Why doesn't Baron eat the rift monster as it's spawning?

Not Darkskin·Jan 23, 2017·126 votes·13,646 views

This would be dope.

73 Comments

DrugsForRobotsJan 23, 201721 votes

Additional animation work?

We could see it in the future, but it doesn't seem incredibly high priority (they'd need to devote time and resources) when there are more pressing concerns (like all these old champs who need VGUs).

RiotMeddlerJan 24, 201748 votes

Pretty much. It was something we talked about when we were building the first version of Rift Herald. Conclusion was that we'd be better off putting the animator time into other work, champion updates included, though.

We figured we'd reassess if Rift Herald was a clear success and something we definitely wanted to keep in the game long term. So far that hasn't been the case however. If we do find a version of Rift Herald that really nails it we'd want to revisit Baron/RH ceremony opportunities, see how getting that work done stacked up versus other stuff going on at the time. Unless that happens though it's likely to be pretty low value (in terms of upgrade to game quality) relative to other things that could be done instead.

captainkaigerJan 24, 20171 votes

Maybe Rift Herald could become a portal that Baron comes through? I dunno, I'm not the smartest nor the most creative

TattersallJan 24, 20172 votes

Maybe Rift Herald evolves into Baron. Maybe Herald is setting everything up to let his master enter the universe, and then Baron enters the world using Herald as a medium. But none of that matters. He is already here.

SuddenAntagonistJan 24, 20171 votes

This. Make it like Bloodthirster from Dawn of War and have it float into the air before exploding into energy (as opposed to blood). That would be intense, especially since it's a "herald" meaning it's ushering in the Baron. What better way than to use your own body as a medium? (I also think slaying the herald should potentially delay the arrival of Nashor, thus offering more counterplay as well, but that's another topic.)

Spaceman5pffJan 24, 20171 votes

That would actually be pretty sweet, and could really empower early game comps to deal with Seige comps.

OlafRagnarsonJan 24, 20173 votes

{quoted}

Pretty much. It was something we talked about when we were building the first version of Rift Herald. Conclusion was that we'd be better off putting the animator time into other work, champion updates included, though.

We figured we'd reassess if Rift Herald was a clear success and something we definitely wanted to keep in the game long term. So far that hasn't been the case however. If we do find a version of Rift Herald that really nails it we'd want to revisit Baron/RH ceremony opportunities, see how getting that work done stacked up versus other stuff going on at the time. Unless that happens though it's likely to be pretty low value (in terms of upgrade to game quality) relative to other things that could be done instead.

Whats amazing is that given how many posts there are laying down real criticism and problems, such as turret first blood correlating with a 73% win rate, that Rioters spend time commenting on shit like this has no bearing on the game at all.

RiotMeddlerJan 24, 201757 votes

Turret first blood has only increased predicted win % off first tower very slightly (about 1.5%) relative to before its introduction. I read through that thread on the front page today about it. I didn't feel I could add much more to it though, since one of the first responses explained it really well already, and did so with data that seemed quite accurate (credit to LeagueofGraphs on that one). It's also something we've talked about a couple of times since adding the first turret gold and the numbers just haven't changed over time so I can't offer anything new and insightful.

First turret's certainly a strong predictor of who will win, even with no gold at all on it that'd be fairly true though. The first team to take a turret's playing better, are more coordinated and have just given themselves more map control. It's certainly possible we could keep the benefits we see from turret first blood (additional victory condition in lane, indirect interaction with other lanes, cost to lane swapping, concentrated gold to increase odds of personal carry potential etc) with a slightly lower value. We'll likely try tweaking it slightly at some point. The mechanic itself we're still feeling really good about though.

In terms of responding to this thread? It's a question that's cropped up a number of times that I'm not sure we've ever explained our thinking on (it's a cool idea, so why haven't we done it?). It's also a really quick and easy post to make. Sorry if it's not something you're interested in, suggest not reading it if so.

ferrea voluntateJan 24, 20176 votes

I just feel like first turret shouldn't make bot lane a target. 4 man bot twice in 5 minutes = first tower ez. I think that bot lane should be less protected then the other turrets, yes, but I still think it should be more robust than it currently is.

On a side note, any update on whether practice mode is going to ship with 7.2, or do you guys still have a lot of bugs to work out?

RiotMeddlerJan 24, 201722 votes

Won't be 7.2, hoping for 7.3.

ferrea voluntateJan 24, 20173 votes

damn, are you gonna look to add more functionality in the next pbe cycle or squash the metaphorical bugs?

RiotMeddlerJan 24, 201715 votes

Bug fixing and polish mainly from memory. I know the team's got a list of additional cheat commands they're looking to add at some point, not sure on timing of those though.

TheCharmingCharmJan 24, 20172 votes

Were you guys planning on making it so you could add more bots (or even invite at least 1 friend) to practice mode?

Who is TaliyahJan 24, 20172 votes

Something that bothered me since the announcement of the practice mode is: could it be used for scripting? I'm not too experienced on these things, but couldn't cheater and scripter use the coding of the practice mode to cheat in ranked games? Like there were scripts for adding more mastery points into the same bonus or selling runes for ingame gold a few years back?

