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[INTRO] Andrei “Meddler” van Roon - Lead Gameplay Designer

RiotMeddler·12/15/2015, 9:01:41 PM·1 votes·69,543 views

Hi all, I’m Andrei van Roon. I’ve been at Riot Games for about four years now, prior to that though I was working in a pretty different field, helping design future transport networks back in New Zealand. To my surprise I ended up at Riot (and in LA) after I happened to spot a job posting on the LoL forums and decided to throw in an application for the hell of it. So far it’s been a fantastic experience :).

Outside of work I’m a pretty big gamer, both video games and board games, with particular favourites including the Civilization series, Warcraft 3, FTL, Race for the Galaxy, Agricola, Star Control 2, Diablo 2 and Dark Souls. Also pretty partial to a bit of hiking, karaoke and travel.

WHAT AM I DOING AT RIOT? WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT NEXT YEAR?

I started at Riot as a designer on the Champion team, working on Ziggs, Varus, Syndra, some of Elise, Lissandra and some of Gnar. After that I did a spell as the Lead Designer on Champion, working with the designers and other developers on the team to help create new champions from 2013 to 2015. Over the course of 2015, I’ve been spending a lot of my time on wider gameplay topics as well, such as the recent preseason changes.

From the start of next year I’ll be shifting to a broader role, working with the four teams who focus on game health/balance, new champions, champion updates and game systems. My role these days tends to be more about helping teams build long term visions/plans, and offering a second opinion on work in progress, than on working directly on game changes myself.

WHAT AM I GOING TO TALK ABOUT?

For these DevCorner posts I’ll generally be talking about the state of gameplay in League of Legends overall, in terms of where we currently are, where we’re hoping to go and what the philosophies behind our changes are. I’ll also jump into some more specific conversations too where possible (‘What’s up with X mastery or champion’ etc), though that’ll generally be pretty reactive rather than planned.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR FROM ME?

I’d also love to get a better understanding of what you folks would like to talk about/hear more about. Types of topics in particular would be great (more about why we’re changing the game in the ways we are? more insight into our upcoming plans? more context on why we try and balance the way we do? etc). Riot’s direct communication with players was one of the things that made me want to apply here in the first place, so getting to contribute to keeping that going is something I’m really keen to do.

Edit: I'll be in and out of this thread over the course of the afternoon, got a mixture of meetings and some time put aside for forum posting.

177 Comments

Merxamers12/15/2015, 9:11:16 PM6 votes

What do you currently see as the biggest problems to the current state of the game? How do you hope to address some of these in the coming season?

I personally find many of the recent champs to be quite frustrating to play against, like Ekko (very difficult to catch or fight him when you want to, and his kit is loaded with too many ways to outplay the opponent); Tahm is hard to get away from and does incredible damage building only tank items; Kindred is a late-game snowball monster who is also very hard to fight early (unless you're Lee Sin).

Just my 2 cents :P

IxtaliKing12/15/2015, 10:20:15 PM5 votes

  1. The reds have been VERY silent on Karma for a while, despite all the various discussions about her that have taken place in the last few months. Is there a chance she might be looked at when the mages are updated? She's a great champ (my favourite), but since the removal of her Shield bomb she feels a little hollow.

  2. Are there any plans for Azir?

  3. What is your current position on champs with a lot of skills? Could something like Invoker ever work in League?

Nymphß12/15/2015, 9:47:56 PM5 votes

Thoughts on Dominion and Twisted Treeline?

How come they aren't played at events like All-Stars? One would think that promoting game modes that are already available instead of ones that aren't (1v1) would be common sense.

Can you really say that there isn't a solo-q ranked option because the playerbase is too low? Because I think if there was - people would actually play them more often. Thoughts?

hopeful412/15/2015, 9:14:43 PM3 votes

  1. Do you plan on making FQC claim unviable for solo laners? I personally enjoy it, it gives diversity to the AP itemization and its pretty much the only item with impactful active that AP solo laners have except Zhonas.

  2. Any plans for spellvamp? The stat straight up sucks (good only for Vlad)

  3. Will you continue working in order to make Morde a viable duo laner, even at high levels of play? I will pretty dissappointed if not, since hes the only alternative for adc+supp duo. If yes, any plans on reworking other problematic champs to duo laners as well (like Yorick or Trynda) or new releases with that in mind?

  4. As far as a bunch of items are concerned, why dont you take away raw stats from them while making their actives more impactful? Im reffering to Randuins , Botrk, Aegis of Legion, Archangels (btw i want your opinion on Seraphs active, since i think that its very bland and doesnt serve any strategic purpose whatsoever)

Thanks for your time.

Mr Promotion12/15/2015, 10:24:31 PM2 votes

Ao Shin?

Hamentasch12/19/2015, 3:02:54 AM1 votes

Are there any plans to help Jayce? Only the Jayce mains play him now and his winrate has been abysmal ~46. He doesn't benefit very well from either ADC itemization or assassin itemization, not to mention how difficult he is to use late game because his QE has too long of a cooldown and Hyper Charge doesn't "hyperscale" like before.

MrBuffington12/15/2015, 9:43:01 PM1 votes

Hi Meddler

I'd like to hear your thoughts on less mobile champions; particularly how you feel the Juggernaut update went, and going forward, how the immobile mage update is likely to go/may be influenced by lessons learned. Also I was curious if you could give any hints on the scale and/or scope of the mage update (which champions are priorities, and if it's more along the scale of the marksman update or juggernaut update, etc.)

Thanks!

SpecterVonBaren12/15/2015, 11:08:57 PM1 votes

1)How does one go about applying for a job at Riot, or if that's not something you're particularly familiar with, how did you apply to Riot? I'm fresh out of game design college and would like to try applying if I can. If you want more of a way to turn this into a way to talk about how things are done at Riot, then what kind of talent and people do you guys look for when getting new designers?

2)What's Christmas like around Riot HQ?

3)Who would you say is your favorite champion that you didn't work on?

4)If you were to make a League of Legends 2, right now where you could change and upgrade things about the game, whether it be macro gameplay, micro gameplay, the map, champions, ect. what would you change?

Rebonack12/15/2015, 11:23:58 PM1 votes

Hey Meddler, nice to chat with you!

I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about the team's vision with Koggy. In particular, are you guys planning on trying to stick to the 'Protect the Kog' niche rather than some more exotic builds like JuggerMaw or AP Marksmen Kog? If you guys are sticking with 'Protect the Kog' how do you plan on making him attractive when compared to champions like Miss Fortune who also benefit strongly from having a team built around them who can get results much easier?

Solidair312/15/2015, 9:31:40 PM1 votes

What roles do you typically main?

Also, do you play any of the champs that you designed? FeralPony recently mentioned that he did not like to play Graves before his rework, because casting a Q spell 5 billion times in testing and development can really kill it for you.

And do you have any interesting stories regarding Syndra's creation?

As for things I want to hear about, I'l like to hear more about the ideology that goes behind balance changes! Like "we took X away from [champion] because we didn't like that they were good at X, and prefer their identity be tied to Y" (LB's silence is I think a good example of this. Silence removed because really burst damage is her identity)