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Regarding the Aurelion Sol Remake

RiotRiot Penrif··1 votes·34,392 views

TL;DR: We’ve identified the cause of this bug, and it’s unique to Aurelion Sol. We’ll be implementing a fix on 6.18 (the Worlds patch). Read on for all the details.

Yesterday during the NA LCS Semifinals between CLG and TSM, a game had to be remade due to a player seeing a Aurelion Sol's passive missile in the wrong place.

Aurelion Sol's passive has the longest lasting missiles in League's history by quite a large margin, and they exposed a set of technical limitations we had never hit before with missiles. Most pertinent: this is the first time a missile is defining its motion around a unit that does not share its visibility. Previous missiles that moved based on another unit, like Ahri's Fox-Fire, share visibility with their owner - you only see the missile if you see the unit as well.

In order to cope with this new problem, we put in some handling where the client is sent positional information about Aurelion Sol if one of his missiles is in vision but he himself is not. This allows the missiles to represent their movement without having to fully reveal the champion. However, there is a small time gap between the client gaining visibility of the missile and when it receives this positional information, and that gap is what ultimately led to Sunday's remake.

A brief timeline, based on Twitch's VOD:

  • 10:29 game time (43:38 video) - Aurelion Sol's passive spotted over wall by ward at blue buff
  • 10:31 game time - Aurelion Sol and his passive fully leave TSM's vision
  • Aurelion Sol remains out of TSM's vision until:
  • 11:06 game time - Aurelion Sol's passive spotted in mid lane by Rek'Sai

For a few frames at game time 11:06, TSM Bjergsen's client displayed one of Aurelion Sol's passive missiles at the position it would have been if Aurelion was at his last known position - game time 10:31. It had received the information saying that the missile should be made visible, but had not yet received an update on where the champion was, so it showed the missile relative to his last known position.

This Aurelion Sol defect has been present since he shipped. We had some code in place to mitigate effects of this nature for him, but they were clearly not enough. In the affected game, the circumstances were such that a player's decision making was negatively affected, and lead to a remake. We are fixing the issue by preventing the client from showing these missiles in the absence of accurate positional information. This fix will be a part of the 6.18 patch cycle, which is the patch Worlds will be played on.

Regards, ~Riot Penrif

40 Comments

Deep Terror Nami12 votes

Who is CLS?

RiotRiot Penrif21 votes

Move along, nothing to see here...

Deep Terror Nami30 votes

I'll have you know I am a Support main that sees everything.

item 3092 item 2045 item 2043 item 3364 https://i.gyazo.com/107e0c957262d3c26cd39fd29c3354e1.png

WolfChases1 votes

+1

Marshbouy26 votes

But can you see why kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch?

TheLazySunbro4 votes

lmoa

Fududles7 votes

[{quoted}](name=Deep Terror Nami,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=999nqkGj,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2016-08-22T22:04:53.795+0000)

I'll have you know I am a Support main that sees everything.

item 3092 item 2045 item 2043 item 3364 https://i.gyazo.com/107e0c957262d3c26cd39fd29c3354e1.png

Come on riot make an item with refillable pink ward already

patmax174 votes

Is this basically the same bug that leaves long trails all over the screen when things like Kindred's Wolf or a champ with DMP exit and enter fog of war?

RiotRiot Penrif4 votes

Similar kind of thing, probably, but neither of those are missiles.

DeathBurst14 votes

I'll take the opportunity to say that:

  • also happens with Ekko ghost from his R, in addition to the previously mentioned Wold and DMP
  • it's particularly noticeable, and somewhat disturbing. Especially Ekko ghost, it's a very threatening indicator, and have it flash where it actually isn't is very annoying.
MajesticWindbag1 votes

Is this the one where an Ekko that was mid lane, for example, before losing vision of him, appears bot lane but his shadow appears from where he left the mid lane?

