"Black Market Brawlers" Q&A with the Play team. 8/4, 12PM -> 2PM PST

RiotL4T3NCY·Aug 4, 2015·18 votes·102,895 views

Heya guys ^.^/

As a part of the Bilgewater: Burning Tides event, our latest Featured Game Mode, “Black Market Brawlers” is currently live, and the Play team is here to answer any questions you guys have! We make all the Featured Game Modes, so feel free to ask us anything about BMB or any previous modes. What's your favourite Brawler minion and why? Favourite Black Market item? What combination of Brawlers are you having the most success with? Tell us your stories!

We’ll be online from now for 2 hours, from 12:00AM -> 2:00PM PST.

-L4T3NCY -BuffMePlz -DefaultChar

EDIT: Heya guys, we're going to wrap it up and get back to work. We'll keep an eye on in here and try to drop in to answer a few extra questions. Thanks for taking the time to come chat with us! :D

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/sites/default/files/styles/scale_xlarge/public/upload/bw_lolclient_card_bmbqanda.jpg

271 Comments

HellioningAug 4, 201510 votes

Can you actually release NURF for next April Fool's? It wouldn't be great for a week long thing, but I think it'd be fun for a couple of games.

RiotL4T3NCYAug 4, 201525 votes

We thought so too but... we were wrong. So wrong... ..burn it. Burn it with fire...

Blue SocialistAug 4, 20157 votes

Spending 40 minutes to get in lane and wait for minions to spawn. What could possibly go wrong?

RiotL4T3NCYAug 4, 201515 votes

We played with debug commands and it was still terrible... <shivers>

7ha7guy777Aug 4, 20157 votes

Is it possible that some of the items may make it onto the rift as is or modified in some way? Please no typhoon claws or flesheater.

Will One For All be returning this season? I really want to see some interactions between recent champions like Tahm Kench and Kalista.

My favorite interaction was probably Nether Stride Grimoire on Malzahar. You could place Malefic Vision on a minion wave then use the movement speed boost to roam while you farmed a lane. The kiting power when you bought a Rylai's as well was insane. If the enemy didn't have a gapcloser there was no way they could catch you with a 20% movement speed boost while they're slowed by 20% for the full duration of your Malefic Visions' cooldown.

RiotL4T3NCYAug 4, 20159 votes

We don't have any specific plans to bring any of the Black Market items into regular SR. That’s not to say that things from Featured Game Modes don’t ever find their way into regular LoL though (EG: the snowballs from Poro King are now in ARAM proper). If there's the seed of something really cool there, we'll always consider it. ^_-

I liked One For All as well (on SR, not HA). Also looking forward to seeing what those champs are like (not looking forward to the scripting required to get them working o.O).

Netherstride Grimoire on Teemo is pretty great too. You occasionally just start running fast because someone on the other side of the map stood on a shroom. :)

Kongo JoeAug 4, 20157 votes

I guess this is more about the event than the game mode, but I personally loved the short story. I felt that it really gave good insight into the characters in a way that the lore blurbs have never been able to do (The champion lores have always had the problem of telling, but never showing). Sure, you can say that TF and Graves have a complicated relationship, but this event was the first time that i ever got to visualize the grudge, but yet still get a feeling of how the could have worked as a duo at some point. I feel like i understood the characters better than i ever have before, and the interesting decision to have one event told from multiple perspectives really gave a weight and sense of urgency to the story. I felt as if there were real stakes, and although, i admit, at first i was a bit leery of how the entirely serious tone would match up with a story about a man who uses a magic deck of cards, i never found a place in which the world was no longer cohesive and believable to me. Although the story certainly wasn’t perfect (some of the early parts with Graves seemed a little repetitious, and his very sudden emotional realization at the end was a little jarring), i was still pleasantly surprised to have come out of the experience with, (as you can see) mostly positive things to say. All around, a solid story, with interesting characters that i found did more for lore building than anything i have seen Riot do so far.

So I guess my questions are, why was the decision made to create the story, who was primarily responsible for the writing(i.e. was it one person, or was there a specific team), and would they consider doing other pieces for future events?

RiotRiotJaredanAug 4, 20156 votes

Hello Kongo Joe! Thanks for the kind words and the questions.

Events team wanted to create an event that had strong thematic resonance that added richness and depth to each aspect of it. That was why a story was employed to help give that thematic thread, and allow the story team and different teams working on the various other aspects of Burning Tides to inspire each other.

