Reign of Gaming

[NA] Server Maintenance: Patch 5.8

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

On 04/29/15, starting at, 01:30 Pacific time (08:30 UTC), ranked queues will be disabled in preparation for patch 5.8. At 03:00 Pacific time (10:00 UTC), the servers will be shut down and all games currently in progress will end in a draw and stats will not be recorded. We estimate the battlegrounds will be unavailable for 3 hours.

[EUW]

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

On 29/04/15, starting at 03:30 UK Time (02:30 UTC), ranked queues will be disabled in preparation for patch 5.8. At 05:00 UK Time (04:00 UTC), the servers will be shut down and all games currently in progress will end in a draw and stats will not be recorded. We estimate the battlegrounds will be unavailable for 3 hours.

[EUNE]

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

On 29/04/15, starting at 01:30 CEST (23:30 UTC), ranked queues will be disabled in preparation for patch 5.8. At 03:00 CEST (01:00 UTC), the servers will be shut down and all games currently in progress will end in a draw and stats will not be recorded. We estimate the battlegrounds will be unavailable for 3 hours.

[OCE]

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

On 30/04/15, starting at 05:30 Sydney Time (19:30 UTC), ranked queues will be disabled in preparation for patch 5.8. At 07:00 Sydney Time (21:00 UTC), the servers will be shut down and all games currently in progress will end in a draw and stats will not be recorded. We estimate the battlegrounds will be unavailable for 3 hours.

The Guardians of the Sands Stand Watch

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

 

Deep in the sands lies an arcane temple forsaken by a ruined kingdom. Deep in that temple lies an imposing tomb burnished with mystic runes and emerald scarabs. Deep in that tomb lies an ancient being of treacherous power.

These guys guard the temple next to that one.

Stand watch over the desert with Guardian of the Sands Rammus and Skarner for 975 RP each or Guardian of the Sands  Xerath for 1350 RP (on sale for 975 RP through May 1.)

Cinderhulk and Hecarim Changes Incoming

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

Our current thoughts on Cinderhulk involve changing it so that it deals more damage to jungle monsters than other units to bias its effectiveness in favor of junglers. I believe we'll be testing that next week, see if it hits the mark and whether other or alternative changes would also be appropriate.

First one. It's mostly annoying because Cinderhulk will be receiving nerfs and like it or not, they will be harsher than they would otherwise have been as a result of supports and top laners latching onto it. Nautilus and Hecarim, meanwhile, both of whom are traditionally junglers but neither of whom are oppressive in that role will both likely also be nerfed because of their recent lane success, pushing them into near complete non-viability in the jungle.

We're testing some Hecarim changes at the moment with the goal of reducing his laning power without hitting his jungling. What that currently looks like is an increased mana cost on his Q, so it's not quite as spammable in lane, but with the reduced damage to jungle monsters removed so his jungle clears don't get penalized. Still exploring and discussing options though of course, so those exact changes aren't guaranteed to happen.

Socrates on Diamond V LP Issues

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

Hey all, have seen a few posts on this recently. While we know there is an issue with low LP gains in diamond 5, looking at the number of players with 0 and low LP scores doesn't show there is an issue with LP gains. If you look at any division you will see a similar pattern. In fact, 25% of players in every division are at 0 LP and all those players experience healthy gains. There is two reasons this pattern occurs:

1. Players are driven by standards. This dictates engagement patterns around reaching new divisions. In other words, nobody is setting a goal of reaching 97 LP then taking a break. The goal is always the next division or tier. Similar groupings appear in most systems structured in this way (for example, grading systems with minimum pass criteria).
   
   

2. The system is very lenient about demotions, and players cannot fall below 0 LP except by dodging. This means that any player who is technically below 0 LP will still be displayed at 0 until they fall far enough to be demoted. This also means that players climbing back out of an MMR technically below the amount expected for 0 LP will get smaller gains while they climb back up.

Why is this important? While we do have a fix on the way in the coming patches for this issue, it won't change the number of players who are at 0 LP in diamond 5 or any division. That isn't the problem or really even a symptom of it. I want to make sure the community understands the actual issue being discussed here.

 

The real issue is that LP calcs work differently d5 to challenger. Right now it's tuned too aggressively, so if you're out of sync from going on a losing streak after getting in it can feel really painful to climb out. The change we're implementing smooths out the gains over all of diamond instead of just immediately hitting full force in diamond 5, so it's less noticeable in any given game.

Lyte on Queue Dodging and Team Builder Draft

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

We have been working on Team Builder Draft, which should resolve a lot of conflicts in Ranked queues today; however, we haven't mentioned this much yet but players that trigger a lot of queue dodges do get penalties in the game such as game bans or Ranked Restrictions to stop them from playing Ranked.

I suppose we could do a post the next time queue dodge bans occur. After Team Builder Draft is launched, if there are still significant queue dodging issues, we may allow players to report a player and specify a reason if they do choose to queue dodge.

