Introducing Chroma Packs!

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

You’ve asked for more colors, and now League’s getting more colorful. Chroma packs will roll out with the next PBE update as our exploration into further expressions of your style and personality in League of Legends.

Where champion skins offer alternate fantasies from a champion’s base thematic, chromas serve up a way to further personalize specific champs or skins. As a re-imagining of the original champion or skin’s look, chromas allow you to make a champion or skin your own.

 

A chroma pack includes three chromas that modify either a champion’s base or one of their skins. Each of these initial packs will be 590 RP, and if you need the champion or skin, they’ll be included in the bundle price you see in the store. Once you’ve unlocked a chroma pack in the bundles tab of the store, the chromas appear during champion select under the skins tab linked to the base champion or skin.

 

We’re testing one champion base chroma pack (Lucian Prime) and one skin chroma pack (Dragonfist Lee Sin Duel) to start, and we’re listening for your feedback. If you still have questions, check out the chroma pack FAQ here! Let us know what you think of the new chromas on PBE, and we’ll see you on the battlefield wearing a slick new suit!

 

-Riot Roadmap

FAQ

• Why can’t I earn chromas or buy them with IP?

  All options are still open in the future, including earning additional chromas through champion mastery, but we’re sticking with RP-only at launch, in line with our historical approach to cosmetic content.
  
  

• Why do I have to buy three chromas in a pack instead of just one at a time?

  Historically, our lowest tier of skins were priced at 390 RP. Over the years, we’ve improved skins to the point that the “recolor” tier no longer reflects the polish and quality of our newer offerings.
  
  

  But despite the improvement in visuals and the deeper expression chroma packs allow (linking color choices to a theme that re-imagines the original scheme), a single chroma would slot into our pricing at that 390 RP level. If we offered them individually, three would run 1170 RP.
  
  

  Instead, we’ve chosen to package three of them in a pack for 590 RP, which we feel offers higher value while not skimping on quality or consistency.

  Do you feel you’d be happy with the purchase if you could pick up a single chroma for 390 RP? Let us know, and leave us your other feedback on chroma packs, too.
  
  

• Why are some chroma packs more expensive than others?

  All chroma packs are actually the same price at launch: 590 RP. When you go to buy a chroma pack, though, the bundle tech actually recognizes whether or not you have the champion or skin and includes them in the price if you don’t. It’s meant to be a convenience, so that you don’t have go to two different parts of the store if you’re just trying to browse for chromas.

  TLDR: Price includes champion or skin if you don’t own it.
  
  

• Can I buy chroma packs in champion select?

  No. Unlike skins, you’ll have to unlock chroma packs in the store. They’re sold as sets of three chromas, so they can’t be picked up during champion select.
  
  

• How can I refund a chroma pack?

  As with all of our bundled products, chroma packs can’t be refunded. However, we are reconsidering the restrictions on refunding bundles as a result of chroma packs. For the foreseeable future, however, they’ll be all sales final.
  
  

• Why not Zac (or [insert your favorite champion here])?

  Zac is a tricky one, because he seems like such an obvious candidate for some slick-looking chromas. The short answer is that we aren’t ruling out a chroma pack for Zac, or any other champion or skin. We’re testing chroma packs first, to gauge interest and engagement. This answer continued in the next one.
  
  

• How do we choose future chroma packs?

  Any champion or skin could get a chroma pack, and our criteria going forward will be guided by popularity, interest, and suitability but not mandated by any one of those things.

  We strive to deliver quality products you can enjoy. We finally hit a quality bar that felt good internally and seems like a solid value, so we’re putting them out there for everyone to tell us what they think.
  
  

• Why are you making these as opposed to new skins?

  It’s not either/or. We get to do both. Obviously we can’t just spoil a bunch of new skins here in an FAQ, but they’re still coming, and we plan on offering more, not fewer.
  
  

• Why should I ever buy a skin again?

  Well, we’d say the best answer is probably “because you think it’s awesome,” but it’s up to you, really. It’s worth pointing out that you have to own the original skin before you can pick up a chroma for it.

