Boards›Dev Corner

League Client Strike Team: An Update!

Riotzerocontext·10/27/2017, 10:55:59 PM·1 votes·27,693 views

Hi all -- wanted to give you another update on the League Client Strike Team.

We’ve been busy over the past couple of months working on behind-the-scenes performance improvements (to client startup and core game loop, and in reductions to overall memory footprint) as well as more obvious changes (such as new filtering and sorting options in Champ Select, and UI changes to the main nav for some regions using Asian character sets.) We’ve also squashed a bunch of bugs impacting large numbers of players.

Based on the data that players have shared with us, we’re seeing gradual improvements (on average) for players across all regions in the time it takes to load into the client, get through map/mode selection and Champ Select screens, and our overall bug report count. Feedback (which we gather from our surveys) has been trending positively, so that’s a decent indicator that we’re still focusing on the right things.

Of course, our work is not yet finished. For starters, if you’re still having issues, we can definitely use your help -- filling out a bug report, ideally sharing your logs as well, would be a tremendous aid (for logs, just throwing them on your public file host of choice and sending us the link in your report is probably the easiest way to share them). Filling out a bug report helps us understand the scale and severity of problems; getting the logs saves time and provides clues in helping us better identify what’s actually going wrong.

One of our other big pushes is going to be around improving performance for players connecting to our platform under challenging network conditions. Sometimes this situation can cause issues in the League Client -- usually in login, game lobbies and Champ Select -- without impacting in-game performance, due (in part) to how our network is structured. Thanks to your help (specifically, your bug reports and logs!) we now have a sense of the scale and severity of these issues, which helps us prioritize them.

Finally, I wanted to clarify that we are definitely exploring removing the option to toggle off the client while in-game, but haven’t committed to a patch in which this will happen. Our hope is to get the client optimized sufficiently to run in the background without causing FPS drops, which would allow us to keep it on all the time without impacting your play. When we toggle it off and bring it back after each game, it can slow down your post-game experience by having to re-load all postgame content, like Honor and end-of-game chat (as well as potentially enable some other things that I can’t talk about yet).

But we don’t want to rush this. So we’re going to be validating that we’re able to successfully keep the client alive without impacting in-game FPS before we make the change, which we’ll communicate out ahead of time. And of course, we’ll be relying on you to let us know if we don’t have things working quite right.

OK, this was another word wall from me. I get feedback about my writing style constantly and really wanted to change it up this time. You can see how well that turned out. Someone suggested I show some visual information to break it up, but tbh all I have to offer are a bunch of charts, or maybe a picture of one of our engineers’ desks with like, coffee cups and random pieces of paper on it. Neither sound especially compelling to me but, uh, lmk if that’s your kind of thing.

In the meantime, as always, reach out with questions/comments/etc. and please keep the logs and bug reports coming!

75 Comments

Kei14310/27/2017, 11:08:55 PM32 votes

I don't think this is the proper place to ask, but it is client related, just probably not part of the strike team.

  • Would it be possible to poke some folks and see if they can implement a self mute feature in game? I think it would positively affect 20% of the toxic population.

  • I think people whom are willing to self mute would have the control to not int / grief through gameplays means.

  • It gives a means for people to vent without anyone seeing it.

  • Can you poke some folks to reconsider adding a progress bar for honors? Not just a simple bar that will show when you'll level up but it'll act as an indicator to show if people are going to get punished soon. My ideas are as follows:

  • When you level up honor, you start at 50% of the bar, hit 100% you level up, hit 0% you get punished by the behavior system.

  • No actual level numbers, but a % bar only. Maybe only updated after 5-10 games so no secret sauce gets leaked.

  • A notification pops up at around 20% of the bar, saying that their behavior is starting to become unacceptable and they need to watch their actions.

  • If people fake nice, at least they are faking nice instead of flaming.

  • If people back off from being toxic (and just mute and not chat all game) cos they are trying to not get punished, at least we have a bunch of games with less flame.
  • obviously needs a tooltip to show how/why the progress bar moves forwards or backwards.
Jar Jar binks l10/27/2017, 11:11:06 PM11 votes

Can we finally adjust puppets stats on practice tool? And can we also add more then 1 bot in practice tool?

Nefas10/27/2017, 11:24:33 PM7 votes

Anything non-performance but user interface focused? Any plans at all to reduce the number of clicks it takes to get into a game? There are so many menus to click through just to play ARAM.

Lilty10/29/2017, 8:04:01 AM5 votes

Is it planned to make an option to change only voices ( for example korean voice acing on EUW ) because this doesn't seem like a big deal and a lot of players would like to have a feature like this ( i see u weeboos Kappa )

Linna Excel10/28/2017, 12:54:30 AM5 votes

Would it be possible for the client to remember our preferred roles in ranked?