Galleta on Bloodmoon Skins and Diana

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

Blood Moon Elise, Thresh, Kalista, and now Zilean... That's quite a lot of skins for a certain line to come out in a relatively short amount of time. And yeah, they're all cool, I even got BM Thresh myself...

But a champ who actually has Moon powers? Nah, lets not do the obvious thing there. Its not like we (Riot) actually want the money of Diana mains...

Yo Diana players!

 

We aren't done making Blood Moon skins! The reason that the above list of champions got Blood Moons skins is pretty simple: they were all up for new skins and in each individual champions skin ideation session the Blood Moon theme came up. :D

 

Diana's last skin was in early 2014 so the time for her to get a new skin will be coming up again soonish (tm). I will say it again, Blood Moon is not off the table for her since her base skin is moon themed. Actually the Blood Moon theme leans more toward Kabuki in reference than to the Blood Moon itself.

 

Additionally, if we were to ideate on skins for Diana what other skins would you guys like to see?

I'm still wondering why Zilean got this Blood Moon skin after four years instead of something actually worth the wait. BM Zilean is the most disappointing skin Riot's team has announced , in terms of concept and the hypocrisy in comparison to the two-year wait for Zac.

 

Was the team's goal to just release a skin for Zilean and not make it worth the wait? Did you just want to avoid all the "Zilean skin where" posts here and on Reddit? Why "Blood Moon," a concept that better fits other champions? Was Zilean not enough of a "special snowflake" to put in some real effort into making it special? There hasn't been one Rioter who has addressed this, and it's the biggest letdown I've felt since the lore retcon.

 

If I'm wrong, please tell me why I'm wrong. If I'm right, say so or don't say anything.

Yo!

 

So yes, Zilean was up for a skin and so he did go through a skin ideation session. These session are used to in drum up ideas for a champions next skin, and to fill out our backlog. He wasn't rushed in any way. We as a team thought Blood Moon was a good addition to his existing set of skins.

 

I'm honestly curious, why do think Blood Moon doesn't fit Zilean and what skin ideas were you hoping for?

Its not that it doesnt fit on Zilean per say, the proper explanation as to why he got it is needed. You know, inside dev reasonings, the ideas that spear headed such a skin to be made which will explain why Blood Moon Zilean came to be.

Ahh I see! Ok so this makes explaining this a bit easier. So in ideations typically we start by defining the champion: their personality, kit, big reads ect. That helps us lock onto core features of the champion that need to be preserved and/or highlighted in the new skin.

 

For Zilean, obviously, his clock is pretty much his biggest read. In his ideation a good amount of ideas were focused around his clock and one person pitched Blood Moon with the idea that his clock was a gong. Specifically tying the skin in with some one our newer Blood Moon skins that have recalls with musical/kabuki themes, this also helped our animators lock in a recall idea super early on. Additionally the white haired kabuki inspired mask would be another good Zilean read.

 

So, we did come up with other ideas in that session, I think 3 -4 went to the initial concept phase. But even after this initial concept phase we felt that Blood Moon was the strongest concept. We had a cool skin idea, recall idea, some good strong reads, and a theme that was different from his existing skins.

I get all this, but the biggest question still remains: Was the only focus concerning BM Zilean just to get a skin done for him? Did the team consider making a skin worthy of a four-year wait or did they just make this one with the goal of getting one released. Nothing that's been said suggests otherwise and this is what makes BM Zilean a complete disappointment to me. [...]

Yo!

 

No the focus for this skin was, as it is for ever skin, to create an awesome skin that our players will love.

 

What each person considers a "worthy" skin differs from person to person. I personally like this skin a lot, and I get how you feel that I'm biased since I work on the skins team. I just feel like your complaints are more of a personal opinion (you wanted a time themed skin) rather than a critical opinion of the skin itself. These are just my observations based on your comments.

We did put a lot of though and time into this skin, he has a completely new model, new recall animation, and all new particles. I don't feel like anything about this skin was rushed, and it certainly wasn't just put out willy nilly.

 

Also in regards to "filling out our backlog", I was referring to awesome skin ideas that we come up with in ideations that are put in our skins backlog or reference library for later use. We may come up with 5-6 ideas that are awesome but we can only use one at any given time. These ideas are then brought back up in future ideations and can still become fully realized skins in the future.

"Let's talk about account trading"

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

Hey Summoners - it’s the Risk team here, looking to grab your attention for a few minutes to discuss account trading. We’ve long been aware that League accounts are available for trade or sale on a number of websites or services. These can range from individuals advertising on social media to highly professional-looking multi-game account-selling websites.

 

We’d like to pass along a friendly reminder - any kind of account trading is dangerous. Buying, selling, gifting, trading - it’s all against our Terms of Use, and we’ll go into a little bit of detail as to why in just a minute. The TL;DR of why we don’t support account trading is that it causes bad player experiences for our player base as a whole, but let’s talk about what makes that so.

