Red Post Collection: Legends of Runeterra Patch 0.9.3 Notes, VALORANT Closed Beta & more
Today's red post collection includes details on other Riot games, including the Legends of Runeterra Patch 0.9.3 notes and the closed beta dates for VALORANT!
"Note: To make sure players get to redeem this week's Vault with the new rewards structure detailed below, we’ll shortly disable vault redemption until after 0.9.3 goes live at ~10 AM, March 31 PT.
We’ve heard complaints about players running into opponents who intentionally use up a bunch of turn timer just to be obnoxious (aka “roping”). We know this really sucks when it happens—I’ve run into in various games, as has probably everyone else on the LoR team. We’re not planning on making player behavior topics a focus of these Dev Notes (it can make assessing and preventing issues more difficult), but in this case we’d like to provide some light detail on our thinking and let you know it’s on our radar.
First of all, data shows us that the incidence of this behavior is very small (less than we’d feared actually). Now, that’s not enough for us to stop worrying—a few poor experiences can be very memorable—but it is something we factor in when considering the opportunity cost and tradeoffs of potential solutions. For now, what we’re seeing means we’re looking at some of the existing tuning options in the turn timer system, and we’re already evaluating some potential tweaks that we think will help. In general, rest assured that we’re keeping an eye out and will make changes as needed. As always, thank you for your valuable feedback and please keep it coming.
- Teemopalooza, Principal UX Designer
Economy Updates
Following summary taken from our dedicated preview article—we encourage you to give it a read if you’d like more detail on the thinking behind these changes.
As design director Andrew “Umbrage” Yip talked about in his State of the Beta article, we’re seeing lots of positive results overall from the progression system. However, some of the methods we chose to achieve certain goals—like ensuring the meta continues to evolve and supporting the different ways players invest their time & money—aren’t doing the job as well as we’d like. So we’re adding more agency to your progression: a Champion Wildcard each week from a Vault that can now level up infinitely, no daily XP cap, and unlimited direct purchase of any card, among other things. (Again, read more right here!)
Our goal is to give you the ability to get what you want, how you want, in a game where players can compete regardless of how much they spend. We think this set of changes will maximize your ability to experiment with different cards, ensure a faster and more reliable “time-to-deck”, and will keep things accessible for every LoR player.
The Vault
You can now earn improved and unlimited Vault rewards.
Level 2+ now rewards an Expedition Token (previously level 10+).
Level 5+ now rewards a random Champion card.
Level 10+ now rewards a Champion Wildcard (replaces level 5 random Champion card).
After Level 13, you can now earn additional, unlimited capsules for 4500 XP each. Each capsule contains at least 3 Rares and 2 Commons (all with a random change to upgrade as normal, including the capsule itself).
Win XP
You can now earn unlimited XP via PVP & AI wins.
PVP wins in Normal / Ranked and Expeditions net you 200 and 100 base XP (respectively), every time. First wins of the day bonuses still apply.
AI wins now always provide at least 50 XP:
AI wins 1-10: 100 XP
AI wins 11+: 50 XP
Wildcards & Direct Card Purchase
You can now purchase unlimited wildcards.
No more weekly wildcard stock in the store.
You can now directly purchase cards in the Collection tab using Coins (cost is identical to that of the equivalent wildcard).
Expeditions
You can now more easily and consistently play Expeditions (we’ve reduced both cost and rewards by ~33%).
Expedition cost adjusted to 2000 Shards or 200 Coins (was 3000 or 300)
Expedition rewards updated:
0 wins: Epic Capsule
Epic Capsules contain an Epic, 2x Rares and 2x Commons, all with a random chance to upgrade (including the capsule itself).
1 win: Epic Capsule, 100 Shards
2 wins: Epic Capsule, 200 Shards
3 wins: Epic Capsule, 200 Shards, Common Wildcard
4 wins: Epic Capsule, 300 Shards, 2x Common Wildcards
5 wins: Epic Capsule, 500 Shards, Rare wildcard, Common Wildcard
6 wins: Epic Capsule, 1000 Shards, Rare Wildcard, Common Wildcard
Expeditions started prior to 0.9.3 (with the previous higher costs) will provide previous reward values.
As 0.9.3 goes live, we’ll grant players 1000 Shards per Expedition Token already in their inventory (to compensate for the now reduced rewards value of those tokens).
Please note that there will be no “ceremony” to call this out, but the Shards will be added directly to your Shard total.
Prologue Rewards Tweak
Finally, we’re making some minor changes to the Prologue Road rewards. New players will be introduced to more cards in early levels, and then receive spendable currency after they’ve got a bit more experience.
Level 2 reward adjusted (Rare WC + 200 Shards → Epic WC + 200 Shards) and moved to level 9.
Levels 3-9 rewards bumped up one level each (so they’re now levels 2-8).
Card Update / Fix: The Harrowing
This is a fun one to explain! We had a change to The Harrowing slated for 0.9.4 (next patch), but it accidentally slipped out with 0.9.2 (last patch). Additionally (and as some of you noticed), while the functional change went live, the updated card text to reflect it did not. We very much prefer to bundle balance changes as a whole, but given that we’d shortly be changing the card back anyway, we’ve decided to just leave the new functionality in place for 0.9.3 and update the card text to match.
Now for the context behind the change: Generally, we don’t want players stealing or utilizing opposing champions. LoR’s champion-centric design and deckbuilding can make it extremely frustrating to have your own champions used against you, and we especially didn’t love that The Harrowing’s old design let players circumvent the usual investment required to get the payoff of a leveled-up Champion. This change brings The Harrowing in line with our general philosophy while focusing it on the Shadow Isles’ core theme of profiting off your own units’ deaths.
