Update on the shockblade zed chroma pack?

Azteryz·Feb 21, 2016·5 votes·15,376 views

i kinda wanna be a purple ninja

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lsMXgqQ_odc/maxresdefault.jpg

27 Comments

RiotmoonstonesFeb 22, 20163 votes

Hey Azteryz -

No huge update here. We don't have plans to release this particular chroma pack right now.

AzteryzFeb 23, 20162 votes

okay cool thanks katey ^___^

AzteryzFeb 23, 20161 votes

is there any update on chromas in general cause it seems we havent had one in a while

RiotmoonstonesFeb 23, 20161 votes

I replied to patmax17's comment, which has a bit more context - not a whole lot of what's going to happen, but more about the surveys we've been shooting out for feedback. ^-^

patmax17Feb 23, 20165 votes

Hi Katey

It's been six months since the most recent chromas, it seems to me that the whole thing was scrapped/iceboxed. If it is so, would you mind telling us clearly? No hate intended, but you stopped pushing out chromas (chromae? chroma?) last summer and just went silent. This is one of the typical Riot behaviors that bugs players so much. I would prefer to be told clearly that I shouldn't expect any chromas to come out soon, rather than just have to guess. Something like: "So we tried this chroma thing. We liked the reception, but think we can make something even more awesome with them. While we figure out, we decided not to release any more chromas (sorry Zed!). We will communicate when new chromas will start to be released again." Or even "We tried chromas. It wasn't worth the effort, so they are scrapepd/iceboxed for now."

But just going silent and misterious does not do good to your image as a company (and that makes me sad, I hate the hate posts, but I hate even more when they are right :()

BoyahdaFeb 23, 20163 votes

As it turns out charging 5 bucks for some recolors didn't work out as well as they thought. Especially since you can't purchase them individually and can only buy them by the bundle. Compare this to Heroes of the Storm who give you chromas for free just for playing the champion.

GreenLoreFeb 24, 20161 votes

You also only get 2 of them and stuff in HoTs is generally a bit more expensive than it is in LoL,so when you buy a skin,you'll pay for the chromas as well.(though HoTs still gives you a purchaseable master skin whcih is quite cool)

DesideriumFeb 23, 20162 votes

These are exactly my thoughts.

RiotmoonstonesFeb 23, 20164 votes

You've likely seen/received a survey regarding chromas, like this.

http://imgur.com/EKtA5zN

http://imgur.com/UaO7KvD

We want to make sure we're making the right call with chromas, and want to make sure it's awesome content that players like, rather than just pushing out random chroma packs just because.

While I can't talk about the future holds for chromas, I can say we are talking about them, and asking for feedback, as noted above!

patmax17Feb 23, 20162 votes

I was aware of the pre-chroma blucian surveys, but I must admit these are new to me.

I'm sorry for forcing you to expose yourself about these topics; as said before I don't mean these posts as whine or attacks (and I'm sorry if my bad english something makes me sound harsher than intended), but I think it is healthier for the communication between Riot and us players to say it clearly if you put chomas (or any other feature) on hold, even temporarily. The hope is that at least some people stop expecing new chromas (and thus asking/complaining).

As usual, thanks for your patience :)

RiotmoonstonesFeb 23, 20162 votes

No, no, you're fine! I don't have a ton of details for this, but wanted to at least share what I can. ^-^

patmax17Feb 23, 20161 votes

[slayer-jinx-catface]

patmax17Feb 25, 20161 votes

Hi Katey

I read on FF@20 that RiotJxE actually wrote what I was asking, but on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/469me3/why_does_riot_start_so_many_features_only_to_not/d04c3jb

I don't follow reddit, and I'm always a bit disappointed when information is shared there but not here on boards (which afaik are your official communications channel) :(

Still, his two posts there covert pretty neatly what I was asking for, if you happen to see him give him a brohoof from me :P

lynyo63Feb 23, 20161 votes

That sucks i was actually looking forward to this chroma pack. Since i main Zed and there are only 3 skins it would be nice to change it up every now and then.

RiotmoonstonesFeb 23, 20162 votes

Doesn't mean it couldn't happen in the future. ^-^ I don't personally play Zed, but I do like the purple chroma.

TerraRisingFeb 23, 20163 votes

In a Reddit thread about Riot allowing features to linger without getting fixed (a response to Dominion's lack of love from Riot), Riot JxE said this:

I'll give my thoughts on this.