  A slightly longer answer is that skins provide an opportunity to experience a champion in a way that’s different from normal (Rumble and Super Galaxy Rumble, Blitzcrank and We Swear There’s a Difference Blitzcrank). We continue to look for new ways for you to engage with your favorite champions. Skins are usually about alternate fantasies, where chromas are, at least at launch, working with a lot more than fifty shades of grey. Chromas are about expressing your style and personality, or to color-coordinate your team or rep your favorite sportsball unit or whatever you want them to be. We’re experimenting here, so it’s up to you to show us how you feel about chromas and how you’ll use them.
  
  

• Will particles be recolored as well?

  We’re looking into this with some champions and skins as it makes sense. Particle recolors add an intensive, additional layer to the project and they often differentiate between what we’re trying to do with chroma packs and what we do with skins (especially in the murky realm of 750 RP skins and slick-looking chromas). However, if we just always leave particles as they are, we could miss out on tons of chroma packs that without particle changes wouldn’t hit our quality high-bar.
  
  

• Will they always be the same price?

  If you’re actually asking, “will chromas ever go on sale,” the answer is still up in the air. If you mean, “are some chromas going to be more expensive?” Then, well, the answer is still as cloudy as a mountaintop in the Freljord.

  The community has been asking for recolors for a long while, but despite testing and experimenting with a few internal ideas, we couldn’t find a way to build them that satisfied our high standards. The current price reflects the work we put into crafting them.

  Yeah, it’s possible to do a quick and dirty overlay, or shift a slider left in an editing program, but we think you would call us on that bullshit real quick, and as players ourselves, we wouldn’t be satisfied with such a hacky solution.
  
  

• How did you pick the champion and skins for these first-run packs?

  Artistic complexity, potential QA issues, champion and skin popularity and a veritable cornucopia of other factors went into what we considered a good candidate for chromas. Also, the community wanted Blucian.
  
  

• Will any existing skins be reclassified as chromas?

  It’s obvious some of our previous skins share some of the characteristics of what we’re launching with chromas. Jokes about Nightmare Cho’gath and Rusty Blitzcrank aside, there’s something pretty cool about having vintage Deadly Kennen, Toxic Dr. Mundo and the like and we want to be careful about reclassifying them. For now, they’ll still be considered a separate tier of skins, but we’re interested to hear what you think.
  
  

• How can I see all the chromas currently available?

  The magic of hexspheres. Or if you don’t have one of those, you can find chroma packs in the Bundles tab of the store.
  
  

• Why don’t chromas have new or recolored splashes?

  Chroma packs are ways for you to deepen your experience with some of your favorite champions and skins, not change the core identity of that champ or skin.
  
  

• Can I gift chroma packs? What about mystery gifts?

  Not at launch, but worth exploring in the future.
  
  

• There are other games where the community makes cheap recolors, why not have League fans and players do the same?

  We don’t have plans to set this up right now, but we are looking for you to tell us what chroma packs you’d like to see.

  For content creators with the skills to hurtle the quality bar for products like chroma packs, you can show us in contests like the Polycount art showdown, and take a shot at joining us here in the office--or working remote, that’s totally a thing, too--adding your unique flavor to League in the future.

Meddler on Urgot Rework, State of Azir and More

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

Whats the status for our Shuriman Emperor, Riot?

We're currently letting him sit as he is for a while, to assess both the impact of the 5.5 buffs and to see how the changing state of the game (tank jungler return and Athene's buffs) affects him.

As far as win rate goes that's a data point that needs to be treated with caution, particularly on an extremely high mastery curve champion like Azir. A 46% average win rate for example could be associated with a champion that's weak or with a champion that's balanced (or even strong), whose average performance statistically gets dragged down by players new to that champ.

As far as being able to be picked into any team comp that's something we'd like to avoid where possible. It suggests a champ lacks sufficiently clear strengths and weaknesses which results in a champ that gets picked all the time if they're strong, leading to games that feel very similar to each other.

That sounds fair, and about the last thing about him fitting in any team comp, looking back at that statement I can see where that would lead to problems. A more accurate statement would be he should fit in more team comps, but that's besides the point. The win-rate thing is also a bit of shaky evidence as also pretty silly of me as I know how hard Azir is to play effectively. [...]

