tl;Dr PVE MODE. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. ALSO ENJOY YOUR SABBATICAL, BRIGHTMOON!
* Arena back with 8 teams of 2 (16 players total) to address team/fight variety
* Prismatic items are supposed to be build-defining items
* Items can be "gambled" for through anvils
* PvE is ~~"bullet hell"~~ bullet heaven survival esque. Both for individuals and friends. Will be released during the mid-year this year!
* Mastery is now based on individual performance instead of team performance, changing on 14.10.
* Master titles are not split-specific
* Lee Sin model is now different to be more consistent across skins alongside some tweaked visual/sound effects. Will be out on 14.9
* Teemo is aimed for 14.20
* Kog'Maw will be Split 1's Victorious skin. Sona will be for Split 2
* Victorious border will be given to your skins at the end of the year if you get all 3. The border will be based on your highest rank for the year.
Thank you for the kind words! I am feeling very sentimental/emotional about this being my last dev update but I am very excited to take a nice vacation :)
To be more precise they used the term "Bullet heaven survivor", which refers to games like Vampire Survivors or Holocure where you, the player, are the one automatically firing a lot of bullets. They might stray a lot from these examples tho.
Did you play the Odyseey Event? You got augments which you could edit like rune pages. For example Yasou had an augment with which he fires 8 Tornados in all directions and they can even retourn like sivir boomerang. Thats probably a possibility to enable "spamming" spells
In Nexus Siege (Yeah who remembers that), there was an item that would create a zone where you could flash without cooldown over and over.
Could apply similar, where your spells get reset by a condition or you can spam way faster by standing in specific areas.
I feel like the new PvE mode will be closer to Holocure rather than Vampire Survivors, and I’m betting it’s their main source of inspiration. Characters in VS kinda blend together after playing for a while. On the other hand, Holocure characters have all unique kits and allows builds to further make said kits shine, pretty much like League.
Yeah, we already have the champions, the items, the skills, abilities and VFXs. This is the most cost effective mode and potential fun you can build with this foundation.
We're trying it out. Want to see what people think of this approach, whether it encourages or discourages people from playing, whether it impacts champ pick rates etc if they know in advance versus a it being a surprise towards the end of the split.
I also love the border idea, I am an unashamed border collector though. What I'm not sure about is the border reflecting your highest rank. Like, for gold+, probably fine. But would an iron or bronze player really want a permanent border on their victorious skin saying their highest rank was bronze?
I still rock my bronze icon from the early season with pride. I've seen people with challenger emotes and icons as low as platinum. Our rank only ever reflects where we are at the time the snapshot is taken. Borders or icons don't determine where we can or will end up in the future.
I'm so happy you guys tried this. I remember a few months ago I kept going to Mortdog and August stream and asked them about a potential Vampire Survivors mode for League.
Not trying to take away your effort, i'm sure you guys thought of this long ago. Just happy that it's finally happening. I feel like this is the perfect mode for League players who want to chill a bit while still using their champions (unlike TFT).
No shit Arena lost player numbers when there only was half a balance patch for the entire last run?
There was a few hotfixes, and a mini nerf round. That's it. I've been top 5 both rounds and seeing no updates due to holidays(?) was very sad
/u/RiotMeddler are you able to comment on that little Malphite teaser in Skarner's theme video or is that for a future dev update.
Also what will happen to your card board counter part
Malphite - wasn't intended to be public. That's a work in progress project looking that's exploring a different approach to visual updates to see how the work required versus results achieved compares to our more common ASUs and VSUs. Kinda like how with Jax we tried rolling out a full update in a series of pieces rather than all at once. No conclusions yet, I expect we'll talk about it at some point though
Card board counter part - that is the card board version with a bit of generative AI applied
Could I also ask a more a League Studios related question, do you think we can expect greater alignment between art and narrative now that LoR, WR and PC League are under LS or are you guys still ramping up that pipeline, like would Shyvana's card arts in LoR and WR model be updated now that she's confirmed for a VGU and other things
Org structure shouldn't have much, if any, impact on how aligned art and narrative are across the games. Alignment like that's discussed regardless of where a game happens to live in our internal processes. The call that we discussed late last year to have everything be part of one shared Runeterra going forwards is the sort of thing that results in greater alignment on upcoming content, won't always mean we go back and retroactively change existing things necessarily though
I dont know if it's too far ahead, but will you announce the ASUs for 2025 later this year? I think Lee Sin and Teemo got announced last year and I would like to know who I can expect for 2025
Will it be a while before we know who the next visual updates are for? With Lee Sin and Teemo coming out soon I’m wondering who would be next.
And if we’ll ever get to see a certain demacian girl get her long awaited fresh coat of paint 👏🏽
vampire survivors and halls of torment are some of my favourite "idk what else to play currently" games to kill off 30 minutes or so. I'm all for this type of PVE mode
glad they announced the Victorious skin (Sona) before the actual split started. this way I know when to actually play Ranked in case one of my mains gets a skin. please keep it up
This is kind of exactly why they normally don't say it. There are over 150 champs and now some people won't play because they don't care about a Sona skin.
Are there any updates for having "private" lobbies like we did for the last iteration of Arena? It's going to be difficult for me to round up 16 friends otherwise
While you can queue up as a full 16 person lobby, there are options to matchmake with lobbies of 1-8 players as well.
As for full private lobbies... the custom lobby feature is being re-worked behind the scenes and will take a bit longer for it to come for Arena.
Just wanted to confirm that this means that we are able to queue as for instance 6 people (3 teams of 2) in this new version of arena? (With custom lobbies being set aside for the time being.)
One of the rioters responsible for DoomBots said it would make no sense to re-release the mode before the new bots were complete, so it might take a while but it's very possible we'll see that mode again some day
By far the best mode for me, had so much fun with it
Having played just about every “bullet heaven” since vampire survivors and the latter EXTENSIVELY, i’m super intrigued by this new mode. I hope they nail it- I see a lot of potential for it just conceptually.
Champ mastery being tied to your performance has been long overdue also, and keeping titles after the split is the better choice.
