Reign of Gaming

Important: Jungle Tier List - Vel'Koz Era

IronStylus' Thoughts On Caitlyn VU

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

Any plans on Cait? I mean the hat is awesome of course but besides that her visuals seem to portray her as the exact opposite of the kind of women her attitude and overall feel suggests.

I mean sure its visually appealing for those who enjoy sexy women, but it just seems like fanservice at best. Not saying this kind of look is bad, but it just doesnt mesh as well as it could with Caitlyns persona. With elise id say the sexual look does work well because she is supposed to be seductive in order to lure men into her traps, but i doubt Cait uses her miniskirt in her investigations. Just my thoughts on the matter

There's a lot of stuff going on here that I like, I'll expand more on about it when I get back.

EDIT: Ok, FINALLY WON A GAME. Anywhoozle, yes, I generally like this concept. I think it does some interesting things that preserve what I feel is core to Cait. There's some aristocratic notes, there's some sophistication, and there's class.

I do feel it might be a bit too Victorian to be uniquely Piltover, whatever that means. That's part of the challenge actually. We've made Jayce and Vi, two people who are supposed to be interacting with Cait and she simply doesn't fit in. They're not really steampunk in thier language, they're sorta.. "manatech". So, while I feel Cait can have Victorian notes, we should find a way to bring her into that manatech (or hextech) area and get her materials, her shapes and other properties in line with Piltover.

Part of that is sort of figuring out what the hell Piltover actually looks like. We have a start with Jayce and Vi, so that's good. We may have to flesh a few more details out before we jump right into Cait.

Her hat is another thing. Some love it, some hate it. It is indeed iconic. When you think of Cait, or you associate let's say.. cosplaying Cait, you think purple frilly short dress, knee high boots and big Willy Wonka hat. Now, charm is great, but we need to extract what that charm is and see where we can re-channel it. Maybe a bowler hat? Maybe just a smaller version of her current hat? I do love the hat for its charms, but it's sort of silly.

That said, if we ever, and that's a big if considering our priorities right now, hit Cait with a VU, my gut guess is that we'd do a traditional skin for her. That way i think we can solve some of her thematic issues without destroying the charming thing we've grown to love.

But yeah. With our priorities now, a Cait VU is probably a long way off, and as per usual, about anything I talk about:

http://imgur.com/8JAJGRg

I think that Caitlyn needs to fit her lore a bit better too, but I'm having a hard time imagining what that would look like. She's the Sheriff of Piltover, obviously, but she already has a Sheriff Caitlyn skin and an Officer Caitlyn skin. So how do you update her classic skin to fit her lore, without stepping on those other skins?

This is a biggie. In the case of Caitlyn I see her almost like.. a "thematic VU", where we address how she fits into the world. I think one of the big things we can do is leave plenty of space for officer Caitlyn, as it's a contemporary skin, yet diverge enough from the base to give her a classic skin if we were to at all reapproach her. Again, I'll get into more detail when I return.

If you try to change where she fits in the world thematically, is that something that can cascade over to the other technological/piltover champs? I mean do you bring her in line with Vi/Jinx or since she's not from a criminal background, does she need her own thematics.

Can't a big city have several competing fashions and styles?

I think it's essential that she has a different fashion or style. I think, out of all of them, (Jayce, Jinx, Vi) Cait is the most fashionable. To me there's something sorta Sherlock and Watson going on with Cait and Vi. Vi can be punky, disheveled, whatever, but Cait has this contrast of being highly fashionable, maybe to a fault. She's proper and she's a sniper. A fashion-centric lady sniper is a pretty damn cool concept. I'd like to see where we can push that to.

I think right now she's just confusing. There's no intent for her to be of any contrast, it just happens to be so. If we go back in, sew in that intent, we can make something that simultaneously stands out, but also fits into the world.

Indeed, she doesn't come from a criminal background, so she has no reason to be in line with Jinx or Vi in mimicking fashion style, but she is part of an established police force. They must have some code of dress. Even if she's in a uniform, who knows.

That's why I do like the Lady Mechanika stuff because there's some feelings of uniform, but also a lot of style. There's also sophistication but some practicality, all be it with a lot of flair.

Honestly....I kind of like this. Though the cape is extremely reminiscent of Vayne . Also, The mini skirt has always kind of been Caits thing. Maybe if they made it less frilly, but kept the overall design of her current outfit, it'd look a bit better. The hair in this model is a definite upgrade, though.

Yeah, as I said, some sort of compromise would have to be made with the hat, at least for what a new base would be in my mind. She would still have to HAVE a hat, because she has one in every skin, and that's a main read of hers. It just depends on how we figure out how to balance that read with what thematically fits with the character.

I mean, maybe we give it some cool crazy purpose. Not Inspector Gadget-y, but maybe it has some sort of function.

Or at the very least, we take a nice look into women's high fashion and find a way to make something as absurd as that hat into something cool and fashionable.

I prefer this style of steampunk:

Eh, this is a little too classic steampunk for me. Remember, steampunk isn't so much a style as it is a general era, and that era is pre-1900 (or around there) Victorian fashion. I'm honestly not a fan of taking a 1:1 from what we commonly think of steampunk and porting it over. That's why we can't really even make an analogy of steampunk to hextech. There isn't really an analogy aside from both "styles" using a unique power source to fill in for making tech work. I'd rather we develop what the fashion sensibilities are for the world itself, or derive from pre-established ones, and go from there,

I saw in Jayce - and a bit less so in Vi - a sort of modern approach to classical art deco illustrations of future technology. I think there's definitely something to be said for that, even if my impressions are off, and would humbly offer this steampunk ray-gun as a jumping-off point for design motifs for a Caitlyn VU's gun, with a more modern design a la this concept.

Oh man, I love that raygun..

I'm not sure I'd go with the modern gun thing, there's a lot of bevels on that thing, and though I love bevels, I think it speaks of a more advanced manufacturing technique than Piltover would actually have.

That said, I think you're nail-on-the-head about classical deco with a twist. We take a lot of that sleekness and try to see what it might look at infused with a magic-based power source. There's something that still needs to evoke the familiar, but show that there's some advanced abilities native to the technology and style.

Maybe have a little scope in the hat that slides down whenever she ults! That'd match up her visuals with her gameplay.

I really like this idea.

How about this but without the rapier and giving it a more purplish palette? It's aristocratic Victorian and shares some design elements with the Sheriff skin.

http://th01.deviantart.net/fs70/300W/f/2013/285/6/b/ge_musketeer_female_by_awetosorphanage-d6q72uj.jpg

Hmm, that's a bit too French aristocracy for me. Again, i think we need familiar, but we need familiar with flavor. This is a little to literal I feel.

But steampunk is cool!

Seriously though, the issue with that is that there is no fashion sensibilities for 'the world'. Compare Vi and Syndra. Compare Jinx and Irelia. Sure, you might be able to tell that Vi and Jinx are related, and that Irelia and Syndra share the same home country, but they look entirely different. If you're going to create fashion sensibilities for the 'world' than you're going to have to start from scratch.