Yeah, that's a good point, too few team comps being relevant's also a problem. If a champ's only effective under certain extremely narrow cirumstances they're probably lacking a necessary tool and/or extremely feast or famine. I don't think that's the case for Azir, that's just a personal estimate based off his recent state though.

---

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

@Meddler: Any plans regarding Rumble?

Don't think we've got any current plans, so most likely just balance adjustments as needed. He's a champ we've been watching in case he's too strong for a long time, doesn't seem to be too oppressive for now though.

what are your plans about lee sin pls answer me i want an answer

No current plans, he's not crowding out other jungle picks now.

---

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

@Riot @Meddler Would like some red opinions/discussion on Kha'zix

We think he's a bit weak and from memory he's on the list of champions the balance team are planning to look at, see if there are some appropriate buffs we can give him. Not sure where he is priority wise though, so can't give you an ETA off the top of the head.

---

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

So what is the status of Urgot's kit rework, he even need one now?

We're still planning to rework him. There's the low counterplay/binary performance you mentioned plus his passive lacks significant gameplay, his ult's not a good fit with the rest of his kit much of the time and there's a bunch of thematic space he's not taking full advantage of.

I don't mean to derail or anything but I think it's relevant; is the only reason that you're encouraging the same gameplay with Cass that you're trying to get Urgot away from (land one skill spam another) entirely because of her lack of range compared to him?

Yeah, range is a vital difference there. If Urgot got locked on Acid Hunters, but only on targets really near him, he wouldn't be anywhere near as much of an issue (or anywhere near as useful of course).

Hmm. I guess that's reasonable.

My main question, then, is what you're gonna replace it with. Canister to Acid hunter is basically what happens when you think of 'Urgot' so I think you're gonna need to do a Sion level reimagining if that's the problem with him.

Odds are very high he'll be a Sion level project. As far as really large gameplay reworks go though Poppy's almost certainly going to come out before Urgot.

---

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

@Meddler: What kinds of things did you experiment with for reworking Ashe?

Short version: We looked at a number of different ways for crit to affect Ashe's play (in particular, should crits do the same thing on all champs) and for her to slow targets via her basic attacks.

The longer version I'll leave to Repertoir who'd I'd imagine will talk about the changes in detail once they're close to release (he's the designer who's been working on Ashe, amongst other things).

To me this is interesting. I feel Ashe has two distinct aspects to her identity the "precise" archer (aka crit and landing her stun), and the utility adc, which goes with her vision control, passive gold generation and her slows, which she sacrifices damage for. Will the latter be nixed in favor of focusing more on the former? [...]

Odds are extremely high we'll leave the ult as is (or slightly tweaked). Also pretty likely the gold generation passive will be removed in order to add more interactive power somewhere.

---

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

@Meddler: What are your thoughts on a Champion who uses two resource bars?

Could certainly be done of course, I'd be inclined to start at the outcomes end of things though. Define what decisions and gameplay a 2 resource bar champion allows you to offer that you couldn't do with one resource bar (or one plus an ammo system). If that looks compelling could be worth an investigation, if not it's probably just adding extra complexity for low depth.

I actually had an older champion concept who could expend Health if he lacked adequate mana for his spells, and his ult was a toggle that radically amped up his spells but caused them to cost Health on top of their mana cost.

Oh, nice, we kicked around that same idea (Passive: Spend health instead of mana when OOM) a year or two ago for a champion that never went anywhere. Imagine we'll give it a another try at some point, offers some cool gameplay and great opportunities for strong thematic connections. Guessing if we do find it a home it'll be on a beserker (champs that gain bonuses for being low on health) of some sort.

So... Olaf?

I'd be more inclined to try it on a squishy, ranged champ. Imagine a moderate range mage with high mana costs, who, once they run OOM, has a real tension about how many extra casts they can afford to get off (how low can you go?). Like an offensive focused Soraka in some regards.

I would say more of a "Blood Mage" sort of diabolical character. "Dark Pacts" and whatnot.