Whenever we experiment with a new feature or idea we're trying to solve a problem of some sort. When we let that feature die it's usually because it didn't do what we theorized it would do. We go back to the drawing board and take another stab at solving that problem.

For instance, when creating Chromas we were trying to solve the problem that we didn't have any personalization content that was between 750 skins and ward skins/icons. We were hoping Chromas would be easy to make content that would fill that gap and give players who wanted cheaper skins some content that would make them happy. What we found was that they weren't that easy to make due to our outdated pipelines and players weren't satisfied with their quality level. With a little more effort we could make 750 skins that players liked more. So we made more 750 skins for now and back to the drawing board to solve the actual problem. Chromas may come back one day, but we need to solve the pipeline problems first.

We like to experiment and try things and sometimes it fails, which leads to dead projects laying around. We realized this isn't ideal and a waste of time so we've been working on creating smaller experiments to test our hypotheses and learn quickly without shipping features we have to support forever. An example of this is the surveys you guys see going out. We're trying to get better at learn as much as possible before committing to an idea.

Long story short, Chromas were one of Riot's numerous experiments that they tried on the players, but found that the amount of work needed for each set didn't match the price they were asking for. So, rather than say or do anything to fix the issue, they let it linger and let player's suffer through their "rethinking" process.

In other words, Chromas were a Riot experiment to try and deliver on adding palette swaps for cheap players, but they discovered that players were more than willing to buy standalone skins at a slightly higher 750 RP price point.

So, no purple ninja for you unless Riot decides to make it a unique, singular skin.

yay nibbersFeb 21, 20162 votes

Riot said they're halting the chroma stuff until they can figure out a better system of delivery than just "Buy them for a few bucks on the store!!!"

Or something along those lines. It's still a little weird that they'd make a chroma pack and then decide something like that.

Vistha KaiFeb 22, 20161 votes

"muh particles"

DesideriumFeb 22, 20161 votes

Ghostcrawler said around 5 months ago that there should be an announcement about chromas "very soon." We've heard nothing since then, and no Rioter wants to comment on it.

We're being purposely left in the dark for reasons that they don't really want to tell us.

VicvictorwFeb 22, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Ghostcrawler said around 5 months ago that there should be an announcement about chromas "very soon." We've heard nothing since then, and no Rioter wants to comment on it.

We're being purposely left in the dark for reasons that they don't really want to tell us.

"Welp, nobody's buying Chromas. Maybe we should release them for free through the upcoming crafting system? They are just zero effort recolors, after all, and that's kinda what everyone was expecting from the start."

"Yeah, we could do that. But I don't wanna."

"What do I tell the players?"

"'Very soon.' We'll stall and not address any concerns and the playerbase will hopefully forget they ever existed."

LyndrisFeb 22, 20161 votes

I have three chromas, and for the price i think its a fair buy

DesideriumFeb 22, 20161 votes

Pretty much what's going through their heads right now tbh

Photos of GhostsFeb 23, 20161 votes

He did say something about Chromas like 8 days ago.

BoulderoxFeb 23, 20161 votes

{quoted}

i kinda wanna be a purple ninja

Shen .... Sorry I couldn't resist

KrigjerFeb 23, 20161 votes

I'm not surprised when game companies don't want to release information before they're 100% ready.

I mean, just look at what happened with Ao Shin.

Consumers are stupid and latch on to anything that gives them hope, even if it's wrong.

RedTaoFeb 24, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I'm not surprised when game companies don't want to release information before they're 100% ready.

I mean, just look at what happened with Ao Shin.

Consumers are stupid and latch on to anything that gives them hope, even if it's wrong.

Really Krigjer? How odd. Weren't you beratting me for being too negative? Now it's bad to have hope?

KrigjerFeb 24, 20161 votes

Really Krigjer? How odd. Weren't you beratting me for being too negative? Now it's bad to have hope?

I could have worded it better. Basically if you tell a customer something is happening at this time, but something comes up and you have to push it back, most of them won't understand and will instead start insulting the company. I say this with years of customer service. I'm not surprised that now Riot simply said they'll have information on Shockblade 'soon' because if they give ANY definitive answer, someone's going to attack them no matter what.

Now, I really hope you just happened to stumble upon this post and weren't actually stalking my posts looking for something to contradict me on.