Surrender at 20: Red Post Collection: Behavioral Systems: April 2021 Update, Elderwood Ornn Charity Skin Results & More

[Added Client Cleanup: 2021 So Far & What's On Deck & Champion Roadmap Preview ]

Today's red post collection includes a update from the behavioral systems team for April 2021 including changed to Dodge and AFK penalties, the results on the sale of Elderwood Ornn for charity, a TFT: Reckoning cheatsheet, an upcoming merch collab with UNIQLO, and more!

Continue reading for more information!

[New] Champion Roadmap Preview
[New] Client Cleanup: 2021 So Far & What's On Deck
Behavioral Systems: April 2021 Update
Elderwood Ornn Charity Skin Results
[New] TFT Reckoning NA Esports
Miscellaneous
Other Games

Wild Rift
Legends of Runeterra

Champion Roadmap Preview

The champion roadmap was released early on the LoL QQ site! The full article was released in Chinese, with new teaser images and peeks of the upcoming Dr. Mundo and Udyr champion updates! Riot Aether noted this wasn't meant to come out just yet:

"Hijacking top comment, this.... uh.... wasn't supposed to go up just yet. When the global release happens next week, Reav3 and co. will pop in to respond to your comments as usual! Make sure to ask your questions and share your thoughts in the new thread once someone wins the karma race once it pops up~"

For now, here's the images from the post with no context until the English version comes out!

Client Cleanup: 2021 So Far & What's on Deck

Here's the latest blog on the Client Cleanup initiative - "We’re unblocking a Chromium Embedded Framework upgrade while investigating other opportunities."

"We've made a commitment to share recurring updates on the work we're doing to improve the performance and reliability of the League Client.

Today's update is the seventh blog in the series. (See the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth here)

TL;DR: We spent the first quarter of 2021 working to unblock our path to upgrade Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF). We still have some work to complete but anticipate getting to a new version of Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) by end of Q2, which will provide a large number of player benefits.

Updating Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF)

As mentioned last time, one of the big projects we're working on is updating the client's version of Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF)—the web browser at the heart of the League Client's architecture. We understated its importance last time, so to be more direct. Updating CEF is the single most impactful individual change we can make to improve the client, both in terms of direct benefits and unlocking our ability to make other improvements.

The last time we updated CEF was November 2019 (version 74); at the time of writing, the latest current version is CEF 90. Updating CEF (We are targeting CEF 90) will reap the following benefits:

Reduction in Client Crashes
Outdated CEF versions don't play nicely with some hardware. Early data is telling us that a majority of crashes could be due to an outdated version of CEF. We strongly believe once we upgrade, we expect to see fewer crashes for players.
Compatibility improvements
The CEF team exhaustively tests new versions against many hardware combinations. The League Client gets the benefit of that testing for free.
Faster WebSocket performance
The League Client has two big chunks: the "front end" which is the visual application you interact with and a much smaller "foundation" which runs behind the scenes, fetching data from our servers and keeping track of all the information the client needs to surface the right stuff to you. Examples of stuff the foundation does:
"This player enabled the setting to close the client during games and they just entered game; kill the front end until they're done."
"This player just opened up the Collections tab. Which champions do they own?"
A websocket is basically a pipe that connects the front end to the foundation. A larger pipe with fewer twists and turns gets more data to you faster, which is what a newer CEF version gets us. Especially for players on older hardware, websocket improvements can result in better performance in places where lots of data is transferred (End of Game, Champ Select). Comparing our CEF versions, the difference could be up to:
4.1x faster on Windows
7.8x faster on Mac
Improved animation performance
In particular, animations that are procedurally animated based on data, like the experience bar in the End of Game screen (we have a lot of these). These animations are technically a type of memory leak so general client performance over long sessions will also improve.
Better FPS—Reduced ‘sluggishness’ and faster acknowledgment of clicks
Easier (read: faster, more reliable) for our devs to work with
Additional ways to prevent memory leaks across longer play sessions
A new metric that gives us better data on how long things in the client actually take to render on-screen
Smarter CPU usage
The client's current CEF version (74) debuted a feature called "Network Service" that routes all network requests through a single thread in your CPU, freeing up other threads for other stuff like loading content. We aren't using this feature right now since it was brand new when we last updated CEF and we didn't have time to experiment with it. With our next upgrade, we can begin planning support for it in League.
Improved Javascript performance
Newer versions of Chromium bring significant improvements to the v8 engine it uses to handle javascript. Like compatibility improvements, this is a benefit we get just by upgrading versions.
Our work this past quarter has been focused on upgrading our existing web components (think website tech for video embeds, popup notifications, and whatnot) to versions that are compatible with new CEF versions, to ensure upgrading CEF itself won't break anything. We want upgrading these components to be a seamless experience, so hopefully, you haven't noticed us rolling these upgrades out over the past few patches. These upgrades touch a vast amount of code so we're aware of the occasional minor issue that slipped past testing, but are fixing these issues as we catch them.