We're not starting from scratch, but steampunk, and I agree, it's cool, is an era of design. I don't think we want to be completely deriviative of that era, that era didn't happen in our world. So, we want what we associate with the Victorian steam-era (fine materials and leathers, decorative motifs, long dresses, frills, pleats, bodices, points, etc) to be refelcted in there, but not ripped off. Familiar notes are great, but steampunk is literally Victorian era-garb with copper and steam.

As I understand it her rework will be more like Sejuani's which is cool. Do you think the change will be significant enough to justify a traditional skin?

Also will she keep her original VO or if at most just receive extra lines? I like her current VA and would hate for her to be replaced.

Currently, I simply feel it will require a traditional skin for the reasons that Cait's current base is.. sorta.. goofilly charming. I honestly want to take what's good about it, and port it over, but I don't want to alienate those who really think it's something special.

I dunno, that's my personal take if it ever happens.

She's probably retain the same actor but with added lines. Again, I think there's a lot to work with in terms of her core personality, I just think it has to be brought in line.

I suppose that makes sense, so long as you keep certain elements of her outfit (how incredibly purple it is, the occasional useless belt, that hat.) I'd be fine, I'm not much of a ADC player, I just like Cait's concept.

I am slightly worried about her weapon, though. I much prefer her current gun to Jinx/Jayce/Vi's style, given how those seem futuristic to modern. I guess it makes sense to keep Caitlyn consistent, but I'd rather see those three get a tech downgrade than to see Cait get an upgrade; it's a bit of an issue when there's a pirate using old flinklock style pistols in the same game as a maniac using relatively modern machine guns and rocket launchers.

I'm actually in the same camp. I think that's ok for Cait specifically though. She can have a more hand-crafted weapon. It's her personal piece, not something standard issue.

I really just want Cait to feel a little more tactical. When it boils down to who Cait is -- she is a law enforcement sniper. And the "sniper" bit only shows through her ult and AA range. The thematic falls short, and nothing else in her kit or appearance does any justice to fulfilling the Sniper archetype that I feel players want to associate with.

As far as piltover is concerned, Cait is horribly outdated fashionably. For the record, I hate the hat, and think she'd be a stronger character without it, with an emphasis again on the sniper rifle -- which is the real reason to play Cait or associate with Cait. She can be fashionable, but the hat is really limiting. She definitely needs to drop the hat, get dressed to be Vi's partner, and bring a new rifle to the fields of justice.

Would you introduce sort of like.. whatever Piltover's version of special forces or SWAT might be? Not like.. deck her out in armor, but should her fashion be complementary of her style? I sort of feel Motoko from Ghost in the Shell does this, where she wears really weird stuff, but she's still tactical.
----------

I think, at the very least, the purple would need to be toned down, and be balanced with other materials. I think a dark more royal purple would be nice, with gold accents, but also space that out with leather and other fine materials.

I'm not sure about the belt thing.. way before my time.. no idea there.. But we could keep the flavor and give tactical reasons for them, or incorporate them into the costume stylishly.

Community Platform Vs. Official Forums

The Caitlyn VU thread you saw above actually originated on the official forums. IronStylus requested it's transferred to the community platform though, so that it's easier for him to track the responses. The official forums' members felt deeply offended by his decline and this started a HUGE arguement that spread into several threads.
P.S.: Most of what you'll read below is a scrollfest, so get your mouse ready!

Originally Posted by Riot (View RedTracker Source)

I'll comment on this in a bit, just wanted to tag this so I can come back and discuss.
HOWEVER.
A BETTER way to have the discussion is to put it on the Community Beta. Would you be that awesome person and do that? Throw it into Miscellaneous, I'm working with the beta team to make a Relaunch specific sub-community.
Throw up a thread there and link me a post in here.
Thanks!

Sorry, but if I wanted to go to Reddit, I'll just go to Reddit
Thanks though

No problem.

If you'd like to engage in these sort of discussions in the future, I'm afraid you'll be missing out.

Thanks though.

I'd rather she didn't if IronStylus were put in charge of it. I feel as though he'd ruin her.

I'm the concept artist on the Relaunch team. Even if I'm not the one who actually does the concept, I'm sort of the guy that is responsible anyway. Sorry.

She wants to make her more steampunk.
Gross...

Ah yes. A great reason to have the discussion in this venue.

When a discussion pops up on the beta I'll be glad to talk about Caitlyn.

Why can't YOU have a discussion HERE, with us, the players. I kinda feel like that should be a part of your job is to interact with your players where they're willing to. If not, then so be it. Guess I can't make you have this discussion here.

The biggest reason is toxic and derailing posts having equal visual real estate as legitimate questions and comments.

I've have a few too many discussions that devolve, get lost, get derailed, get piled with vitriol and eventually become too hard to track. The best way I can answer the players, and do service to people who have a desire to interact on topic in a polite way is in the new beta format.

Pretty straight forward.

While i (unfortunately) am sure this is easier for you...
...you are aware that most people on GD despise the beta forums, right?

It's difficult for me at first also, but we're working on features that should make it easier to consume and interact. Eventually, it'll be the way we interact. The current system simply doesn't scale. I'd encourage you to give it a more extended try.

@IronStylus
I believe that those within this thread here are displeased in your response because you had taken the time to respond to simply tell the Summoner here to go elsewhere. We had been told in the past that we would not be left behind on our forums.
Our community desperately wishes for conversation with you and everyone again and I know that the forums can be a hostile place. The issue of hostility is an entirely different problem through moderation issues, but aside from that there are many of us who genuinely wish to converse and work together.

To clarify, one of the reasons I requested the conversation be ported over is because it's been very easy to track incoming feedback in the beta venue. The way that things can be sorted and upvoted is of great value in me seeing what common agreed-upon themes rise to the top. If specific conversations come up, i can track them in the "my updates" widget and dive a little deeper.

I popped in here, I was in a hurry (literally in champ select) and didn't expand on my reasoning. Sorry for that. Either way, there's been a good discussion over there and it's yielded some good feedback.

While I'm not trying to deny anyone access, I'm trying to be realistic in which is the best way for me to cultivate feedback and have the discussion. I can't feasibly have two conversations at the same time, in two different venues. If I want to guide the conversation in a particular way, I'm going to have to choose a single venue when it's appropriate. If I see a conversation that would be well suited on the beta format, I'm going to ask that it be thrown over there. Not because I'm trying to ignore people, it's so I can funnel the feedback and see the popular ideas at more of a glance.

I'm also testing the beta to see if it can be a good home for general Relaunch lines of questions, because I'd like to eventually set up shop there to address relaunches as a whole. While the giant Relaunch thread a few days ago was good, it simply became too hard to track and is extremely large. There's no feasible way I can go back through it to gather information or continue conversation in a meaningful way.

I realize that most people want to interact respectfully. However, sometimes that doesn't happen, and it can happen from both directions. I'd like to minimize that by funneling the conversation a bit so that players can best give me directed feedback which can be easily parsed in order to act upon.

I'm trying to find the best way I can meet players' needs when it comes to large discussions such as these. Experimenting with the community beta is a part of that.
-------------

Originally Posted by Riot (View RedTracker Source)

Ok.. here we go.. first, cross posting from that Caitlyn thread to at least keep this semi-organized..

