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Rotating Game Mode update / brain dump

RiotL4T3NCY·4/27/2016, 8:56:20 PM·47 votes·50,744 views

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Heya guys ^_^/ thought I'd do a brain dump to answer a heap of questions I often see floating around boards and other places (I manage to read a fair bit of what you guys post everywhere, but don't always have time to jump in every thread <3)!

RE RGM mode balance I'll reiterate here what we posted last Friday in the weekly announcement.

Our goal for rotating game modes isn’t to replicate the hyper-competitive environment of Summoner’s Rift, so we generally don’t perform heavy balance passes. However, we draw the line in extreme cases: when a champ can permanently stun an enemy (literally, in the old, non-figurative sense), or when a mode’s fundamental nature makes a champ unplayable. EG: Tahm Kench on U.R.F. and Brand in One For All could permastun without changes, and Bard on U.R.F. needed a faster chime spawn rate just to play the same mode as everyone else. Not all champions are expected to be equally viable in all rotating modes. Champions are designed and balanced around SR. In RGMs, there’ll usually be a few over- or under-performers, and we’re comfortable with that given the rotating nature of the queue.

RE specific URF balance suggestions For URF in particular I saw balance suggestions raised more than usual (probably due to the snowballiness of the mode, low skill-floor and high skill-ceiling). For champion specific stuff, we would still follow the 2 rules outlined above, so let's talk about some of the other suggestions that were bandied around. -- Towers should shoot faster/do more dmg. -- Death timers should be lower. -- Homeguards should switch on quicker.

In general, all 3 of these suggestions would increase game length (potentially by A LOT) and that's not something we want to do. Wave clear is pretty easy in URF, and we're hesitant to increase champ uptime that would make stalling out games any easier. RE death timers in particular, compared to URF last year, we have a ~3sec increase @20 mins. While this is mathematically almost insignificant, URF's gameplay probably exacerbates any feelings of "This is taking forever!" (this is no different from last year though). Next time around on URF, we might explore some soft tweaks to alleviate these feels, but only if they won't dramatically increase game length.

Why RGM only on weekends / why only 3 days? We realise that some players work on weekends, and we want to get to a spot that extends the queue into the week ASAP. Right now though, the vast majority are able to jump in on the weekends, and it's the best environment right now for us to tweak the queue in. We're still keeping an eye on RGM before widening windows, but our goal remains unchanged to increase your guy's facetime with more modes, more of the time, each week.

Mode X where? We're still forging the path atm with this stable of modes, and haven't even begun the first loop (Ascension returning soon though for the first time!) The modes you've seen so far represent the widest spread of gameplay with strong engagement. We'll consider other modes once the loop is up and running.

NURF mode where? No... ..no.... ..............................no :(

Hexakill: TT is up next this weekend! I'm also chilling in this thread to field any other questions. ^_^b --- L4T3NCY

288 Comments

CoolMike1274/27/2016, 8:58:23 PM84 votes

Any signs of Doom Bots on the radar?

Shinseyoku4/27/2016, 9:25:05 PM33 votes

Is Black Market Brawlers somewhere in there?

qood4/27/2016, 9:11:46 PM31 votes

When will ARAM receive the ability to earn points towards the champion mastery system?

My Waifu Vanilla4/27/2016, 9:20:30 PM22 votes

I am going to just bring the most asked thing from last weekend here. Is there a chance that you could change URF to all random? Every champ IS definitely strong, but seeing the same 15 champions every game got stale despite me never playing the same champion twice. Idk, I (and many others) believe it would make the game mode a bit more chaotic knowing we Wong see a Zed, Azir, Evelynn, Fizz, etc. Every single game.

Another option would be to just make it Draft Mode because I actually like playing not top tier champs and that mode and playing.....Idk Jhin into 5 tanks is a huge no no despite perma root.

Sarutobi4/27/2016, 9:03:36 PM15 votes

Im just wondering. If (?) a new game mode (not just an updated of past game mode, but something brand new) is made, will it only be in this rotation, or will it actually have a set time (usually a week or two, or more like in the past) Just to me, while i do enjoy this for past game mode, it wouldnt seem fair especially for people who cant play on the weekend to have it that limited.

Holoflash4/27/2016, 9:20:41 PM13 votes

I'm not sure if this is the right place for feedback on URF, but I wanted to share my thoughts on Gangplank.

Compared to buffs some champions got in URF (Bard's chimes, Aurelion's stars etc.) I feel like Gangplank was forgotten there. It felt really slow getting enough Silver Serpents to upgrade his ult, compared to the quick chaos URF brings.

Was it intentionally not buffed or just overlooked?

ModCaptainMårvelous4/27/2016, 10:26:12 PM12 votes

I wanna make it a point that URF, as many have suggested, shouldn't come back as a normal blind-draft mode.

Instead, maybe you can test All-random URF or Nemesis draft? Some points-of-contention for these types of URF:

#All Random URF

  • Prevents the consistent and constant use of the same characters. (I had Alistar at least once a game)
  • Varies up the champions you'll be getting.
  • Allows for discovering some actually unique champs that are strong in URF. ("Wow, URF Sion is actually hilarious!")

