Today's red post collection includes details on the 5/15 mid-patch update for Yuumi, Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for May 17, updates on client skin bios, and more!
FINAL CHAPTER MULTI-HIT REDUCED DAMAGE40% from subsequent waves ⇒ 50% from subsequent waves"
Quick Gameplay Thoughts: May 17
Here's Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for May 17, including notes on some champs so far in 9.10, Wukong changes on PBE, 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:
Simple ARAM balance changes every few patches
As you might have seen we had some simple balance adjustments for ARAM in 9.10. Our current thinking is that that's something we'll be doing every few patches. Changes will be simple stuff like % damage up or down, with one of the core goals being that a champion's playstyle, timings etc don't change significantly between maps (e.g. avoiding changes to spell CDs, CC durations, dash ranges etc).
State of some champs in 9.10
Now that 9.10 has been out for a bit short thoughts on a range of champs:
Yuumi
Was looking weak enough on release we got a micropatch buff out for her quickly. Waiting to see where that puts her in combination with the expected learning curve. Most likely we'll hold off until making any other changes this week at least then reassess after the weekend.
Yi
Looks a bit weaker in average skill games and a bit weaker again in high skill games. Increasing the delta between his performance in those two contexts wasn't a goal so we're monitoring how that goes. Want to give it a bit of time to see how players adapt to the changes though before making any assumptions, given a number of optimizations have changed.
Rageblade Users
Generally don't seem to have been excessively affected by the changes from what we've seen so far. Kog's probably the most impacted, but even then's still doing reasonable. Not immediate compensation changes planned as a result.
Wukong Changes on PBE
Thanks for the feedback so far on the Wukong changes that hit PBE earlier this week. Overall perception seems to be positive, seeing some good suggested areas for improvement too. Will likely be a revised version on PBE sometime next week as a result.
As a reminder these changes are a prototype, not something that could be ready to go live shortly. They'll be on PBE for around 4 weeks, then they'll be taken off and we'll figure out whether to commit to making a more polished version of them or not."
"There's some Ryze experimentation going on at present, cautiously optimistic it'll be worth shipping at least some of it. Wouldn't call it a revert though and don't think we've got any reason to believe past versions of Ryze were more balanceable even if his current state has issues too."
"We're pretty cautious with things that give Yuumi more safety given just how evasive her attach can make her when played well. We've seen extremely powerful versions of Yuumi, even with lower AA range, in internal testing, so would be hesitant to add that to her. Not saying it's impossible, wouldn't be the first time we've thought something was much stronger than it was off limited sample size. It's something we've thought about though certainly and wouldn't want to act on too quickly."
Meddlernoted they would try to get some thoughts about Teemo's experimental changes on the PBE:
"Good point, we should share some thoughts there. I'll track down the designer working on them, get something into a post for next week."
Update in Client Skin Bios
Here's Riot Stellariwith an update on skin bios going forward:
"Hi everyone -- I’m Riot Stellari, a product manager for Skins and product lead for Thematic Development. I just wanted to give you a quick update on where we are with skin bio release cadence, but first I want to talk about our philosophy behind them.
Skin bios (or "skin descriptions”) is a product I pitched two years ago when we first created the Skin Collections Tab. The original idea for the tab was that it’d be a cool way to categorize skins, and it’d also be fun for people who like to collect things to see what they were missing. I pitched that it’d ALSO be an amazing way to show players some of the “head canon” we had for skins like Blood Moon and Program (many people didn’t know it was part of the PROJECT universe) and also a cool way to make brand new alternate universes. Also it would be fun, because I personally have always loved browsing skins in games and reading flavor text on things. I got to work categorizing skins with a team of writers and concept artists. We got through about 25% of the skins before we realized more skins had no "story" or even connective tissue. Some splashes had easter eggs to things that were "internal lore" while others just had something random and funny in the background. We had to dig through ancient Boards posts to see what the original marketing material was.
