trying below: 

Changes we're pretty confident in

• Dark Harvest - Triggers when you damage a champion below 50% health, dealing bonus damage. Damage increases each time its triggered. Long ish (45s right now) CD>
• Makes it more of a finisher, reducing power as poke or genuine one shot (single attack/ability) rune, since it can't trigger on healthy targets. Keeps its stacking nature as a point of difference from other damage runes.
• Overgrowth - Gives flat HP per X nearby deaths, with an additional % HP boost after a certain flat HP total has been earned.

Should be more appealing to a wider range of users, rather than just HP stackers as per the current % increase only. In retrospect we over corrected for this looking too appealing to everyone during Runes original development. Should help Resolve be a more attractive secondary tree as a result. Mixture of flat and % HP helps us tune for a wider range of different users. 

Changes we're not yet as confident in (need more discussion and testing) 

• Bone Plating - Potential Removal

Bone Plating's a really strong Rune, even if it's not always recognized as such. It also demands more attention than we think's generally appropriate for a regular rune, given both user and opponent(s) in lane should be tracking its CD. 

• Shield Bash - New Resolve rune that makes your next basic attack when you've got a shield deal bonus damage, based off your health and the shield amount. 

We want Resolve to be a tree that offers both survivability and gives you other benefits based off your defensive stats (Demolish being a good existing example). Shield Bash is an exploration into that, with champs who get shields, whether from their kit, allies or items, being a broad enough pool to offer a moderate sized user base for a Rune. Still looking in particular into how to split power between offensive and defensive effects (e.g. how much should Shield Bash increase shield amount versus deal damage?). 

• Klepto - Changes to make it useful to a wider audience and less mandatory on Ezreal 

Might just involve changing CD, drop rate etc. Might also involve larger changes to how you trigger it, rewards given as well. Still pretty experimental and changing rapidly, hence nothing on the PBE yet. 

• Celerity - Amplifies other movement speed boosts, instead of providing some constant MS and damage off MS 

Looking to make it more of a choice, less general power, particularly less of a general damage contribution. Not sure yet if increasing the power of other hastes gives us sufficient balancing levers for best case users versus others (e.g. if balanced for Rammus, Hecarim etc is it just terrible on almost everyone else?) 

• Chrysalis - Assessing if still needed 

We originally added Chrysalis to open up the Resolve tree to a wider audience. At the time the trade off in going Resolve was pretty steep for some users, given the forced HP from tree stats. We wanted to offer a mixed early defense/later offense option to help with that. Given there'll be freedom to pick your stats from preseason onwards however that need's reduced a lot. Going to reassess Chrysalis as a result. 

Yorick in 8.21 

We’ve seen Yorick’s winrate drop dramatically in 8.21 off no major gameplay changes. In cases like this that often means a newly introduced pretty impactful bug. That seems particularly likely given we rescripted some of how Yorick’s ult works behind the scenes this patch to fix some other issues, so something unintended could have occured during that work. Looking into what’s going on there right now it seems like there’s probably a bug with his ghoul’s damage in some circumstances. Aiming to get that hotfixed as soon as possible, though not quite sure at time of writing when that will be. Might be done already by the time this is posted, if not hopefully later today. 

Edit since time of writing: Got hotfixed yesterday afternoon. Was an issue where summoning the Maiden would reset his ghouls's to their level 1 values instead of being properly based off Yorick's level."

When asked it the bruiser items would be returning in Preseason, Meddler commented:

"Potentially. Main concern that might stop that at this point is that they overlap quite a bit with existing items (Spear of Shojin and Sterak's, Atma's and Titanic). Should be making a call on that soon though. 

Edit: Update on this after talking with the team is we're currently planning to ship Spear but not Atma's, belief being that Spear's users and context are sufficiently different from Sterak's, but Atma's has too much overlap."

On whether making games end sooner would change the strategy aspect of the game, Meddler commented:

"We've got no plans or desire to remove the strategic layer of LoL. 

What we're targeting with games ending sooner is not all games but games that are already decided. Having a game that's 99% likely to go a certain team's way still drag out for 10 mins when it should be over in 5 is the sort of case we want to address. Games that aren't that decided by contrast we're aiming to have offer better chances of a comeback, hence the changes to early towers and how bounties are calculated."

Meddler noted Dark Harvest and other rune changes would be part of the Preseason changes and would not be going out until 8.23:

"No, any of the above rune changes would be in preseason. Next patch is 8.22 and preseason is 8.23 though, so that's not too far away at this point."

When asked about Wukong, Meddler commented:

"Wukong's design means his performance tends to fall off somewhat with MMR, 'one shot' builds somewhat excepted. Those builds tend to be pretty degenerate in terms of lack of counterplay if they're really strong though, as was the case with Wukong earlier this year. 

In terms of raw performance, I think he's somewhere between about right and on the strong side right now in most skill ranges for both jungle and mid performance. He has certainly been a difficult champion to put in a spot where he's balanced and Wukong players report him feeling good to play. 