All said we're just a few weeks away from finishing these component upgrades and will be able to move on to updating CEF itself, which we hope to have done by end of July 2021.

Social Panel

Another area of focus we mentioned last time was the Social Panel. Our long-term plan is to transition the social panel from ComponentsJS (old architecture) to Ember. This is currently on hold while we focus on getting the CEF update out the door, though we've completed some of the early steps required for the Ember transition and will come back to this once CEF has been updated.

Here are the major issues we resolved with the Social Panel before shifting focus onto unblocking our CEF upgrade:

Social panel not connecting
Friends list not loading, incorrect status being displayed, friends not populating
Ranked information disappearing from hovercard when a player is in a normal game
Flickering from Disconnected to the sad poro to Friends List Loading on startup
Update on Memory Footprint and Javascript Errors

We have also continued to track the memory footprint for games played in a single session. We are happy to report that we have seen almost a 30MB drop per game played since patch 10.25 and a continued decrease in out-of-memory crashes across the board.

The last item we want to touch on is Javascript errors. We made a mistake in our previous post about the actual number of JS errors players experienced in Riot Regions. In 10.25, it was a whopping 265 million. The silver lining is that only further underscores the urgency of the problem, and the actual number of errors players experienced didn't change, just our measurement of them. Since then, we’ve reduced the number of errors to 140 million per patch and feel confident that we can reduce this number even further.

What’s on Deck

Although the CEF upgrade is our primary focus in the near-term, we're also lining up projects we want to tackle later in 2021.

Transitioning the Social Panel to Ember, as discussed above
Revisiting End Of Game (EOG). While we addressed a couple of major issues with End of Game performance late last year/early this year, there's more work to be done. Many players still complain about the time it takes to get back into the client and/or EOG freezing. Once this project begins, we'll start by mapping out all the client's interactions with the in-game engine and services, and then see what we can do to improve the experience. EOG works with many other services the client team doesn't own, so part of the process will be partnering with other teams to prioritize joint fixes.
Getting into Champ Select late. This is a highly reported issue for some regions, which tells us there's a dependency on a player's network connection (internet infrastructure varies from region to region). While we can't do much to address the network issues, we'll still be working with the Competitive team to do what we can within the client to ensure all players get into Champ Select in a reasonable amount of time.
Client stability during long sessions. One of our emergent focuses at the end of last year was addressing memory leaks, which cause the client to take up increasingly more memory as players play multiple games or leave their client idling for long stretches of time. As a more comprehensive follow-up, we'll be looking for intuitive ways for players to consistently experience the client as if they had just logged in, regardless of how many games they've played or how long the client's been open. The fix here could be to continue to double down and address more difficult memory leaks, but we will have to evaluate that work against short-term solutions.
That's all for this update! As always, the work we do is driven in no small part by the feedback we receive through a variety of means, like our regular player surveys. Please keep letting us know which parts of the client need the most work, and which of our changes have had the biggest impact on your experience!"