The Harrowing card text updated to reflect that it now only revives allies (rather than any units).
Old rules text: Revive the 6 Strongest units that died this game and grant them Ephemeral.
New rules text: Revive the 6 Strongest allies that died this game and grant them Ephemeral.
Card Text Clarity
As we also mentioned in the State of the Beta article, we view in-game clarity as something of a never-ending task where we can always improve. One consistent point of feedback we’ve heard during the beta has been the various examples of confusing or misleading card text. The opportunity was clear enough that we’ve taken a pass on all of our card text, which left us with a batch of changes to some of the worst offenders to more explicitly explain card functionality.
Rules text on the following cards updated for clarity:
Ancient Yeti | Arena Bookie | Ashe | Blade of Ledros | Commander Ledros | Corina Veraza | Crimson Curator | Dawnspeakers | Draven's Biggest Fan | Draven's Whirling Death | Eggnivia | Elise | Eminent Benefactor | Flash of Brilliance | Garen's Judgment | Garen (level 2) | Health Potion | Heimerdinger's Progress Day | Iceborn Legacy | Insight of Ages | Iron Harbinger | Jinx (level 2) | Jubilant Poro | Judgment | Karma | Karma's Insight of Ages | Katarina | Kindly Tavernkeeper | Laurent Chevalier | Legion Marauder | Lonely Poro | Lucian (level 2) | Lux | Minotaur Reckoner | Mistwraith | Noxian Guillotine | Poro Snax | Progress Day | Purify | Rimefang Wolf | Rimetusk Shaman | Ritual of Renewal | Scaled Snapper | Single Combat | Statikk Shock | The Undying | Troop of Elnuks | Trueshot Barrage | Warmother's Call | Whirling Death | Wyrding Stones | Yasuo (level 2)
Master Tier
When we launched Open Beta, our rating system was locking down high-level MMR way too tightly, way too quickly, resulting in extremely static Master Tier rankings. We made a quick initial change to give the system more freedom to adjust MMR based on game results, but It turns out we went a little too far, and we’ve heard frustration about how punishing losses in particular could be. We’re tightening things up again (though not to start-of-beta values) to reduce some of the variance.
Master Tier players should see smaller swings in rank (both up and down) after each game.
Expeditions Archetypes
Shadows and Dust has been having a tough time lately, so we're adding a card that's exciting alongside Death Mark and can also buy you more time for your Ephemeral units to slip through the opponent's defenses.
Added: Darkwater Scourge.
Disruption is in a decent spot, but Zephyr Sage had found its way into five different archetypes and this is the one where it felt least at home.
Removed: Zephyr Sage.
Bugfixes
Fixed a crash when playing a Burst spell that ends the game (e.g., by drawing from an empty deck).
Fixed an issue where players could take a never-ending turn if they kept generating and casting Burst spells."
"Hi, my name is Joshua Parker, and I’m an engineer on our Champions team. I help create the systems that unlock new capabilities for champions in League. Although my work is typically focused on how we build out a new champion, it also means revamping older systems and smashing tech debt along the way to help our engine evolve and allow us to keep creating new exciting experiences for players.
In this article, I’ll describe the tech that went into reworking the League champion Mordekaiser. We’ll take a look at some of the problems with Mordekaiser’s old ultimate ability and how we dove into dimensions to create Mordekaiser’s new ultimate - the Realm of Death."
"VALORANT, the competitive, 5v5 character-based tactical shooter built by Riot Games, is getting a closed beta starting April 7. We're ready for the first wave of players to test VALORANT's competitive gameplay and take our first step toward building a global community.
For now, space is limited to players in Europe, Canada, United States, Turkey, Russia and CIS countries. The plan is to roll out to more regions, if possible, pending the volatile logistics of launching a beta effectively during a global pandemic.
Alright, let’s start emptying that VALORANT waiting room we keep hearing about.
When does VALORANT closed beta start?
The VALORANT closed beta starts April 7 on PC. The go-live times are 2 p.m. CET/6 a.m. PST.
How do I get access?
If you are in the above regions, follow these steps.
Please note that the number of players we let in is based on our current server capacity. We encourage everyone to register and we’ll let more people in as we are able. Player count will ramp up based on timelines for when we can activate more regional servers.
Will VALORANT closed beta be playable in my region?
If you’re playing from either Canada, United States, Russia, Turkey, or Europe, you have a chance to get in the closed beta. Getting the closed beta in the hands of players outside of those regions is not possible at this time, unfortunately. Our official VALORANT channels will update you if the situation changes.
Still, we want to hear from everyone who watches VALORANT gameplay online.
Does my closed beta progress carry over to launch?
No. VALORANT’s current gameplay state may very well change come launch, and it’s better that everyone’s progress begins at the same starting line.
How long will this Closed Beta last?
We’re still aiming for our launch date of Summer 2020 (a little unspecific, we know), and want to keep closed beta as short as we can while getting additional regions online. That said, if we hear a lot of unexpected feedback from players during this period, we’ll reevaluate.
What happens to the VALORANT Points I purchase during the Closed Beta?
At full launch, we will give you all of your VALORANT Points back, with an additional 20% bonus as a thanks for engaging with our work-in-progress skins and store. Here’s an example: if you buy 10000 VALORANT Points during the closed beta, you will have 12000 VALORANT Points at launch (this bonus applies even to the bundled bonus for purchasing larger amounts).
The Store and pricing details are still very much a work-in-progress and don't reflect what will be available at launch.
The Galaxies 2020 event is running now through April 27th, including new skins, chromas, missions & rewards, loot, and the return of One for All for the duration of the event! Check out our post for a loot at the new content, or the FAQ for the full details!
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