Reign of Gaming

More on Annie's Rework

Glad to see this out! Oh and I am going to answer this right now because I know it's gonna come up a million times,
1.Yes all her skins got updated
2. Yes relaunch team is aware of sivir, scion, master yi, twitch, trundle,Karma,etc... and they are on the schedule for a visual rework. 
3. This Annie is the same size as old Annie.
4. The eyeliner makes her face pop at game distance and makes it easier to read. The old Annie texture had eye liner too.
5. "Tibbers has stitches now?! ROIT WHY YOU CHANGE!!" He always had stitches.
6. Panties have been covered up by something more modest. 
7. We are using the same voice actress for the new VO set.

That being said I hope you guys enjoy the visual upgrade. Please take a look at her if you have access to the PBE and let Me know what you think!
Best and Kindest Regards,
GM.

-------

We try our best to keep the most iconic bits of a champion intact when we do an update. As long as we can hit the quality bar we're shooting for, we keep the same voice actor, retain original lines, sound effects, and so on.

That said, I think everyone will be happy the updated VO.

 

AMA on New Ranked League System

Riot hit reddit early today with the AMA on the new ranked system that should be hitting the PBE soon.
Sorry if there are any double posts in here. Took a good amount of time to round this all up.

When will the new Ranked League become effective?
As with most of our releases, we aren't announcing a specific date because there are a number of factors that can affect the launch. That being said, we're currently aiming to launch on PBE within a matter of days.

So are we talking around three patches away? As a rough estimate
It depends on how smoothly things go on PBE. It could be sooner than three patches.

In every division there are 250 players. Is the possibility higher that you will see the same players over and over again? So you can familiarize with them ? Like high ELO players know each other?
Since everyone in your League is going to be of similar skill, you're undoubtedly going to see a number of people again and again and get familiar with them. Not to mention, we will actively seed people into the league with the most of their friends (that is also within the same tier).
To add to this, we made a few decisions that give you reasons to care about the other people in your league:

• Summoner icons are displayed in the league view, so you'll be able to identify other players by whatever rare icon they're showing off at the moment.

• Players in the league will have emblems which call out if they've joined the league recently, if they've played a lot of games in that league, or if they're on a hot streak of winning multiple games in a row.

• Players who have lost LP due to inactivity will temporarily disappear from the standings. This will make the league standings feel alive since everyone that you can see is currently engaging with the system.

What systems do you have in place to stop the following abuse:

1. Start out in whatever league (let's say Gold)
2. Intentionally feed until you fall to 400 (hidden) Elo, but do so subtly so that you don't get banned.
3. Win every game trivially until you reach Platinum.
4. Start the subtle feeding again, now that you can't fall to a lower league.

There's a lot of complicated logic on the back end that prevents abusing the system like this. If you intentionally try to tank your matchmaking rating, you will gain league points much much slower than otherwise. It will always be more effective to play legitimately.
----
You still have a hidden matchmaking rating (MMR) tracked in the background, which will plummet as you intentionally lose those games. When your MMR is far below where it should be for your current league placement (as it will be if you playing against Silver players while at the top of Bronze), you will gain far less LP from every win. This is something that won't happen in the general case, but is there to prevent strategies like this from being optimal (and in fact they're very much suboptimal).

You, and RiotYegg below you, both say this strategy is suboptimal, but do not deny it will work? So, does that mean you can keep your MMR much lower than you should so you can get easy wins?
By suboptimal, I mean that honestly trying to get better over time is going to get you further than trying the cheese strat of tanking your MMR. I wouldn't say it's an "easy way to get wins" since you'd be stacking up even more losses in order to try to tank it. The end result will be a record with tons of losses, some wins, and relatively little league point gain.

Is there any chance you will analyze again the "Dodge in a Division series/ Promotion series and lose your chance of moving forward"? I find it can be really frustrating to get to that point and lose your shot because there is a Trondomere Support with clarity/revive and you are forced to play that game...
Yeah that's definitely up for revision if we feel like it's a serious problem. We've seen the other thread discussing this issue and are actively talking about it. The main reason we went with this route was that if there was no penalty for queue dodging during champ select, the optimal strategy would be to dodge repeatedly until your team happens to pick what you consider to be the most optimal comp for success. This wouldn't be fun for the player or the other people that are now getting repeatedly dumped back in the queue with each dodge. If anyone has alternate solutions to propose for that problem, I'd love to hear them.