Also, how do I favorite a champion? There's a sort by favorite option, but I don't see how to mark the champs.

The Bad Touch10/29/2017, 12:55:20 AM4 votes

Terrible idea to not be able to close the client in the background. Why remove a feature?

I guess I'll just manually close it and log back in after every game...

/sigh

Cosnirak10/27/2017, 11:33:54 PM4 votes

Great work! Thanks for the filtering and sorting options.

I sometimes have brief disconnects that can create wonkiness in champ select, though for the past few months it seems to work a lot better.

The only champ select issue I remember atm is that the button to click to trade with someone seems really buggy since the last patch or two, very noticeable in ARAM. I know the trade button disappears when someone else requests a trade with them first (I feel it should just grey out so as not to confuse) but it's confirmed going away for no reason at times (friend in champ select with me).

UltraRow10/28/2017, 7:35:00 PM3 votes

It would be nice if I could see my friends highlights when I go on to their profile.

Pop00010010/28/2017, 1:18:49 AM3 votes

any chance for a Vulkan render for better OS X, and linux support and also reduced cpu overhead?(if that is your team's department)

GMLexa10/28/2017, 5:37:01 PM3 votes

But what happened to all the epic looking vfx you guys promised with the new client.. i still don't see a lot of them in even tho the client has been released from alpha to what it is rn its been like what a year and half or smth like cmon..

LVL 5 PORO10/29/2017, 3:13:45 PM3 votes

I have a question if you don't mind. Why is this client so heavily affected by lag and connection compared to the old one? Often entire sections of the client wont load, champ select lags and stutters when selecting. This was never an issue with the old client, even if your connection was terrible. Why is this and is it fixable?

Ek1 Fi11/4/2017, 7:59:59 PM2 votes

Couple client issues.

  • Blocks and unfriending made while ingame do not register.
  • A way to (auto) unfriend people based on when last logged. Having full friends list and going through manually ~250 offline persons to make room a new active player is a chore.
  • The items section seem to load all sets when entering the section thus making remarkable lag. Loading the sets itself after loading the list of sets would reduce loading time.
  • While in champion selection a way to filter out champions that have their chest acquired already or even a indicator witch one has the chest would be nice.
  • Seeing enemy place a ward and leaving it visible after that would make the game even to everyone. We already know that there is a ward, keeping track how long it is going to be there is the tricky part. Using third party program to keep track of them just places us to the era when dragon timers were 3rd party. If that seems too easy to keep track of them, maybe have a mini game there like that someone from your team needs to ping the 'enemy has vision' on the ward before it turns invisible to keep track of it. Do note that I mean visible, not targetable. So no 'free sweepers for everyone!', just a way to keep track on the wards.
  • Option to display the health in numbers middle of the health bar would be nice.
  • There is no way of knowing how much strength a shield has left. If the HPs would be shown in the bar then it could be show in style of something like [ 102+755 ].
  • Pinging an ability sends status of Q, W, E, R when more accurate would be using the ability names. They are given nice names after all and kinda helps those that don't play with default keys.
  • Pinging items with effect like Spoils of War does not tell how many seconds left until it is charged.
  • Death cap is usually lacking lot of the info if the combat has been ceased for couple seconds, yet assists are given while showing no damage would been received from that player and I am not talking about assisting Zed that shields or heals.
  • Damage us usually shown in big clear numbers but heals seem to have dark pack with RNG when they are shown, especially in replays. If an ability or item was used to produce a effect, that result (numbers) should be always shown.
  • If recalling and numerous other things are interrupted when taking damage, being shielded should prevent that as you are not taking damage. Or change the wording 'in combat'.

Couple improvements/issues that kinda fall in the client section.

  • The 'total healing/shielding/ect done' values shown in the items while ingame would be nice to see also post game and in match history. Now if i want to see if e.g. Athene could replace the nerfed Ardent in healing boosting You need to manually go trough game replays to get the values.
  • Following the above logic some more data about game extremities/stats would be nice. The 'highest critical' only serves two players in a typical game, the two ADC's. Instead if there would be 'highest damage instance' then it would server 8/10 players. If it would be 'peak performance' it would cower all players in the team as then the best healing/shield could be show there too. I have done some 800HP heals with Soraka without Spirit visage but there is no record of those glory moments.
  • Chat rooms. Yes yes, they were removed because of spam but ingame chat rooms is the best place to find company for playing. Maybe let only same level people see each others or rooms to be divided to under 30 and 30+. And frankly when we used national chat rooms, there was no spam nor problems. The clubs feature does not hit the spot as those people are already friends with those people. IF the clubs would allow unlimited number of people, then they could be used for get-to-gether/gather but even then that newbie should be somehow introduced to that club. Having national channels and maybe even making people auto join them based on IP would make life much easier for grouping up and making new friends, especially when trying to build teams for any kind of eSports.
  • Summoner icons are quite unpersonal and their point is kinda lost by me. Times like now when worlds events are running, everyone in my friends list look almost the same. Hundreds of same icons. If the summoner icon would be build from the icons that a player has collected along the years, then it would be almost unique, like a mosaic. Or when hovering mouse over the summoners icon it would show a hoover where that one selected summoner icon would be surrounded with the eight or 24 most rarest icons he has (one layer around the central icon or two layers).