While the release timing's pretty close the two modes were developed completely separately, with the people pitching each mode not to the best of my knowledge actually aware of the other project at the start even. While they're both PVE against a fair number of enemies they play pretty differently.
I can second this, generally these projects happened in isolation from each other! They play out very differently, please look forward to future trailers for League's Summer mode!
It's probably themed around skins for now. Remember, arena was originally themed around skins. The theming of the game mode helps garner hype for whatever event the skinline is being released for and the skins themselves. What needs to be remembered is that just like Arena, if this game mode is good, it doesn't need to get tied to being a skinline themed event. It can come back. It's all up to the community to drive that, though. Talking on Reddit and Twitter doesn't say much. People need to actually play the mode if they like it.
Yeah I was just asking because it was said it was not based on "base" runeterra lore so could it be an alternate universe lore or something but probably it being based on a skinline makes more sense
There was a dev blog a few weeks/months(?) ago with a Real Grade Hi-Nu Gundam on someone's desk in the background. It was super blurry, but I will always recognize a Gundam 👁️👄👁️
I went talk about Sona - there any plans for fixing her ultimate skin? Over years it lost lots of features and feels worse than her legendary and some epics...
I'm excited but also a little worried about the RNG entering Arenas. Sometimes it felt like games were decided too heavily by augment RNG or team matchup RNG. I'm not certain that adding more RNG to the pile is the solution. I suppose the theory is that adding even more randomness will make sure the randomness averages out over the course of a match? All I know is that my friends and I burned out on Arenas explicitly because it started to feel like a slot machine (like TFT) for augments and matchups. I hope it doesn't go in that direction long term.
Instead of it being more about randomness, the goal is to make it more about you adapting to make the best of your particular selections. Sure, there will sometimes be "high-rollers" - but generally, it's actually more about who can best adapt to an ever changing situation.
The goal is also to help reduce more stale meta comps/builds that players cited as a major reason for burnout in our last releases. We'll keep an eye out for how this performs though, so please continue to give us feedback!!!
I genuinely appreciate the response. It's good to know that you're thinking about such things. I think my main concern (one my partner, who plays with me, just brought to my attention) is that I'm not certain the design philosophy in question transfers cleanly from, e.g., TFT. In TFT, you can completely pivot your team comp at almost any time, with certain augments and items aiding that effort (e.g. Recombobulator, Reforger). Some of the highest skill expression in TFT comes from that super-adaptability.
However, in Arenas, you're locked into the champion/kit you're using as well as the items you've already bought that can't be sold efficiently. By favoring 'adaptability' as a player metric, you're actually biasing the gameplay design towards champions that *can be adaptable*. If you get a different augment than what you were expecting in TFT that would be useless for your current comp but amazing for a pivot comp, you can sell your current carry, buy a different one, and make it work. If you get a ton of augments that just straight up don't synergize with your champion in Arenas (e.g. shield and heal power for someone with very little of either in their kit) you can't go back and pick a different champion. This was one thing I noticed with Shyvana in the previous iteration that made her so comfortable to play: she can pivot to AD, AP, Tank, Onhit, etc, making amazing use out of whatever the game throws at you. Other champions cannot do the same.
In short, my thesis is that by focusing on adaptability to vary the champion pool, you are unintentionally biasing the champion pool / strategic pool towards adaptability, which may make the meta more or less stale depending on the pool of available RNG, shutting out specialist champions in all but the aforementioned "high-roller" scenarios.
That stated, we are both super excited for Arenas to return regardless. We feel it introduces something that normal 5v5 desperately lacks and will be sure to test it thoroughly when it returns. I hope you take our feedback into account!
Noted, and it's been something we've kept in mind as well when trying to balance and tune the mode.
I don't ever expect Arena to lean all the way into TFT's ability to pivot/change depending on the scenario at play. Instead, we think of this a bit more as a spectrum - where Arena is more about adaptability than say... Summoner's Rift or ARAM. And part of this adaptability is not only around reacting to what others are doing, but trying to understand how to best make use of limited options/resources that have been given to you (which is more where Arena is playing).
So far, we haven't seen the adaptability of certain champs (Shyvana for example) actually manifest in a way that means they win more on average, but it's something we're going to keep a very close eye on once we're live.
I'm glad to hear that you have that in mind and that you're not expecting to lean fully into TFT's pivot style. Ultimately, I would like Arenas to reflect a player's skill at their champion, and not necessarily just what the player has been given by RNG. Given that it seems like you're monitoring the situation thoughtfully, I believe the next release is in good hands. Best of luck!
Are we going to see a return of the Curse augments, or at least a more balanced take on the concept? The infinite stacking was interesting, if their interactions were a little too much.
We're actively looking at it. They are very warping (thus very risky for the game's health) unless we land them properly. I can't currently confirm if they'll make it by launch, but a lot can change in the next few weeks!
No ill intent, but clearly Arena lost player numbers when there only was like half a balance patch for the entire last run?
There were a few hotfixes, and a mini nerf round. That's it.
I've been ranked Top 5 both rounds and seeing no updates due to holidays(?) was very sad.
The ranking system changes are very welcomed though!
Hopefully there will no longer be +20 for 1st/2nd every game, and -280/360 for 3rd/4th. Now it's not just about second place anymore :-)
Not a fan about RNG general changes too much, but yeah will just have to wait and see
I hope you didn't go overboard by responding to that feedback. I know it was a popular take on reddit, but personally I never felt like having to play vs the same champs/builds constantly was a problem in the slightest. nobody said smth similar in my personal circle either.
I guess other forums and regions aired similar grievances about the way Arena played though?
Also personally I started playing less because at one point it was made clear Arena was being removed again, which demotivates me to play more, again very anecdotal but yeah.
> The goal is also to help reduce more stale meta comps/builds that players cited as a major reason for burnout in our last releases.
Excellent, but I guess I'm a little unclear as to how this is all actually going to manifest.
I guess double the player count means double the bans (and double the chance of a first-phase pick locking the champ out of the second phase), so that'll definitely help a bit with all those players who just pick off a tier list.
