Ask Riot how we’ve made Events out of Ranked 3’s
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This is a space where we focus on your questions and give you answers.
The one where we talk about events, Ranked 3s, and an update on the client update.
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Are we going to get more thematic events like the Freljord- and Bilgewater-themed events we've had so far? How long do they take?
Hello!
TL;DR: We won’t be doing a single event that contains all of the components Bilgewater had last year. Instead we want to continue delivering on all the same types of content found within the Bilgewater event, but in a way that ensures better quality and cadence.
Still reading? Cool. Let’s dig in a bit.
Though Bilgewater had a lot of positives, it was an utter beast to produce that was further complicated by our focus on a singular release window. Putting my Narrative hat on (it has a quill in it!), Burning Tides was 11,000-word story that had to tie into various product teams who all had awesome stuff they wanted to deliver to players, but with wildly varying production schedules. Bringing all those moving parts together was extremely challenging, as it shackled teams and reduced their ability to produce content at their own speed.
After we completed our production analysis of the Burning Tides event (including the amount of energy drinks consumed per capita), it became obvious there was little chance of us doing something similar more than once per year. In turn, it meant each individual part of the event was also being restricted to the same cycle.
We wanted to continue delivering cool content such as game modes, high quality stories that progressed over time, themed skins and so on, but in a way that meant we didn’t have just one high burst of overlapping (and sometimes competing) content in a narrow window before we went quiet again. The bottlenecks compounded on each other and reduced each team’s effectiveness.
Additionally, one of the most consistent pieces of feedback players had given to Narrative was to stop disappearing for a year at a time (or more) after each event, as we had since Freljord.
By decoupling each aspect of an event, we can deliver story progression, rotating game modes, skins and more on their own terms and with increasing regularity.
You’ve already seen the benefits of us unlocking ourselves from unwieldy events in Shadow and Fortune (along with the updated Shadow Isles bios and foundational content), Targon, and the progression of Shurima’s story, along with the themed bundle of bios, contextual material, and the Bloodlines story.
By not having to work under the parameters of a studio-wide endeavor like Burning Tides, we’re able to create stories and other content that support League of Legends and expand the world of Runeterra in a much more focused, nimble way. It also allows us to deliver fun content like rotating game modes and, for skins, to produce awesomeness like PROJECT rather than having to throw everything into one humongous, single-focus event.
Though I completely understand disappointment in not having a ‘Bilgewater event’ this summer, I hope you will enjoy the content we can produce, because it’s good.
Story-wise, we are working on something rather saucy for a little later this year we think lovers of story will enjoy. In fact, the amount of pure storytelling we’re planning for 2016 will be more than we’ve ever done previously. My apologies for any confusion caused by the expectations we set in the past. However, I hope I’ve helped clarify our thinking on how we can get the best content to you at an improved pace. We’re rather excited about what we have in the works, and I promise we won’t kill anyone in the next big story.
Well, except [REDACTED!] of course, but they’ve just been asking for it.
Cheers,
Jaredan, Senior Editor- Narrative
How is work on the client update coming along?
Swimmingly, but we still have a ways to go! The feedback given to us by our first batch of alpha testers has been tremendously helpful for all of us working on the client, and we're steaming ahead with our release schedule. We're adding Twisted Treeline and our reworked Champion Detail pages now, with the normal draft and ranked queues up next.
Our dedication to building this thing from scratch means that we've had to slow down development of features unrelated to the client update, but it's worth the investment—by the time we're done, League's client will be better looking, more stable, and much better structured to allow Riot teams to efficiently develop new features.
Plenty of folks have signed up for the alpha, but we'll need lots more testers as we thunder toward the finish line. Sign up to become a tester yourself, or check out client update website to track our progress.
Riot MrHark and Cactopus, Brand Manager and Writer- League Client Update
What does the future hold for Ranked 3s?
In patch 6.13 we added timed windows to ranked 3’s that match up with the ranked 5’s play times. We did this because it's a pretty low population queue and there were a lot of poor queue times and matches being made outside of those windows. We're going to see how these changes work and so far, our data shows it has substantially improved queue time and match quality.
Ranked 3's came from a time when we saw the future of League as being a variety of different maps that were always available. It turns out this vision just isn’t the most compelling. It's fair to view the work that we currently do on Twisted Treeline as maintenance.
If we made Twisted Treeline today, it would be for our Rotating Game Mode Queue (RGMQ) – that's where we mix things up and give you fresh modes for a shorter amount of time. If the population for Ranked 3's stays healthy, we’ll maintain the same windows as Ranked 5s. If the queue times become too long and the matchups are difficult to balance for the number of players in the queue, we’ll have to make a decision on whether it’s best if we move into in the the RGMQ where it will get shorter, healthier periods of play.
Riot Mirross, Producer for League of Legends meta game systems
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