 

First, we want the Fields of Justice to be a place of competitive integrity. We want each League of Legends account to reflect all the skill, hard work, and determination of each of us. Many teams at Riot strive to ensure that competitive fairness in League in maintained. On the Risk team, we want to make sure that players aren’t purchasing accounts that don’t reflect their own abilities. Purchasing accounts causes people to miss out on the learning experience of leveling, and can impact other people in ranked play. If I (a silver god) bought a diamond account and queued up for some ranked games, I’d be ruining the experience for my teammates.

 

Additionally, account trading clouds the issue, as many people (understandably) feel like they have a right to own an account that they “bought.” Trades cause a lot of pain when it comes to ownership and recoveries. The account creator is responsible when it comes to payments and in-game behavior, and they’re the only one that can gain access through an account recovery. To learn more about how an account seller can scam you, check out our support article.

 

Finally, account trading indirectly harms everyone, just by existing. The “black market” incentivizes people towards tons of toxic activities - botting, phishing, Elo boosting, and hacking to name a few. As long as there’s a potential buyer, people will be willing to ruin games with bots and boosters, or to hack your account and sell it out from under you. We want to attack the root cause of these problems.

 

It’s for these reasons that we ask our player base to refrain from selling, buying, trading, or gifting accounts. We’ll always strive to provide the best player support possible, but we can all help each other by following the tenets of account ownership that are laid out in the Terms of Use.

 

We would love to know what other topics you’d like to talk about, so please let us know in the comments. We will be sticking around a bit to answer questions.

Account trading is understandably something that Riot would want to be against to encourage a healthy gaming environment, but why has there been no discussion between Riot and the consumer about account sharing? [...]

We currently don't suspend accounts solely for sharing. When we do suspend accounts that are being shared, it's usually a result of other activities (e.g. compromise, Elo boosting, etc.). Often times, one person using the account will do something shady without the other person's knowledge. Ultimately, the account creator is responsible for all activities occuring on an account. We know this is frustrating, and this is why we discourage account sharing.

 

On the same note**. account sharing goes against the summoners code too? Like if two brothers or friends happen to share a smurf account let's say on EU-NE when they both have a main account on EU-W?

Yes, this is still discouraged. Even if there is no nefarious activity occurring, a skill gap between players on the same account can have an adverse effect on other players in their games.

Hey BananaBrad! Thanks for starting this discussion!

they don't want to level a new account to 30 and re-grind for runes. Are there any plans to maybe add an easy leveling option for smurf accounts like this? I think it would also cut down on the number of "account bots" that seem to just run into the enemy until the account hits 30. [...]

We understand that a lot of players have smurf accounts, but this is not something we want to encourage either. We would rather come up with solutions that allow you to continue enjoying your experience without creating a secondary account.

 

There are some pain points that drive players to creates smurfs that we are trying to solve (practicing a new role, playing with friends who are new to the game). Team Builder is an example of a feature that allows you to practice new champions and play with friends at varying skill levels.

reminding people that purchasing an account is 1) a poor financial decision and 2) risks that account being permabanned is totally self-evident

We should not assume that this is self-evident. One of the reasons we chose to post about this topic is because a lot of players are unaware of the risks of buying/trading/sharing accounts.

First, the fact that there's a black market for level 30 accounts to begin with. Black markets arise when there is a good or service that cannot be easily obtained through legal methods, and as it stands, levelling multiple accounts to level 30 requires a huge investment in time and effort. It takes about 300 to 400 games to reach level 30 and the IP earned almost certainly is not sufficient to purchase a sufficient amount runes, rune pages or champions to enter and feasibly be competitive in Ranked play.

I don't disagree with this. When I see third-party solutions pop up, it signals to me that there's either a player need we aren't meeting, or there's something we could be doing better. The leveling process is a topic that comes up occasionally, but I don't have any news to share with you re: leveling at this time.

There's no competitive integrity when a player disconnects, AFKs, ragequits, or trolls in champion select and I am almost 100% certain those things happen more often than say, a Bronze IV player purchasing an account that has Diamond II MMR. But there is no recompense for lost time, MMR or LP when you're forced into a 4v5 or have a teammate that flat out refuses to cooperate and feeds. So where is the effort from the "Many teams at Riot [who] strive to ensure that competitive fairness in League in maintained"? Why is effort being put into stopping account sharing or purchasing when there's a much more pertinent and damaging issue?

Putting effort into this discussion about account sharing does not mean there isn't effort put into the other issues you've identified (there is). One of the "many teams" referenced is our player behavior team, and Lyte discusses progress on AFK / toxic behavior from time to time.

Champion and Skin Sale: 04.28 - 05.01

Originally Posted by Riot (View Original Source)

 

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

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Skin Sales

Give your champions a new look with these skins:

Primal Udyr 975 487 RP
Soul Reaver Draven 1350 675 RP
Loch Ness Cho'Gath 520 260 RP

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Champion Sales

Add these champions to your roster:

Zed 975 487 RP	Talon 880 440 RP	Evelynn 585 292 RP

Other Red Posts

• How does Riot create their sound effects for abilities/etc?
• faiied reworks: zilean
• "That Champ Requires No Skill"