Upcoming Changes to Rotating Game Modes

Riot·Jan 30, 2018·6 votes·163,654 views

TL;DR: We won’t be running a RGM with every patch anymore. We’re going to continue to run the most popular modes, but our main focus will be on creating more new modes to launch alongside events as well as experimenting with older modes.

Rotating Game Modes in 2018

We went into last year with a renewed focus on supporting events by creating new modes to make each event special. We saw a lot of positive reactions to modes like Star Guardian: Invasion and The Hunt of the Blood Moon, and more of you showed up to play when we succeeded at making something new and distinct. We want to build on these successes in 2018.

We’ve been building a better groundwork of tools that will allow us to create better, more polished maps and modes going forward. In 2018 our focus is on two things:

Delivering fun and better modes for events
Experiment more with classic modes (i.e. Ascension) to give them new life

Not too different than where we were last year, but the big change is how often we’ll be running RGMs. We’re moving away from every patch to a more sporadic schedule.

Developing new modes can take a tremendous amount of time (Invasion took over four months), and we think putting our focus towards developing new modes is the best way to deliver better experiences for you.

Old modes aren’t going anywhere though. We’ll still be running favorites like ARURF, One for All, and others throughout the year. There simply won’t be an RGM every patch.

We’ve got some big plans, and we can’t wait to show you what we have in store. First up this year will be Hunt of the Blood Moon in 8.3 and then the long awaited return of One for All in 8.6!

402 Comments

Exiled PotatoJan 30, 2018198 votes

So then does this mean that we won't be getting an alternate game mode every weekend? Because I've grown so tired of the normal games. I did the alternate ones to de-tilt and I've actually had more fun with them than in normals.[sg-janna]

ZtokaFeb 1, 201840 votes

better be careful there.. as we learned from urf, if a game mode is so much fun, it makes you play the normal game less, you will lose said fun game mode to "protect" the rest of the game...

CAR5EFeb 3, 201850 votes

couldn't agree more with Ztoka. what you just said is riots biggest fear. players like you and me, players that have been probably playing normals for over 5 years, get sick of same old SR. riot does not care about their old fan base wanting something new, they care more about making sure new players and old stick to the normal game because otherwise normal ques will take 10+ mins. in one of their post about URF how it has negative effects on the actual game. they have nurfed URF like 6 times now and most would still agree that it's still better than playing same old boring normals. i am now subjected to playing ARAM just because its the only other thing, and now they did away with every weekend RGM. riot is messing up big time. in that article about URF they said how when it come out they have a higher number of players on, but when they take it off the numbers decline dramatically...you would think they would get it. if you had URF up 24/7 people would play it like ARAM. yes at first it might be flooded with URF but it would get old after a while as well and balance itself out. you would think they would want people playing their game, but for some reason like Ztoka said, if you like it "too much" aka more than the original, they hate it and dont want us to play it. its like they are spoiled rotten kids that dont want to share their favorite toy, they only allow you to play with the ones they want you to.

NimsoApr 28, 201811 votes

This comment is exactly how I feel. Everyone I talk to says that their favorite mode is URF. I've also been playing since league was in beta, so the normal modes are boring to me now, and I just play ARAM, which is getting boring for me now as well. I wish Riot would listen to their players :-/

Moist KuhntMar 2, 201829 votes

I have found myself playing ALOT of ARAMS because RGM's are not out. I'm truly bored of normals and ranked. Arams are getting boring... I want RGMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![slayer-jinx-unamused]

TahngarthorApr 20, 20183 votes

This will never happen, riot invests 893479234 hours in SR and we're lucky if they care 5 minutes about anything else unless it's something brand new they're testing or doing for an event. If they took every part of their game seriously, and not JUST SR, players would have more fun, and while it is very important for them to keep the esports scene strong, the vast vast majority of players will never be esports material. You can't make the game purely for esports only.

Twisted treeline got a huge shot in the arm when it got updated from ranked being premade only to ranked flex. If they had a tournament, event or competition for it, i 100% guarantee you people would come. It would be like if in CS GO, PUBG, Splatoon 2, or any other shootery type game, if all the development went into a single map instead of having a variety, it makes the game get stale more easily. Especially with them slowing down the new champion cycle, they should seriously invest more time in other areas.

revliledpembrokeApr 24, 20183 votes

Really? Smite has at least 6 game modes plus the daily challenge. They seem to have a stable community. Perhaps Rito should take their lesson from there.

WendígoJan 30, 2018132 votes

Well, shit RGMs were great to take a break from the standard modes...

scammed lolJan 30, 2018103 votes

I'm confused how developing a new game mode makes you unable to keep one running on live? Literally just turn on the mode and let it run, it's already been made. Nothing's stopping you from working on a new mode in that time.