Thematically that's the sort of space I'd start exploring from yeah, though probably not just straight blood mage given we've already got one of those.

Ultra Rapid Fire Q&A

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

Heya Everyone ^o^/

 

Our latest Featured Game Mode, “Ultra Rapid Fire” is currently live (I was so looking forward to NURF mode), and the Play team is here to answer any questions or suggestions you guys might have! We make all the Featured Game Modes, so feel free to ask us anything about URF or any previous modes. Who are the OP champs in URF (apparently it's the whole roster :P)? Who is your favourite champ to play? Are those two questions even different? :P

 

We’ll be online from now for 2 hours, from 11:00AM ~ 1:00PM PST.

 

-L4T3NCY
-BuffMePlz
-DefaultChar
-Ponts
-Riot Terra

What made you guys think of finishers? BECAUSE THEY ARE AMAZING.

It was an idea we had when thinking about ways to 'double down' on the power fantasy of URF. I'm all about that Orbital Laser. :D

Will we ever see URAM (Ultra Rapid All Mid) in the future?

You can do this is custom games right now. I don't know if we would ever support a queue for it - we tried a couple of games with this internally last year and the lack of strategic options on Howling Abyss makes the champion selection even more dominant than it already is. Coupling that with the inability to heal and shop generally made the games very frustrating - either they were too long (with neither team gaining any traction) or they were too short (with one team absolutely crushing the other).

What about an all random-SR queue?

This is much more interesting in my book. I wanted to do this for URF, but we ultimately felt that it was more important for players to have agency over the champions they were picking in order to fulfill the power fantasy that URF grants - it would be unfortunate for the player who really really wants to see what Yorick is like on URF to only have a <1% of chance of doing so.

It's possible we might explore having multiple queues in the future (or at least having it as an option in custom games). We'll have to do some further investigation into this - but I'm definitely with you on this. =)

 [...]
2. Could you consider implementing N.U.R.F. mode at some point? It seems like it would be hilariously stupid and would be very enjoyable.

3. Do you guys have any plans on bringing ascension back? That was BY FAR the most fun mode in my opinion. [...]

2) So...we actually did build NURF. This is a real thing...and it's TERRIBLE. We made it in order to capture the footage for the promo videos, and the act of doing so was quite painful. We are not going to inflict it on you guys anytime soon. =P

3) We're definitely exploring our options for rotating game modes, and Ascension is definitely on that list - that was also one of my favourites to build and to play. =)

Have you aver though of doing some crazy stuff with jungle in urf? or at least had any crazy ideas : for example ultra scuttle crab that would turbo rocket from 1 end of river to other? xd

One of the guys on our team actually had the idea to made the Rift Scuttler go into Zhonya stasis everytime you were about to kill it just for maximum troll effect.

We didn't touch the jungle this time (or last time), which is why blue buff still exists on URF and does nothing except bling out your champion. We've thought about it, but I'm not sure the mode needs more crazy changes - the current buff is enough to mutate gameplay in a way that is very different from classic SR already. Drawing players into the jungle in a mode around skirmishing might not necessarily be a good thing either - even now, taking Dragon sometimes seems more like a chore than a point of strife in URF games.

The biggest question I think is "why did you let every champion available this year, is it to let an URF meta take place?"

If feels kinda bad to have your favourite champ not be playable in one of our Featured Game Modes. Last year if you were a Ryze or Kassadin main, you would have been pretty bummed. :/ One of our goals for URF this year was to make sure all the champions were available to play.

I think players will develop a meta regardless of what we do so, it's not something that factors into consideration.

I've always kind of imagined that one of the biggest reasons for not making URF a permanent gamemode was the amount of resources it would take to maintain it. All of the champion specific micromanaging that went on for this year's URF sort of gives credit to this theory (not to mention the fact that despite all of these changes, there are still tons of complaints about balance). Is any part of this correct?

Yep, you've nailed it right on the head - it is indeed one of the largest contributing factors.