But it was worth it because a lot of you guys have become really invested in some of these skin sets! That makes us really happy. I love seeing the community theorycraft about a "skinline" that, to be honest, was just a collection of skins. Something I've had to explain a bit on Twitter is that the vast majority of skin sets are still simply that: a set of skins for the Skins Collection Tab that also happen to have flavor text. They aren’t considered “full universes.” Only the skins listed in the Universe page are skins we consider to have full alternate universe lore.
But every once in awhile, one of those skin collections gets to level up! We decide to reboot the line, or invest in world-building. For example, High Noon was reboot from a collection of joke cowboy skins into a demon-filled spooky Western. Carnival Knights, our narrative writer, wrote out an entire narrative world for the Skins team to dive into and be inspired by. And based on reception, players appreciated that the skins had lore and depth.
Okay, so now that I’m done explaining our philosophy around skin descriptions, I wanted to give you guys an update that we are going to slow down the pace in which we update these. Going forward, we will only be releasing descriptions for new skins. Old skins will get descriptions if they’re part of the same skin set AND it seems valuable for us to update that. This was a side project we were really passionate about, but we also want to make sure that Carnival Knights and other writers get the chance to write really awesome stories like Trial of the Masks and The Man with the Grinning Shadow to continue to build on these skin lines so they can graduate from collection of skins, to something we want to invest in.
Here to answer questions!"
Little Demon Tristana: Splash Art and Chromas
Here's the latest update on Little Demon Tristana, which is now testing on the PBE:
"It’s the penultimate update for Little Demon Tristana, and today we’re sharing the latest progress on her chromas and how we created her splash art. Since Tristana just jumped into PBE this week, our final update will focus on the finishing touches that go into skin development, and we’ll also have a time-lapse video of her splash art illustration to share.
Splash Art
Jennifer Wuestling, Illustrator: Hi, I’m the illustrator for Little Demon Tristana’s splash art! A lot has happened since our first update, back when we posted the black and white thumbnail sketches for her splash. It’s been a while, so here are those early sketches again.
Once the team decided to go with this design, the next thing I did was make some color variations, which is something we do to see what mood or color scheme fits the character and scene. We quickly decided that a warm color scheme would be a nice contrast to the cool blues she has in her hair and fire VFX.
Before I go full into rendering—which is where I clean up the image and round-by-round paint in more details—I refine the thumbnail, solving issues while the image is still small and tweaks are relatively easy to do without spending too much time. Composition, lighting, anatomy, and values should all be solid at this stage, and when it’s viewed as small thumbnail, it should look close to what we want the final splash to look like. We call this stage the “greenlight stage.”
After it’s green-lit by the team, I move into rendering. Before starting, I size up the image and “mask” the various elements—like her skin, clothes, horns, and hair—so that they’re all on separate layers. I try to group things that don’t touch or overlap onto one layer so that I can keep my layer count low and less confusing. Everything that has the same crazy color is typically on the same layer; for example, her hands, horns, and clothes are all marked in blue.
Little Demon Tristana’s Masks (or Layers)
Masked Tristana With Background Layer Turned Off
Not all artists in the team work the same way or with this method, and some artists separate layers later in the process. But it’s generally useful to have the elements in layers, that way we can move things around without affecting other areas.
When detailing and cleaning up the painting, I usually go from big to small, trying to give all areas a raw finish first. Then I do another round going further into details. The sharp, small details—such as dents and scratches on her horns, her freckles, and the zipper on her jacket—and the VFX—like the sparks in the air and the golden light from the top—are painted in some of the final rounds.
Since the whole splash art process can take 4–6 weeks and it’s easy to lose sight of what to improve, we do a review meeting every day for each other in the team. I usually ask for feedback there once or twice a week. We get lots of useful feedback; others might catch things I don’t see anymore after working so long on one piece. Every now and then, we also do paintovers for each other which sometimes can be more helpful than words. In the paintover below, Alvin Lee (another illustrator) helped me make the perspective of the upshot more solid, specifically with the throne (see how it fits into the slightly bent rectangle) and the circle of Teemos.
I hope this gives you some insight on how we work on the splash art for skins. I’m excited to share the full process video in the next update!