To clarify, one of the reasons I requested the conversation be ported over is because it's been very easy to track incoming feedback in the beta venue. The way that things can be sorted and upvoted is of great value in me seeing what common agreed-upon themes rise to the top. If specific conversations come up, i can track them in the "my updates" widget and dive a little deeper.
I popped in here, I was in a hurry (literally in champ select) and didn't expand on my reasoning. Sorry for that. Either way, there's been a good discussion over there and it's yielded some good feedback.
While I'm not trying to deny anyone access, I'm trying to be realistic in which is the best way for me to cultivate feedback and have the discussion. I can't feasibly have two conversations at the same time, in two different venues. If I want to guide the conversation in a particular way, I'm going to have to choose a single venue when it's appropriate. If I see a conversation that would be well suited on the beta format, I'm going to ask that it be thrown over there. Not because I'm trying to ignore people, it's so I can funnel the feedback and see the popular ideas at more of a glance.
I'm also testing the beta to see if it can be a good home for general Relaunch lines of questions, because I'd like to eventually set up shop there to address relaunches as a whole. While the giant Relaunch thread a few days ago was good, it simply became too hard to track and is extremely large. There's no feasible way I can go back through it to gather information or continue conversation in a meaningful way.
I realize that most people want to interact respectfully. However, sometimes that doesn't happen, and it can happen from both directions. I'd like to minimize that by funneling the conversation a bit so that players can best give me directed feedback which can be easily parsed in order to act upon.
I'm trying to find the best way I can meet players' needs when it comes to large discussions such as these. Experimenting with the community beta is a part of that.

All that said, let me further expand. There is no intent on my part to be unprofessional on the matter. Some have made it abundantly clear that they feel I was rude, obviously this wasn't the intention. The intention is what's stated above. If I did appear to be dismissive, disrespectful, or in any other way non-cooperative, that's my bad and I apologize.

THAT said, with these explanations, I'd like for us to indeed at the very least try the new venue with this particular discussion mind. This is the sort of discussion which honestly should be had on the beta site as this is direct feedback for the dev team to take into account. How best to tell who's in charge that you feel the system is lacking? The people running the venue, inside the venue. True, we don't want to just shunt people over “artificially”, but hey, traffic would be nice to test the environment, to see the lay of the land, and to actually test the viability of the venue with this very sort of extensive and heated discussion. There needs to be some traction to gain traction. There actually is a discussion happening over there and it's honestly, for me at least, quite useful despite people disagreeing with me. Here’s the link:

http://community.na.leagueoflegends....ort_type=best#

Am I crazy to think that the discussion of the viability or lack thereof for this system should be happening there? At the very least, even if it’s negative feedback, we can get some accurate feelings for the venue.

There was a meeting we had with a few of the beta devs and some common red posters. The question was asked, “What could we do to encourage reds to try out the beta?”. For me, what I’d like to set up shop for, would be a general catch-all for Relaunch related questions.

Relaunch feedback is very much based on “feel” for characters. It’s sometimes hard to articulate. So, let’s say that someone makes a very concise point, like someone did in the Sion beta thread a few weeks ago. Boom, it goes right to the top. It was well said, it was chock full of ideas, and it had extensive thoughts. What that did was serve as a vehicle for sentiment. Maybe someone couldn’t have put it better and upvoted. Maybe people who don’t speak english natively were able to get the gist and upvote it because it was said a little more concise than they could have worded it. Maybe it served a purpose for people who found it inconvenient to post and didn’t feel like writing out what they felt so they upvoted. Either way, it was a popular sentiment, it was well constructed, and it was a good respectful read. I was able to take a look and give that feedback to the team that very day. It was easily able to be pointed to when I showed it to FeralPony and Riot Scruffy. We could then discuss the feedback given and easily refer back to it.

Are there costs to that popular opinion rising to the top? Sure, if we want to be starkly objective. Maybe an “unpopular” opinion didn’t get seen. Maybe a very far-down comment was lost in the shuffle. Those are indeed tangible costs, but any system has those costs. What’s important is if the benefits balance out those costs.

Here, in GD, we have the benefit of a certain amount of equality in that every post has the same amount of real estate, it’s all visible, no matter the sentiment, the phrasing or the content. Cool. We have the timeline which is linear and easy to follow in a 1, 2, 3 action of posting. Nice.

The cost of that is, despite the tone, the validity, the lack of validity or the quality of content, everything is of equal visual weight and often blends. As threads progress we even lose the 1, 2, 3 cohesion as the thread populates with posts faster than posters replying to existing posts can keep up, resulting in people not knowing who they’re even responding to. Another cost is toxicity. I am NOT referring to critical feedback. There is a huge difference between well constructed critical feedback and toxic phrased negative remarks. One results in action items, the other results in frustration and no takeaways.

“Hey IronStylus, I think you’re assumptions about the effectiveness of the new forums isn’t realistic because of reasons X, Y and Z. I have this solution in mind: ________”

I can work with that.

“Hey IS, **** off! You’re FORCING us to do something YOU want us to do and we HATE what you’re suggesting. Another great example of you being a ****ing ******bag *******. GG, Riot, go **** yourself.”

I simply can’t get anything out of that, and it just turns me off from engaging.

You might say.. “Hey, too bad, comes with the territory of being a dev, suck it up parrot-boy.”

Indeed, it certainly does come with the territory. I’m helping to make stuff people are passionate about, I’m going to ruffle feathers. However, none of what I do here is in my job description. This is 100% voluntary on my part because I love talking to people and giving insight and context where I can. I want to give people a peek into our process, help educate them as to how the industry works, and generally have confidence that we have players in mind.

But before all of that comes into the equation, I am an artist who has a job to create deliverables for the game. I have daily responsibilities not only to produce content, but to work with my team to help formulate priorities, be part of the greater pipeline, keep concepts coming in for relaunches and their skins, help hold vision on characters, give art feedback, help junior artists, level up my own skills, check with my leads on my own career development, and more. Like anyone else I have my duties, my own personal stress to deal with and my responsibilities.

In addition to that I’m a husband in a committed and happy relationship, I deal with home life, family, planning for a future, and all the worries and anxieties that come with the territory of just trying to get by in this world and eventually become an adult. I am a former sufferer of depression and have a diagnosis for generalized anxiety disorder. I mind my mental health, take care of my physical health, and deal with the demons that we all deal with.

Upon that I go out of my way to engage with players online, at events, on panels with my colleagues, and going a lot of places trying to make the player-dev experience personal. Up to this point I think I do a decent job of that.

Pile on what sometimes happens here in GD, and it becomes a bit too much.

