There is a lot of awesome feedback being generated on the Boards. I am making this thread for the sake of making it easier for the team to find your input. If you have a concern or input, or just a comment that you want to make sure a rioter will read, this is the place to put it!
There's a spot behind Baron in which people can ward and have it impossible to be taken out when Baron is up, meaning that it guaranties vision for one team over the baron pit, here's a picture of the spot.
I've noticed that when the match ends, all character animations are set to idle. I'm not sure why you did this because it makes the Victory/Defeat Dance stop early. I've been dancing though the ending of my matches since beta and I hope this feature isn't being cut.
Overall, I like the new map better than the old map, particularly due to the things that you said would be better on it. However, a lot of it (besides cool details like waterfalls and such), really isn't graphically better. I think this is for 2 reasons:
Much of the texturing is like a fairly plain oil painting. My thoughts are that this is intentional, as it supports the "make champions and abilities pop off the map" thing. So in my opinion that's fine.
In many places on the map it looks like you are playing on a flat game board. I don't like that at all. It makes me miss the old summoners rift where the walls actually stick out of the ground! The reason I think it looks like this is because of the hand painted map texture that blends the ground into the wall with obvious paintings of fake grass. Attached is a screen shot showing an example of this. The screen shot is from the wall at the mid to wraiths entrance on the blue side.
So dear Riot, please make the walls pop out of the ground more and actually look like 3D models. Thanks.
Amazing, love the new colors and everything just looks so nice. My hamsters are working a little to hard though. but still amazing.
Like everything except the grass, seems more like painted floor, preferred the old one. Some eyecandy or maybe just some ssmall features would be better.
I LOVE the ambient birds and insects you added into the game. These make the rift feel so much more alive while I am roaming in the jungle. I can recall hearing birds chirping near the golems on purple side and I was VERY pleased with it! Good job!
My only real complaint on the new map is the nexus explosion. It's very anticlimactic. I think it has less to do with the visuals (the exploding crystal is pretty cool), but the sound to go with it is just... weak. Currently, there's a pretty substantial BOOM when the nexus dies. Now it's more of a hollow clink/shatter. I'm pretty sure if a crystal of that size were to break, the sound would be a bit more explosive. I think it might just need some more bass extension or something to make it feel a bit more epic.
There are several things I don't like about the new map.
First of all the saturation is way too low and all the alpha channels just make everything look so lifeless and grey because of this.
Also, a lot of stuff (mainly the paths we can walk on) look so** blurred and washed out (especially the river), they feel like a painting that you spilled water on. Add the fact that all details got removed** on the paths themselves (which creates gameplay problems e.g. range indicators for tower AA) and the game feels like I take some action figure and pout it on my desk, totally fake. Riot sold us so many times the (imo nice idea) of 4 different colors for the jungle, but implementing them and then decreasing the overall saturation makes no sense at all. I really didn't want to say it that harsh, but I actually **HATE **it. I'd rather play on the classic +3 years old map than this one and that's something to think about really.
Don't get me wrong, it has A LOT OF POTENTIAL but LESS IS NOT ALWAYS MORE.
I don't see why we get all this clarity speech every time we complain about it. It feels like Riot is trying to force us to believe that's a good thing. The only ones I can imagine that can't see what is going on in the game are potential new players that have never seen a single game before and watch a LCS match for the first time, we don't wanna get our experience as the actual players destroyed because of this. After playing a few games on it, most people in the chat agreed with what I said.
On the positive side, the top left corner of the map looks amazing (unfortunately it doesn't matter since you don't play on it). Also the new minions and monsters look awesome, but the minion projectiles look weird and need to be tweaked a bit. The Dragon and Baron animations are cool and so are the tentacles Baron shoots out of the ground. The towers are also very nice and in general I prefer the red side. The little things like the firefly in the brush are nice ideas, unfortunately in contrast to the grey bushes they fly next do, they look as dead as the pixels that they are.
hmm, I didn't intent to make such a big post about it, but I guess that shows how I really feel about it and the constant clarity this clarity that speeches.
Maybe it will just take getting used to, but I feel super claustrophobic in the new map. I feel like I need to zoom out about 15-20% more than is allowed.
I'm sure I wont articulate this as well as my actual thoughts, but I will do my best! Here is my detailed 'issue' with the new update.
My problem with the new update is the 'active' vs. 'inactive' art.
What do I consider 'active' art? Champions, NPC's, Turrets, Inhib's.... What do I consider 'inactive' art? The entire ground/floor of the map, most of the jungle...you get it.
The choice to go with a more washed out, colder color palette is fine. My problem is with the definition and depth of it all. If you look at all 'active' art in the game, you'll notice that they all have various thicknesses of 'edge work' or an outline to them...to me this gives depth and make these objects pop!
But if you look at the 'inactive' art, and lets use the ground here as a perfect example, its completely flat. Although there is a ton of detail on the ground, it completely lacks any sort of 'edge work'. This is especially apparent in both home bases where there is a ton of rock and stone and yet there is no black outline (edge work) to this art. Its just flat. Even the old map had good black edge work to almost create the illusion of depth to these objects...
All I ask is that this is read and considered, because of right now, it just doesn't match 100% and this game is to damn good to mess up its design cohesiveness.
If everything I've said has been addressed in other posts or there are updates that I have missed, I do apologize!
Thanks!
Bot lane has a problem with shadows. Basically, your shadows fall through the ground onto the cliffs below. This includes your cursor shadow, and it looks absolutely horrible when you're moving around.