Final Splash Art for Little Demon Tristana
Operation: Rainbow-fy
Alexia “Riot Lexical” Gao, Product Manager: We begin making chromas for a skin as soon as the concept is locked, working in parallel to the skin’s development. The first step is to kick off an ideation for the chromas, where we looked at the concepts for Little Demon Tristana as well as the original three pillars. While we want each of the chromas to feel different, they still need to be within the boundaries of these pillars—chromas are meant to give more customization options for a skin, not an alternative skin.
For Little Demon Tristana, our pillars were:
Adorable and demonic, not “edgy”
Right-hand yordle of Little Devil Teemo
Fiery and mischievous
We look to see if there are any areas or pillars which we can push a bit further. This is the fun part where we can go wild exploring directions before we rein it back in: What about fiery or icy devil Tristana? Shadow Isles demon Tristana? Or maybe even a banana devil Tristana who’s out to punish all those who don’t eat enough potassium?!? (Just kidding.) For each of the chroma ideas we like, we search for references to build a mood board. Next we sort these ideas by colors, which the concept artist will then use to create a variety of designs.
Generally, we try to create a spread of 8–10 designs so there’s room to select the best. We review each of the designs as a team, and sometimes we’ll mix and match elements between different concepts, kind of like a fun dress-up game. We’ll also put these designs side-by-side with other Tristana skins to compare them, checking to see if any of the color palettes are already in use.
WIP Chroma Concepts for Little Demon Tristana
During this time, Little Demon Tristana’s base skin is being tweaked and polished. We have to be diligent with these changes so that we can make the necessary adjustments to the chromas as well. Once we lock-in the chroma concepts, we bring them to life by painting the “peeled orange” for each of the chromas. We’re essentially changing the design and colors painted onto this “peel,” which is also known as the skin’s texture, rather than any other elements of the skin.
Once all of the chromas are done, we put them into the game to review. During the polish phase, we’ll touch up the chromas, review, and repeat. This process happens continuously up to and through PBE to make sure that feedback is addressed and the team feels good about the chromas’ quality. Like skins, we can perfect each chroma till the end of time, so at this stage, it’s about balancing the extra effort with the additional value. There’s no perfect science or checklist—it’s a gut feeling that we validate through players’ sentiments during PBE.
Ultimately, we want each of the chromas to be unique, which gives skin owners more personalization options from game to game. We do our best to continuously get better, and we hope that you like these chromas :)
Off to PBE!
Janelle “Riot Stellari” Jimenez, Product Manager: Well, you’re probably feeling around now, “wait, isn’t this skin done?” Yes, yes it is. This is around the point we’d call a skin shippable or ready to ship. As any artist or perfectionist knows, you can polish and “perfect” something forever (and still never release it). My job as a product lead and a producer is to know when to call a skin complete so our team can move on. This sounds easy enough, but with a very passionate team, all of us need to be told “okay, pencils down for real,” every now and then.
For Little Demon Tristana, we considered this skin shippable approximately two weeks ago and moved on to the next project. Our next step is to release this to PBE (where she’s at now!), where we’ll sweep for any bugs we didn’t already catch, fix any errors in cohesion between the splash and model that we missed, and listen to player feedback. In the best cases, there’s only minor bugs or tweaks to address.
In our final post, we’ll be sharing what (if any) PBE feedback we applied to the final skin and why (or why not), as well as discussing how we look at results and team health. We’ll also be sharing a time-lapse video of the splash art illustration. See you in two weeks!"
9.10: Lore Update
Here's Riot Ashekandi with a full rundown of new lore and updates to the Universe:
"Hey everyone!
This week’s lore update is feeling purr-fect, and we’re not kitten around–it’s time to talk about our favorite fur-midible cat, Yuumi!
But before we get carried away, we also have a new short story where we’ll spend some time with our friends Lulu, Tristana, and… Draven?
Finally, to help close out the day, we’ll jump over to Demacia for the first issue of our new comic series: Lux.
As always, we love to hear your thoughts and theories, so make sure to share them in the comments or on Twitter using #leaguelore.
"I’m about to jump into Book’s portal when I hear a scream that sounds like tinkling bells and the brightest rainbows. A scream that makes my fur stand on end. A yordle scream."
