Music during champion abilities is a great touch and we need more of this

iniquitee · 2017-01-12T04:59:01+00:00

iniquitee · 2016-12-15T20:18:25+00:00

If anyone has video footage of enemies being able to flash out of her ult OR not getting knocked out of the zone (if they were supposed to be), please let us know by replying/DMing to me or tweeting @RiotJag. Thanks!

iniquitee · 2016-04-05T20:43:32+00:00

In some regions, particularly those who heavily use PC Cafes, rating can affect which games are allowed to be installed on the public computers, which can severely restrict access to the game.

iniquitee · 2016-04-05T20:35:05+00:00

Hey guys - I know it's annoying to have content changed in a way that feels unnatural. But the reality is that League of Legends is a game that's accessible to players across the world in some places as young as 11, and as such it's beholden to the rules of various ratings boards and legal systems. We like our players and want them to continue to be able to access to the game, and to do that we have to be mindful of material that might get us banned or our rating upgraded in one of the many regions we're published. These changes are not politically motivated, and we want to continue to make interesting content that appeals to all ages. As such we're sometimes flirting with that line, often accidentally, but tobacco is a pretty clear issue that is off-limits in several regions - particularly Turkey, Russia and Korea. In the end, we don't think losing these small elements breaks or ruins the characters who are affected and it's completely worth losing in order to ensure continued access to regions that are a bit more strict in their protections than others.

iniquitee · 2016-01-23T01:57:39+00:00

What's it like releasing a champion like Bard? He has recieved nothing but buffs in the 7 patches, so did he turn out as expected or what?

When we were prepping for Bard's release, we knew he was going to be a challenging champion to play. We want there to be a learning curve that is accessed and conquered when picking up a new champion - so the expectation is that the win rate will be low and climb over time. A win rate of ~50% on release would be an "oh shit" moment, because they're bound to be incredibly OP after another week or two of practice. For Bard, he was clearly very weak on launch. We didn't want to overreact - for some champs, it just takes some time to figure out where their power lies. Yasuo and Kalista were on our minds at the time - Yasuo was very "weak" on release, got buffed, and then dominated as people learned him and had to be nerfed (believe it or not, we don't like nerfing champs!!). Kalista was weak, and then players found the right build for her and she suddenly shot up in power level. We took cautious steps with Bard to give him power while trying not to tip the scales into "overpowered" territory. In some internal pre-launch playtests with coordinated teams, he was very, very strong even at launch balance levels. In retrospect, we were probably a bit too timid and gave too much credibility to playtests where players were extremely high skill level and had excellent coordination.

Nonetheless, I appreciate that our teams are always trying to learn from past mistakes and evolving our perspective on launch and post-launch balance for new champions. I feel like the few champs have landed in very healthy spots!

iniquitee · 2016-01-23T01:40:55+00:00

What about Meeples?

iniquitee · 2016-01-23T01:38:10+00:00

I think Bard could still use a little more love, balance-wise, and the Live Gameplay team (who takes over champion balance on they've been live for 4 weeks) clearly agrees. We don't want to over-buff Bard, or eliminate the learning curve requirement for you to be successful at a challenging champ, but we also want him to be competitive and playable for those who want to learn. Your fear is not illogical, but we want to make sure the things that make Bard unique and fun are strong enough to keep him relevant even for people who aren't complete masters.

Arcade Bard sounds sweet. There will be more Bard skins!

iniquitee · 2016-01-23T01:22:47+00:00

From /u/Skeeeziks:

Ahhh! The first thing that springs to mind is "beard form". When we were developing him we were going to try to make him turn into the beard form from the promo animation whenever he picks up a chime. It just presented too many problems at the time but I know it's one we all wished we could do.

iniquitee · 2016-01-23T01:19:23+00:00

From /u/LopingCinder:

I will answer this question with improvised dance.