Behavioral Systems: April 2021 Update

Here's the latest dev blog from the behavioral systems team - "Dodge and AFK penalties"

"Hey all. This is our first major update in 2021, and we apologize for the long delay. 2021 started quietly for the team while we focused on the backend systems that we are now applying to real problems we’d like to solve. We delayed this update a few times to make sure it'd feel worth reading, but the result was an unacceptably long period of radio silence.

To avoid making the same mistake twice, we want to let you know that updates will be more spread out this year. Specifically, we're altering our blog cadence to quarterly. That means you can expect our next update in mid-July.

Now onto the first update of the year.

GOALS

As it's been a while since we last chatted, let's talk goals. Broadly speaking, Behavioral Systems has a few evergreen goals...

Reduce the frequency of disruptive behavior

Mitigate harm caused by disruptive behavior

...as well as shorter-term goals specific to individual problems we want to solve. Right now, those are:

Specifically, reduce the frequency of repeat disruptive behavior

Use the newly-launched reporting confidence system to increase confidence (hence the name) of automated detection and penalties for disruptive behavior

In addition to the above behavioral goals, we’re partnering with Competitive in tackling problems endemic to matchmaking and competitive integrity:

Continue improving queue matchmaking quality without compromising queue time and availability

Reduce Champion Select dodges across all MMRs

As a reminder, we're tackling these problems via iterative, solution-driven experiments aimed at measurable results. We want to get our ideas in front of you for testing to find which ones have potential for meaningful, immediate change.

RECENT RESULTS: REPORTING CONFIDENCE (INTENTIONAL FEEDING)

In late 2020 and early into 2021 we talked about plans for a reporting confidence solution that took into account quality of reports (players who are great at consistently recognizing disruptive behavior vs. others who spam the report button every match). Over time, this helps our systems refine their understanding of disruptive behavior that may be less blatant, as well as penalize players who are continually skirting our existing detection lines.

We’ve rolled reporting credibility out for Intentional Feeding and have been seeing some promising results. We’ve started to confidently detect behaviors like jungle griefing, under-the-radar intent to lose or feeding behaviors, intentional lane taxing and griefing, and other behaviors that our automated systems are less likely to identify:

Since the system is still new, we're being very cautious with actioning on these behaviors until we're sure the system won't evolve in an unforeseen way and penalize innocent players en masse. It might feel like there are still people getting through the cracks right now, and for the time being, that’s ok. This is just the start of training our models to adapt to high-quality player reports., We're excited to continue monitoring results and in the future move forward with similar features for other prevalent disruptive behaviors.

ALMOST HERE: QUEUE DODGING PENALTY ESCALATION

We mentioned above that we're partnering with Compet to address growing issues with dodging and match quality. The first approach outlined below is to immediately address the escalation of these behaviors via stronger penalties. The second is a longer-term effort to address the underlying reasons for dodging in the first place.

First, a single dodge doubles the overall time-to-game for 9 other players and creates a jarring experience as players are forced in and out of queue. At higher levels of play, we even see some players say it's better to dodge a champ select with picks they don't like than it is to play the match out. Dodging should never be so optimal that players treat it like a tool in their toolkit. It should be a last resort 'break in case of emergency' switch.

One takeaway from last time we discussed dodge penalties is that you want us to avoid overly punishing players who had an unintentional disconnect, an emergency, or someone intentionally trying to ruin the game—in other words, the forgivable dodge cases. We're addressing that by adding a penalty tier but leaving the current tiers unchanged:

Existing Tiers (unchanged)

1st dodge in 24 hours: 6 min lockout (15 for ARAM) and -3 LP in ranked

2nd dodge in 24 hours: 30 min lockout and -10 LP in ranked

New Tier

3rd dodge in 24 hours: 12 hour lockout and -10 LP in ranked

We expect the above changes to limit current abuse of the system while we work with our other Riot teams to really dig into areas like:

Autofill/Off-role disparity concerns

Perceived between-team mismatches (a separate problem space from actual mismatches)

Hostage situations in Champ Select

One-trick limitations at higher MMRs

Though there are no magic bullets for these in the short-term, similar to last year, we think we can make iterative improvements across the year to drive meaningful impact on these underlying problems.