The story was first broken in a writers room by Narrative folks working for Events that included Glorft, Ant in Oz, WaarghBobo, myself and a couple of others from different disciplines, including our marvelous story team producer SpaghettiSquash. A treatment was then put together by Glorft, Ant in Oz, and WaarghBobo. The final piece itself was written by Ant in Oz, John ODyin, Glorft, and me, and edited by the marvelous FamilyJules and Redactor. Once you add in the feedback, inspiration, and support from Rioters across Events and Riot, it's easy to see just how much of a team effort the story was.

We're always champing at the bit to bring stories to players, so yes, we'd be more than happy to.

ArchenzAug 4, 20156 votes

Favorite minion: Razorfin, because you can never 1v1 these guys Favorite Item: AP = Tricksters Glass, Tank = Dead Mans Plate Best combination: All RazorFins = afk in base and win

Vel Koz I canAug 4, 20156 votes

How long were you guys at riot considering a game mode with custom items? What custom item ideas were scrapped, and were there any new snowball items considered, such as item 3041 or item 3141 ?

And I have to say, I really liked the 4th support item set ( item 3844 item 3841 item 3840 ). Are there any plans or thoughts about a new support item in the regular game? A shielding support item was a really cool idea for supports like Orianna, Lulu, and Janna. I saw some great synergy with that and the rarely used ardent censor.

Any sneak peaks on the next featured game mode? {{summoner:2}}

RiotL4T3NCYAug 4, 20159 votes

We'd been considering this one for a loo~ong time. ^.^ BuffMePlz has mentioned some scrapped item ideas above. As for snowballing items, there was no direct ones, but there was this idea that we let go:

Rod of Prosperity (870g) Amplifying Tome + Amplifying Tome +50 AP

Unique passive: Upon killing a caster minon, Rod of Prosperity becomes charged for 33 seconds. This charge is lost upon death. If Rod of Prosperity stays charged for 3 consecutive minutes, it transforms into a needlessly large rod.

Basically you would opt-in to this minigame of trying to keep your last hit chain going. Your lane opponent obviously knows this too, so the trading around minions became VERY different. Was _interesting _to say the least. :)

beanyAug 4, 20155 votes

Can you confirm or deny that BMB is a testbed for potential new items?

ThalesAug 4, 20155 votes

Were there concerns that additional rewards for kills and major objectives would make the games too snowbally?

How did you try to prevent the Brawler Minions from being predominantly invisible power?

RiotBuffMePlzAug 4, 20156 votes

One of our original prototypes granted one Kraken on champion kill and one Kraken on champion death, as well as granting one for all jungle objectives (not just enemy large monsters) as an attempt to inject currency into the game without contributing to the snowballing. The issue we ran into here was one of expression - earning Krakens and upgrading minions was cool, but it was weird that it was a system that you kind of had to deal with on a somewhat regular timer instead of one you got to interact with if you were doing well. We decided for this particular attempt to go with the additionally snowballing, both as a means to express success as well as a way to help games close out (which we were also having trouble with in early tests).

In terms of the Brawlers, much of their power comes from their ability upgrades - we tried to make the interactions through these minions unique and give them obvious patterns to play with or against. This made it so that to better access their power required you to play a specific way (e.g. initiate a trade with friendly Plundercrabs in lane, pop enemy Ironback shields to help your waves push back, etc.) and avoid "fire-and-forget" models as much as possible.

DwarvenGiantAug 4, 20155 votes

Tell us about scrapped Brawlers, if there were any, please.

How do you feel about the Brawlers? I've seen a lot of people (including myself) that think that the Brawlers feel a little dull and boring and don't have that much impact on the game as it seemed they'd have. (Which leads me to the next question...)

Do you have plans or ideas on making Brawlers more interesting and interactive for the next time this mode comes (if ever)?

RiotBuffMePlzAug 4, 20157 votes

We had a few versions of Brawlers that we didn't use, including: -Splash damage brawlers (anti-brawler brawlers!) -Debuffing support brawlers that had no auto attack but would reduce resistances of enemy units in lane -A brawler that dropped periodic totems that granted bonuses to nearby friendlies -A jungle scouting brawler that skipped lane entirely and wandered around the jungle

The Brawlers were an interesting challenge in that we wanted them to feel impactful, but not to the point where the champions were no longer the focal point of the game. Many of our earlier prototypes had the Brawlers feeling very impactful, almost to the point where our champions cowered in fear at approaching waves of minions. While this did solidify the Brawlers as a game-changing mechanic, it greatly downplayed the role of the player, and the game became this odd combination of standard SR play with horde survival play, which was fun but not quite the gameplay we were going for for this mode.