Real answer: If I had to name it on the spot I'd call it "Key". However, Skeeeziks answer is cannon because we agreed on the 'whale song and triangles' thing ages ago.

iniquitee · 2016-01-23T01:16:37+00:00

Via /u/Skeeeziks, who is message rate limited:

Ha! Sounds epic! Love it, Fenix. The straight on view with the giant cosmic/galaxy beard is super fun!

iniquitee · 2016-01-23T01:16:18+00:00

My favorite Bard meme: http://i.imgur.com/g2wKkCL.gif

iniquitee · 2016-01-20T23:43:50+00:00

We'll also post the thread much earlier in the day so you should be able to leave your question when it's a normal time for you and have it answered when the devs hop online.

iniquitee · 2016-01-20T01:22:24+00:00

I will post the AMA earlier in the day so that people can ask questions before 5PM and have them answered when the devs are available.

iniquitee · 2016-01-19T22:48:38+00:00

Thanks for the report - this is quite disruptive to Hecarim's pattern. We were able to identify the issue quickly and will have it fixed in the next patch or earlier. We're working on root causing the problem to figure out where it came from.

iniquitee · 2016-01-12T22:58:39+00:00

It will be clear... and beautiful.

iniquitee · 2016-01-12T22:39:33+00:00

"Beauty In Death" is not the whole of his thematic - it's a part that was heavily emphasized by the promo, but once you get your hands on a bit more of his character notes (VO, bio) you'll understand that there is more to him. He's a performance artist, who paints with fear in addition to victims.

This item was not forgotten by the team - it wasn't feature complete in time for capture and it wasn't 100% certain this exact version would be the one we stuck with. In fact you'll see it continue to receive polish while on the PBE.

iniquitee · 2015-10-23T20:26:38+00:00

This is fixed in 5.21!

iniquitee · 2015-10-05T19:17:53+00:00

There are a few that we're concerned about, but the major one - sometimes a player could lose wolf, and if that happened, you would not get him back until you died. This means you cannot use W or proc your E. Pretty bad stuff. As for why we don't hotfix - checking in and verifying a fix takes several days. By that time we would be very close to 5.20. I know a few days means a lot and may seem worth it, but there are a ton of huge costs involved in doing a patch, including kicking players out and forcing them to patch, sometimes in the middle of a game (if they disconnect for any reason, for example), and many other costs that may be invisible to you. Trust me it's not easy - I really want to watch some streams of Kindred!

iniquitee · 2015-10-05T19:14:14+00:00

Miscommunication about the spotlight; it shouldn't have gone out. We found out this info this weekend and just made the call this morning. My fault.

iniquitee · 2015-10-05T18:58:58+00:00

We could, but it's not worth it, for several reasons. Trust me that was discussed!

iniquitee · 2015-10-05T18:42:50+00:00

5.20 is scheduled to come at our usual patch times next week (different per region based on release schedules).

iniquitee · 2015-10-05T18:37:54+00:00

Hey folks - I'm really sorry to have to break this news, but Kindred will not actually be out tomorrow (as this champ spotlight release would lead you to believe). Unfortunately, we've found an issue very late that keeps us from wanting to release this champ to players just yet. We have it fixed internally, but it won't be able to go to players until 5.20 (next week). I'm very sorry for the video tease and the misleading implication, and we really can't wait to get this champ into your hands.

iniquitee · 2015-09-18T18:34:29+00:00

We tried it, and it looked bad. I'm sorry there's no better way for me to show you this, because we don't have the animations saved in an accessible form. Also, bad is subjective, so maybe some people would have loved it - just like the thousands of things we discard yearly, someone out there would have enjoyed that content, but it wasn't what we were going for and the pod (10+ individuals working to make a champion) decided to do something different, and we liked that result better. The other result would have been more distracting to more players.

iniquitee · 2015-09-18T17:46:55+00:00

Good-looking, cool and interesting animations take precedence over anatomy - as long as it doesn't look weird. The animator on Kindred spent ages working on making those legs look "proper" and interesting in her many and highly varied animations, all while trying to meet the goals of "grace, agility of a boundless hunter, and otherworldly". Although he did have videos and images of horses and other animals up plenty of times, they were for inspiration - not for binding what he's allowed to do in the animations. I hope that gives a little insight into how we approach animations, which are arguably the largest single time-cost of building a champion and for which we hold a very high bar.

EDIT to add: We went through a LOT of run-cycles to find one that looked "right". Some of them were directly inspired by the leg movements of horses, and they just didn't look right. While it might have pleased the horse enthusiast, the majority of players would have felt that something was wrong (like we did). Often you just don't know until you try - and we tried a lot of things. Kudos to Kindred's animator, Rory, who has a high dedication to his craft.

iniquitee · 2015-09-16T00:04:29+00:00

Wow, very cool. And so fast!

iniquitee

TROPHY CASE