DeathBurst4 votes

Yeah. To be precise: when you regain vision of Ekko, his ghost appears for a few frames at his last known location before the one you just learned about.

patmax171 votes

Oh right, I see ^^

Thanks for clarifying! I hope sooner or later you'll be able to investigate that bug too (and the one with Ekko's ghost, as mentioned in another comment) [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Penta Penguin2 votes

Why did it take until the worst possible scenario for Riot to fully fix the bug, not just "mitigate" it? 6.18 seems pretty fast for a fix, but you let it sit for months until it ruined a pro match

RISE Shlack1232 votes

A known bug allowed to exist for weeks is only to have the bug rear its ugly head in a semifinals match in the NA LCS. So nothing was done to sort out this bug other than some vague "mitigation" code. Bugs like this should be fixed 100% before a champion is allowed into the competitive scene. LCS teams dedicated hours upon hours to picking up AurelionSol and building teamcomps around him, yet their time was wasted because you guys let a known bug into the largest stage League of Legends has to offer.

From a QA standpoint, this was a MASSIVE failure. Bugs should be dealt with before champions go live. There are no excuses. I realize that new champion sales are a major revenue stream for Riot Games, and this type of issue only serves to highlight the importance of getting a champion as close to bug-free as possible before they hit live. I realize this isn't always possible, so in cases like AurelionSol , he should have not been in the champion pool for LCS until the bug was fixed.

Simply put, you guys failed. Big time.

Tyrone Lannister1 votes

Unlucky :/

Eedat1 votes

Can the bug be intentionally reproduced by either team? What circumstances cause it exactly? Why does it happen some times and not others?

RiotRiot Penrif8 votes

I believe it'd be quite hard to intentionally reproduce in a competitive environment. You would need to have the other team lose vision of you at an important position, and remain completely out of vision, only to reveal just your passive to that team some point in the future and a missile might show up at the previous position for a couple frames.

It demonstrates infrequently due to many factors. One of which is simply that the position and timing of the effect is complicated and doesn't often arise in an organic environment in a way that's noticeable. There's also a strong timing component to this as well, where the client's framerate and network updates are effectively racing each other. Initially I had a difficult time replicating the issue on my workstation as I had capped my framerate to 30Hz, which allowed the network sync to usually land in time for the issue to not display.

Eedat1 votes

I've heard (albeit from unconfirmed sources) that it can be reproduced by Aurelion Sol toggling lock/unlock camera while entering fog of war. this is easiest to do in bushes because there is a very clear line. Is this information incorrect?

RiotRiot Penrif6 votes

The status of Aurelion Sol's player camera has no bearing on the communications from the server to other players.

Eedat8 votes

Last question I would like to pose. There are similar reports of Ekko's 'trail' being spotted in places it shouldn't be. Is this going to be fixed on the Worlds patch as well? Ekko is a popular pick and I would hate to see him being disabled for Worlds

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions!

RiotRiot Penrif6 votes

I'll speak with my QA friends on that.

Eedat4 votes

OK. Also I should say the bug with Ekko's 'trail' can apply to the trail from item 3742 as well

DarkRitual1 votes

However, I never recall seeing it happen on the trail foritem 2138.

Jaunty4111 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Penrif,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=999nqkGj,comment-id=0002000000000000,timestamp=2016-08-22T23:10:11.777+0000)

The status of Aurelion Sol's player camera has no bearing on the communications from the server to other players.

Does the status of the Non-Aurelion Sol team's player cam have an effect?

RISE Shlack1231 votes

If the bug was a known bug, then why wasn't it sorted out or AurelionSol banned from competitive? It wasn't fair to the teams who used him in their comps and it wasn't fair to the competitive scene in general to allow such a bug to exist since his release and only fixed AFTER it causes issues in a competitive LCS match, a semifinals match no less.

This is irresponsible on Riot's part, and this type of situation should not be allowed to happen. I realize that new champion sales are a huge part of Riot's profit margin, so that would logically dictate that new champions should be free of all bugs before going live, and champion bugs should not be the butt of a joke during a competitive match, especially a playoff series.

