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There should be a sandbox mode for testing purposes

John Berserk·5/27/2015, 11:26:19 AM·271 votes·6,591 views

By "sandbox mode" I mean a mode designed specifically to test certain things, such as builds, damage, mechanics, interactions, etc. In this sandbox mode, we would be able to:

  • Play as any Champion using any skin, regardless of whether you own them or not
  • Set level to any number (for all units)
  • Spawn minions at will (either into the lanes from the inhibs, or individual minions at your cursor)
  • Spawn jungle monsters at will (except maybe Baron and Dragon)
  • Spawn other Champions (and be able to set them to ally or enemy)
  • Revive yourself or other Champions anywhere at will (if a Champion dies, you can revive them and have them placed anywhere on the map)
  • Place yourself or other units anywhere on the map
  • Control the behavior of minions/monsters/other champions
  • Revive fallen towers/inhibitors
  • Restore health and mana/energy/fill up rage at will
  • Restore cooldowns completely at will
  • Set gold to any amount (for all Champions) and/or Equip any item for free without having to buy from the shop (from anywhere and for all Champions) and/or Set stats to any amount (for all units)

This mode would have no victory nor defeat, and would reward no IP. It would be purely for testing purposes for the player, and would be a much more convenient method than going into a custom or bot game and having to draw the game out for 20-30-40 minutes to get full build and max level and all that just to test a single thing, and this would also provide a way for players to be able to test Champions before buying them or without having to wait until their free week.

EDIT: Wow, this is getting a lot of support guys! It'd be pretty nice if a Rioter could jump in and give their opinion on the idea of a sandbox mode for its players to use as a testing environment.

Also, I should have mentioned this before, but I envisioned this mode as singleplayer only as it currently is in Heroes of the Storm (yes, I did in fact get my inspiration for this from there). This way players can avoid abusing it and Riot doesnt really lose any money because it'd be the only environment available to players in which they could test any champion or skin, regardless of whether they own them or not.

83 Comments

BA Tetsuo5/27/2015, 3:10:01 PM11 votes

They could have it be a 1 player game mode, and the player's machine hosts it so there's not a whole lot of server traffic for it

R2D205/27/2015, 5:08:21 PM10 votes

I could see this being implemented in PBE but not live, too much abuse of it.

Randomonium5/27/2015, 11:27:07 AM8 votes

I would love a game mode like this. However, I'm pretty sure it would require a ton of work on Riot's part and I doubt they will do it.

whensmarvel5/27/2015, 3:22:57 PM7 votes

If anything they would probably make this mode exclusive to Pbe users

CleverExpletive5/28/2015, 1:52:45 AM6 votes

I thought people played ranked to test out builds...

Jofeyy5/27/2015, 10:43:13 PM4 votes

I've been saying this since forever! Completely agree!

Sassmast3r5/28/2015, 9:12:56 PM4 votes

I agree with everything but the skins and champions part. I think it's a little too much to basically give you anything you want JUST for playing on this mode. Doesn't it somewhat make you NOT want to buy skins anymore since you kinda, own everything in this mode you know? However, everything else I totally agree with and I completely support this game mode! :D

Major Sparkles5/27/2015, 4:44:45 PM3 votes

Hero's of the Storm has this mode already... (to he T) I'm sure that's where you got the idea from. Still it's something League has needed for ages.

MattAkhavan5/28/2015, 5:10:21 AM3 votes

Sandbox mode has been requested since like season 2 at least. I have read and heard from pro players in the past that riot HAS a sand box, which would be ridiculous if they did not have one at this point.

The real question we should be asking is why aren't they releasing. If we can figure out why they don't want to give it to the public then maybe we could devise a solution to get a sandbox mode.

MaxPlaysSax5/27/2015, 11:27:42 PM2 votes

This is a good idea, but it belongs on PBE.

Singing Lark5/27/2015, 12:48:21 PM2 votes

PLEASE! This would be amazing for people like me, who like to practice things in customs, but don't have to flexibility to truly make it effective. I think this would be amazing.

Deep Terror Nami5/28/2015, 9:57:08 AM2 votes

I've got an old similar thread here. Might have some good ideas in it not on this one;

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/summoners-rift/iVtpIvhg-new-game-mode-introducing-practice-mode

Frittatas5/27/2015, 5:16:37 PM2 votes

I fully support this.. heroes has this and its gr8. I don't understand why riot is ridiculously slow to catch on to basic shit like this:

  1. sandbox
  2. A NON 3rd party replay program
  3. ranked solo que in non summoners rift games I mean you wonder why hardly any of the league community plays 3s or dominion??? there is no freaking rank solo for their game type
Jungle Lux God5/27/2015, 6:26:35 PM2 votes

I would love it if this happened.