What was the reasoning to change the Ranked system to the brakets? Also will there still be "Elo Decay". I just am curious, Thanks for the AMA :)
From an eSports perspective, I'm excited that we'll be putting a spotlight on the best teams through the creation of the Challenger Tier. We want this to be the place where aspiring pro teams prove that they're the best. Top-ranked Challenger teams will qualify for major tournaments throughout the year where they can get LAN experience, exposure to potential sponsors and win serious prize money.

Ranked will also be the primary path for teams to become pro in NA and EU. Top ranked teams can make it to the League of Legends Championship Series' bi-annual qualifier through the ranked online tournament or winning the aforementioned major tournaments.
------
So many reasons! The old system was very flat, in the sense that it was just an interminable climb up a global ladder with hundreds of thousands of players. Very few games that you played mattered more or less than other games. Moving up the ladder was meaningless and unfulfilling, and the only goals that existed (moving up a tier) were extremely far apart.

With the new system, it's much more evocative and compelling. Rather than being reduced down to a single number, you're now "Rank 3 in Division IV of the Gold Katarina's Assassins" league. This gives you more milestones to track your progress and a small grouping of other players at your skill level to compare yourself against. We also wanted to add intensity spikes to ranked play that bring some of the feelings of being in the finals of a tournament into your experience at home.

So the reason you added it is to cater to the 0,01% of the playerbase that plays proffesionally?
Think of it a different way - we made this for people in the other 99% who aren't Pro but might be interested in getting better, climbing up the ranks and potentially competing at the highest level eventually.

For a long time there has been a colossal cliff between ranked teams on the ladder and the teams you see at competitive events, with no clear way to get from one to the other. We're trying to address that. The qualifiers from last weekend and the coming one is one step in addressing that and the league system is another.

Instead of having it named the Challenger Tier, wouldn't it make more sense to name it the Legends Tier?
I've made a huge mistake....
----
We're calling it the Challenger Tier because these teams are the best amateur teams in the scene. With our promotion-relegation system in the LCS, these teams will be challenging the pros for a spot in the pro league.

If you get to placement matches and then do not win the majority (IE lose 4/5 or 2/3) what happens? Does your league point bar go back down to 0 or do you just lose another ~15 LP?
You will lose a chunk of league points relative to how you did in the series (e.g. do well, lose less). You'll probably generally find yourself around ~60-90 points after a failed series.

Do you have any plans to make it "different" from every other ranked match you have in the near future? I think that if in those matches, noone could DuoQ and you would be matched with people also doing their series (and similar MMR), would be really fun. Is queue time becomes a problem you could also be matchmade with people who had played that same series in the last week or smth. From Diamond into challenger tier, this could be a problem because of really really long queues, but here, since there's already the different concept of "relagation between tiers", something different could be done.
I think there are a lot of cool things that could be done to enhance the promotion series (like the ones you named), but for right now we're focusing on rounding out the rest of the system to make an awesome holistic experience. We may come back to the promotion series in the future though.

8) Will it be automatic, or I'll have to "click a button" to start it?
Automatic

Will season 3 rewards be based on top or current standings?
Will you lose rank if you don't play for a set amount of time?
Season 3 rewards will be based on your current standing in the league system.
Yes, you will lose rank if you don't play for a month or more

----

We haven't finalized our plans for Season 3 rewards but they will be based on your current tier in the league system. Since you can't move down in tiers as long as you're actively playing, this has the same effect as using top rating at the end of Season 2.

The general goal that we carried forward is that it's always better for you play more ranked, because you can only earn better rewards and you can't lose the ones you've earned already.

Will top challenger teams have all travel paid for by riot? or will they have to use their own means of travel?
To major events, challenger teams will have their travel covered. It'll be a great experience for teams that manage to qualify.

Does "major tournaments" mean it will primarily be challenger teams playing at events like MLG and IPL that during S2 would have had the best teams available?
You'll see a mix of challenger teams, pro LCS teams and international pro teams at events like MLG and IPL. They'll be awesome events to watch and attend!

Are they any plans for Riot hosted/sponsored amateur online tournaments? I think the new divisions/league system is an excellent gateway into more community participated tournaments.
100% agreed - it will be a fantastic gateway. We'll be hosting at least two tournaments a year for teams who want to try and qualify for the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Having this system will also allow other tournament organizers who want to run tournaments for say... Silver Tier teams... to pull teams from that bracket.

Where did the idea of changing the ladder system come from?
Do you think the new queue dodge mechanics are a step in the right direction or do you feel there is a lot of potential trolling that will happen as a cause of it?
How do you think this new ladder system will impact the ranked 5's ladder?
I think the new system makes ranked 5's (all ranked queues really...) more fun. 5-man arranged teams is my favorite way to play League.

