This morning's red post collection includes Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts & follow up discussion including taunt lines coming to test on the PBE in the future & the state of Neeko, a heads up that all champions will be unlocked on Nexus Blitz during Snowdown, and additional red posts from around the web.
- Red Post Collection: Ranked Changes - Update & Known Issues #2, Quick Gameplay Thoughts: 12/12 and More!
- 12/13 PBE Update: Even More Tentative Balance Changes
- Champion & Skin Sale: 12/18 - 12/21
- Free Champion Rotation, Week of December 18th
- Patch 8.24b Notes
- Ashe: Warmother | Comic Series Preview + Issue #1
Table of Contents
Updating our discounts for 2019
TL;DR: We’re updating how our sales work for the first few months of the new year.
In 2019, we’re revamping our sales. First up, we’ll be focusing on more favorites like Your Shop, event passes, and the Essence Emporium. Next, we’ll be experimenting with weekly sales over the next few months.
Overall, the total amount of content going on sale will go up. You’ll see the balance shift towards newer and higher quality skins, but we’ll still look to keep a healthy presence of champions and classics in the mix. There will also be some weeks that look pretty different from what you’ve seen before.
Some features of the new weekly sales we’re testing:
We haven’t changed these sales in a long time, so we’ll keep a close eye on feedback as we go!"
- Every Monday at noon PT, there will be at least 20 items on sale in the store
- We’ll feature sales in the store front page below “Popular items” instead of in sale schedule announcements (see our refund policy here)
- Everything eligible for weekly sales, early sales, or essence emporiums could be included in a sale
- We’ll have at least two dedicated essence emporiums a year
- Monthly bundles will be cut from the rotation
Quick Gameplay Thoughts: December 14
"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
Taunt Lines
Something we've been trying for a while is having some champion taunt VO play automatically when champions first see specific other champions. We think that's been pretty successful, with taunt lines set up that way getting played more than champ specific lines that require the player to use the taunt emote near the correct enemy. We're looking at shifting a lot of those older lines to automatic triggers early next year as a result. Current plan is some will still remain as manual triggers where the line's out of context, immersion breaking etc, but most would get moved over.
Feedback, both on the concept and once changes hit PBE much appreciated. Champions likely to benefit in particular are those who are fairly new, so have a lot of taunt lines recorded, including Aurelion Sol, Azir, Ekko, Evelynn, Galio, Illaoi, Irelia, Jhin, Maokai, Sion, Swain, Tahm Kench, Taliyah, Urgot and Xayah. We might also have every champ use a general taunt line the first time they see an enemy champion nearby, still debating that.
State of Neeko
Neeko's been out for a bit now and, win rate wise at least, started off looking very strong for a just released champ. She hasn't ended up being extremely dominant however. Much of her kit's pretty easy to pick up if you've played a lot of mages before, with familiar skill tests and play pattern. The main difference from other champs as you'd expect is her deception play, the passive especially. So far it looks like the playing against Neeko learning curve might be scaling at around the same rate as the playing as Neeko learning curve for once, which is quite unusual.
Balance wise, we are planning on cutting a bit of base damage off Neeko's Q in 8.24b. No other plans beyond that at present, though we're still keeping an eye on the R ratio in particular.
Last post of the year
Thanks for reading folks! Since 8.24b's going out and we're nearly at the holiday season this is going to be the last of these posts for the year. We're still in the office for a while of course, but will be focusing on some longer term work for a bit before the break. Hope the remainder of 2018 treats you well, I'm really looking forward to all the stuff we've got planned for 2019 and getting to talk about it with you all. Should be back to the normal posts twice a week routine in early January."
When asked about balancing in ARAM, Meddler commented:
"We'll likely do a balance pass on ARAM sometime in the first half of 2019, assuming things with the Nexus Blitz balance pass continue to go well. Plan would be a similar approach of harder to feel things (e.g. some base stats) so that champs don't feel like they play differently but are brought down in power a bit. No specific details available yet though, that work hasn't started."
On Lissandra, Meddler noted:
"At the time when I was implementing it the mouse over indicators weren't functioning on the prototype server we use internally. I'll see if I can add that in today, skipped my mind.
Range is currently the same as Lissandra's vision range. It'll also trigger on enemies who've been damaged by Lissandra within the last couple of seconds, so someone getting away but dying to Ignite etc still becomes a Frozen Thrall."
Meddler continued:
"The animation's in there to draw the eye to them as they end and provide a brief 'final chance to use an ability' window. The speed of the Thrall's has been tuned around that brief pause at the end (they'd be a bit slower overall if the kept moving right until the moment of detonation)."