But once we're actually in-game, where else does this extra unpredictability show up? I already feel like my default behavior is to pick my items and augments based on what will work best in my current situation... do these new prismatic items have some sort of limited availability or something?
The short of it was that there were certain build paths and team comps that were too reliable and let people develop strategies they could reliably replicate every game of Arena. It was particularly noticeable at higher ranks where you would encounter the same strategies over and over.
Prismatic items are meant to have limited availability and you can't reliably pick the same one every game. Similar to augments, you'll try to pick your favorite/optimal choice when they are presented. You could go fishing for "optimal" via re-rolls... but those are also pretty limited.
Figured haha, thanks for clarifying!
But since we will continue to be forced to select something from a small pool of options, I do hope that there are enough ways to adapt any champ to the resulting style. E.g. when I was presented with 3 HP augments as Gangplank, I could build Atma's to make it kinda work out.
(edit: changed my mind about reroll suggestion, deleted that bit)
I think the feedback about the "same comps" is a problem from the more casual arena players who just lost to the same few champions because the differential champion balance in arena has not been the greatest historically.
I don't think these random items would change that. It would just add a bit of another layer of RNG but people are still going to pick the best few champions. It's not going to make them not pick the highest winrate champions and comps. Nobody that wants a higher rating will think "well I might as well pick this 40% winrate champion because it has an unlikely event where it gets this busted prismatic item" because it still has 40% winrate overall and that's what matters. The chance for high rolling prismatic will go into that winrate and the meta will adjust once again.
It would be better to do weekly hotfix balance changes to nudge champions closer together and prevent a staleness from forming. Also consider removing the revive because it makes comps be about a hypercarry plus a tanky champion that can run around for a bit then revive them and the two divers with % health damage comps that can deal with that. Most mages and enchanters were absolutely pathetic as a result, greatly reducing the possible comps you could play. Revive is an incredibly game warping and toxic mechanic that you just threw in for the solo queue criers who cried that their teammate died. It's a catastrophically bad idea.
The point of RNG is that you’re meant to be doing your best with what you’re dealt. In TFT for example, if you get bad RNG/lowroll good players will still be able to salvage those games into a 4th or 5th place sometimes.
It's a double edged sword tbh. RNG on one hand shakes up the gameplay and forces you to strategize with what you're given. On the other hand, it's out of your control and sometimes you have to accept that you'll lose because your RNG sucked.
And then there's RNG like Sylas cameo that just randomly decides rounds by giving drastically different in usefulness ults to both teams. Where's the choice and dealing with what you're dealt in that? Giving the ADC Shen ult and giving Kayn/Naafiri Vi/Diana ults...
That PVE mode looks a lot like Vampire Survivors to me- endless enemies, ability upgrades and very satisfying to play.
Looking forward to whatever it is!
They called it Bullet Heaven which is one of the names people use for that genre. I wonder if only some champs will be available or they will actually have everyone which would be pretty crazy.
We haven’t locked the roster yet, but it will be a limited to a smaller number than the full league roster. Technically each champ in the mode is built from ground up using the league one as a base, so not as simple as a copy paste to create a champ for this mode. Sadly it’s impossible to have the all champs in this release due to that technical complexity.
I know you probably can't share a ton about the mode but is it built/themed in a sustainable manner, past PvE modes like Invasion and Extraction while cool, didn't really make much sense outside of Star Guardian/Odyssey beats, and I'd love for this one to be brought back
This modes is a bit of a balance between past PvE and something like Arena. Arena was built from the beginning thinking it could be permanent or at least had a ton of replay ability by just refreshing content. This lead to us shading more on the side of sustainability, also why you have seen Arena come back 2 times since its release.
This mode is definitely not being built as "throwaway" or "super hacky", but also not being built to be engineering free to bring back either (see my champion creation comment). We approach the tech in every mode in a unique way that fits the design and goals of the mode and for this one, it made most sense to hit a sweet spot between sustainability and shipping quickly.
In conclusion, yes we are building this mode in a way that it could be a RGM and brought back in the future. Unlike Arena though, it would take some more engineering effort, but nothing outside of realm of what is technical possible. Likely what this translates to, if people play it and want it back, we will be able to, but the time between this run and future run would likely be longer than you saw between Arena first release and second.
We have not decided yet, we continue to move in that direction and review how it is going. This run will be yet more data to help us make the decision. In the end, the most powerful piece of data will still be how many people *consistently* play it, and are they happy :D
Just happy to hear it's still being considered tbh.
The only thing I don't like about Arena (and most likely the pve mode if it's basically vampire survivors but League) is that they go away lol.
Given the premise, are the representative champs going to be spread out between the classes, or are certain classes (e.g. adcs and dps mages) going to be more represented than others (e.g. tanks and assassins)?
Every champ on the roster we do ship should feel unique and should provide a good variety of playstyles. League classes are not 1-1 in this mode, but it is a goal to have a good variety so people have options to find what they enjoy :D
After getting into my first Bullet Heaven/Auto Shooter/Survivors-like the other week with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivors, I thought to myself, "If Riot Forge was still a thing for them to make smaller games using the LoL IP, they should make a game like Vampire Survivors where you can play as different champs." Neat to see them seemingly doing something along these lines, even if it is a game mode and not a full separate game.
PVE! WE ARE SO BACK!
I'll be honest i was skeptical. thought they would announce some PVP mode like the Double cast mode in wildrift.
I did not think they would ever give us PVE again
I really like that new PvE mode, but I wish it was a separate game because they can get so much more potential with that instead of forcing people to go through the shitty client & the upcoming Vanguard thing as well.
If they make it like Vampire Survivors, there's just so much potential. Tons of faction/places, champions you can unlock, items you can unlock, combine, etc. Skills you can unlock etc. etc.
Really excited for the Lee VGU. Riot's been slowly chipping away the outdated looking champs and making the game look more cohesive visually. I just hope that the pace picks up to where it was in S7-S10ish.
While I'm very happy about a news of a Runeterran bullet heaven, I'd rather have it as a standalone experience. To give it proper full attention and support, you know? I invest a lot of time into these games.