Some game issues that might belong to another dev thread but I didn't find a suitable one. Consistency and Clarity were some of the big words used couple years back but still there are things like:

  • Blighted Quiver does not proc spell vamp and Soul furnace is not getting stacks from Zz. Either it is a long forgotten bug or it should be change to true damage to be consistent with other life steal/vamp. Same way the Soul furnace should grow stronger when the creep score keeps growing.
  • Athenes Blood Charges targeting seems to be random. Using area shields/heals usually spend the charges on a target that does not really need them e.g. spend on tank that is missing as many HPs as the mid laner has HPs left. Also there could be some numbers shown as it feels like that the charges don't benefit from healing amplifiers.
  • The game is even more populated with 'from bonus this and that' making it really hard to predict the final impact on item sets. Seems like it would be more convenient to bind the different bonus to 'champion level*n' and then fraction added from total stat for the final number. That way those building for high stat would benefit for getting the items as would those that aim high on that one stat.
  • Some shields decay, others don't and rate of decay differs. It would be nice that all the shields would have some one second delay in decay or no decay at all or just be consistent. e.g. shielding people from final spark with Locket has lost nice deal of its shield before the actual damage comes. One second delay paired with the decay rate in portion of how frequently the shield can be cast would be nice correlation. Short cooldown in shield, fast decay. Long cooldown, slow decay. Something like Aria of Perseverance having the games shortest rotation of shields with 3,3 seconds would keep its (undamaged) shield strength for the first grace second after it would lose 50% its value in the next half second tick and losing the rest 50% its strength at the next half second tick for total of 1,5 seconds of shielding like it is presently. Same time Stand United has 200 second cooldown so having 60 times longer cooldown granting it something along only 5% decay per half second tick making it have only half its undamaged shield power left at its current 5 second lasting time. Such decay rate would make it last for almost double the time with 11 seconds but then again it would only have 50% of its shield capacity left at the last half second. Again, if not damaged at all before that half second mark. Decay rate could adjust to the effect creations CD dynamically, at least that's how I would do it and like to see it.

Thanks for the awesome 'play again' button feature that gets the same people with same positions. That small thing alone should get you guys a weeks pay. Thank you also for the item sets, they are loved. I am please to find a channel where players can interact with developers as lack of such channel has been the games short coming for years.

Mysticman8910/28/2017, 12:44:24 AM2 votes

Patch notes currently mention that they disabled the ability to disable the client, but this post seems to indicate you're only thinking about doing at at some patch in the future?

I have a hot rod PC so haven't paid much attention to if the option is actually disabled or not. Still, is the patch notes implying you're temporarily 'forcing' people to experience the client related FPS issues in order to help diagnose and solve them, or it just the patch notes being out of sync with your actual plans?

iahim9810/28/2017, 2:24:19 AM2 votes

  1. you are the guys responsible for sorting and filtering? <3 for that, looks so clean when searching for a role.

  2. Not sure if it's on your list, but there's a bug in champ select, where after you swap with someone, it changes the preferred skin. I only did it with my duo who had Riot girl Tristana set, while I had Rocket Girl set and after he gave me Tristana, it would always change my preference to Riot Girl. I thought the bug changes the preferred skin with the skin the person you get the champ from has as preferred, but I found a similar post on reddit which said that it changes with the left most skin, so I'm not sure which one is true (lean to reddit, as it includes my case).

Príncess Cake10/28/2017, 7:46:54 PM2 votes

Nice work :) Are we getting the thingy back from old client which showed off how many games we played in normals/ranked/arams? Much love <3

Ophion10/28/2017, 8:14:55 PM2 votes

The re-loading of content after each game is the reason I toggle off the client when in-game, because that content takes up RAM and I only have 4GB (2GB used by Windows), so toggling it off lets me get into the game significantly faster (otherwise I occasionally hit the swap file with other programs running, no bueno). The time I save from doing this easily overshadows the 10 or so additional seconds it takes to reload the client after the game.

Teja10/29/2017, 3:20:47 AM2 votes

This isn't really strike team related, but it is something to do with the client. Being able to edit displayed mastery level 7 champions on your player profile.