Also, add these modes to custom games ffs. You are legit missing out on so many potential play hours from people by not doing that.

And bring back real URF, thanks.

MalrothDragoniaJan 30, 201825 votes

so it isn't quite that simple. Since the numbers/mechanics/visuals of some champs change each patch, the game state is actually different from when the mode came back originally. They explained this recently in a post, but basically each time they run a game mode it has to go through testing again to check for bugs/interactions/balance. It's not as simple as 'turning it on'

scammed lolJan 30, 20189 votes

They already use automated testing for bugs/interactions and it's not like they care about balance for RGM. It could be as simple as assigning one or two guys for it while the rest of them come up with another RGM. It just seems like a very terrible use of resources if they can't juggle these two things. But maybe that's expecting too much out of a company that completely forgot that Twisted Treeline exists.

MyNamesJacobJan 30, 201830 votes

Twisted Treeline? Never heard of it. Im trying to get back to the crystal scar. . . . Anyone?

KatacIysmJan 31, 20184 votes

You say "assigning one or two guys for it" as if it's that easy. Riot has to develop a team of collaborative people to come up with another RGM. It's not like certain people have a job that is "person who comes up with RGMs". Even if it was, it takes a long time to put a team together even still, and people have lives at Riot, like you and me (hopefully you have one), so they can't constantly be working on some project for a video game. As for balancing, they still keep it somewhat balanced. Even URF Fizz wasn't obnoxiously broken. It was just really annoying to deal with. That's still considered "balanced" since the rest of your team is probably Ezreal, Veigar, Malzahar, and Teemo and you're the poor sap who got stuck with Tristana and are soloing mid vs. a Fizz and their entire team comp probably sucks ass compared to yours. Also, what about the interaction between the team? You don't just expect to assign a few people and they'll be best buddies. It's like a teacher creating groups for an Elementary School project. Please, know what you're saying and ask yourself if there's a flaw. (P.S: What's twisted treeline?)

scammed lolJan 31, 20187 votes

You typed a lot of words but didn't actually say anything. It is that easy, but I guess I can't expect Riot sheep to actually have some level of expectation out of a developer that made, what, $2.1B in a year? Hire people, assign people to Head Developer of each game mode, hold meetings to discuss how one change might affect the other modes. It's been 8 years and fucking Death Recap doesn't even work. Riot's hiring process is strict and if even after that you think they won't get along at least enough to complete tasks, that's dumb as shit. I mean, this is all assuming they cared about other modes or people having fun outside of Summoner's Rift. God forbid people don't want to play SR.

RiotAeon EternalJan 30, 201844 votes

MalrothDragonia has this right.

One of the downsides of patching out balance, champion, and item changes every two weeks is that those changes end up grinding up the nuts and bolts of League's game modes.

As a practical example, since the last run of One For All, Zoe didn't exist. So in preparation to relaunch the mode in 8.6, testers noticed that one Zoe could see another Zoe's W pickups, but was unable to pick them up.

Game designers did work to make sure that any of one team's Zoe's could pick up allied pickups, with some follow up to get the drop rates to feel fun and semi-balanced. Then we play-tested, iterated a bit, and now we are running it through a QA test, which could lead to more development and testing.

This is one case, for one champion, and we tend to have many of these sorts of cases for every mode that we release, even including some of the original modes like Ascension and Poro King. It varies per mode, but unfortunately, to ensure a quality experience for you all, no mode can just be turned on at a moment's notice.

SmellySackJan 30, 20185 votes

My question is though in direct correlation to this reasoning is what if its run through QA test and works fine but when launched live an in game bug occurs causing that specific champion to be unplayable?

I get the time and effort it takes and I'm taking into account how many different scenarios can occur, but if Zoe is a champion that needed extra treatment to work through to make sure its perfect in game when that RGM is live, and a bug occurs that wasn't originally seen and that champ become unplayable for most of the time of the event, doesn't that kind of taint the game mode a bit?

Another question, how would keeping the same game mode live not keep from people not playing it? Im not disagreeing that you can't just turn a game mode on, because I understand it's not that easy but when new game modes went from patch to patch, even with bugs it kept the game fresh. Every week I'd play a brand new game mode and when I would take tough losses in ranked and be bored of ARAM it offered less stagnation. I'm personally not a fan of Blood Moon Hunt, but because it offers a different take on the game I dont mind playing it a bit here and there. If this game mode stayed live a whole patch though I know I wouldn't play it after a good week. Even URF I would get bored of after like 2 weeks and I absolutely love URF. I know I dont speak for everyone and I'm only a minor percentage of the whole, but how would keeping the same random game live for that long not become boring after a certain amount of time. Is there anyway to ensure the longevity of people playing that game mode for a long time? I'm just curious on how other people feel about this.