"“Here, doodad,” she whispers to the grass. “Pretty please, with sprinkles on top! I’ll let you take us somewhere you want to go next.” The doodad—or whatever it’s really called—doesn’t respond, but I sense it rolling away from Lulu. Well, not really rolling, as such, more making itself be where she isn’t."
Draven, Lulu, Tristana, Yordles, Noxus, Bandle City
"Demacia is a peaceful utopia where order reigns. Maintaining that order at any cost are the Mageseekers, who hunt down anyone utilizing forbidden magic. Hailing from a respected noble family, Luxanna “Lux” Crownguard is destined for a life of privilege—but is hiding a terrible secret. As her own magical light powers emerge, Lux must decide whether she stands with brother Garen and the ruling class of Demacia…or the downtrodden Mages at the fringes of society."
We’re proud to present the first issue of our second comic in partnership with Marvel expanding the League of Legends universe: Lux! Issue #1 is available now, so If you haven’t already, jump over to the Lux comic series Universe page to check it out.
Lux, Garen, Sylas, Demacia, Comic
Universe Updates
"We’ve made a few small updates to the description of the Bandle City region page to better align the Yordle narrative with current content. We’ve also reorganized the existing images, adding descriptions for each, and added two new images detailing Yordles in the Material Realm."
Added new context to the description on the Bandle City region page.
Created two galleries: “The Low Road” and “Living in the Material Realm”.
Each image on the Bandle City region page has been organized into one of these galleries.
Two new images with descriptions have been added to the “Living in the Material Realm” gallery.
Added descriptions to all existing images."
Miscellaneous
Xenogenic tweeted that the Silver Replacement Reward mission should now be live!
"The Silver Replacement Reward mission should now be live! This mission should be available to all players who have completed the Silver House mission, or will become available after that mission is completed for those that haven't yet."
"EDIT: Thanks for all your questions! That's the end of our Yuumi AMA! We'll continue to bop into the thread throughout the day and answer as we can.
_____________________________________
Put down your yarn and give back that laser pointer! It's time to wake up from a cat nap and ask your Yuumi questions. Starting now, feel free to post your questions and the team will teleport through Book to answer them from 11:00 AM PT to 1:30 PM PT.
"Your weekly dose of server problem-os, NA League news, and other!
Yuumi is now playable thanks to patch 9.10, a bunch of your favorite champions were buffed and nerfed (sorry, not sorry), House Mission finishers had some problems (big oops), and MSI continues tomorrow morning (still realllllly early in the morning).
Follow-Ups:
Mac voice still not working properly Reached out to Apple for assistance (Awaiting additional resources and information).
Server Stuff:
Failure to properly remove content (5/1, ~13 days) A global error to the account system caused items to not be removed when expected. An update to the system fixed the issue and prevented items expected to be removed from staying behind.
Update to Leagues causes Ranked issues (5/14, ~25 minutes) An update to Leagues went live, and caused an increase of error messages. Before investigation could dig into what config changes caused it, levels returned to normal.
Game servers freezing (5/14, ~ongoing) Game servers on NA and LA randomly go into a failed state, unable to properly host games and communication attempts fail. Logging into the server takes excessive time, and diagnosing why this is happening is ongoing. Servers identified as entering a failed state are rebooted, and if unable to be rebooted, removed from the active pool for on-site diagnosis.
Game Stuff:
Finishers entitlements disabled (5/14, ~Ongoing) Launching the Trials package included a finishing animation. This animation triggers epilitic seizures in some players, so it’s been disabled until changes can be made to ensure there are no problems for players viewing those animations (or options to disable said effects).
Player Support Issues:
Patch 9.10 is out, as always, take a gander at patching issues if you have problems patching! Enjoy your weekend everybody and good luck in your games!
Morgageddon & Couch Commando
Check out these articles and video content from Riot Esports:
To round out this red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events!
MSI 2019 is happening and the Mid Season Trials event is in full swing! Now through June 2, you can choose your house, complete missions and earn rewards for your team! Check out out post for more details!
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