On crit items, Meddler commented:
"Some early planning for crit item changes has just started internally. Still mapping out different options right now. Should be able to talk more usefully about directions early January."
On Aatrox, Meddler replied:
"Wouldn't surprise me if we did give him another pass sometime next year, but nothing currently in the works."
When asked about other possible permanent game modes, Meddler replied:
"NB is our core focus right now for a possible permanent mode. Depending on how this test run goes we'd consider looking at other options. Hoping to have some thoughts to share on what the plan going forward is late January or sometime in February once NB has finished its current run and we've had a chance to dig through all the data."
On Nexus Blitz ranked, Meddler commented:
"Seems like a poor fit for the mode overall, in terms of how it would change perception and expectations. NB is aimed at being less about win/loss record, precise balance etc and more about high moments, a shorter experience, easier to play with friends of a range of skill levels etc. While I would expect adding ranked to appeal to a subset of possible players would expect it to be the wrong thing to do for the majority of likely NB players."
When asked if Power was the same as Agency, Meddler replied:
"I don't believe so. Something can be really powerful, in terms of how it affects the outcome of the game, how others play around it etc, without the player controlling it necessarily having a lot of personal agency. To take an extreme example, if we imagine a champion who does nothing but move slowly and melee auto attack towers killing them instantly they're likely a very powerful champion. Their team mates and enemies actions will matter a lot in terms of how impactful that power is (peel, rotations etc). There's not much the player of said tower killing champ can really do themselves though, so while the champion's effect on the game will be very powerful the player controlling them doesn't have that much agency over how things turn out relative to other players."
Miscellaneous
- With the release of Ashe: Warmother #1, a 30% off merch sale for Freljord merch is happening in the Riot Games merch store! Check out the landing page for more details on what's on sale!
- Just in time for the holidays, all champions have been unlocked in Nexus Blitz through the end of Snowdown! Here's Mortdog with more from twitter:
"The article should go live soon, but just so everyone knows it's intended...
Merry Christmas!! All Champions are unlocked in Nexus Blitz from now until the end of Snowdown!! Now's the perfect time to try out champs like Neeko! Thanks for playing League this year everyone :)"
"Happy holidays from all of us at Riot Games! We're sharing the Snowdown spirit with this rendition of "It's Me & You," a song created in collaboration with the League of Legends community to celebrate the release of Nunu."
- Update on PBE RP and BE Granting from Riot skiteacher2:
"Hi All:
TL;DR - Replacing daily RP granting with mission with BE reward for playing a game; content available for testing will be priced at 1 BE.
Four months ago, we posted about broken RP grants in PBE. At that time, we believed we would have a fix soon, but after several attempts to restore the daily RP grants, we haven’t been able to make significant progress. Because RP is actually money, it’s controlled by a transactional accounting system which doesn’t allow mass updates.
To ensure PBE testers have access to BE, we’ll be permanently adding a mission called “PBE Blue Essence Bonus” starting December 19, 2018 at 4:00 PM PST. This mission will grant 50 BE for playing one game on PBE, and will have a 4 hour cool down.
We’ve also adjusted content pricing to support these changes. The following content will be available for 1 BE in PBE:
- All champions
- All upcoming and recently released skins
- All skins for champions getting a champion update"
- Here's Westbroke with an update on account transfer issues - Account Transfer Service Down
"Hey everyone,
As you may be aware, we’ve been seeing issues with account transfers lately. The Transfer Service has been down since early November, and Player Support agents have been unable to process any transfers manually due to this. We’ve disabled the option to purchase account transfers in the store for the time being while we work on a long-term fix.
We know this is pretty terrible timing; we’re right in the middle of the holiday season, and a lot of us use the service this time of year. While we continue to troubleshoot this issue, it’s looking like a fix won’t be possible until February, at which point the service will be back up and you’ll be able to transfer your account normally again.
We faced a similar issue with account transfers around this time last year and it’s clear that this can’t keep happening; it’s absolutely a frustrating situation, and if you’ve been affected by it we sincerely apologize. In the meantime, we’re committed to finding and fixing the root cause of the problem, and will keep you updated as that progresses."
- The Nexus site now has a page dedicated to community sites, their official social media channels, and more!
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| Hi mom! |
Reminders
To round out this red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events!
- Snowdown 2018 is on! Check out all the event details & skin previews here!
- Nexus Blitz is back for Snowdown! From now until January 7th, you can play Nexus Blitz 2.0, earn Nexus tokens and craft rewards! Check out the primer article for more!
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