ALMOST HERE: AFK PENALTY ESCALATION

In addition to dodges, we’ve been assessing penalties for players repeatedly AFKing or leaving games. Again, we don’t want to overly punish players who have rare disconnects out of their control, but through monitoring, we've learned that repeat AFKs/leaves are relatively rare and tied pretty directly to game-ruining behavior. So, we're opting to increase the lockout severity of our existing higher penalty tiers, rather than add new ones. When players AFK or leave games they increase their penalty tier and when they play games without AFK they will slowly decrease it back towards 0.

Today's Tiers:

1st AFK: 5 min lockout and auto-loss

2nd AFK: 10 min lockout and auto-loss

3rd AFK: 15 min lockout and auto-loss

Revised Tiers:

1st AFK: 5 min lockout and auto-loss

2nd AFK: 30 min lockout and auto-loss

3rd AFK: 14 day lockout and auto-loss

Separately, there is an escalating LP penalty assessed for going AFK or leaving ranked games. This goes up by one tier when you AFK/Leave and goes down by one tier when you do not. This doesn’t apply to promotion series or when because of server issues the game is declared to have not counted.

Tier 1: -2 LP

Tier 2: -3 LP

Tier 3: -5 LP

Tier 4: - 6 LP

Tier 5: -8 LP

This has been live for a few months and we are actively monitoring and looking for opportunities to improve the system.

THE SECOND HALF OF 2021 AND BEYOND

After this round of updates, here are the next areas we'll be looking at:

In-game reporting options to allow players immediate response to bad behavior that further improve detection systems with time data indicating when the disruptions occurred in the course of the game

Further refinement of penalties for extreme offenders of all kinds, including an extension on the use of bans.

Continued improvement on AFK, Intentional Feeding, and Verbal Abuse detection using our reporting confidence system."

CestDommage noted:

"One thing that was not mentioned in the article but is worth calling out: We are planning to separate queue lockouts between LoL and TFT. This means that a player with a penalty from SR games will still be able to enjoy the convergence.

@Mortdog smiles upon you this day."

Coderbryant added:

"Some additional clarification -- updating the blog to reflect soon -- that should say punishment tiers, not just pure games afk'd. If they hit a certain tier, they're going to get a significant punishment applied (e.g. 2 week lockout)."

Elderwood Ornn Charity Skin Results

Here's an update from Kushnood on the sale of Elderwood Ornn for charity - "You raised more than $7 million for the Riot Games Social Impact Fund with Elderwood Ornn."

"From the end of last year to early January, you all rallied around the ancient shaper of the Elderwood and keeper of divine knowledge by purchasing Elderwood Ornn, the 2020 Charity Skin. In total, the global League community raised more than $7 million for the Riot Games Social Impact Fund.

All of us at Riot are incredibly humbled to have beaten Dawnbringer Karma’s $6 million—and we’re sure Ornn mains are, too.

Thank you all so much for continuing to support highly impactful organizations around the world. We hope you’ll join us again in this year’s charity fundraiser, so we can continue to build a better world together."

TFT Reckoning NA Esports

Check out the latest on TFT esports in NA - "NA TFT esports is once again partnering with Wisdom / Giant Slayer, this time for our TFT Reckoning series!"

"The North American TFT esports team is happy to announce that we’re once again partnering with Wisdom / Giant Slayer, this time for TFT Reckoning NA esports!

We’re planning for this series to be better than ever, starting with an all-new hub hosted by Wisdom at riot.com/natftesports, which will house the official ladder snapshots for NA as well as information on all upcoming official events in the region.

As usual, atop this set’s NA events will sit the NA Regional Finals, which will qualify multiple NA players for the Reckoning World Championship. For the first time, the World Championship will be a live, in person event! Stay tuned for more Worlds info later in the set, but click or read below for more detail on the multiple routes leading to the NA Regional Finals.