I personally like to play a lot of unconventional junglers, and a lot of the effort that I put into playing some of these junglers is going into custom games and testing how the champion's jungle clears fare with different runes/masteries, different jungle items (Ranger's Trailblazer offers a dramatic difference in both clear speed and sustain over the other three), and how the clears fare with different first items after the jungle item (sometimes the optimal jungle item to build is not to build the logical jungle enchantment after the jungle item).

Custom games are where I currently test them, but it has some limitations: -towers falling on the enemy team inflates the gold that I get as a jungler -towers falling on my team inflates the experience that I get as a jungler, and doesn't always offer an accurate portrayal of clearing Gromp because the minions get in the way of it -waiting until 1:55 gets to be a little bit cumbersome having to do it multiple times to test a champ multiple times -restarting because I screwed up takes too long; you have to leave the game, start a new custom game, and create the new game from scratch

Adding a testing realm would dramatically improve my ability to test the junglers that I would be interested in trying out in-game, and would be an overall improvement over testing in custom games.

Cirrusstrafe5/27/2015, 8:01:40 PM2 votes

I have wanted this for so long it's not even funny. Hell, even Heroes of the Storm's tech alpha had a mini sandbox mode (which has been iterated on and improved upon and still exists as far as I have been told), and it let you even test any hero free of charge, owned or not, to see if you wanted to buy it.

As it stands, to test anything I need to gather a few friends, wait a while until the circumstances are right, and then try to simulate the events for anything. If I'm trying to find a rather hard to reproduce bug or help out with bug hunts, then everything is against me. Help us help you, Riot, and help us help ourselves learn and test.

Siderequest: allowing us to reduce monster/minion spawn times in customs would be great, too. When I train laning/csing 1v1 with a friend it is really bloody frustrating to have to wait roughly two minutes before starting, every single damn time.

brunoais5/27/2015, 9:54:08 PM1 votes

Why would you need to test stuff like that?

FastAsHeck5/28/2015, 1:54:51 PM1 votes

this is definately needed, hots is in beta and already has that feature and i love it. in hots, these sandbox games are on a small map with one lane only (i guess we could use aram in league), with only one bot as an enemy and one as an ally (so you can test support abilities too). and on the side it has 5 options, one to toggle AI (minions and bots), one to reset forts (all buildings), one to level you up, one to reset cooldowns and one to completely reset the level. i guess it wouldnt be so hard to add here as well.

xSyndicate5/28/2015, 2:03:01 PM1 votes

they should put the sandbox mode in PBE then, not normal. that would defeat the purpose of having PBE anyways.

holy knightmare5/28/2015, 2:03:44 PM1 votes

I think this would be extremely helpful, Rito plz.

SuppsNeedFarmToo5/28/2015, 6:14:56 PM1 votes

Yeah, it'd be cool for Riot to do this.

EternalDarknez5/28/2015, 7:13:48 PM1 votes

not to burst your bubbles but.... best section there is this forum

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/summoners-rift/ARHV133L-can-we-please-have-a-sandbox-mode

(almost 500 upvotes)

check out rest of the "best" section on forums and youll find a bunch of good ideas and such that riot just doesnt care enough to "look into" or better put, do anything more than leave one comment on

sorry mates, if its a good idea, its not up riots alley =/

Rhinovex5/28/2015, 7:36:31 PM1 votes

Well... I don't know about allowing unowned champions, because then there would be no point in having the free champion rotations. I have to say though I've always wanted to be able to test out skins myself, you get a much better feel for them in0game as opposed to simply looking at pictures or even a video.

JimmyNtheKudos5/27/2015, 7:03:37 PM1 votes

This would make sense minus being able to use any champ or any skin (Riot being a business and all) i.e. just makes more sense for them as a company to make this viable if you have to purchase to use the champ you're testing (the bots can be any champ).

coeurloyal5/28/2015, 10:14:53 PM1 votes

I don't agree with having it tied to single player only. If this mode existed, I would want to be able to use it to practice bot lane pairs and ganks with new junglers (which would really require at least two players). I'd also want to be able to test specific matchups and builds against a friend of equal skill to really get a thorough look at them.

It would be fine if they didn't allow a full team, but I'd really like to be able to do 1-4 players or two at the very least. Also, you should allow people to reset their skill points to test maxing things first in different situations.

SirZeros6/1/2015, 8:41:27 PM1 votes

I think the part with the skin and the champion is not that good. I mean as a player it would be pretty nice, but I don't think, that Riot would let you have any champ and any skin you want, even if you just want to test them out ;)

lastlegacyD18/10/2015, 5:02:37 AM1 votes

I love how riot ignores these posts, but literally 100% of the community wants this. Even if they say they don't. They secretly do.