Was it intentional to leave Volibear out of the passive buff train for URF this year? Aatrox, Anivia, and Zac all had their passive cooldowns lowered for the spirit of URF, but volibear was left in the corner to cry with his 2 minute cd passive. In URF mode that just does not cut it.

It was intentional. It came up in conversations a few times, but he wasn't terribly out of line from a success perspective from last year, and his passive is unaffected by the healing nerf, plus he scales well with the bonus attack speed we gave melees this year. Of course, if it turns out that he is very unsuccessful this time around, we can definitely make this change in the future.

what are your thoughts on the still imbalance of champions? such as Alistar, Blitzcrank, Mundo, Zed, Hecarim is there going to be further balancing or more bans available? urf is fun but not when everyone is "try harding" with blatantly overpowered champions just to win, not have fun. my experience turned quickly from "omg urf is back im gunna play all these fun champions again" to "oh look another alistar/blitz lane, oh look another shaco/zed/hecarim" where you can't have fun because of the power difference.

I don't think increasing the number of bans is a scalable solution. When we did Hexakill: TT, many players expressed frustration at the perceived strongest (and subjective) 1st, 2nd and 3rd picks. With bans in URF, many players are expressing the same frustration at the perceived strongest (usually subjective) 7th, 8th & 9th picks. Increasing bans to 10 for example, would only shift the focus to the perceived strongest (probably subjective) 11th, 12th & 13th picks.

The bigger picture here is that FGMs are clearly not designed to be long term engagement modes. They don't have the our Live Balance team focused on them 24/7, working their hardest to keep the game as balanced as possible for players pro and otherwise around the world. Inevitably, an FGM will drift into a solidified meta state (as you guys will start to see towards the end of URF) and the mode either needs to be maintained for balance & patches, or left to stagnate in a terrible design state (which we don't want to do).

Looking at win rates, it appears Marksmen are still far below their usual levels. Based on 95k URF matches, and not taking into account Ez or Kog as they are built mage, only Sivir (55.36%) and Graves (50.08%) are at or above 50% win rates. Any ideas to tweak the mode to help balance these out?

On a side note: We do not rely on winrates as an indicator of power, just because there's a large number of "baked in" factors to it that make it a frequently poor measure.

With that said: We were aware they're weaker, and did try to help them as much as we could (Within reason), specifically with the doubled bonus attack speed and the bonus critical damage, both of which are stats that are largely exclusive to AD carries. Being frank though, URF isn't really intended to be balanced. Our hope for this year was simply to get the worst of the worst up a bit from last year (Rumble, Aatrox), and nudge down the best of the best (Healing/ Shield debuffs).

Have you guys thought about making the death animation summoner icons for other game modes as well or just keep it with urf?

I think there could be a way to implement them beyond just FGMs. We themed the current finishers to URF mode specifically, so they're ridiculous, 'over the top' and totally not something you'd want noising up a Ranked game. There's probably a middle-ground though where we could do some awesome finishers without sacrificing gameplay clarity.

Once URF mode is finished we'll take a step back and analyse it to consider if this is something that could be cool to pursue.

When will we see the release of Urf the Manatee in the featured game mode URF, where we all have to defeat him?

Do you really think the almighty Urf could be defeated by mere mortals such as ourselves?!

What gave you the idea to increase all champion health and damage 1000 fold?

BECAUSE BIG NUMBERS ARE AWESOME AND BIG

Speaking of big numbers, I've wondered. Is the damage listing "TONS" in the death screen something that has been added to this mode, does it only happen when you give a few more zeros to the numbers, or both?

It's just something that gets added to this mode. In classic SR, if you were to somehow incur 200,000 points of damage from sources it would properly show up in death recap as "200000". =P

When is the URF mode going to be removed from live?

April 13th at 2 AM PDT.

Will URF be on PBE?

Nope, PBE is used as a testing ground for features that are about to go live, so URF (or any other game mode for that matter) will not be on PBE.

There were definitely challenges in releasing this year's URF mode without going to PBE first. PBE can often be a gut-check that everything is okay before going live.

One example was "How will URF affect game server performance"? Of course we can do load testing, but can we be certain that our load testing scenarios will match the behavior of players in the real world? What about different hardware configurations around the world? How will play patterns in different regions affect our game server allocation? Etc...