Take a moment to consider how many artists we have. We have a lot. A fraction of them come on here to talk about various subjects. RiotPenguin does an awesome job in engaging with his fanart threads, ohmikegoodness pops in here and there. GrumpyMonkey shows off his work and process, JesterCapp comes in to give technical context, etc. That’s a fraction of our team. The reason? The perception, from some artists, is that they don’t want to deal with the stress from GD. They could be right, or wrong, I encourage them to come on either way. Some do, some don’t. It’s whatever floats their boat. They have their perceptions, and like it or not, as I have experienced personally, perceptions are reality. I know that perception they have isn’t necessarily warranted at times, but I’m not going to force anyone, so I dive in a lot in their stead. I insist on coming back even if I get a little exhausted because I generally don’t let things get me down. Either way, they have a reason for feeling the way they do and I won’t force them into something they aren’t comfortable with.

What I’m hoping, someday, is for the other artists I work with to never have that fear. To enter the community not with the expectations of stardom being thrust upon them, or endless kudos, but with the expectation of calm and rational discussion that results in feedback that they can use. I hope they can enter the community expecting to come out with a generally positive experience, even if players disagree with what they’re saying. At least they’re talking to the people who they’re making the game for. I want our devs to interact as much as possible so long as they’re comfortable.

One way to help that comfort is to make the venue not so overwhelming. GD has its idiosyncrasies, it’s memes, it’s mannerisms, that can be confusing and generally sensory overload when you’re jumping in for the first time. I know I’ve felt it. Eventually though I was able to speak the language. I think it worked mostly. As time went on however, mainly because I’m dealing with creating content that stirs passion and debate, some of the debate not only got heated, but because rather vitriolic. That became hard to manage, and when piled on top of the rest of what I’m doing on a daily basis, it turned out to be more than I could manage.

When the beta site became a thing, I took a look and found it an intriguing prospect. I wanted to leverage it and see if it can help me balance my day job with my player interaction time. I wanted to see how much value I and players could derive from it. Maybe a lot, maybe none, but it was worth a shot. So, here I am, attempting to do just that.

My intention is not to force, but to encourage trying something new. I am indeed trying to find something that works for me in a large regard, because, I’ll be honest, the best way for me to serve you is to get feedback in a particular way sometimes. Other times the venue might need to be different linear might work in other contexts.
I would ask as I have before, what is the cost and what is the benefit to you, the player? Is it having the ability to say whatever, in any tone, and in any emotional state, and potentially have that overlooked a better thing? Or is to phrase things in a concentrated way, in a venue that funnels feedback and have it get right to the dev’s screen a better option? Do you want to be loud or do you want to be heard? They’re not always things that can synergize. You can have passion and still be calm. Some devs can parse the noise. I, many times, cannot. But, I know that I have valuable insight into process, content and other development aspects, and I want to give insight where and when I can.

Personally, I sometimes can’t hear over the noise. That makes me fail at my job in serving you. However, when things are quiet, and sentiments are expressed in a way that channels sentiment to a few key points, I can do a much better job of listening.

I need your help. We’re in this together. I may need you to meet me on different turf when necessary. It’s going to be uncomfortable at times, if I say anything other than that, I’d be lying. Change and iteration means being uncomfortable, but it means we at least have an evolving conversation.

Take that all for what it’s worth. Despite anything, I’m willing to continue with conversations and I understand that we’re all human and we’re going to have our moments of cooperation and discord, agreement and denial. My hope is that we at the very least continue the conversation and ride together down this road, despite the bumps, cracks and holes along the way.

Thanks.

You just gave the people you think are toxic a link. This will not end well.

I welcome them to give constructive feedback. It'll be up to them and the users who join the discussion to judge what's valuable in the thread. I'll still gladly read it.
-----------------

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

I still think your responses to this thread were insulting and condescending. I understand that you prefer these boards and would much rather have discussion on them, but you have to understand that not everyone shares your views, and it seems incredibly rude of you to simply shut down a discussion before it even began by simply stating 'let's move this to a forum I'm more comfortable with' before it even began.

I admit, I'm biased. I dislike these forums. Some of it can be excused by the fact it's a beta, for example, the fact that people's avatars/flairs/whatever can stay on the screen until you mouse over them again. Others are simply because of what I believe is going to happen: minority opinions, of which I share several, are going to be suppressed by the downvote system, while every thread descends into circle jerking over agreeing/disagreeing with the OP. There are, however, problems that I see on this site right now that I don't think will change. I dislike how hard it is to find the new posts (the 'new' button gives you all the new posts, yes, but I don't know the context of those posts unless I specifically click another button to lead me to the context for that post, and I have to do that for every post.) I dislike how annoying the red tracker can be; me clicking the right arrow in GD's red tracker leads me either further down the current page or to a later page, while with the red tracker in the community beta, clicking the right arrow gives me a very truncated version of the message, and I have to click another button to zoom to it, which might make me move up or down the page, depending on how upvoted the comment they replied to was.

I dislike using this forum, and holding a discussion hostage like you did gives me a bad taste in my mouth. And if parrot doesn't respond, well, take some site feedback.

EDIT: Another issue I have, which is happened when I go to the 'new' button on the Caitlyn thread; it doesn't mark the new posts as 'unread' until I see them in the main thread. If I just check the 'new' button every few posts, I still see a bunch of posts I've already seen because they weren't marked as 'read', so even though it only says I have 2 new messages, I still see, like, 10.

I hear you, but look at that thread now, you can see exactly why I didn't want to stick around, and I feel that any perceived disrespect you saw from me was met with a hyperbolic amount of disrespect from a number of posters.

If it left a bad taste in your mouth, I apologize, however I don't really have the energy to deal with the sort of lashing out which that thread is now full of.

Give your feedback to the dev team and they'll have a look. As I've said, there are more features in the works to hopefully help with ease of navigation and consumption. We'll see.

Until then, depending on the topic, I may or may not move it over here if it's something I want to track a particular way. This is really just about players being able to get their feedback directly to us without certain obstacles such as ease of navigation, toxic behavior, or other aspects getting in the way.

It's really easy to vent over in GD, but it's sometimes impossible to have a conversation which results in feedback that's able to be parsed.

I suppose that if Riot gives these forums decent moderation when they come out, than sure, they will most likely be superior to GD. But if you gave decent moderation to GD, you'd have the same result.

I just think this is a bunch of change that won't do nearly as much as Riot wants it to and exists merely because reddit does.

Moderation in an environment such as GD is simply not feasible or scalable. My personal feeling is that the community needs to be able to self moderate in some way. We all need to be adults if we want our voices heard.

More moderation isn't going to fix the problem. This can't be a completely top-down solution when it comes to personal behavior and accountability.

You're the one who brought it about, though.

Surely you have figured out by now how much people on GD (including myself) despises the Community site. Talking about how you want to move the discussion over here and then refusing to talk about it on GD is only going to make us angry. Hence, the "hyperbolic amount of disrespect."

All you're doing to the discussion is annoying people who prefer GD, and moving the discussion to a platform where there can be less conversation about it. There may be less toxicity, but also fewer people who are willing to discuss it.

The uproar in the GD thread was your doing.

I asked to move the conversation to a venue where I could more easily track it.

The first comment after I asked:

"Sorry, but if I wanted to go to Reddit, I'll just go to Reddit

Thanks though"

The second:

"I'd rather she didn't if IronStylus were put in charge of it. I feel as though he'd ruin her."

After I mentioned one of the above people would be missing out, and someone replying to the comment directly above:

"I agree.