FastAsHeckJan 24, 20171 votes

I dont think thats possible. Even if it were, it would be fixed asap. Besides, HotS and DotA have had practice modes for a while and no problems there!

ChaoticPineconeJan 24, 20171 votes

Communities are smaller, message boards are terrible, and lets face it - unless youre active in the community you wont hear about it. If youre active on League but not on HoTS, you probably wont run into many complaints about scripts on HoTS. As a side note, there have been a lot of aimbot/ult-cooldown problems reported in Overwach, but thats neither here nor there (its just something I'm aware of from the Overwatch boards).

But if scripts exist in the game now, chances are adding a practice mode wont make it HARDER to create undetectable scripts. At best it doesnt change. At worst, scripters have another tool to refine their cheats.

SiIver TempestJan 24, 20171 votes

While I dont play HotS, I used to be a very active DotA player. You almost never saw any form of scripts or hacks in DotA (at least in my experience), however from different accounts of previous League scripts it's almost certain that the 2 games can not be compared in this area. In DotA, the last major exploit (that I remember) was where you could change the models of trees into pumpkins to see juke paths much easier. (This was actually a lot more important then youd think from reading it.) There were no actual changes to any gameplay, however. There were only model changes. I don't believe that there is any way to change any sort of in game things besides models in a live game played on DotA. League, however, has had several exploits in the past involving players changing game files. This could be in part due to the fact that DotA may have a tighter system around this or handles the game files differently- I'm not educated enough to tell you this. Assuming Riot integrates it in the right way, there shouldn't be any issues with people using any feature from practice mode into normal games or to enhance their scripts. Just my 2 cents however.

Velzard of KozJan 24, 20171 votes

Not sure how it works...

But I'd say server will only accept commands and manipulate with variables to gamefile that is labeled as Practice Mode. And this is oversimplification of the system. It's possible they have the system much more complex.

RiotMeddlerJan 24, 20173 votes

The actual practice mode cheats shouldn't be an issue. All the logic for those is server side and only enabled in practice mode games.

It's possible practice mode will make it easier for scripters to find bugs to exploit. It should also make it much easier for people to reproduce and report bugs though, so overall on the gameplay side we're expecting it to be a net positive in terms of overall bug issues, whether exploitable ones or not.

AMYS GRAVEJan 24, 20171 votes

With this could we get the option to attach files to the report a bug section on the boards?

h5LYF41LamJan 25, 20171 votes

meddler,what about the rageblade rework you said would be done in preseason 7,is it still planned to be done in the near future?

kolpy99Jan 24, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Bug fixing and polish mainly from memory. I know the team's got a list of additional cheat commands they're looking to add at some point, not sure on timing of those though.

@Meddler, what if when Baron ate the Rift Herald, it gains power and is much harder to kill, thus giving incentive for teams to kill the rift herald before baron spawns

Surr20plzJan 24, 20175 votes

{quoted}

Turret first blood has only increased predicted win % off first tower very slightly (about 1.5%) relative to before its introduction. I read through that thread on the front page today about it. I didn't feel I could add much more to it though, since one of the first responses explained it really well already, and did so with data that seemed quite accurate (credit to LeagueofGraphs on that one). It's also something we've talked about a couple of times since adding the first turret gold and the numbers just haven't changed over time so I can't offer anything new and insightful.

First turret's certainly a strong predictor of who will win, even with no gold at all on it that'd be fairly true though. The first team to take a turret's playing better, are more coordinated and have just given themselves more map control. It's certainly possible we could keep the benefits we see from turret first blood (additional victory condition in lane, indirect interaction with other lanes, cost to lane swapping, concentrated gold to increase odds of personal carry potential etc) with a slightly lower value. We'll likely try tweaking it slightly at some point. The mechanic itself we're still feeling really good about though.

In terms of responding to this thread? It's a question that's cropped up a number of times that I'm not sure we've ever explained our thinking on (it's a cool idea, so why haven't we done it?). It's also a really quick and easy post to make. Sorry if it's not something you're interested in, suggest not reading it if so.

Could you please just pop into threads where someone has already given a good explanation and just quote there text and type "This". or something to that effect. Just to make it official please?

Rude NameJan 24, 20172 votes

This.

In all seriousness though, this guy is right

kile147Jan 25, 20171 votes

To be honest that is kind of dangerous for them. The thing is that when interacting with the community in an official sense Rioters have to watch what they say very carefully and using someone else's words is a good way to say something you didn't mean. Meddler could have done that here and did not, because if he is going to make a statement that is going to be held as Riot's official stance on a matter he needs to put a lot of time into making sure that statement is clear, concise, and coherent with Riot's actual stance.

To be honest in a case like this Riot's official stance shouldn't even matter because as Meddler said the other thread had the data to back it up, the argument that "First Blood Gold has made this game significantly more snowball prone" is dismissed by the fact that the actual impact to winrate was barely noticeable. A Red shouldn't have to step in if the case has already been closed.