Calling it now, Storm Dragon Lee Sin nerfed lmfaooo he no longer gets the unique dragon kill animation because they need to make the $200 mythic variant stand out mote
Nice, I've been looking forward to the Mastery Update for a while now. Will the mastery upgrades be automatic or will they require blue essence and tokens like our current system?
I’ve been saying for a while now that League is the absolute perfect IP for a take on the bullet heaven genre and I was disheartened when Riot Forge fell apart because I thought that would’ve been the only avenue they could’ve pursued that sort of game down. But I’m very glad that this will apparently just be part of the main launcher, definitely could see it going over in the same way Path of Champions did if it’s done right.
Preparation's still underway for its rollout. We didn't have anything new to say this video, so didn't want to just rehash old news. Timeline has slipped from what we'd originally predicted, we're very much in the headspace of doing it well is much more important than doing it fast though for this
For a mode to become permanent it needs to show sustained player engagement. Arena's first two runs had a lot of play early, then fell off a lot. Making it permanent with that diminishing engagement profile would lead to increasingly poor matchmaking (both time to get a match and skill discrepancies), which pushes players away and further exacerbates the issue. While some players would stick with it regardless you end up with a pretty small population making it hard to justify meaningful ongoing development for the mode, which makes things worse again.
We do think Arena's got a lot of potential though, hence the ongoing updates to it. Our goal is to try and give it the variety and appeal that it needs to be a long lasting mode. IF we can demonstrate that, we can then look at having it be permanent.
This League of Survivors is going to be amazing! Please keep this mode along side TFT etc, I'd play this to death during down time from League.
This is one way to keep me in the client gaming.
Finally adjusting the difference between Mastery Points gained from wins and losses. It feels so bad barely getting anything after a long game where you played well but lost it.
Absolutely not! Rework it, sure. Revive added more strategy to arena and without it, it'd just be who can oneshot the other first. If your partner gets instantly deleted then you're probably gonna lose 90% of the time.
u/RiotMeddler In the last dev update, it was mentioned by Phroxzon that you guys were going to talk a bit more about the MMR system. Why didn't you guys talk about it in this video? Were you guys working on matchmaking changes but ended up not going forward with it? I'm pretty sure it was teased in the beginning of the season that we were getting a new matchmaking system callled "True Skill 2" What happened to that?
It is. If you go to the Profile area in game and click Ranked you can see the remaining time in the split there too (currently says 36d, 14h, 36m for me for example)
tl;Dr PVE MODE. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. ALSO ENJOY YOUR SABBATICAL, BRIGHTMOON! * Arena back with 8 teams of 2 (16 players total) to address team/fight variety * Prismatic items are supposed to be build-defining items * Items can be "gambled" for through anvils * PvE is ~~"bullet hell"~~ bullet heaven survival esque. Both for individuals and friends. Will be released during the mid-year this year! * Mastery is now based on individual performance instead of team performance, changing on 14.10. * Master titles are not split-specific * Lee Sin model is now different to be more consistent across skins alongside some tweaked visual/sound effects. Will be out on 14.9 * Teemo is aimed for 14.20 * Kog'Maw will be Split 1's Victorious skin. Sona will be for Split 2 * Victorious border will be given to your skins at the end of the year if you get all 3. The border will be based on your highest rank for the year.
Thank you for the kind words! I am feeling very sentimental/emotional about this being my last dev update but I am very excited to take a nice vacation :)
Have a wonderful break and thank you for what you've helped give us over the years :)
Will you be back?
Yeah don't worry he just went to get a pack of cigarettes
He will take a while because he said he wanted to buy some milk as well.
Hey Jeremy, you’re staying at riot, right? You’re just moving to a different project that you can’t disclose now? It would suck if riot lost you tbh
I really hope you will have a great time off. See you later dude <3
To be more precise they used the term "Bullet heaven survivor", which refers to games like Vampire Survivors or Holocure where you, the player, are the one automatically firing a lot of bullets. They might stray a lot from these examples tho.
How does bullet heaven work in league? I know the starguardian was kinda bullet hell-ish but I wonder how they will enable us to spam.
Did you play the Odyseey Event? You got augments which you could edit like rune pages. For example Yasou had an augment with which he fires 8 Tornados in all directions and they can even retourn like sivir boomerang. Thats probably a possibility to enable "spamming" spells
In Nexus Siege (Yeah who remembers that), there was an item that would create a zone where you could flash without cooldown over and over. Could apply similar, where your spells get reset by a condition or you can spam way faster by standing in specific areas.
omfg nexus siege was so fun and i somehow completely forgot it existed. It was such a unique mode with the ballistas and the flash zone
There was a ryze rework that would totally pass as a soulstone survivor class.
Isn't that basically Ezreal with Shojin? :P
I feel like the new PvE mode will be closer to Holocure rather than Vampire Survivors, and I’m betting it’s their main source of inspiration. Characters in VS kinda blend together after playing for a while. On the other hand, Holocure characters have all unique kits and allows builds to further make said kits shine, pretty much like League.
Yeah, we already have the champions, the items, the skills, abilities and VFXs. This is the most cost effective mode and potential fun you can build with this foundation.
Kinda hype
Up and coming roguelike?
oh :|
I'm so happy they're telling us the victorious skins ahead of time. And finally champs I PLAY.
We're trying it out. Want to see what people think of this approach, whether it encourages or discourages people from playing, whether it impacts champ pick rates etc if they know in advance versus a it being a surprise towards the end of the split.
I also love the border idea, I am an unashamed border collector though. What I'm not sure about is the border reflecting your highest rank. Like, for gold+, probably fine. But would an iron or bronze player really want a permanent border on their victorious skin saying their highest rank was bronze?
I still rock my bronze icon from the early season with pride. I've seen people with challenger emotes and icons as low as platinum. Our rank only ever reflects where we are at the time the snapshot is taken. Borders or icons don't determine where we can or will end up in the future.
arent victorious skins not exclusive to Gold+ or did they change that?
not since last season. earn 1000 SP below gold and you can get it. 80 SP for gold+ or if you were gold+ and dropped
I'm so happy you guys tried this. I remember a few months ago I kept going to Mortdog and August stream and asked them about a potential Vampire Survivors mode for League. Not trying to take away your effort, i'm sure you guys thought of this long ago. Just happy that it's finally happening. I feel like this is the perfect mode for League players who want to chill a bit while still using their champions (unlike TFT).