She wants to make her more steampunk...

Gross."

This isn't productive, sorry, and it just keeps going. I said why this was a good venue, I stated that it was easier for me to track, and we just had a decent discussion about Sion on here anyway.

I realize certain people don't like the new format. But I also realize a lot of people do like it, or at least want to try it, because the new Caitlyn thread has ~100 comments on it, all of which are actually perfectly polite and I can respond to every single one of them.

I asked for a favor, for the discussion to move over here so I could follow it better and so players could suggest feedback that they could then collectively vote to the top. That request was met with negativity. I was not aiming to exclude, there's a thread of 450,000 views about general relaunch info that's wrapping up in GD. I am not excluding anyone from the discussion, I'm asking that they help me out with giving me their feedback in a way that I can take action on and track properly.

What's interesting, is this very thread, in this venue, has allowed me to keep up with this conversation very easily. This is all critical feedback you're giving me, but I'm still addressing it. You're not being rude, you're being sensible, and you therefore deserve to be treated likewise. That tone and consistency is very hard to maintain in GD.

The primary reason that thread is so full of hate and rage is because you specifically said you didn't want to be in that thread anymore. You specifically told a bunch of GDers, who presumably prefer GD to this forum, given that they post in GD and not this forum, that you don't like the way they do things and that, in order to have a discussion with you, they have to go to a site they don't like.

I'm not defending them or the way they're acting, but there are several in that thread who have rational complaints about this format that are either being ignored or being left unnoticed because of all the idiots. That thread was perfectly civil until you responded with what you said. THEN all the toxicity came out.

And I have to ask, parrot, where is your optimism coming from? Why on earth do you think that toxic behavior is going to stop because of this new format? The downvoting system is not going to work once the GD crowd comes over here; see how many posts that you would consider 'toxic' are being upvoted in that thread because the prevailing opinion is that you suck. Sure, if a bunch of rational people were to show up in that thread, they might down vote those toxic comments into oblivion, but why on earth would they?

Exactly. Their voices are being drown out. And here we are, discussing it rationally.

In terms of optimism, I want to try something new and I'd like others to do the same. There is no way I can track the conversations that go on in GD as they currently stand. The way I go about finding the threads I want to address is insane. The constant refreshing, the upvoting and downvoting that really doesn't mean anything, the anger and the energy, it's a bit overwhelming.

When it comes down to it, I just don't have the time to sort through GD anymore the way I used to. I don't have the energy to put up with negative behavior. I have a job to do on a day-to-day basis and it's only gotten more involved as Relaunch has spun up. I want to be able to serve players by taking feedback directly which is deemed valuable by the community. I can best do that in this venue.

So, beyond that particular thread, I want to be able to do my job and go beyond it. This system is the best way I can achieve that balance. GD is not viable for me anymore in certain regards.

I sorta agree with you, but see it from Parrot's perspective,

He doesn't wanna deal with the amount of toxicity on GD. I can buy that, hell, I don't like dealing with it either. Especially because he draws an inordinate amount of it. Every post, no matter how crappy, awful, and mean spirited gets equal facetime.

Considering the guy only talks to us of his own accord, on his own time, and as such unpaid, I feel that hes not being unreasonable. Bad attitudes on GD can wear a man out. Hell, it can make a man stop speaking to the community. Especially when its during his personal time.

Here on this forum (that I still hate. I hate Reddit) we get to talk directly to the makers of the game we love, and they don't have to deal with people who seriously have bad attitudes that make them feel awful. Its a win win really. Are we so spoiled that in addition to getting direct input towards the game's makers, we also demand it be purely in the form and forum we are most comfortable with? I think we are better than that.

My hope is that the beta team implements features that will help you adapt and enjoy it. Believe me, right now it's not optimal, I've let them know my feedback, so thanks for sticking it out.

Why on earth would this new format cause people to act more responsible and be accountable for their own actions? The people you trust to moderate the idiots ARE the idiots. We'll probably get rid of the 'omg wtf riot u suck' comments, but there are still going to be plenty of 'Riot I think you're terrible and are running this game into the ground' when, say, server issues occur. Why do you think that is going to change with this new format?

Getting rid of 'omg wtf' threads which don't give actionable feedback would be a great step in and of itself. I trust that people will self moderate if they've given the option to. We'll see if that trust holds true, might not.

People can say "Riot I think you're terrible..." all they want in this venue as well. It will be up to the community to decide whether that feedback, how it's phrased, and whether it's actionable, should be brought to the top. If it's brought to the top in a respectful way, then it'll be addressed. Pretty simple.

My wife is a behavioral psychologist. One of the things she focuses on is simple reward-based behavioral reinforcement. Respectful and constructive critical feedback will be responded to, negative and non-constructive negative feedback will not be. The reward for keeping it together is that we can have a conversation. I like to reinforce respectful behavior with respectful response. Eventually the bulletin will make it around that such feedback, presented in such a way, will get a red's attention.

For what its worth. I spend most of my time Devtracking, and this format works well for that. It also seems to work for small conversations. I just hate losing stuff in big threads.

Also, I'm a big fan of your work. Gameside and community-side.

Thanks.

Well, the devtracking I think is supposed to get better. And right now, if you go up to your little "my updates" widget thingy, that's where you can pretty easily track where you're conversation is happening. At least that's how I've been tracking this conversation :P

First off, I must note that you did not ask them to move the discussion to a venue in which it would be more easily tracked. You said that it would be a BETTER way to do this discussion, and then said you're working with the beta team. You also asked the OP to make that thread, something that they may or may not have wanted to do. It is very easy to take that as 'I don't like this format and will not discuss it unless you change it'. At the very least, that's how I took it. You didn't really explain yourself until the second to last post you made in that thread, as the second was your response that sounded like 'if you're not playing by my rules you're not getting anything' to me and the third and fourth were you defending yourself to trolls. By that point, it's too late.

I should also point out that the thread was incredibly civil until you made that post. There was a bad post, the first response really, but that got downvoted swiftly. The rest were generally either ideas as to what the cait rework should be like, people expressing their opinion that cait was fine, a few people saying that several other champions has more pressing need of a VU than Cait (which might be off topic) and a healthy debate between Glados and AnonTwo as to whether Cait should have pants or not.

For example: 'IronStylus would have a field day with caitlyn.

All I ask for, oh great parrot from the heavens, is that you keep her hat mostly in tact. The zoom coming down when she ults is so sexy, I love it. It's the most iconic thing about caitlyn.'

'I'm honestly surprised IronStylus hasn't tackled her already. I mean, it's clear that Cait doesn't give off the vibe that she should. This is a great injustice.'

I should point out that you shouldn't use the numbers on the Cait thread as a baseline as to what the community beta is. The only reason a lot of those people are on this forum is because you made it clear you would be responding there. I think the second highest post in this forum is that poro skin syndra thread, and that's only being made because the original poster was from EUNE and apparently Rioters never post there, so they want more recognition and traffic from this site.

And again, you never made it clear that you wanted the discussion to come over here so you could track it properly. You made it sound like you wanted it to come over here because you just didn't like how traditional forums work.