Regardless of how hard a bug is to reproduce, if a bug is known, said bug should be fixed, stabilized and tested before the champion(s) it affects are allowed into competitive. From a QA standpoint, this is a massive failure due to oversight and underestimation of the impact. Simply put, you guys should do better.

Soníc1 votes

What about the similar problems where champion portrait flashes on the map nowhere near his location sometimes? Happens maybe 1/20 games to me, but everyone on my team sees it when it does happen...

DarkinPrime1 votes

how about you just fire everyone who had a hand in designing this champion? I am so god damn sick of Riot releasing champions that are full of problems and/or uninteresting and/or OP needing to be nerfed. Your last batch of new champions have been nearly all utter shit. How about you stop wasting players god damn time with amateur hour and fix the existing champions? I mean ya know, when you get around to reworking Rzye for the 9th time of course, or buffing champions who are in waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better states than many others who receive zero attention.

Your company is nearly a billion a year in revenue. At this point, everyone excepts more from you. You have the resources. Why do things keep getting fucked up? Why do you guys have to change dragon 8 times a year? Why do you guys make weird mastery changes that have to be nerfed (months later) after everyone immediately pointed out that a certain mastery on certain champions was totally broken. Why could EVERYONE see it immediately yet someone you guys missed it?

Your company reeks of incompetence and decisions based on what Marc Merrill thinks will bring more revenue--changing everything to cater to casual players, making new champions instead of fixing old ones to drive new sales, skins etc. But the reality is, people are really starting to get weary of you guys.

Get your shit together, Riot. Every month I play less and less, and eventually I will be done. The new champions haven't excited me and dynamic queue is frustrating. And I HATE when you guys try to say a champions is in a good spot because of their win rate which is usually only 1 or 2 percent more or less than every other champion. Your math reeks, and at this point I severly doubt if anyone who works at Riot has an advanced degree in mathematics.

Repént4 votes

I'm sorry, are you play-testing and designing a critically-acclaimed MOBA played, and loved, by millions across the globe? Didn't think so. Crawl back under the rock you came from and drink bleach

DarkinPrime2 votes

Excellent rebuttal. You really disproved everything I said. Your genius is unmatched.

RISE Shlack1231 votes

While I share frustration with Riot's QA department over this issue, I stopped reading your comment at your first sentence. Mistakes happen, but these guys are clearly skilled in their coding. Every member fired? No. But I would discipline the person responsible for allowing this bug to slide and allowing AurelionSol into the LCS with a known bug.

But the rest of your comment is just bluster and you lack a lot of knowledge when it comes to any sort of real-world work-flow and corporate structure. They couldn't possibly replace all their talent in a timely manner, get them up to speed, and have them ready to go in case any issues come up with the game itself, let alone balance changes, new champs, champion reworks, etc.

MammothKat1 votes

Will this bug also effect kleds R? The extreme movement speed with other effects may replicate the issue as server updates might not cope with rapid movement. Jw since this seems to effect trails and movement.

IncepTion v1 votes

I just had a game where this bug happened but with Ahri and her W.

warpenguin5551 votes

So lets say you walked into a glitch Sol Star, you dont take any damage do you?

Arthianne1 votes

I totally thought this was an actual remake and wtfed

statelesskiller1 votes

wait wait wait. you guys KNEW about this bug to begin with. DIDNT fix it and then comepltely ****'ed any team that had AurelionSol in there playbook because "oh hey its agitating someone now gotta remove it?" like im a CLG fan and everything. but if it was worth banning sol globally. then this should have been fixed before he even left the PBE. these are team which practice and are highly structured to play certains ways. and whenever a champion gets this kinda of "global" ban it prevents the team from reacting properly. as essentially the other team got a free ban. its potentially unfair to multiple team

78750242DEL11 votes

Riot's Spaghetti Code? NotLikeThis. xD

Rishal211 votes

It was Bjergsen who noticed and it was TSM vs. RNG

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