GhastlyGhoulManJan 31, 201835 votes

Please bring back URF.

SDhrekFeb 1, 20183 votes

A big reason why they don't really bring URF, is because people just stop playing league, not that people all go to URF, the overall league population just tanks, and that is NOT good for bisness, they talked about it a while back.

GhastlyGhoulManFeb 2, 20184 votes

[{quoted}](name=Zero De Knowl,realm=NA,application-id=Ag8jgd8Q,discussion-id=EWVyQe1G,comment-id=00090000000100020000,timestamp=2018-02-01T01:40:32.760+0000)

A big reason why they don't really bring URF, is because people just stop playing league, not that people all go to URF, the overall league population just tanks, and that is NOT good for bisness, they talked about it a while back.

I know, I read the article, and I in fact am one of the people that didn't come back until just recently. I was waiting for URF to come back, but it never did. That's why I spent so long away. Normal League is super stressful, but URF was a way to de-stress that ARURF just doesn't fulfill.

SaltyCatFishFeb 3, 20183 votes

Then just ban Zoe in that mode. You've done it before with other champs.

I'm just having a hard time understanding why you wouldn't have a small team of core developers specific to those modes just run maintenance on them?

Newer champs either are not available, or are available at a later date. Give the job of adding new champs to junior developers! Have them earn their stripes! Make a big deal out of someone getting a new champ into a game mode!

Don't scale the department. Don't add new features. Just do enough to give us back what we already had.

This is where Riot, I gotta say, you're really losing me. Dozens upon dozens of brand new "NO ONE CARES" skins are released every few weeks, now all at 1350 RP, which seems to be the new standard. You release all kinds of non-sense like emoji 2-D pastel cartoon balloons that likely took a handful of people hours to create, and yes, you sell only for RP. You made these blue essence changes, but for some reason, I'm sitting on a about 2 metric kuricks of them right now. Feels kind of useless so there not really a reward for anything. You get random key fragments and random chests now and again, which is nice enough, but doesn't really justify some of the other things happening.

But it's fine. We take it. Because we love this game. You've made something so transcending of other games that it continues to revolutionize the idea of sport itself.

It is a pivotal point for everyone involved right now.

Right now, all else behind us, you took away our game modes. Our game modes, as in the people that love them.

Do the right thing.

MJ9562Jan 30, 201851 votes

I just want one for all and URF :'(

MeepieJan 30, 201810 votes

Me too

[sg-soraka]

im babydogJan 30, 201835 votes

Well, that makes me sad. RGM's were fun to get away from SR and ARAM isn't that fun since I end up stuck with Champions I hate playing pretty often thanks to the weekly rotation and champs I've been gifted. :( [sg-soraka]

BubbaVJan 30, 201834 votes

You’ll be running the most popular game modes excluding the most popular game mode.

Sorry, but ARURF isn’t a favorite. I see nothing wrong with putting ARURF out if you put at LEAST regular URF in custom games. Putting out both would make the best of both worlds, so what’s holding you back?

LostFr0stJan 30, 201836 votes

They explained that in an AskRiot already:

https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2017/12/ask-riot-urf/

MeepieJan 30, 201834 votes

I always look forward to those rotating game modes. It was a very nice get away from Summoner rift and ARAM and twisted treeline. I used to play nothing but crystal scar before you removed it. It was nice just to run around catch those towers and fight. I guess I will have to wait and see what your plans are then. Hopefully, you put ONE FOR ALL on the Howling Abyss map, since that's the most fun people have with it. I'll be looking forward to seeing your new ideas. As for now though, I need to find a new game.

[sg-soraka]

MyNamesJacobJan 30, 201814 votes

BRING BACK THE FKN SCAR!

ZuiziJan 30, 201829 votes

This news is devastating.

StarGuardianWeebJan 30, 201824 votes

I blame this 100% on people who bitched every patch that LOTPK and Acsension were every week :/ I was fine with them (and occasionally others) being "the usual" while once every 2-3 months we got a big new game mode. Now we just suffer in current rift until whenever like events were before RGM was made or play ARAM :/

SlammyWhammiesJan 31, 201824 votes

This is pretty disappointing tbh I had a lot more fun in rotating game modes than in normals... people are less serious/toxic and there's less stress and micromanaging

Lil Daddy RakanJan 31, 201820 votes

“We’ll still be running favorites like ARURF,”

Literally everyone I know hates ARURF but they play it anyway because it’s the closest thing to actual URF

AmethysteBlitzJan 30, 201819 votes

Ah.... The removal of RGM's every patch. I didn't know I dreaded this until now. The alternate game modes were a real staple in my group of friends' weekends if there was one we all really enjoyed, like All-for-One and Poro King.