I feel the fact we're having this conversation civilly doesn't mean much. It isn't because we're on this site, it's because no one else is here to derail the conversation. When this becomes the new forums, it's going to go back to GD style asking you questions every time you show up, no matter how on-topic it is. If no one else was posting, we could have this exact conversation on GD. We might have it even better, because you can quote in multiple blocks on GD.

Welp, fair point I suppose, but I don't have a ton of time to revisit every single point of the whole thread.

Either way, the way I'm tracking this discussion is through the "my updates" widget at the top, so no matter what, derailing or not, I'd be tracking this here with ease.

If this isn't valuable for you, sorry. I don't know what else I can do on the matter.

I guess I can understand that, but League is a big game. When this becomes the offical forums, it'll only become worse, because either A) you look through all of these threads in order to find the ones you want to respond to, or B) you only respond to massively upvoted threads.

If A), then you will have to expend as much energy on these forums as GD, and if B)...well, if B) is your option, you've just found out why I hate reddit and why I hate these forums and are just confirming that this was a bad idea!

Because seeing upvoted feedback is bad? That's pretty much the best way I we can glean popular opinion. If the most upvoted topic or feedback piece is "Hey, there's a problem here." then we should probably address it. I fail to see how seeing a popular opinion is a bad thing.

Because me and popular opinion don't get along. I know, I know, 'welcome to democracy' and all that, but just because something is popular doesn't mean that it's, you know, useful. During a server outage, I imagine a thread along the lines of 'riot fix your servers' would be incredibly upvoted, after all, but is that really useful? Presumably, your server people already know that, and the most they can do is post 'hey guys, we know about the issue and we are fixing it.' Does that help anyone, beside the occasional person who thinks that Riot genuinely either doesn't know or doesn't care that their servers are having issues?

More then that, though, it leads to unpopular opinions getting buried. For example, if I make a post about female champion diversity, that thread will probably get downvoted, because the community either doesn't see a problem with female champion diversity at present, doesn't care, or genuinely thinks that female champion diversity is a bad thing. Does this mean that I don't have a point worth responding to? I think I do; otherwise I wouldn't have made that thread.

And, of course, it sets expectation that if a thread gets upvoted, it warrants a Riot response. We all know how well people take 'broken promises' that were never promises in the first place.

Well, currently people simply bump the hell out of a thread they want attention to be paid to, and you currently have about the same chance of getting buried on GD than on the new format. But I'd submit that the opposite of your description is true in that we've seen "unpopular" threads such as sexuality, diversity, etc become hot issues that elicit upvoting and repetitive "fix ur servers" threads just get buried. They're redundant and not useful.

Either way, you're going to have to give the new venue a chance. There's nothing here that's going to hurt you. You're basing all of your feelings off of assumptions.

Much More on Planned 4.3 Itemization Changes

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

How will the new Tribute work on damage over times? I'm going to assume that it will only trigger on non-periodic, damaging abilities and basic attacks. Also, how will it interact with AOE abilities? In that: will Incinerate consume one charge per cast or one charge per enemy hit?

P.S. Can you please update Spoils of War's tooltip so it's less vague? I'm getting sick and tired of being flamed for taking it on ranged champions. The Wiki does it well: "Melee autoattacks execute minions below 200 health. Killing a minion by any means heals yourself and the nearest allied champion for 40 health and grants them gold equal to the kill." Hurr durr only works on melee champs omg reprot

Proc type damage will not trigger Tribute. Procs are usually anything that is a bonus effect on top of a weapon attack. So for example, Toxic Shot will trigger Spellthief's once.

Essentially, anything that can proc Rylai's can trigger Spellthief's.

AoE abilities - it will consume one charge per enemy hit. This means that concentrating the proc power on a single target will require some effort.

Targons: Sure, I can look at the tooltip. The item's tooltip is such a mess. >_<
-----------

Teemo/Lulu won't get the 30 bonus as you've said.

It follows similar rules to Rylai's - anything that can proc Rylai's can proc spellthief's edge.

The base movement speed on boots of mobility is 25 now but the specials movement speed remains at 105. Is this 105 also added to the base? Or do we still have the same total movement speed from benefiting from not being in combat?

You have the same total out of combat movement speed.

Must say I like the idea of ramping up the speed over time instead of a sudden burst.

The problem with Boots of Mobility isn't the escape case. It's the lack of tradeoff between purchasing Boots of Mobility and any other Boots.

Essentially while Boots of Mobility doesn't have any direct combat stats on it - two things override this:

• Outnumbering your opponent is the largest combat multiplier
• You gain more access to experience from participating in more fights.

Effectively, Boots of Mobility can be seen as the +1 or +0.66 level boost for characters that want to roam.

This is much less true for pure farm characters - ADC/Mage/etc.

What I don't like about this nerf is that all the other T2 boots do have a base MS of +45 and an added effect on top of that.

Swiftness - unless you consider that Base MS of +45 and then another MS or +15.

On Movement Speed Ramping

Possibly doable - although you'd have to make the ramp take much longer than 5 seconds for it to be the same level of balance.

Well the example I gave was karma in her case, her q (7 sec max cd) has a 0.6 AP ratio with mantra 0.9/initial hit + 0.6/secondary hit.

Assuming that every 30 seconds you hit 2 single normal qs and 1 mantra q (2x hit on initial 1x on detonation) = 3.6 AP ratio. Higher if more 2x hits or more qs, or tethers, the above if cast on cd is at most 21 seconds/30 so leaves room for gaps.

So (formatting in this forum sucks):

Tier 1 10 AP = 36 dmg, now 30. Loss of ~6dmg/30s

Tier 2 20 AP = 72 dmg, now 45. Loss of ~27dmg/30s

Tier 3 50 AP = 180 dmg, now 144 + 45 = 189. Gain of ~9dmg/30s

So in damage its a straight up nerf (quite substantial amount) all the way up to tier 3 when the AP comes back in.

You're absolutely correct that the theoretical maximum damage is far lower - especially on Tier 2, which is on my radar for adjustments.

However, this analysis is somewhat unrealistic in a number of ways. For example, the sheer mana expenditure of this requires spending 300 mana a minute (assuming you leave Q at rank 1) and assumes that every single Q lands. While Karma's mana pool is fairly high - you might be able to sustain this for about 2 minutes at most.

You have the added problem that missing a single Q basically tanks your damage comparison because the additional procs are never lost if you don't hit - while missing a Q does cause you to lose the .AP benefits -

As soon as you miss a Q or are unable to cast a Q due to mana considerations, the damage per second is much more favorable in the proc case.

While I agree that Tier 2 could use some retuning, your numbers clearly show a larger/valid discrepancy at this tier - this analysis is mostly hindered by the fact that you don't actually have infinite mana / perfect accuracy / perfect opportunity - while the proc, being time gated and available through free attacks doesn't have that problem.

Just noticed this. The Spellthief's Edge on live gives 4 gold when you attacking a champion every 10 seconds per champion. Assuming you're in a 2v2 bot lane, it can proc a maximum of 6 times every 30 seconds. The new Spellthief's Edge can only proc 3 times every 30 seconds. That would theoretically cut your gold gain from Tribute in half. Can you fix this?