HollowMimicJan 24, 20171 votes

Any answer for threads that request turret buffs? (and particularly Nexus turrets)

Photos of GhostsJan 24, 20171 votes

We don't always open the post, but the title influences us. If we see a Red Post on it, we're going to be interested in the actual facts.

AgentBlackJan 24, 20178 votes

Riot isn't obligated to comment on anything, and some of us like hearing their thoughts on stuff that the boards don't already bitch about 24/7.

OlafRagnarsonJan 24, 20171 votes

[deleted]

AgentBlackJan 24, 20175 votes

It means that just because you spam these topics constantly doesn't mean Riot should respond to them over other, smaller stuff like the Rift Herald transition, which plenty of people like to hear about. I don't know how to put it more clearly. I can see Meddler already put you in your place though.

OlafRagnarsonJan 25, 20171 votes

{quoted}

It means that just because you spam these topics constantly doesn't mean Riot should respond to them over other, smaller stuff like the Rift Herald transition, which plenty of people like to hear about. I don't know how to put it more clearly. I can see Meddler already put you in your place though.

Haha yeah okay pal, if you call that putting me in my place. Take your Riot colored glasses off and see it for what it was. Dodging the larger issue by focusing on the issue of Rift and Baron which clearly was only just one example. Frickin Riot drones, I swear.

NåtiveJan 25, 20172 votes

Except he didn't dodge your question & answered it.

You need a coke & a smile.

EyesOfTheFoxJan 24, 20171 votes

Yeah that and Riot isn't even sure if they want to keep the Rift Herald around/change it. It takes too many resources to kill, so you pretty much have to be stomping lane and stomping jungle and have all the lanes pushed early to even consider taking it or it being worth taking. It's really just for snowballing right now. Then if you are snowballing why take it when you're probably strong enough to not even need it. It was a good idea in theory but they made it too hard to take. I think if they just made it hit less hard, and had lower health more teams would contest it/take it. As it stands right now it's not worth the time the jungler and top laner would have to sacrifice to take it. This leaves the other lanes wide open for a gank from the enemy jungler. Or perhaps a small global buff instead of a HUGE solo buff would change it's priority.

edgy goth boyJan 24, 20171 votes

"We figured we'd reassess if rift herald was a clear success and something we definitely wanted to keep in the game long term" Wait wait so....Rift Herald isnt here to stay? [zombie-nunu-bummed]

Spaceman5pffJan 24, 20171 votes

Not sure yet.

Doesn't seem like they feel good about the current state, but that doesn't mean it is going away completely

Glory ln DeathJan 24, 20171 votes

In the State of Gameplay, they said it will almost certainly get changed in the mid year update. Most likely just change how it works (change the buff, spawning, how to fight, etc), but they may fully replace it if necessary.

RiotMeddlerJan 24, 20173 votes

Mid-season or pre-season, not committed to either one yet.

Cautiously optimistic we'll find something good for it. Optimistic because we've been kicking around a few ideas that sound very promising, cautious because we've tried stuff with RH a couple of times now without success.

AMYS GRAVEJan 24, 20171 votes

cautious because we've tried stuff with RH a couple of times now without success.

Sad, but could we hear about some of the failed attempts and why they failed?

Dominick DestineJan 24, 20171 votes

NERF YASUO AND LEE SIN.

Morello would have done it.

NastyMcOutplayJan 25, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Additional animation work?

We could see it in the future, but it doesn't seem incredibly high priority (they'd need to devote time and resources) when there are more pressing concerns (like all these old champs who need VGUs).

but they have time to dostupid stuff

Ok sure but whyJan 23, 20179 votes

Riot doesn't like doing things for free

IcyPepperJan 24, 201734 votes

Well, to be fair, nobody likes being paid in exposure.

I'm a dishwasher and I don't enjoy washing dishes for free, and I'm sure lawyers don't like defending people in court for free, and I'm sure police don't enjoy patrolling the streets on duty for free, and the list goes on.

It's not greed, it's business dude. These people have families to feed. Sometimes they'll throw something in for us, but they can't dedicate too much time for things that don't bring a profit.

pV9EMVUT4lJan 24, 20173 votes

How the fuck are you a dishwasher

EDIT: brainfart, i thought he meant he was physically a dishwasher

BrascusJan 24, 20173 votes

Don't discriminate against dishwashers

IcyPepperJan 24, 20172 votes

I wash dishes for a restaurant...?

Unless you're getting overly literal with me, in which case I should remind you I am a devoted believer in Viktor's vision of a glorious evolution....

pV9EMVUT4lJan 25, 20171 votes

Holy shit I am actually retarded, I thought you were saying you were a dishwasher there lmao

Ok sure but whyJan 25, 20171 votes

explains their whole "skins > reworks" thing going on

IcyPepperJan 26, 20171 votes

Different departments, so not really.

SweedishGunnerJan 24, 20174 votes

What if when Baron eats the Rift Herald it gets a buff??? Like more AD/AR/MR or HP.

That way it adds more incentive for the Herald to be killed (on the opposite a loosing team may wish to defend the Herald as it would make for a harder Baron for the winning team to get).