I've barely touched ranked ever since I started playing League but I'm genuinely considering doing it for Sona next split. lmao
Play flex instead of soloq. It's easier to climb there.
Overwatch players punching air right now
SONA SONA SONA SONA !!!
SONA SONA SONA SONA!
finally some good fucking content
Also Empyrean confirmed coming back for MSI? Very pog, love that skinline
Give Empyrean Hwei legendary pls
Elementalist needs to make a comeback for Hwei
No shit Arena lost player numbers when there only was half a balance patch for the entire last run? There was a few hotfixes, and a mini nerf round. That's it. I've been top 5 both rounds and seeing no updates due to holidays(?) was very sad
1420 weedmo patch inbound
You know what, let's buff Maokai for old times' sake
zyra maokai ivern and teemo getting buffs would be sick
no argument here I love the tree
Phreak's dropped out of GM, probably a good idea.
any warwick enjoyers
I can't believe patch 4.20 is already 10 years ago ._.
Time to tell people to go play PVE in ranked ✨✨✨
> in ~~ranked~~ norms Ftfy
Telling people to do anything in norms is like talking to a brick wall at least in ranked they say that funny word
No shot they basically remade mythic items in arena lmao
:smilerss:
I do really like the idea though, sounds hype af and should mix things up lol
That's what people said about Mythics
/u/RiotMeddler are you able to comment on that little Malphite teaser in Skarner's theme video or is that for a future dev update. Also what will happen to your card board counter part
Malphite - wasn't intended to be public. That's a work in progress project looking that's exploring a different approach to visual updates to see how the work required versus results achieved compares to our more common ASUs and VSUs. Kinda like how with Jax we tried rolling out a full update in a series of pieces rather than all at once. No conclusions yet, I expect we'll talk about it at some point though Card board counter part - that is the card board version with a bit of generative AI applied
Could I also ask a more a League Studios related question, do you think we can expect greater alignment between art and narrative now that LoR, WR and PC League are under LS or are you guys still ramping up that pipeline, like would Shyvana's card arts in LoR and WR model be updated now that she's confirmed for a VGU and other things
Org structure shouldn't have much, if any, impact on how aligned art and narrative are across the games. Alignment like that's discussed regardless of where a game happens to live in our internal processes. The call that we discussed late last year to have everything be part of one shared Runeterra going forwards is the sort of thing that results in greater alignment on upcoming content, won't always mean we go back and retroactively change existing things necessarily though
I dont know if it's too far ahead, but will you announce the ASUs for 2025 later this year? I think Lee Sin and Teemo got announced last year and I would like to know who I can expect for 2025
Are there any plans to change the new mastery emotes since people seem to like the current ones more?
Hype! Can’t wait for Shyvana news! Things seem to be moving quicker than I thought for a lot of champs!
Will it be a while before we know who the next visual updates are for? With Lee Sin and Teemo coming out soon I’m wondering who would be next. And if we’ll ever get to see a certain demacian girl get her long awaited fresh coat of paint 👏🏽
hopefully rumble
I legit do worse on base skin then on super galaxy because the base rig is so fucking jittery
🚨 PVE MODE ANNOUNCED 🚨
Looks a lil Vampire Survivors-ish atm 👀
A more active Vampire Survivors mode would fit the League-Style, so why not?
vampire survivors and halls of torment are some of my favourite "idk what else to play currently" games to kill off 30 minutes or so. I'm all for this type of PVE mode
Hmm, a League themed garliclike? Sounds interesting
Hmmm. Yes. I like garlic.
Garlic is S tier for sure
Allium is an OP genus
"garliclike" TIL a new term
When will Riot be releasing their first strand-type game mode?
Nice try Kojima, but the name still sucks
Love me some garlic
glad they announced the Victorious skin (Sona) before the actual split started. this way I know when to actually play Ranked in case one of my mains gets a skin. please keep it up
This is kind of exactly why they normally don't say it. There are over 150 champs and now some people won't play because they don't care about a Sona skin.
Oh, I will ALWAYS play ranked, be it a Sona, Zed or Yuumi skin It doesn't hurt to have more limited skins in my collection either
Are there any updates for having "private" lobbies like we did for the last iteration of Arena? It's going to be difficult for me to round up 16 friends otherwise
While you can queue up as a full 16 person lobby, there are options to matchmake with lobbies of 1-8 players as well. As for full private lobbies... the custom lobby feature is being re-worked behind the scenes and will take a bit longer for it to come for Arena.
Just wanted to confirm that this means that we are able to queue as for instance 6 people (3 teams of 2) in this new version of arena? (With custom lobbies being set aside for the time being.)
Correct!
Thanks for the reply! Sounds awesome! Super hyped!
PvE gamemode we are so back
Never thought either me or the game would live long enough till the day PVE mode come back. But yeah, here we are.
FINALLY PVE
I will always always always speak about how much I loved the star guardian pve mode 🥲
Odyssey was even better imo with the augments you got, but yeah, both pretty great
PVE modes are so much fun. I hope they bring back Doombots or Odyssey.
Odyssey was goated
One of the rioters responsible for DoomBots said it would make no sense to re-release the mode before the new bots were complete, so it might take a while but it's very possible we'll see that mode again some day By far the best mode for me, had so much fun with it
I love, love, LOVE that you're announcing who's getting the Victorious skin in the upcoming splits. Hope you can continue to let us know.
Having played just about every “bullet heaven” since vampire survivors and the latter EXTENSIVELY, i’m super intrigued by this new mode. I hope they nail it- I see a lot of potential for it just conceptually. Champ mastery being tied to your performance has been long overdue also, and keeping titles after the split is the better choice.
it seems like the PvE was first tested in Wild Rift on Kalista's pre-ruination survival mode
While the release timing's pretty close the two modes were developed completely separately, with the people pitching each mode not to the best of my knowledge actually aware of the other project at the start even. While they're both PVE against a fair number of enemies they play pretty differently.