I'm also hoping that aspiring pro teams see ranked as the way to go pro. Throughout the year, Challenger Tier teams can qualify for major tournaments, win prize money, gain LAN experience and get exposure from potential sponsors.

For eSports fans (who aren't aspiring to go pro) - the Challenger Tier is where you'll see teams who are about to make it. It's awesome for fans of college players to see them go pro, and I'm excited that eSports fans will have that opportunity with the League System to do the same.

3) I've read in your posts that matchmaking will be nearly the same. What does the nearly mean here?
We are continually improving our matchmaking algorithms and our rating systems to the point where they have diverged quite a bit from traditional Elo. For example, we recently started experimenting with using # of wins as an input to matchmaking, and we're going to be debuting a new subsystem that we call "rating splashing" soon. More details on that later. :)

6) Is there any plan to make the tier/division count (keeping ELO too)? Would be really fun to have priority to face people on ur league or the same tier/division.
Giving matchmaking priority to players in the same league is something that we've talked about, and I'd like to add it eventually. The only reason it's not higher priority is that it's somewhat unlikely that someone else in your league is queuing at the exact same time as you, but when they actually are it'd be cool to play with/against them.

7) Is the anything in the UI that will let me know I'm in a Division/Promotion Series or I will know just cause I have 100 LP?
Yep, it's called out very clearly in the Leagues UI, and you'll know when looking at the league standings how the other players are doing in their advancement series. We do not however tell other players in your game or champion select lobby that you're currently in a series.

Yegg said in a post: "There are a lot of checks and balances that must be passed before you can move up a tier". Other than winning 3/5 matches once u get to 100 LP in any Division 1, what other checks are there? Or you mean that if you're not good enough, you won't even get to 100 LP on a Division 1?
Correct, you won't even get to 100 LP. Your rates of LP gain will slow down if you haven't shown that you're consistently able to hang with players from the tier above you. Most players will find that they aren't really in this situation unless they're on the tail end of say, a winning streak in Gold, and haven't shown that they can continue winning against Platinum players.

Once you're in the series, you will always move up if you emerge victorious.

My friend and I are from different leagues (say, gold and silver). He gets promoted to gold. Will he end up in the same league is me? If it is already full and has 250 players? If the free spot becomes available in either of the 2 leagues, will either one of us be transferred? I'd like to know more about how this "Friends are placed in the same league" stuff works.
Once you're in a league, you'll stay in it until you manage to promote up to the next tier. The way that we enable the friend seeding is that we start restricting access to existing leagues once they're a little more than half full, and the only way you can get into them at that point is to have a friend in there. As the league fills up, the friend requirements start to increase. So in almost all cases you should be able to get into leagues with your friends.

What is ur reasoning for this change? Was it needed? Are you doing in to get the LEAGUE into league of legends?
Putting the LEAGUE into League of Legends was at least half of the reason why I wanted to call it the League System. :)

Tell me about the "can't fall in a lower league" more precisely, does it mean if I'm plat I'll never be gold again? Or how does that actually work?
As long as you're actively playing, you'll always stay Platinum. However, if you get Platinum and then AFK for the rest of the season, you could drop down to Gold.

You should probably drop from your tier if your ELO/MMR falls say 150-300 points below the average ELO of the top division in the lower tier. So if you are gold division 5, and silver division 1 players average 1490 ELO, then if your elo drops to about 1200, you should get demoted, or face some kind of demotion challenge match.Similarly, instead of getting "grace matches" after going up a division, you should drop a division if your LP gets to -50 or -75, or your elo drops by 50-75 points below the threshold for that division.Another issue is that if you can never drop a tier no matter how many losses you accumulate, then it is silly to make you drop a tier if you are innactive. It forces a player to play ranked even if his computer is messed up, or he has no time to play.The advantage of these changes is that they would keep the intended philosophy of making gainse easier than losses, but wouldn't encourage tricks to gain a tier for people who have a hard time playing at that level
This is definitely something we'll be keeping an eye on, and we may in fact add the ability to drop a tier through losing if it becomes a problem.

Also, you don't immediately drop a tier when inactive; it is much slower than that. You simply lose a number of LP (scaling based on what tier you're in) after 28 days and then again every 7 days after that. If you lose LP due to inactivity when you're at 0, then you will fall down a Division or Tier.