I find it hard to see the fog of war. I also don't like the lack of color.
But I love everything else, especially the new towers/jungle camps.
Love how the map came out, and it runs beautifully performance wise (I actually raised my video settings due to the excess fps). Can't wait for all the new upcoming preseason changes (they all seem wonderful).
Two little minor things:
North of Red base, the shadows from architecture of the base are being cast on the painted background which looks a little strange. Gives the background a really fake "Truman Show-esque" feel lol. I'm not sure if this is an artifact with my specific video settings (currently have environment details on either medium or high, shadows on low).
Could the minion shots (the little dots the shoot) be made brighter or more noticeable? They are very tiny and barely noticeable. Once again this may be an artifact of the video settings maybe? I'm not sure how visible they are supposed to be. It would greatly aid in cs'ing if they were as clearly visible as on the old map with a glow effect and some weight.
Thanks~ Keep up the sweet work guise!
Looks beautiful. It's also completely blown up the team builder queues, I'm finding games a LOT faster than I was before! So thanks for that too ;)
It would look even better if there were nigttime/daytime.
The new baron is taller/wider/bigger? than the old baron. Regarding the old baron, whenever I put shrooms down next to the baron, I can literally place the shroom on the baron's body so the shrooms touch the baron. However, with this new baron, it's bigger so the shrooms don't touch the baron's body (which is the area that would have been the old baron's body). Even in combat, the baron doesn't make the shrooms explode. :(
well Chogath(unless im doing it wrong) can't exactly hit the blue or red buff with his E passive straight in the middle. Instead I need to attack the buff and pull them in a line now. Of course normally you pull your buff in the jungle brush perhaps but sometimes I don't as I normally have it warded in case or just don't feel like pulling them into the bush. Its not a problem just a minor annoyance.
Fps is something I noticed. Sometimes the game would studder or drop in fps but it wasn't huge(only when it studdered such as freeze) fps dropping from 144-90 is no big deal its when the game locks for 0.5-2 seconds, while it is rare those seconds is all it takes for an enemy lucian to hit you with 2 auto attacks and a ability with a teemo casting blinding dart and an auto attack on you. In fact it may cause your noble Braum support his worthy life.
Everything looks really cool. Love the new art direction you guys are going with. At this point the biggest letdown for me is that the new jungle things arn't implemented yet (the new items, the crab, and the new dragon and baron mechanics) but I will be patient for the shiny thing to come :)
I can't stress enough how readable my skills are with this new SR. The clear lanes/river all produce such gameplay clarity.
I thoroughly enjoy what you folks have been doing. Great job, really!
This question is one I have not found a solution for. First though I answer yours. I love the new rift, runs faster, cleaner looking, I do not like the new hold me at base with homegaurd though. My question is how do I find the spots where I use to click as Vayne to tumble over the small terrain (red side blue buff and wraith camp to river)? The indicators I use to look for are gone.
I have tired a macro on my keyboard and moving the cam to the same position. overlaying screenshots and placing a dot on the two spots but the camera has changed a bit.
I recorded a replay on op.gg and am hoping this will stay active until the new map is rolled out to spectator then I will watch my wall tumble I performed on the old rift, with the new rift. How long do these replays last on your servers?
If anyone could help with this I would be very thankful. I want this to be a process of solving that is not me tumbling for 30 hours to figure it out. I can provide screenshots with the exact points I click.
Thanks
Caster minion projectiles are a bit small, but that might just take some getting used to. It hides their actual power.
The turrets i feel are lackluster in the sense they don't look like they get more powerful the closer you get to a base. like they used to in the old rift.
A thing I noticed was positioning on Razorbeak chicken things (Wraith camp previously). Before, the large monster use to be clearly on the side so it would be easy to initiate with a skill shot on. Now the large monster is kind of nestled in the back (like before the position change), so the other 3 small monsters are in front (making difficult to initiate with a skill shot). Was this change intentional?
Other then that, the new map looks great (just took a little getting use to). Haven't had any performance issues yet.
I don't know if it's just me, but when I went up against Dragon with 
, the Dragon felt like it was stronger by a butt load. Unlike the previous Dragon where it wasn't strong to the point where it would kill me in 5 hits, this guy just feels OP.
I apologize in advance if these have been mentioned, just wanted to throw out my input! (Only played two games, so I didn't pick up on as much as I possibly could have)
Positive:
Negative:
, I couldn't imagine how quickly they'd go down had I picked 
, or perhaps 
and stacked up my Q efficiently.I'll edit the post if I've got anything to add, I'll be playing on it again later tonight. Thanks for the fantastic work @The Environment Team. The actual design of the map, colors, detail (3D effect), all brilliant. I'll miss the current Rift, but it's at least good to know we're moving into a good direction!
The reasoning is very sound for the muted palate and is successful. However certain areas of the map can blend into the regular walk path. The areas you can move should stay washed out for sure but the walls and boundaries could use a bit more contrast or color variety added to them. Walls and boundaries are just as important as abilities and vfx in certain situations. Many of the same values and colors can be found in the walls and floor, especially in the blue buff areas. Blue and green are to close together, they blend together to well which results in a flattening effect between the extruded rocks, plants, and features alongside the floor in those areas. If the rocks and plants in those areas were given some yellow undertones to help pull the greens further from the blues It could liven the terrain up a bit without blowing out the contrast. The red buff areas are great as they are though.