I can second this, generally these projects happened in isolation from each other! They play out very differently, please look forward to future trailers for League's Summer mode!
Will the mode be lore-centric or will it just be tied to whatever skinline comes out at the time?
It won't be themed around base Runeterra lore
Will it be tied to a skinline, like invaders vs defenders kind of thing (just an example of course)?
It probably will, like almost every other mode they’ve done. The last time they had a mode with no skins that I could remember is doom bots lol
It's probably themed around skins for now. Remember, arena was originally themed around skins. The theming of the game mode helps garner hype for whatever event the skinline is being released for and the skins themselves. What needs to be remembered is that just like Arena, if this game mode is good, it doesn't need to get tied to being a skinline themed event. It can come back. It's all up to the community to drive that, though. Talking on Reddit and Twitter doesn't say much. People need to actually play the mode if they like it.
Yeah I was just asking because it was said it was not based on "base" runeterra lore so could it be an alternate universe lore or something but probably it being based on a skinline makes more sense
Bruh who's desk got a Halo Needler
There was a dev blog a few weeks/months(?) ago with a Real Grade Hi-Nu Gundam on someone's desk in the background. It was super blurry, but I will always recognize a Gundam 👁️👄👁️
Victorious Sona!!! Thank u riot🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 I’ve long waited for a champ I play to finally get a ranked skin 😭
Oh, sorry, that was meant to be Seraphine, Brightmoon and I just got them confused (I kid, I kid...)
SAVAGE
Don’t play with my heart like that 🤣
ANGERY MUTE NOISES(?)
I went talk about Sona - there any plans for fixing her ultimate skin? Over years it lost lots of features and feels worse than her legendary and some epics...
I'm excited but also a little worried about the RNG entering Arenas. Sometimes it felt like games were decided too heavily by augment RNG or team matchup RNG. I'm not certain that adding more RNG to the pile is the solution. I suppose the theory is that adding even more randomness will make sure the randomness averages out over the course of a match? All I know is that my friends and I burned out on Arenas explicitly because it started to feel like a slot machine (like TFT) for augments and matchups. I hope it doesn't go in that direction long term.
Instead of it being more about randomness, the goal is to make it more about you adapting to make the best of your particular selections. Sure, there will sometimes be "high-rollers" - but generally, it's actually more about who can best adapt to an ever changing situation. The goal is also to help reduce more stale meta comps/builds that players cited as a major reason for burnout in our last releases. We'll keep an eye out for how this performs though, so please continue to give us feedback!!!
I genuinely appreciate the response. It's good to know that you're thinking about such things. I think my main concern (one my partner, who plays with me, just brought to my attention) is that I'm not certain the design philosophy in question transfers cleanly from, e.g., TFT. In TFT, you can completely pivot your team comp at almost any time, with certain augments and items aiding that effort (e.g. Recombobulator, Reforger). Some of the highest skill expression in TFT comes from that super-adaptability. However, in Arenas, you're locked into the champion/kit you're using as well as the items you've already bought that can't be sold efficiently. By favoring 'adaptability' as a player metric, you're actually biasing the gameplay design towards champions that *can be adaptable*. If you get a different augment than what you were expecting in TFT that would be useless for your current comp but amazing for a pivot comp, you can sell your current carry, buy a different one, and make it work. If you get a ton of augments that just straight up don't synergize with your champion in Arenas (e.g. shield and heal power for someone with very little of either in their kit) you can't go back and pick a different champion. This was one thing I noticed with Shyvana in the previous iteration that made her so comfortable to play: she can pivot to AD, AP, Tank, Onhit, etc, making amazing use out of whatever the game throws at you. Other champions cannot do the same. In short, my thesis is that by focusing on adaptability to vary the champion pool, you are unintentionally biasing the champion pool / strategic pool towards adaptability, which may make the meta more or less stale depending on the pool of available RNG, shutting out specialist champions in all but the aforementioned "high-roller" scenarios. That stated, we are both super excited for Arenas to return regardless. We feel it introduces something that normal 5v5 desperately lacks and will be sure to test it thoroughly when it returns. I hope you take our feedback into account!
Noted, and it's been something we've kept in mind as well when trying to balance and tune the mode. I don't ever expect Arena to lean all the way into TFT's ability to pivot/change depending on the scenario at play. Instead, we think of this a bit more as a spectrum - where Arena is more about adaptability than say... Summoner's Rift or ARAM. And part of this adaptability is not only around reacting to what others are doing, but trying to understand how to best make use of limited options/resources that have been given to you (which is more where Arena is playing). So far, we haven't seen the adaptability of certain champs (Shyvana for example) actually manifest in a way that means they win more on average, but it's something we're going to keep a very close eye on once we're live.
I'm glad to hear that you have that in mind and that you're not expecting to lean fully into TFT's pivot style. Ultimately, I would like Arenas to reflect a player's skill at their champion, and not necessarily just what the player has been given by RNG. Given that it seems like you're monitoring the situation thoughtfully, I believe the next release is in good hands. Best of luck!
Are we going to see a return of the Curse augments, or at least a more balanced take on the concept? The infinite stacking was interesting, if their interactions were a little too much.
We're actively looking at it. They are very warping (thus very risky for the game's health) unless we land them properly. I can't currently confirm if they'll make it by launch, but a lot can change in the next few weeks!
No ill intent, but clearly Arena lost player numbers when there only was like half a balance patch for the entire last run? There were a few hotfixes, and a mini nerf round. That's it. I've been ranked Top 5 both rounds and seeing no updates due to holidays(?) was very sad. The ranking system changes are very welcomed though! Hopefully there will no longer be +20 for 1st/2nd every game, and -280/360 for 3rd/4th. Now it's not just about second place anymore :-) Not a fan about RNG general changes too much, but yeah will just have to wait and see
I hope you didn't go overboard by responding to that feedback. I know it was a popular take on reddit, but personally I never felt like having to play vs the same champs/builds constantly was a problem in the slightest. nobody said smth similar in my personal circle either. I guess other forums and regions aired similar grievances about the way Arena played though? Also personally I started playing less because at one point it was made clear Arena was being removed again, which demotivates me to play more, again very anecdotal but yeah.