The core reason that you can't fall down tiers through playing is to combat "ladder anxiety". If you're able to lose a tier that you've recently earned, why would you even bother to play at all (other than being forced to play to avoid inactivity)? We want someone who just hit Gold to set their sights on Platinum and work towards that with the confidence that the system won't demote them back down to Silver if they hit a loss streak along the way.

Will your elo still be visible for yourself on your account? What about on lolking?
Matchmaking ratings (MMRs) will be hidden even when looking at your own profile. Rating tracking sites like LoLKing will have to be updated to display league standings, since ratings will no longer sent down to the client starting with Season 3.

I have a question regarding the Bo3 and Bo5 matches. Will other players in those matches also be in their Bo3/Bo5 matches? I fear that those really important matches could get screwed by trolls. Having players (in both teams) that have the same goal could improve the overall quality of these games.Also - will we get some kind of notification prior to those matches? Something like "Hey, you reached 100 League Points! The next 3/5 matches will decide if you can get to the next level!" ?The post also said something about 250 other people in the same "division" that you can compare yourself to. I understand that we will still play with all the other thousands of players out there. However is there a higher chance that you will get matched with these players you can compare yourself to more often? And how will this ranking be done? With 100 league points to gather before trying to move into the next bracket and 250 people in one division the ranking seems to be... weird.
Hey Tassadar,

Great questions! We're definitely thinking about having series status be an input for matchmaking, as there's something really compelling about having only players who are in a series battling together. This is a great candidate for a post-launch upgrade to the league system.

Preferring matches with and against other players in the same league is also something that we're talking about. It wouldn't happen terribly often but when it ends up being possible it'd be awesome to have it happen.

And yes, you'll know when you're in a series, and you'll know when you're about to qualify for a series since it happens right when you get to 100 League Points.

What % of players are put in the challenger tier for solo/duo queue? If the system came out today how many players would be eligible for challenger tier?
The current plan is that it's 50 for both players and teams.

When the system launches, there won't be anyone in either the Diamond or Challenger tiers. Top players will be able to move through Diamond quickly because their MMR is so high, but they'll still have to make it through each of the Diamond divisions. I'm looking forward to watching the race to be the first to Challenger tier in each queue. :)

1) How will we know where we stand on the 100 point?
2) How will we know when we play the promotion game to advance to the next division?
Both your current league points and promotion series status are displayed on the leagues page of your summoner profile.

1) How do you start those Best of 3/5 Series start? Do you need to press anything for it or will it start automaticly? 2) At which moment you think it will be ready for the live servers? do you still need testing? 3) what do you (and ofc riot) want to achieve with this new system? whats better than the old system? Keep this awesome game up,thanks riot for it! Kind regards,Zarg
1) It happens automatically upon accruing 100 league points.

2-?) I believe most of these questions have already been answered.

Is there going to be a fixed amount of points you get from games? Also do you gain more points than normal after your provisional period?
The simple answer is: The amount of league points you earn is affected by the relative difficulty of the opponents you are facing.Completing your provisional period does not directly affect the amount of points you earn.

If I just make it into the next Division by winning a best-of-3, then I lose my next game, am I kicked back down to the previous division?
No, you will not immediately drop a division by losing your first game after promoting to that division.

How do the promotion series work for soloQ? Do you play three random games against different people?
Yes, the promotion series works the same for solo queue as it does for teams.

How many playes/teams can be in the challenger league at any given time?
The current maximum is 50 teams in the challenger tier.

Will there be any way for us to see our ELO in the client once this goes live?
No, Elo will no longer be displayed when the leagues system goes live.

I was hoping you could elaborate on the Bo3/Bo5 that is required to advance a division/tier. If you queue alone into that series, are you matched with the same 4 teammates and 5 opponents for that entire series? Is the series a back-to-back-to-back event? Or can you still play the games at your own pace? This area is where most of my confusion comes from.
Matchmaking is currently not affected by a promotional series so, no, you aren't specifically matched with the same teammates or opponents. The system is just treating your next set of ranked games as a best-of-3 or best-of-5.

That doesn't make much sense to me. If you're one game from gold and lose one then you have to win two. In a bo3 if you lose one you still have to win two.

Not always, sometimes your loss would drop you more Elo than you'd earn back in subsequent wins. This was a necessary part of how Elo works but who didn't go through that and say, "lol whut? T_T".

Now when you've earned your way to a series, we guarantee your promotion if you complete the series. And on top of that, once you complete the series you can't immediately lose a game and get bumped back down!

What will the challanger division mean for solo / duo queue players (if there is one)?
These players will be visible to anyone in the client and on the site. That visibility can open the door to team invites from teams competing in LAN events or even in the pros.