#Nemesis URF

  • Makes some truly silly team comps.
  • Allows for funny moments of "Oh crap that's actually a broken character"
  • Circumvents the need for a ban phase unless someone's trolling.
Yzec4/27/2016, 9:10:25 PM11 votes

So, I really hope the amount of gamemodes is going to be uneven. Since I(and probably some other people too) have divorced parents and i'm only able to play one of every 2 weekends. Is this something you guys keep in mind?

AMYS GRAVE4/27/2016, 9:05:04 PM9 votes

When you get a chance nemesis draft was my favorite :)

rtbf2256182414/27/2016, 10:58:17 PM9 votes

NURF mode where? No... ..no.... ..............................no :(

Can one of you guys just show us what it looks like? Maybe it'll discourage everyone. :D

Cremepie4/27/2016, 9:11:17 PM8 votes

Have you guys considering meshing two game modes together or putting them on new maps I.E. One for all URF Hexakill on SR (I think this has happened before) Nemesis Draft Hexakill URF on TTL? @.@

Not saying I expect any of this to happen but have you guys considered anything new along these lines?

Benvil4/27/2016, 10:16:57 PM8 votes

What about Dominion?

EviIGreenRanger4/28/2016, 2:43:00 AM7 votes

Will Black Market Brawlers return?

Sire Hippington4/27/2016, 10:29:35 PM7 votes

I guess this is the right place to drop some urf feedback:

  • Lower castimes and speed up animations across the board! Many champs with slow animations or high castimes like illaoi were nigh unplayable in urf cause everyone would either get out of range, cc you or straight murder you befor any abillity resolves. Faster animations and lower cast times should help those normally sluggish champs to be part of urfs madness

  • Reduce channle times a bit(like 25%), giving the same reward over a shorter timeframe. Some champions like Garen or Pantheon just need way to long to deal their damage, beeing easy to avoid/cc/kill duering that time

  • Reduce deathtimers a bit yes, this has been suggested a lot amd you don't want to increase gamelength, but especially in a fast paced mode that feels more like deathmatch than anything else, long deathtimers are fun killers. And with champions easily tanking turrets for ages if they have shields and a trap stacking jhin oneshotting baron at 20, games are still rather easy to close out. If gamelength still is an issue, reduce spawntimers of neutral objectives, especially dragon, and maybe slightly increase the ambient gold and xp gain.

  • give 25% tenacity and most of all 25%(or more) damage reduction. Urf is awfully bursty and dominated by assasins cause everyone dies in ~1sec from full hp. It gfeels more like instagib by times. Some overall damage reduction would help to level the play field between the champions and would allow us to enjoy fast paced fights for more than 1-2sec

  • Adress heavy outliners! Avoiding perma cc is nice and all, but there are other things that are plain unfun to face(and probably at ~80%+ banrate). 'Dodge' skills like Vlad's pool or the famous trollpole are straight stupid in urf, so is Wu's/shaco's perma invis or Jax's E. But most of all, those champs with no castime low cd spells, like eve and heca aswell as massive mobillity combined with point n click burst like LB or kassa are just a pain to deal with. And most of all the one who has it all, ZED

  • If you don't adress the outliners, change the selection mode! The first evening of urf was quite enjoyable, but since saturday it was the same bunch of rediculously broken shit over and over again, and if you ever dared to not poick one of the OP picks your self, you just got dumpstered. With something like nemesis draft or random picks one could avoid that stale meta

Spacesuit Spiff4/28/2016, 12:49:17 AM7 votes

Any chance of Urf with normalized gold gains, in the style of Ascension? I suspect people would be a lot less frustrated by the urf meta if getting crushed in lane didn't basically stop them from playing their champ. We play it for the wacky mechanics, not the pvp.

Putting it on ascension or HA would help too.

Hellen Keller4/27/2016, 11:22:47 PM6 votes

Is Solo Queue slated for rotation?

EnglishLanguage14/27/2016, 10:16:07 PM6 votes

Random question.

Since we're getting variant game modes every weekend, any chance we'll eventually start seeing some mix and match game types?

For example...

  • Hexakill Ascension
  • URF One for All
  • Black Market Brawlers Hexakill
  • URF vs Doom Bots

Just to spice things up a bit occasionally.

Raeyxx4/28/2016, 1:44:31 AM5 votes

Hey L4T3NCY!

Another suggestion for URF, if you'll have it. :)

I was thinking it might be a good idea to reduce to time requirement for the surrender vote as well. Maybe to 10 or 15 minutes?

I've heard this idea from a few other people as well for a couple of reasons, so I thought I might bring it to your attention. :)

~Star

warpenguin5554/27/2016, 9:48:19 PM4 votes

are you guys going to fix some major problems in ascension? Currently shaco and teemo can throw traps under where you will tp to and you land right on them and reksai can ult back to base heal and buy items. Please fix this