Would it really be too much to ask to at least keep the good modes that people enjoy for longer periods? Invasion was an absolute blast that almost everybody loved. It'd be nice to keep certain modes for lengthily periods rather than for only 1 patch and then nothing for 3 patches while we wait for the next mode...

[sg-soraka]

SOSABoomBoxxJan 30, 201814 votes

When is Hexakill gonna come back? is Hexakill gonna come back?

MoufasaVonNinjaJan 31, 20188 votes

I kinda want a full blown, One for All ARURF Hexakill just to see 12 Ezreals duke it out really fast (or 12 Orn, Karthus, Yasuo, whatever runs a chance of nuking the servers). Or that Thresh game mode with the black hole in the middle, only URF style.

Hyrum GraffFeb 1, 20184 votes

>12 Karthus >Aced >Aced

Agent CorgiJan 30, 201813 votes

So since you guys aren't running RGM every patch (Weekends Friday - Monday), do you guys plan on keeping RGM active the entirety of a patch & then deactivating it for the next few patches or so? Like, Would the Rotating Game Mode be active throughout the entirety of Patch 8.3 (from 2/7/18 - 2/21/18, including weekdays & Weekends), then deactivated until Patch 8.6 (The return of One-for-All).

RiotAeon EternalJan 30, 201830 votes

We're definitely planning to have game modes run for longer periods like we did with the last runs of Overcharge and Invasion.

RiotAeon EternalJan 30, 201816 votes

As a note, this may or may not line up with an exact patch's timeline, depending on whether or not there is an event going on --- we try to line up with events when we can.

Vhan8765Jan 30, 201810 votes

It's really unfortunate that the RGMQ won't be returning every patch.

Perhaps I can't speak for everyone, but at least from my experiences it felt like a lot of people played it a ton. Hopefully this decision isn't permanent and will be looked over once more of the game modes are rebuilt and stable.

The RGMQ was the best place to farm for Hextech chests on champions you weren't entirely too good with on SR; it still was challenging to get the S for your chest but didn't feel like I had to play a ton of games to full on learn the champion just for an S like you do in SR.

ßard the ßardJan 30, 201810 votes

kagepaladinJan 30, 20188 votes

sitting here still waiting for black market brawlers sadly knowing it's gone for good ;(

Jeddy017Jan 30, 20187 votes

Honestly, I'm not that big a fan of this idea. But whatever, I'll live with it.

RNG Tyler1Jan 30, 20187 votes

Just no more Snow ARURF plz

MsSaigonJan 30, 20187 votes

I'm sad too that RGM won't be returning every patch. I love taking a break and just playing the side modes. Not everyone cares for the rage Summoner's Rift induces.

Reaper8512Jan 30, 20187 votes

Is Nemesis mode ever going to return? I loved that mode.

CosnirakJan 31, 20187 votes

"we think putting our focus towards developing new modes is the best way to deliver better experiences for you"

Well, I disagree. I like new modes just fine and want more of them, but I feel that this is going to mean a big hit to older modes and tweaking them and I think in the long run this is a very bad move.

Just as Riot's stance on creating new champions hurts them some every time it makes a patch harder to balance or further delays revamping an old game mode, this 'new stuff all the time time' philosophy will come with significant pain and costs elsewhere as well.

I completely understand the need for new in a game, but the pacing has to be reasonable and I think Riot is blind to fact that their foot is still on the gas pedal when it should be tapping on the breaks.

EDIT: Also the PROJECT Hunter mode thingy was awful, like really really awful (looked pretty, gameplay was terribad). Please kill it with fire and maybe void energies.

MoldyCheese1Jan 30, 20186 votes

And i dont mean to be greedy or anything but can PLEASE work on custom versions of the game modes again? I loved playing with 10 friends on af1 or urf and just doing stupid shit, if you try in normals people may tilt leave rage and tbh shit stomping someone into the ground is only fun for one side i kinda feel bad when i get something like varus, karma, janna, fizz, zed, etc and someone gets something like mord and i perma kill him under tower for 20 minutes.

SIDE NOTE

add something like snowball to help those immobile guys against the poke gods it was the best part about the limited pool in Snowdown

[slayer-jinx-catface]