I think for people with multiple mastery level 7 champions there are some that we would rather have displayed than others. Maybe it's a champion that is unique and we don't see many people having on such a high mastery, like Aatrox, or it's a champion we just really love, but has a lower overall mastery score because they just don't work in the meta right now so we naturally play them less. I can understand the ones displayed are the top 3 most played champions or highest by mastery score and points, but I feel like having the option to Display another set of mastery 7 champions would be a pretty awesome thing to have.

^^)/

Zandarith10/27/2017, 11:01:59 PM2 votes

Noice

Rympha10/29/2017, 4:46:31 AM1 votes

Thank you for all your hard work! If possible though, could I request a change in the shop that I would find (and many others I assume) useful: When purchasing skins the client currently does not show the full splash. Instead it shows a very small icon of the skin's splash instead of the full art. and when you click on more info, it first takes you to the champ info page, which you then have to find the skin you were looking at initially. So could you either make it so that when we click on a skin to purchase, the client displays the entire splash? An easier and still acceptable solution might be that when we click on the more info it takes us directly to the skin's splash from champion info, instead of having to scroll through all the skins.

Omniform10/29/2017, 7:33:43 PM1 votes

Hey there!

Just one thing I'd like to suggest for the "favorite champ" feature in the champ select. It is a little bit annoying to just be able to favorite champs in the champ select screen when focusing on the game should be more of a priority so would it be possible to also favorite champions on the champions collections tab as well? Not Sure if this comes under your guys banner but I thought I'd ask!

Thanks for the work you all do!

Teridax10/29/2017, 11:59:27 PM1 votes

Would it be possible at some point to make it so we can add favorites for roles from our collection tabs?

usul120210/30/2017, 3:13:10 PM1 votes

Would y'all be the ones to talk to about client sounds? Currently there's a wind sound in the background that can only be disabled by turning off all SFX, which makes lobbies and champ select much less enjoyable/causes missed queues. If we could get a 'Toggle Ambient Sounds' setting, that would be awesome.

HalcyonDweller10/30/2017, 5:29:43 PM1 votes

I used to have huge issues with the client crashing and re-loading in champion select, causing me to miss my chance to pick or even lock in, and force-kicking me from the queue and giving me queue penalties.

This hasn't happened to me in over a month or two now, thanks for working so hard on the client, keep up the good work!

GraveCarver10/30/2017, 10:04:47 PM1 votes

Would love to see a game mode with the Projects and Mecha's and Battlecasts skins. loved the event type with what you guys did with the Star Guardians. Just thought that would be a good idea. I haven't seen much to do with these amazing skins lately.

OH NO ITS LU BU10/31/2017, 5:25:23 AM1 votes

Hi it's supremely frustrating that the client doesn't lock in your champ when the timer runs down if you've selected it. This was something you've conditioned us to expect for five years then suddenly yanked away. Please bring it back I lose more MMR to this shit than losing, ever. It was such an unnecessary change.

Rayjay Redfang10/31/2017, 11:06:47 AM1 votes

Thank you so much. I have been experiencing significantly less frustrating bugs with the client. I still get splats every now and then but the client is much better to navigate than it was.

LiamLiamLiamLiam10/31/2017, 11:19:46 AM1 votes

the client absolutely needs some optimisation to be left on in the background. I'm on a poor performance laptop and leaving the client open completely kills ingame Fps. Having to reopen it every time is a huge pain though, 5min or more wait time for post match screen, so any improvements to it would be amazing!

Lord Milutin10/31/2017, 5:26:32 PM1 votes

Can we please have the option to set Dynamic picture to Static picture of a champion we want, and not the one we play the most?

Sun Wu Ryuumoku10/31/2017, 5:46:35 PM1 votes

Can u add something to know wich side we are after pick/ban ?

Deltora11/1/2017, 5:23:14 AM1 votes

the client has been a mess for my friends and i in OCE. game lobby always bugs, doesn't let invites through the first few times, queue automatically cancels by itself sometimes, some bugsplats... it's been really bad this patch cycle.

Tutajk11/1/2017, 8:53:31 AM1 votes

I really don't want to see the closing the client option go. I have 2 GB RAM, and it really affects my gameplay when it is not closed. It takes twice as much to load before a game, and ingame every new effect during the start of a match freezes my game for a few sec. My hard drive also gets used as the memory, so afaik it reduces it's lifetime, even if not by much.

Mamacrow11/3/2017, 2:42:38 AM1 votes

Zerocontext just do whatever you think would be best :D

lvngdead10/29/2017, 1:55:07 PM1 votes

I play in windowed mode and i would love for the client to remember where I last moved the client (both the league client and the game client) so that I don't have to move them every time I fire up the game.