We're trying to hit a mark where you can more realistically achieve the gold generation of spellthief's edge. The live model of spellthief's edge has the highest potential gold in the game - but is also impossible to achieve.

This is one of those cases where the theoretical absolute best case is absurd and so no one really bothers with it and so we're trying to ensure that things are both practical but maintain some level of uncertainty.

Sigh... I was going to put together a huge list of suggested changes. Then I realized that it was not likely to ever be seen by someone who could do something with it. Now your post here makes me want to write it again...

Lucidity boots : boot+charm : 10% CDR, 3 MP5, 3 Energy per 5

Its got what a spammy spellcaster wants, mana regeneration. The energy per 5 is wasted on mana users. The mana regen is wasted on ninjas. Resourceless champions already scale too well with CDR and just take a 5% nerf. Don't worry about the overefficient gold value because there is NO champion that can use both regenerations at once.

I would opt for something simpler - like '5% reduced mana/energy costs, rather than having two statistics. Then again, whenever you have an item like this - tailoring for one camp or the other will simply annoy / anger some third camp who thinks the item should be more tailored for them instead.

It's a tricky thing.

That's a really strong kind of statement, saying "you can only do your job if something lucked into being able to do you job." When I'm playing a high harass support, it's no luck that I'vne poked down the enemy laners.

You're right that it's a strong statement. However - Resource returning mechanics has this really weird thing where it compounds, because it's the resource allowing you to perform actions with to begin with.

It's not luck that you've poked down the enemy laners but mana restoration in strong quantities can lead to the following scenario:

• You miss your poke 2 minutes.
• Therefore you are unable to cast your poke at 3 minutes in due to the loss of mana / damage.

Which has an odd way of compounding itself when values are sufficiently high as to be meaningful.

(For a similar example - consider life on hit in lane and when it has been strong enough to be significant.)

However, it also seems like you're creating the same situation you want to avoid with this new passive. By the same logic, you're not really rewarded for poking, you're expected to poke, elsewise you won't get any value out of either passive: the damage or the gold. Not only that, you're expected to autoattack and cast spells, elsewise you won't get the fullest value.

A couple of points on this:

• You're absolutely correct that this passive is binary as well. Hence the original statement - this item is already pretty binary, unsure if I want to make it more so.
• You don't need to autoattack and cast spells - the charges aren't independent for each one. Just harass them in any way shape or form.
• I'm attempting to sidestep the poke evaluation problem by simply making your pokes stronger.

How to fix CDR in one easy step: F---in get rid of it! Then you can balance characters with actualcooldowns, instead of inflating them because they would be OP if they 40% less than their balanced number. If you really want characters to spam, give them cooldown decreasing mechanics, but universal cooldown reduction is a hindrance to League's balance. I'm really disappointed Riot hasn't cut this cancer out yet.

In my experience, cooldown decreasing mechanics are generally far more disruptive as a whole. The issue being that CDR mechanics tied to skills or passives tend to be incredibly 'feast or famine' in most scenarios as they require the skills/mechanics to be used in the first place.

In the world of cooldowns, either these mechanics are tame or absolutely worthless - unless they were simply a flat CDR statistic that everyone gets per level.

However, to the meat of your point: Many things are hindrance to "balance". That's not why we have them.

We have CDR so that people who want to CC can CC more without resorting to longer CC lengths and they have to make a significant effort to do so by giving up burst damage or basic attack damage. Or support. Or initiate. Or move.

Having multiple champions is a hindrance to balance. Having different combat ranges is hindrance to balance. New mechanics and gameplay styles are a hindrance to balance.

Everything you put into a game has a cost. No doubt the way our CDR works inflicts a heavy cost to balance and items and what not. However, the question to ask is it worth the price we pay? We'll probably disagree here - but the damage done to/from Skarner/Ryze/Kat/Yi/Fiora from their cooldown mechanics far outweigh anything that the stat has ever done.

I've been noticing that on Lulu support :S... But i wanted to have more games and the ones I'm getting into are seriously unbalanced or contains toxic players.
I can't test more on custom games than what I already have (bots are mostly just punching bags)

I'll work on the tier 2 stat-line for Spellthief's edge and try to see if there's room for Ability Power on that.

I don't really get your explanation of what's wrong :S...

I agree in the part that it could go by reducing the amount of mana/energy cost (check) but I don't really get why that would be bad for the champions that use neither... What's wrong about those kinds of items for them?

While not entirely on point - Let's take a hypothetical item that looks like this:

AP HP/5 MP/5 CDR

In general, this item will tend to elicit two reactions: One that demands the MP/5 be removed because this item would be so good except for the wasted stat. One that demands the HP/5 be removed because it's worthless for them.

There's no innate problem with the design of the item. The HP/5 and the MP/5 are clearly suited for different champions to take advantage of but different people will think the item is for them and they'll generally see the other stats as "nerfing" them because their item isn't fully optimized to their particular needs.

Think about if I went and added 20 mp/5 or 400 Mana onto Spirit Visage but didn't touch the price at all. Soon after, you would elicit "suggestions" that the Mana be removed and the item buffed.

It's just a little bit of psychology. This is less a problem with people and mostly wholly with our presentation of items.

Hey Xypherous, I have some thoughts on Doran's Shield.

I think simply nerfing it will just push it out of play. Champs who use it will find better options such as Cloth+5 or Flask. I understand that you really want to get supports to buy the gold generation items but I think you are gutting Doran's Shield in every case, not just supports.

Also, I think Doran's Shield is problematic in general because it's just a pile of health and regen with some damage reduction. It reduces interactivity in lane by helping tanky champs shrug off harass and there's no gameplay around it.

Therefore I suggest giving Doran's Shield a new mechanic that has more gameplay potential. Perhaps something as simple as a damage shield like Malphite's passive, but maybe not. Maybe a regeneration buff that goes away after taking a certain number of hits. Maybe in-combat only regen... I'm not sure what would be good but something that causes gameplay and interaction to happen.

Not every item needs to be bursting with gameplay in all forms. Counter-itemization is fairly important. (Not to say that counter-itemization is at a great spot though.) You have 6 item slots - these need to augment your core pattern - not subvert it.

Health and Damage Block has gameplay potential by merely allowing champions to do their job. It's an enabler for champions by removing blockers that exist.

High levels of HP/5 early is a tricky stat though. It can potentially go "infinite" because if you have enough HP/5, you can ignore your opponent entirely. In a world where there is no option against heavy harassment, you have token interactivity in lane where the two ranged attackers shoot you until you leave.

This is less true, with Cloth+5 or Flask, whose regeneration, though high, can be burned out. They have their own issues, of course, making early laning really tedious due to the burn out phase being too long (Cloth+5 much more so than flask).

That said, I would also point out that any regeneration based passives tend to make the item counter-mage rather than counter-double ranged attack. You could put an increasingly narrow band on things that the regeneration triggers off of but I suspect that you'd get back into the same problem of non-interactivity and countering other types of harass harder.

