What exactly do you do specifically at Riot? Are you like the head honcho that gives a very broad design of what they want the game to move towards. Or is your job more specific? Like dealing with game balance/systems? (Example: Meddler being head of balance)
Just curious :)
Here is how the League team is organized:
Every feature (whether it's something like Hextech Crafting, or a champion update) is built by a relatively small team of people from different disciplines. For example, champions are built by a core group of a designer, writer and artists, with lots of help from engineers, audio, insights, QA, production and so on. Each team is really collaborative and basically owns their own space. They get feedback from other teams, but there aren't a great deal of hoops to jump through. Each team has a group of leads to provide guidance for that team, and then some teams are organized into larger teams and so on. Meddler for example is the lead designer on gameplay, which includes teams like live balance and champion design. I am the lead designer on League as a whole. That doesn't mean I am in charge of League per se - there is a leadership team that includes an art director, a head of publishing and so on. We have a team captain who makes the final call when there is disagreement.
I describe my job as being equal parts: 1) making sure the design of League is high quality, 2) working with the other leads on the direction and vision for the game overall, and 3) managing the design department. My day to day is mostly meetings, to touch base on how projects are going, to give feedback, to try and solve prioritization dilemmas, to dogpile onto crises and so on.
I am shifting to spend more of my bandwidth trying to communicate effectively with players. We feel like we've slipped in our comms and talking to you guys is something I am very passionate about. Players are really where I get the energy to do my job, and try and inspire the rest of the team to do great things that will make you all happy.
drink alchohol is what ive heard. also walk into meetings and tell them to nerf annie.
The first one.