Snapshots

Ladder snapshots are back and will be taken weekly on Wednesdays, starting May 12th at 12:01AM PDT, and points will accumulate throughout the Set as one method of qualification to the NA Regional Finals. Generally the rules are the same as those from the last set, but we’ll be dropping every player’s lowest week to help out competitors who suffer a rough patch. Twelve players will qualify from leaderboards running until shortly after the Reckoning mid-set update, and advance to the NA Regional Finals.

Challenger Series

Giant Slayer’s Challenger Series returns with an upgrade as the first tournament this set, taking place on May 19-20 and recurring on a bi-weekly schedule until June 30-July 1. Now featuring 16 players for each two-day tournament, the winner of each event will advance to the Reckoning Mid-Set Finale. Sign-ups for the Challenger Series will be based off of the last ladder snapshot taken previously.

Dawnbringer Cup

The Dawnbringer Cup is a new tournament featuring 128 players and taking place May 21-23. Players will be chosen based off of their in-game ladder ranks at the time sign-ups close on May 15. The top 12 players will advance to the Reckoning Mid-Set finale; players placing 13-16th will receive priority seeding into the Nightbringer Cup.

Nightbringer Cup

We can’t have a Dawnbringer Cup without a Nightbringer Cup! This tournament will feature a very similar format to the Dawnbringer cup and will take place June 18-20. The top 16 players will advance to the Reckoning Mid-Set Finale.

Reckoning Mid-Set Finale

The Reckoning Mid-Set Finale will take place July 15-18 and showcase the best 32 tournament players from our earlier Reckoning events. All players will be competing for a prize pool of $20,000, and the top four placing competitors will advance to the NA Regional Finals.

NA Regional Finals

Capping off the above events, the NA Regional Finals will feature the best 16 NA players competing on September 4-5 for their share of the $25,000 prize pool and a spot to represent NA in the TFT Reckoning World Championship. Players can qualify for the NA Regional Finals in one of three ways:
4 players from the Reckoning Mid-Set Finale
10 players from Set 5’s leaderboard
2 players from Set 5.5’s leaderboard

Ballstreet Trading

New for our Reckoning series of events, we’re partnering with BallStreet Trading to create free peer-to-peer prediction contests that will allow TFT fans to compete against each other during live TFT NA esports events. Fans will be able to buy and sell shares (for free) of their favorite players as they watch tournaments live. Rather than classic fantasy sports, this is a real-time market where fans can predict different outcomes and change their mind at any time. BallStreet creates a second screen experience for fans to win exclusive prizes while watching TFT events. Look for more info closer to the first events.

Be sure to follow the official TFT and Giant Slayer TFT social media channels for more information as Reckoning unfolds and we gear up for the most competitive set yet for Teamfight Tactics in North America!"

Miscellaneous

[1] "This story’s not over. ✂"

Interested in the ties between our latest champion, Gwen, Viego, Isolde, and other Shadow Isles champions and characters? Check out this rundown from the Universe - "The Roots of Ruin":

TFT Set 5: Reckoning hits live with patch 11.9! Need to start studying up on strategy? Check out this cheatsheet from the TFT twitter:

"Ready or not, ruination is coming. Get prepared with all of the classes, origins, and champions coming in Teamfight Tactics: Reckoning."

The latest LoL Prime Gaming Loot is now available! Grab a mystery skin shard every 10~ days through January 2022!

A new merch collab between League of Legends and UNIQLO will be available soon online and in stores!

"When adventure calls.

Presenting the #LeagueofLegendsUT Collection. Available soon online and in select retail stores worldwide."

MSI 2021: Teams Update

"The Mid-Season Invitational is just around the corner, and we are excited for teams all over the globe to come together to compete in Reykjavik, Iceland starting May 6, 2021. While it was our hope that the top team from each of our 12 regions would be able to join us, due to national travel restrictions related to COVID-19, the team from Vietnam (VCS) will unfortunately not be able to participate."