You've mentioned that you wanted to make sure everyone could play their favourite champions, but what about items? I have gone to try and purchase a Mejai's in almost every URF game I've played so far. BibleThump

Mejai's Soulstealer and Sword of the Occult are far too gold efficient for what they give you in URF, where kills and assists are plentiful and easy. They don't add much to gameplay and are very difficult to deal with once someone gets ahead with these, so they're not available for purchase on URF.

Typically these items are a risk/reward investment in that they don't give you a lot of stats early on. However in URF, the lack of stats early game is not a risk, as the lower AD/AP values are quickly overshadowed by the fact that you can cast your spell five times as quickly as before (and for free, to boot). However, the stats that DO scale up end up multiplying out with each spell cast, so while the lack of stats from the items doesn't hurt, the boon of stats from a stacked item does cause a huge power shift that is generally very hard to deal with. Turns out a risk/reward item with no risk is really, really good.

Not purchasing these items doesn't change the power fantasy granted in URF - snowballing early is still incredibly powerful, we just removed the tools that cement it as the only winning strategy.

Hi. Whats your guys's (?) opinion on unkillable champions like Wukong, Vladimir, Fizz, Shaco Etc. All of them with ridiculously short cds on stealth and invulnerbility. Is this something you plan on leaving open in future urf modes (If there are future urf modes) because it characterizes part of the game mode or do you plan on making tweaks to it as urf develops.

IMO, many players in URF mode tunnel vision hard on their item build path and don't really react. An upgraded Red Trinket is super cheap, and completely invalidates a Shaco. Many players are also enamoured with the 'Assassin power fantasy', so there's usually not much hard CC in URF games. 1 hard CC deals with a Vlad, Fizz pretty easily. I don't think player skill differences are something we want to specifically squash with design.

How about every 5th, 10th, 15th and so on every month we have urf? Or something like every Monday?

For the more popular FGMs, we're investigating the potential of bringing them back on a shorter rotation cadence. We're not sure what this could look like yet but, it's something we're considering.

Is it too much for rito to consider dissing dominion and replacing it with perma urf?

If we did Dominion again today, it would probably be a good candidate for a temporary Featured Game Mode.

For reasons mentioned in other posts though, URF isn't exactly a great candidate for a permanent mode right now either. I think both are good examples highlighting the benefits of FGMs being temporary.

Last year you disabled Revive during URF, and gave it back afterwards. Was its recent removal tied to URF this year, just disabled ahead of time? I'd think the lack of context or explanation was to hide that URF was for sure coming this year, and you wanted the hype to be at full force when you announced it.

If that is the case, can it come back after URF leaves?

Funny story about Revive. The LIVE team had planned on removing Revive prior to URFs launch last year. It was planned for removal just before the start of season 4 I think. We added patch notes about it and everything and then we just didn't remove it from the game. :) Oops!

In U.R.F. last year this summoner spell was causing games to stalemate and last for way to long so we disabled it using some game mode specific restrictions. Once the game mode ended those restrictions also went away.

This year we noticed in advance of U.R.F. that Revive was still a thing so we decided to make good on our patch notes from way back and actually remove the spell from the game. :)

I'm kind of curious about this, but did you guys during development of the mode think about changing the minions (and jungle creeps) to being URF themed. Things like golden spatula wielding melee minions and mini URF riding siege minions?

LoL, we didn't. But that's funny.

How long did it take to come up with all the nerfs for the op champions in urf like hecarim

We worked on balancing for U.R.F. for a while. It took us about a month before we thought we had them all in line. We tried several different solutions for the sustain problem (sheilds/heals) before we found the solution that's we are using now.

Champion and Skin Sale: 04.07 - 04.10

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original 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:

Jailbreak Graves 975 487 RP
Demolisher Nunu 975 487 RP
Ravager Nocturne 520 260 RP

---

Champion Sales

Add these champions to your roster:

Varus 975 487 RP	Vayne 880 440 RP	Udyr 585 292 RP

Other Red Posts

• Champion Select Music Tweak