In terms of lack of response I did end up skipping a number of Wukong posts here for a little while. Issue there for me wasn't most of the posts themselves, but the brigading leading to anyone else trying to talk as well getting downvoted and/or drowned out. Really don't want to encourage that approach, given boards upvote/downvote numbers are comparatively low so even a small group can manipulate them heavily."

Meddler continued:

"Yeah, from memory his performance top is noticeably weaker than mid/jungle. We're not trying to push him into any of those positions specifically, just looks at this point like his kit's better suited to mid and jungle than top based off how the game and his playstyles have evolved."

Clash: October 2018 update 

Here's Draggles with details on the next Clash test coming to live servers! Here's each regional announcement - NA/EUW/EUNE/TR/BR/JP/LAN/LAS:

"We’re ready for a one-day test in your region 

In our last update, we announced PBE tests for Clash. From those tests, we improved the game flow and created a recovery tool which gives us the confidence to test these changes on a larger scale. To help get Clash launch-ready, everyone gets a free ticket to participate in a one-day, 4-team bracket test (that’s 2 games!). All Clash test participants must have a Rank and at least Honor level 2. 

Find out when to test Clash 

You can start creating your teams on Wednesday, Oct. 31 08:00:00 PDT 2018 and matches will begin Friday, Nov. 2 17:00:00 PDT 2018. 

Free tickets 

The regional test requires one ticket to enter. There are no five-ticket entries. When Clash is available to test in your region, you’ll see the Clash tab as well as a free ticket to participate. From there, you can begin forming teams. Play.op.gg is partnering with us once again to help you find teammates in your region. You’ll be able to search available teammates and captains looking for members by playstyle or role. 

Rewards 

Everyone participating in a Clash regional test gets Victory Points and a chance to earn a Clash orb, and an exclusive Clash beta banner (400 VP) and icon. This is the last opportunity to earn a Clash beta banner and icon before moving to a new rewards theme. 

In each orb, you’ll find an XP boost and a new logo for your next Clash team, as well as rewards that scale based on your performance. If you’d like to know roughly what you can expect out of every orb, check out our Rewards Guide. 

Banners show up in your lane in-game

Clash summoner icons for bracket winners

What we learned from PBE tests 

The PBE tests let us know how well our proposed fixes and mitigations worked, and helped us implement new solutions to get us ready for regional tests. 

Test 1 - Staggered scouting phase 

This test validated many backend changes to the game flow for more reliable game starts. We found a few issues with players who created their PBE accounts immediately before the test, which raised visibility on some possible improvements around new player experience. 

Test 2 - Game flow changes and the Clash Management Tool 

We tested the reliability of the “Revert Step” functionality of our Clash Management Tool (CMT) and safely brought teams back to Lock in from Scouting after purposefully crashing their game in this time. We hope we don’t have to use this feature, but if the Clash experience goes wrong, tournaments can recover and your team can compete. 

Test 3 - 4-team bracket 

In previous PBE tests, a small number of teams had issues getting into game. We were able to recreate this issue, and with additional logging, track it down and work on a solution. 

Test 4 - Stalled game starts and the Clash Management Tool 

This test shed light on the ability of the Clash Management Tool to recover from disastrous scenarios. We gained confidence that the CMT could recover stalled matches by refunding the affected teams and offering them an opportunity to rejoin the same tournament. 

Stay up to date on Clash 

As we move into bigger tests, you’ll see more frequent updates from us. Keep up with Clash updates here, and we look forward to seeing you during regional tests!"

Summoner's Crown Capsule with Twitch Prime

Twitch Prime / Amazon Prime subscribers can now link their LoL and Twitch accounts to receive a Summoner's Crown Capsule containing a legendary-tier skin shard!
For more information on Twitch Prime and additional details, head on over to Twitch! Be aware that this does require an existing subscription to Twitch Prime/Amazon Prime.
As mentioned on the page, look for more Twitch Prime promotions in 2019!

Worlds 2018 Finals Opening Ceremony 

Here's the details on the Worlds 2018 Finals Opening Ceremony:

"The 2018 World Championship Finals will kick off in Incheon, South Korea with the ‘Finals Opening Ceremony presented by Mastercard’ featuring musical performances by artists from both sides of the globe. In addition to several surprises in store, the Opening Ceremony will include a performance of the 2018 Worlds anthem ‘RISE’ featuring: 

The Glitch Mob

Mako

The Word Alive

Bobby of iKON

There will also be a special performance debut of a new Riot produced song featuring Madison Beer, Miyeon and Soyeon of (G)I-DLE, and Jaira Burns. 

This year’s ceremony will be unlike anything you’ve seen before, so be sure to tune in to watch.lolesports.com at 12:30 AM PT on November 3!"

Quick Hits

• Helmet Bro: Susan's Wrath | League of Legends Community Animation

Helmet Bro faces off against Nasus. It doesn't go well. Spoiler alert.

• Want more esports? Check out these articles and video content from LoLEsports:
• Almost Winners
• The Dive with Deficio: Semifinals! Everybody Stay Calm! (Season 2, Episode 31)

• This or That: Mountain of Salt

Reminders