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Ask Riot: Summoner spells, 4K support, and Reddit

Riot·10/12/2016, 10:46:27 PM·1 votes·56,145 views

Welcome to Ask Riot!

This week, we’re talking Reddit, 4K, and summoner spells.


Why does Riot use Reddit more than their official forums?

Given the huge number of League communities out there, our thinking is that Rioters should be free to interact with players wherever they choose to congregate, and wherever the Rioter is most comfortable doing so. The subreddit is a huge community nexus with a couple unique advantages (multi-regional community, high visibility, etc.), and obviously has to be a part of our overall goal of reaching out to you whatever your chosen community. There are absolutely things we can do better on both the Boards AND the subreddit, but we try to address those needs on a channel-by-channel basis rather than with a give-and-take approach.

As an aside - our latest data shows similar numbers for Rioters posting on the NA boards and the League subreddit (~130 Rioters commenting ~1500 times each month). Once you add in the PBE board, other English boards (OCE, EU), not to mention non-English regions (e.g., Brazil) for which the Boards are the primary community forum, Boards are far and away the leading space in which Rioters talk with players.

Ostrichbeernana, Player Relations & ADillonMostDaddy, NA Editorial


Are there any plans to update League of Legends to make it more compatible with 4K resolution?

Priority-wise, there are no plans to do anything about this in the short term. We squash 4K specific bugs from time to time and make quality of life updates when we can, but this is likely the best we can do for the moment. There’s always a give and take with stuff like this -- we’d have to pull people away from a project like Replays or the new client to make a concerted effort on 4K, and as 4K is still a very small percentage of the player base it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do right now.

We’re continuing to think about this space, though, and if 4K continues to gain in popularity, it’s likely we’ll revisit it.

LevelLobster, Engineering Architect


Why aren’t all summoner spells unlocked at level 1?

This is pretty similar to the answer I gave about runes progression several weeks ago.

The original intent was that you’d unlock summoner spells over time for two reasons: 1) as a reward for earning a new level, 2) to keep complexity for new players to a minimum. While I’m not sure either of those reasons is really delivering in spades, I also don’t think there is a ton of harm in restricting level 1 accounts to fewer summoner spells with one exception. That exception is Smite.

I think we actually cause a lot of problems by completely preventing low level accounts from being able to jungle. I realize Smite isn’t the only issue here, but it is an issue. Low level players can’t replicate the way most League players experience Summoner’s Rift with a champion in each lane, someone playing support, and someone playing jungle.

If we really wanted to make the ability to play jungle something you unlock (and I’m not sure there’s a compelling reason to do so) I would want to be more explicit about that rather than just restrict a tool that you kinda, sorta need to be able to jungle effectively.

There are a lot of problems with our low-level experience. Ideally we could clean up summoner spells when we clean up rune progression.

Ghostcrawler, Game Design Director


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262 Comments

Solerian10/13/2016, 8:43:22 PM206 votes

I disagree completely on the parts pertaining to summoner spells. Players need to start from Level 1 having access to what's going to be expected of them at max level, all things included (runes, for example).

Better rewards would be stuff like IP boosts (or a lump sum), icons with progression, etc. Inhibiting gameplay is not a proper reward, imo.

Vishra10/13/2016, 10:13:07 PM63 votes

My concern is Refunds, like at least give 1 extra refund every season or something like that. : ^)[zombie-brand-mindblown]

Professor Pump10/13/2016, 9:14:45 PM43 votes

_"and as 4K is still a very small percentage of the player base it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do right now."

There's a reason for that, because its unplayable. Uou would have a much much higher percentage of people using 4k+ if it wasn't complete garbage.

Pyr0mrcow10/13/2016, 8:55:38 PM20 votes

Doing something about the low level botting plague would be nice, too. ARAM under level 30 is basically Coop VS AI...assuming that anyone on your team is an actual person. ...I mean, it's kind of fun figuring out the patterns of the bots and going like 20-0 afterward, but it's still a problem.

Hakumele10/13/2016, 9:18:47 PM16 votes

For me, the locked feeling of runes, masteries, and summoner's spells is only breeding the issues that normal players feel when a player finally decides to move from bots, or ranked players feel when a player decides to move from norms: they're not prepared. I definitely understand the feeling of not wanting to give the player too much all at once, but that could be alleviated with a proper tutorial system.

As a new player, there were minimal tools to assist me in what I was doing and how to play. At that low of a level, I was paired with either smurfs, or players who also didn't know what they were doing. There were some in game prompts that help here and there, but nothing really intuitive and truly helpful. I'm ultimately left with two options: get scolded at by other players because I don't know what I'm doing (most common option, and why I quit the first time I tried to play) or watch videos online of other players who play the game.

One problem with that: there's not many resources that actually teach you, from the ground up, what you're supposed to be doing. They don't teach you the importance of CSing, how threatening towers are, or why you shouldn't try and 1v1 champs because this game isn't like other games you've played. Core mechanics that will prevent you from being chastised the minute you leave bot matches because you don't know what you're doing. The game is, without friends, a huge trial by fire, with very, very angry teammates that have high expectations.

I'd much rather see a tutorial system that covers all levels of play, and the mechanics that come with it, and access to those mechanics from level 1, as opposed to them being locked and earned. Will you be able to find all of the greatest places to flash over the walls from the start? No, but at least you have the opportunity to practice. You want to reward the players through their levels? Either give them extra IP, or a one game IP boost for their troubles.