With Warmog's, why not make it in-combat health regeneration? Maybe even have it scale similar to True Grit - so the longer you're in combat, the more you have. I just don't think OOC health regen is health on someone that was clearly too strong to kill the first time around.

If you want to make health healthier - wouldn't it be better to address mana regeneration? The only really issue with health is that it boils down to "you out-live their mana pool" rather than "you have a long and strategic fight".

You kind of run into an opposite problem with mana regeneration. There's more than a couple characters whose game plan in lane would simply be 'hit Q and click on you' until you leave.

I admit that I'm not quite sure how you would clean up mana regeneration more to resolve the two without going back and drastically resolving a lot of the point + click nukes with short CDs to.. not be any of that.

That's not to say it wouldn't be a bad project, though, many of the characters with point + click meganukes with low CDs are problematic.

I actually meant damage over times like Torment, Blaze, Decrepify, Malefic Visions, Zyra's plants, etc. I assumed on-hit effects wouldn't apply anything since they're on an odd place of being neither basic attacks nor abilities in terms of things that apply (except Jax, who for some reason applies spell vamp to everything and so is literally better with Gunblade than other champions).

Would Torment have 10 additional damage added to the total, so 2.5 additional damage per second? 10 additional damage once? Or 10 additional damage per second and consume all your charges on one target? Or not apply at all? Dots apply Rylai's.

The proc is checked whenever the damage is applied, so the first three ticks of Torment would hit extremely hard relative to the other ticks, consume one charge a tick, and then return to normal functionality.

It's straightforward but confusing. :x

Update on Skarner

Originally Posted by Riot (View RedTracker Source)

Hey quick update about PBE changes. They wont be up today but should be on pbe later this week. This is the tentative changelist

-E slow increased from 30/35/40/45/50 to 52/54/56/58/60%
-E missile width increased slightly
-E missile speed increased slightly
-E mana cost reduced by 10

These changes are WIP so they may be adjusted after testing and feedback. The main problems we're trying to solve with these are:
-His early game is weak from both not having a strong 1 point ability and weak pre 6 ganks. 1 point in E should hopefully make him a better ganker pre 6.
-Soften up the difficulty of landing the E missile slightly to match the power of its effect
-Generally push his power back into a more CC focused space

These numbers may seem crazy, but as a first pass I think this will really help Skarner out in terms of viability.

now just make his W ramp up over 2 S, not 3

We could definitely put more power/reliability into W but it would mean less power in his CC. It's a totally valid proposal, would you rather see more power in his speed or CC?

It should be an even match up, just like you could with Kayle Q, then W, to slow, speed, slow speed. Currently, neither of Skarner's abilities are efficient enough for catching up and staying with the target.
His perma-slow was not well designed, but his current design doesn't allow him to do much at all in comparison to so many other super-mobile cc junglers.

Ok good point, maybe we could spit the changes up between E and W.

Tbh, it shouldn't be a super minor buff to each of them. When I said they both needed something, I meant they really needed it. Your proposed E changes are good and will definitely help for the early ganks, however for him to be able to keep up to make use of this DPS that you added to his kit, he needs a W change as well. Both abilities need a buff, not just a small value change to each.

Definitely, I'm mostly asking where we should put the power considering he will be getting some buffs.

Ok cool, lets try out some CC buffs on PBE this week and see how he feels. I'm with you guys, the payoff for hitting the E is not there yet.

Vel'koz/Yasuo Interaction Goals

Originally Posted by Riot (View RedTracker Source)

Just to clear up Vel'koz/Yasuo interaction goals:

Q - Blocked by wind wall, split shots are also blocked (if first hits, it won't split)
W - Blocked by wind wall, but will still erupt up to the wall (ie the part that wasn't stopped)
E - missile that shoots forward is blocked by wind wall, you can still put it next to the wall and potentially hit people on the other side of the wall
R - Not affected by wind wall.

Not sure about auto attacks. My guess is they'd go through? I don't think there's an actual missile involved.

Void Support Ideas Being "Kicked Around Internally"

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

We've also been kicking some ideas about possible void supports around internally, being able to run a full void comp would be cool and a void support could allow us to explore a slightly different take on the void. Can't make any promises or guarantees, something we'd like to do though.

Reasoning Behind The Pick Order Changes

Originally Posted by Riot (View RedTracker Source)

I'm curious to know why people can duo with bronze 5's in silver/gold and the B5 can have a higher pick than me.

Because in a normal match, the ranges are VERY close to each other, except if there was a duo with wide ability differences. Random in the absence of a lopsided duo is pretty much the same as non-random because players will likely be within 5-10 MMR of each other, which does not represent a material difference in skill.

Duos had very odd behavior, and that was frustrating both duos and non-duos. I believe sometimes they would be pick 4/5, other times pick 1 and I think 4? Not sure how it fell out of the elo calculations, but was awkward, and experienced ranked players actually did complain about it from time to time.

We felt that randomizing would be an improvement in terms of removing any upsides/downsides from duoing (elo already adjusts them fairly). Most of the lingering issues people are having are around edge cases of high tier rank players duoing with very weak low rank players.

If you have someone very high rank duoing with someone very low rank, the match is just going to be lopsided one way or another (either carried by the high player or fed by the low player). This problem will exist regardless of pick order.

We will most likely restrict these sorts of premades in the future, but we are prioritizing stuff like teambuilder and some additional small enhancements around duo matchmaking accuracy and general matchmaking fairness over this, because this is a relatively rare case.

So TLDR -- I think this change is strictly positive except with the edge case of a duo with very different capability levels. In that case, we should just (at some point) block the functionality to play so far out of bounds in ranked in general.

So you fixed what isn't broken because fixing what actually is broken would take more effort? Am I understanding this right?

Actually, we did this specifically because of long-term ongoing concerns from players around how duos disrupted pick order in a non-intuitive and often frustrating manner. It actually was broken.

Read what I just posted above you. You didn't fix anything, you made it worse.
You now made everyone else who got queued up with the Bronze duo partner have to be subjugated to his bans and the role he wants because he's first pick.

I agree that IN THE EXAMPLE of a high rank player duoing with their bronze 5 teammate who also doesnt take feedback on bans and insists on playing an indvidually snowballey role (top, mid espec), this is a worse system -- if said player is reasonable and works with their team, it doesnt matter anymore than a lopsided duo already matters (again, I concede, lopsided duos are not great).

I know that this scenario of lopsided duo with weak player 1st pick is not a common one and in most cases, this randomization change is therefore a positive one. I think that if we close the edge cases around say Plat 1 players duoing with Bronze players and so forth, this will be a strictly positive change. I think right now it is a net positive change despite this particular negative example.

- Zileas

Champion And Skin Sale: 02.18 - 02.21

Originally Posted by Riot (View RedTracker Source)

Grab these champions and skins on sale for 50% off for a limited time:

---

Skin Sales

Give your champions a new look with these skins:

Surfer Singed

975 487 RP

Arcade Sona

1350 675 RP

Longhorn Alistar

520 260 RP

---

Champion Sales

Add these champions to your roster:

Lulu

975 487 RP

 

Talon

880 440 RP

 

Teemo

585 292 RP