@KateyKhaos Feedback on the Harrowing
A few of weeks ago you said that I could post thoughts on the Harrowing. Here's the link back to our discussion; I really appreciated you taking the time to engage with me.
Given this quote, I take it that this Harrowing will end once the skins sale ends.
During October, we released a game mode (One for All), a new story with Shadow and Fortune: A Harrowing Story and we released new skins and Legacy skins this week. We made the decision to split these things up to avoid clumping too many things at once, especially with Worlds earning so much attention. Based on your feedback, this wasn't the right decision. We're looking at how we can fix this in the future and we're listening to better understand what you expect to see for future seasonal events. We'll be the first to admit, this isn't always easy for us, because our seasonal events don't always feature the same things. But we realize what we did release for The Harrowing didn't meet expectations.
So if this is everything, then I think its fair time to critique what went on. I have grouped things into three major areas - Thematic Unity, Lore, and Communication & Timing.
- Thematic Unity
One for All isn't a great thematic choice for Harrowing. Like I said before, if you are going to release a special queue for Harrowing, it could have been Doombots or something Twisted Treeline oriented. Thematic unity counts, even though Riot didn't seem to value it whatsoever this Harrowing. There could at least have had some potential if the queue had still been available when the new skins were released. You could have played up the Zombies vs Slayers aspect (for what that is worth). I'll talk more about the timing of releasing/ending the queue later, but the way it was done, releasing the queue so early and release a queue not related to the Harrowing basically left it so separated from the rest of the event that it didn't even feel like it was actually a part of the event. That's pretty horrible.
Slayer Jinx and Slayer Pantheon were not Harrowing skins. Full stop. They are both decent quality skins that good effort went into. But they have no thematic tie to the Harrowing. Various Rioters, including you, said that you wanted to do something different this Harrowing, that you wanted to change it so that events weren't tied to specific times of the year. That's a can of worms all to itself, but what you did here was make skins that could have come out any time of the year Harrowing skins. All that does is limit the number of actual Harrowing skins - either costume style or Shadow Isles/Black Mist style - that actually come out. No one would have blinked an eye if Slayer Jinx and Slayer Pantheon were named Raider or Apocalyptic and were released as a pair anywhere else in the year. There is nothing in the skins that thematically ties them to the Harrowing. Zombie Nunu was a decent Harrowing skin and it felt right thematically that he would be released as a part of Harrowing. If Underworld Wukong and Ravenborn Leblanc were released at any point in the year besides Harrowing, it would feel strange. You make the point a lot that certain champs might have skins in the works that are being saved for an event. Its fine to save them for an event. It wouldn't feel right to release Pool Party Zac in January (Again, I'll talk more about Timing later). Just like with that, certain skins belong with Harrowing. So-called Zombie slayer don't. People don't want a different take on the Harrowing; they want the Harrowing. And what we got this year was only that thanks to the Lore stories.
- Lore
Overall Lore was the only highlight of the event. Mordekaiser got updated lore, something he richly deserved, and fitting lore, which is the expectation but not always the reality with the Lore team. Hecarim, Thresh, Kallista all also received excellent updates. The overall 4-part Harrowing story Shadow and Fortune was really well done. It incorporated a variety of characters - some you expect like Lucian, others you might not have like Olaf - and actually felt like a Runeterra story, another issue that hasn't always been the case with Lore which has tended towards excessively character specific, anthology-esque pieces of Lore that lack character crossover in recent times. The updated stories still desperately need to be tied into the client, but that is a larger point. The one issue someone might have with the Lore in the event would be the way they were released - in such a haphazard manner with the leak, etc, which ties into my next point.
- Communication and Timing
I feel like these two are deeply tied together and need to be discussed together. Communication during the event was truly awful, even by Riot's rather dismal historical standards. Riot communicates that you changing the way you do events in a random little PBE post that was utterly lacking in any real substance and to which few players had access or of which they had any sort of awareness. The skins and the past Harrowing vault doesn't open until days after Halloween ends, weeks after One for all is no longer available. This wasn't communicated to players really at all, even when Riot knew beforehand that the new event-style wasn't going over particularly well.
Timing as a whole was bad; I still don't even really know right now if the event will be finished when the sale ends. Players have been relying on random Red posts, twitter posts, PBE posts, to try and understand what is going on. The Announcements sections should be utilized for major changes. It wasn't. It should be utilized decently in advance of the changes. It wasn't. Shadow and Fortune has been finished for a while now; why wouldn't people expect that once the final post went up that the Harrowing might be finished and the vault not reopening? Events need to have a clear start, middle, and end, like any story. You don't start one thing, finish it, start another, finish it, start another, finish it. That makes no sense. Each part of the event should be clearly contained within the boundaries of the event. You begin with the release of the stories and perhaps the special queue. You finish with the release of the last story and the opening of the vault with the new skins. The skins release and the special queue end together. That's an order than makes logical sense.
The entire proposition that Riot put forth about "changing how events work" doesn't make any sense. If you can release Harrowing stories any time over the year, you can release them on Halloween, like you have done in the past and like players expect. The majority of players are in the Northern Hemisphere; Snowdown should be in December. Halloween is primarily a Western holiday and has historically and thematically been tied to Harrowing. There is Lore on the books saying that the Harrowing culminates on October 31st. Harrowing for all intents and purposes be tied to Halloween. Many Western players don't celebrate the Lunar New Year, but other players do. New Year's/Lunar New Year in Runeterra should be celebrated at the same time as in the real world. Don't screw around with the way things are just because. You can't dictate player emotions. If you'll permit me a small historical analogy - there is a reason that the French Revolution failed miserably when they tried to change the name and number of days in a week. People are used to something and don't see the point of changing it for the sake of change. Riot made various vague claims about the supposed benefits of the "new event format" but there was nothing concrete and the first experience with that new event style was by and large a failure.
- TL:DR Game Modes should make sense for being included as a part of an event. Skins should make sense for being included as a part of an event. Lore did a good job. Riot sucked at communicating, timing, and event planning during this Harrowing. Riot shouldn't try and can't dictate to players what players want.
There are a lot of negatives here because I felt like there were a lot of problems with the event. There is a lot I hope Riot can learn from this event moving forward. Those are my thoughts and feedback; I'd be happy to hear what you think.