Information on Sejuani's Rework This Week

I'll get together an update on where things have progressed to for you sometime this week most likely. As stated please do bear in mind this still has a way to go - odds are you'll see another champion's rework come out before Sejuani's, particularly since there's some interest on the art side in getting a few visual tweaks in too.

Five Teams Ascend to Pro from LCS NA Qualifier

The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) burst into action with the North American Qualifier, broadcast live from Los Angeles, California. Sixteen teams, some veterans and some dark horses, battled for five spots in the LCS. 

Day 1 saw half the teams eliminated with hundreds of thousands of fans watching the matches. Fan-favorite Epik Gamer, comprised mostly of well-known veteran players, were devastated in their opening match and knew they had to overcome relatively unknown Team Towerdive TV to keep their dream alive. The two opponents battled for 50 minutes until Epik Gamer's patience finally waned and they staggered in a merciless teamfight at Baron. Team Towerdive TV won the exchange with a solid ace, quickly finished the match and knocked Epik Gamer out of the tournament in a huge upset.

Team MRN swept Group D with a strong showing from their jungler, ClakeyD. In their final game, Team MRN staged a stalwart comeback against Azure Gaming by patiently picking their fights and launching cautious, guerrilla attacks against turrets and minion waves. An ace at Baron turned the tables on Azure Gaming and gave Team MRN the momentum they needed to clinch the win. Good Game University had an equally impressive debut with ZionSpartan's daring Katarina and NintendudeX's rampaging Shen setting the team up for snowball victories in the group stage and beyond.

With only eight teams remaining in Day 2, fans were confident that Team FeaR and Curse Gaming were on the cusp of qualifying and they didn’t disappoint. Both teams qualified with 2-0 sets and left Team MRN, Dirt Nap Gaming, The Brunch Club and Good Game University to duke it out for the third and fourth slots. The Brunch Club surprisingly swept Team MRN 2-0 to qualify for the LCS with no-nonsense targeted bans and aggressively pressuring their opponents into making crucial mistakes. GGU performed admirably as well, securing two wins and a spot in the LCS.

Hope was not lost for the defeated on Day 2: one spot was left to be claimed by the best team remaining. After the first round of best-of-three single elimination matches, Dirt Nap Gaming and Team MRN were left to fight for the final LCS spot. 

As the minions spawned, all eyes were on Dirt Nap Gaming's Cris, waiting to see if he would conjure the Shen magic that pushed his team through Day 1 and against Azure Gaming in their previous matchups. An early Azure lead was gradually diminished by Team MRN's unflinching defense and culminated in an incredible mid-air Baron steal by ClakeyD’s Nocturne that sealed DNG’s fate in game 1.

In game 2, Team MRN’s MegaZero faced off against Cris’ world-famous Riven in a top lane duel. Ultimately, it was MegaZero’s almost un-killable teleport/ghost Olaf that rampaged through the game, leading his team to a devastating game 2 win. Team MRN’s journey, from climbing the NA ladder to claiming the final spot in the LCS, is sure to make them a fan-favorite as they prepare to battle it out in Season 3.

This weekend's qualifier left fans with five new teams to root for in the LCS North American region: Good Game University, Team FeaR, Curse Gaming, Team MRN and The Brunch Club. As the teams settle in and focus on honing their skills for the start of the season on February 7, we’re patiently awaiting the new strategies, team comps and personalities that these teams will bring to bear in the League of Legends Championship Series. 

Be sure to tune in for the EU Live Qualifier on January 25, broadcast live from Warsaw, Poland, where aspiring teams seek to earn their place as a pro team in the European region of the LCS.

Locked Camera

Sorry you feel that way, but we do concentrate our efforts on improving the experience of *all* our players. We have limited time and resources to do things and we try to focus in features that have the most impact. 

Locked camera *is* the option to accommodate players who don't want to manage a free camera. You are free to use it or not use it, but we make free camera the default because we think it is the best play experience. While I agree locked camera is not as good as it could be, I would say there are many features we have that can be improved. Locked camera just has not come up as something we want to improve in the immediate future.

Which champions should get minor tweaks for Dominion?

RiotNome is looking for feedback on which champions should get minor tweaks for Dominion.

From DominateDominion chat:

konfetarius (1:54): well TLDR thresh has a passive that is very strongly tied to minions, and same is basically true for morde, so much love if you could make morde viable for bot lane -_-

Are there any other champs that could use small QoL changes like this?