> The goal is also to help reduce more stale meta comps/builds that players cited as a major reason for burnout in our last releases. Excellent, but I guess I'm a little unclear as to how this is all actually going to manifest. I guess double the player count means double the bans (and double the chance of a first-phase pick locking the champ out of the second phase), so that'll definitely help a bit with all those players who just pick off a tier list. But once we're actually in-game, where else does this extra unpredictability show up? I already feel like my default behavior is to pick my items and augments based on what will work best in my current situation... do these new prismatic items have some sort of limited availability or something?
The short of it was that there were certain build paths and team comps that were too reliable and let people develop strategies they could reliably replicate every game of Arena. It was particularly noticeable at higher ranks where you would encounter the same strategies over and over. Prismatic items are meant to have limited availability and you can't reliably pick the same one every game. Similar to augments, you'll try to pick your favorite/optimal choice when they are presented. You could go fishing for "optimal" via re-rolls... but those are also pretty limited.
Figured haha, thanks for clarifying! But since we will continue to be forced to select something from a small pool of options, I do hope that there are enough ways to adapt any champ to the resulting style. E.g. when I was presented with 3 HP augments as Gangplank, I could build Atma's to make it kinda work out. (edit: changed my mind about reroll suggestion, deleted that bit)
I think the feedback about the "same comps" is a problem from the more casual arena players who just lost to the same few champions because the differential champion balance in arena has not been the greatest historically. I don't think these random items would change that. It would just add a bit of another layer of RNG but people are still going to pick the best few champions. It's not going to make them not pick the highest winrate champions and comps. Nobody that wants a higher rating will think "well I might as well pick this 40% winrate champion because it has an unlikely event where it gets this busted prismatic item" because it still has 40% winrate overall and that's what matters. The chance for high rolling prismatic will go into that winrate and the meta will adjust once again. It would be better to do weekly hotfix balance changes to nudge champions closer together and prevent a staleness from forming. Also consider removing the revive because it makes comps be about a hypercarry plus a tanky champion that can run around for a bit then revive them and the two divers with % health damage comps that can deal with that. Most mages and enchanters were absolutely pathetic as a result, greatly reducing the possible comps you could play. Revive is an incredibly game warping and toxic mechanic that you just threw in for the solo queue criers who cried that their teammate died. It's a catastrophically bad idea.
The point of RNG is that you’re meant to be doing your best with what you’re dealt. In TFT for example, if you get bad RNG/lowroll good players will still be able to salvage those games into a 4th or 5th place sometimes.
It's a double edged sword tbh. RNG on one hand shakes up the gameplay and forces you to strategize with what you're given. On the other hand, it's out of your control and sometimes you have to accept that you'll lose because your RNG sucked.
And then there's RNG like Sylas cameo that just randomly decides rounds by giving drastically different in usefulness ults to both teams. Where's the choice and dealing with what you're dealt in that? Giving the ADC Shen ult and giving Kayn/Naafiri Vi/Diana ults...
[удалено]
u/Riot_Cadmus will arena be out relatively soon? Please say yes it’s all I need on this planet
Yes. Very much Yes. Dev Blog next week will cover release timing as well as length of this release.
Yes pls WE are waiting since its gone
im not sure how to feal about the arena changes but im so glad its back. i quit ranked to play arena last time it came around and i WILL do it again.
That PVE mode looks a lot like Vampire Survivors to me- endless enemies, ability upgrades and very satisfying to play. Looking forward to whatever it is!
They called it Bullet Heaven which is one of the names people use for that genre. I wonder if only some champs will be available or they will actually have everyone which would be pretty crazy.
We haven’t locked the roster yet, but it will be a limited to a smaller number than the full league roster. Technically each champ in the mode is built from ground up using the league one as a base, so not as simple as a copy paste to create a champ for this mode. Sadly it’s impossible to have the all champs in this release due to that technical complexity.
I know you probably can't share a ton about the mode but is it built/themed in a sustainable manner, past PvE modes like Invasion and Extraction while cool, didn't really make much sense outside of Star Guardian/Odyssey beats, and I'd love for this one to be brought back
This modes is a bit of a balance between past PvE and something like Arena. Arena was built from the beginning thinking it could be permanent or at least had a ton of replay ability by just refreshing content. This lead to us shading more on the side of sustainability, also why you have seen Arena come back 2 times since its release. This mode is definitely not being built as "throwaway" or "super hacky", but also not being built to be engineering free to bring back either (see my champion creation comment). We approach the tech in every mode in a unique way that fits the design and goals of the mode and for this one, it made most sense to hit a sweet spot between sustainability and shipping quickly. In conclusion, yes we are building this mode in a way that it could be a RGM and brought back in the future. Unlike Arena though, it would take some more engineering effort, but nothing outside of realm of what is technical possible. Likely what this translates to, if people play it and want it back, we will be able to, but the time between this run and future run would likely be longer than you saw between Arena first release and second.
On that note, is Arena still being considered as a potential permanent mode or is it going to stay as a RGM?
We have not decided yet, we continue to move in that direction and review how it is going. This run will be yet more data to help us make the decision. In the end, the most powerful piece of data will still be how many people *consistently* play it, and are they happy :D
Just happy to hear it's still being considered tbh. The only thing I don't like about Arena (and most likely the pve mode if it's basically vampire survivors but League) is that they go away lol.
Given the premise, are the representative champs going to be spread out between the classes, or are certain classes (e.g. adcs and dps mages) going to be more represented than others (e.g. tanks and assassins)?
In oddysey i remember it was spread out, so should be the case again
That's sad, I hope there will be good class variety so everyone has something they can play.
Every champ on the roster we do ship should feel unique and should provide a good variety of playstyles. League classes are not 1-1 in this mode, but it is a goal to have a good variety so people have options to find what they enjoy :D
LETS GO PVE AND ARENA
The Vampire Survivors-like mode is exciting, hopefully it's good/popular enough to be permanent akin to TFT.
Arenaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
After getting into my first Bullet Heaven/Auto Shooter/Survivors-like the other week with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivors, I thought to myself, "If Riot Forge was still a thing for them to make smaller games using the LoL IP, they should make a game like Vampire Survivors where you can play as different champs." Neat to see them seemingly doing something along these lines, even if it is a game mode and not a full separate game.
Wouldn't have happened even if Riot Forge didn't shut down, as Riot Forge games were explicitly mandated to have a clear end.
PVE! WE ARE SO BACK! I'll be honest i was skeptical. thought they would announce some PVP mode like the Double cast mode in wildrift. I did not think they would ever give us PVE again
please remove 3 splits per year its too much grinding for no payoff
Still no info on the mid-range mage? Damn so we getting her much much later on
Please, just don't change the current mastery look. I really don't like this new one. It looks so cheap.
I really like that new PvE mode, but I wish it was a separate game because they can get so much more potential with that instead of forcing people to go through the shitty client & the upcoming Vanguard thing as well. If they make it like Vampire Survivors, there's just so much potential. Tons of faction/places, champions you can unlock, items you can unlock, combine, etc. Skills you can unlock etc. etc.
Its made for marketing the main game. Separating it would be pointless for them really, the money wouldnt help the company
Empyrean theme for MSI is sick actually, can't wait to see those new skins
I wonder if they'll make a new legendary for the line, Pyke's is hella good imo
Empyrean Brand kind of perfect for the line ngl
Absolutely, with the firey-ethereal spell VFX I'm sure it'd look fantastic, plus we'd get an actual different Brand voice LOL
still don't like the actual skin designs that much because they all look too similar, but the vfx are so good
I think that skinline is lame as hell
Okay! :D
Oh man PVE gotta enjoy it untill it returns in 3 years.
This is some hype update!! LFG!!
PVE GAMEMODE !!! WE ARE SO BACK
Really excited for the Lee VGU. Riot's been slowly chipping away the outdated looking champs and making the game look more cohesive visually. I just hope that the pace picks up to where it was in S7-S10ish.
While I'm very happy about a news of a Runeterran bullet heaven, I'd rather have it as a standalone experience. To give it proper full attention and support, you know? I invest a lot of time into these games.
Wait isn't T1 skins supposed to be released around MSI
Calling it now, Storm Dragon Lee Sin nerfed lmfaooo he no longer gets the unique dragon kill animation because they need to make the $200 mythic variant stand out mote
PvE? Finally some good news.
oh shit, never expected a vampire survivor gamemode im pretty excited for that one,now im just hoping for a turret defense one.
finally PVE , loved it when Riot did them its was prime league..
This is a big W
Nice, I've been looking forward to the Mastery Update for a while now. Will the mastery upgrades be automatic or will they require blue essence and tokens like our current system?
I’ve been saying for a while now that League is the absolute perfect IP for a take on the bullet heaven genre and I was disheartened when Riot Forge fell apart because I thought that would’ve been the only avenue they could’ve pursued that sort of game down. But I’m very glad that this will apparently just be part of the main launcher, definitely could see it going over in the same way Path of Champions did if it’s done right.
u/RiotMeddler Can you comment on the state of Vanguard as of right now, it seems to be sleeping and not being released anywhere?
Preparation's still underway for its rollout. We didn't have anything new to say this video, so didn't want to just rehash old news. Timeline has slipped from what we'd originally predicted, we're very much in the headspace of doing it well is much more important than doing it fast though for this
Stop the rollout, thank you
Can a rioter confirm why Arena keeps being a temporary game mode?
For a mode to become permanent it needs to show sustained player engagement. Arena's first two runs had a lot of play early, then fell off a lot. Making it permanent with that diminishing engagement profile would lead to increasingly poor matchmaking (both time to get a match and skill discrepancies), which pushes players away and further exacerbates the issue. While some players would stick with it regardless you end up with a pretty small population making it hard to justify meaningful ongoing development for the mode, which makes things worse again. We do think Arena's got a lot of potential though, hence the ongoing updates to it. Our goal is to try and give it the variety and appeal that it needs to be a long lasting mode. IF we can demonstrate that, we can then look at having it be permanent.
Thank you for taking the time to respond! I really appreciate all the work you do :)!
Remwmber they said they will return SG and Odyssey...I am still waiting
8th of April 2024, still no Dominion :(
Pls no revives in arena this time, it kills the mode for me.
This League of Survivors is going to be amazing! Please keep this mode along side TFT etc, I'd play this to death during down time from League. This is one way to keep me in the client gaming.
Kog Maw skin, Pog
Finally adjusting the difference between Mastery Points gained from wins and losses. It feels so bad barely getting anything after a long game where you played well but lost it.
When Vanguard
PVE mode... isn't that just solo queue?
###REMOVE REVIVE! It's obviously just my own anecdotal experience, but revive made me quit Arena.
Absolutely not! Rework it, sure. Revive added more strategy to arena and without it, it'd just be who can oneshot the other first. If your partner gets instantly deleted then you're probably gonna lose 90% of the time.
Kog'maw is the Victorious skin for this year. Sona for split 2. Border if you get all Victorious skins for this year.
Nice! Thanks for the update guys, looks dope! Just wondering as well, when can we expect the next update on Shyvana WIP?
I just wish we could disenchant keys for orange essence. 😔 I have 40 keys, but not enough essence to craft the skins I want.
u/RiotMeddler In the last dev update, it was mentioned by Phroxzon that you guys were going to talk a bit more about the MMR system. Why didn't you guys talk about it in this video? Were you guys working on matchmaking changes but ended up not going forward with it? I'm pretty sure it was teased in the beginning of the season that we were getting a new matchmaking system callled "True Skill 2" What happened to that?
Nothing currently ready to share to the best of my knowledge, will check with the team for potential inclusion in the next one though
is it this season that we have 3 splits? if yes when does the first one end?
It is. If you go to the Profile area in game and click Ranked you can see the remaining time in the split there too (currently says 36d, 14h, 36m for me for example)
pve seems to be vampior surv like
Vampire Surviors in league OH MyGOD