As a result the impact the Brawlers have is less on the overall flow of the game but rather how you interact with them in lane. This results in new play patterns in the laning phase and teamfights near the Brawlers, but not a "upgrade the brawlers and watch them smash the enemy team" kind of effect.

I imagine if we were to bring back BMB we'd look at tweaking the Brawler system (the upgrade paths are a bit overly simplistic), as well as changing some brawler mechanics or introducing other choices.

Ghøst of ReturnAug 4, 20155 votes

Can you relase gamemodes like this and URF more often? Sometimes normals get a bit boring, you know :P

RiotL4T3NCYAug 4, 201514 votes

Rotating game modes on a higher cadence is something we want to try. We've got a decent stable building up, so it's in the back of our minds.

VirotoxicAug 4, 20155 votes

how exactly does plunder crab anatomy work?

ArchenzAug 4, 20154 votes

Would you ever consider adding these minions into normal solo q (after proper balancing) to add more depth to the game?

RiotL4T3NCYAug 4, 201510 votes

Adding the brawler minions to solo Q is an interesting idea that we've been discussing. It starts to get beyond the scope of just what Featured Game Modes are doing, but the idea is definitely interesting. One concern would be that MOBAs are already a very high barrier of entry genre (demand high mechanical execution and encyclopedic knowledge) and permanently adding even more complexity onto the recipe could exacerbate that. Once the brawler mechanics are internalised though, they do add another interesting layer of strategy.

WarWorkAug 4, 20153 votes

If you do ever implement this would you let it stay permanent hire or more like the elixers you purchase one and it spawns brawlers for X amount of waves?

RiotL4T3NCYAug 4, 20156 votes

Those are both interesting options and we'd need to try out a lot of combinations of things. Here's some things we considered (even built and tested) when making BMB. --- Permanency (guaranteed return on investment) VS temporariness (take advantage of timely spikes in power but risk wasting) of Brawlers. --- Wide Brawler selection with shallow customisation --- Narrow Brawler selection with deeper, multi-tree customisation

I feel like the rabbit-hole on 'customisable minion waves in MOBAs' runs very very deep.

RocketRelmAug 4, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Adding the brawler minions to solo Q is an interesting idea that we've been discussing. It starts to get beyond the scope of just what Featured Game Modes are doing, but the idea is definitely interesting. One concern would be that MOBAs are already a very high barrier of entry genre (demand high mechanical execution and encyclopedic knowledge) and permanently adding even more complexity onto the recipe could exacerbate that. Once the brawler mechanics are internalised though, they do add another interesting layer of strategy.

If you wanted to help get away from the Barrier of Entry, they could be a factor that only applies in games with everyone lvl 20 and up. That way you could let newer players learn the game, and then introduce the minion advancement as an additional tactical layer once players have some time getting the basics of the game down.

I feel like the concept, both in terms of making minions more relevant, and letting you add power to the minions, is 'wonderful'.

Also, I want to see some of these items put into the rift. The Rite Of Ruin tome is something I never knew I needed until it was introduced. I think allowing an AP to buy an item to get the pushing power of a dedicated AD would fundamentally help the health of the game. Being able to actually split push objectives as a mid laner with minions feels good, and I feel like Rite of Ruin is perfectly balanced and not OP in it's current state, unlike some other items which I think are outright abusive, overpowered, and toxic (looking at you flesheater).

RiotL4T3NCYAug 4, 20152 votes

That feels like a crutch. If the implemented design isn't simple and elegant enough to be picked up in parallel with the game, 'shielding' players from it until 'they're ready' would be basically admitting that the design was convoluted and terrible.

There could be a solution that opens up to you the more you master it, growing steadily in complexity as you become familiar with it (ALA summoner spell unlocks or gradual mastery of higher skill-ceiling champs). It's a deep rabbit hole that could be interesting to dive down one day.

YiseryAug 4, 20152 votes

But isn't that the same as what you are doing with jungling (and Smite only being available at level 10)?

Kei143Aug 4, 20152 votes

The jungle is a design that early level players don't get access to, and then there isn't a tutorial about jungle camps and how they work, aside from the youtubers.

Solidair3Aug 4, 20154 votes

Odds of seeing any of these items on summoner's Rift next season? Trickster's glass is such a cool addition!

StexeAug 4, 20154 votes

Was wondering why Morellonomicon was removed from Black Market Brawlers. Seems weird to remove a reliable source of Grievous Wounds. It makes Dr. Mundo impossibly difficult to shut down.

KjarikAug 4, 20152 votes

Because Netherstride Grimoire is not the thing we need, but the thing we deserve. Or something like that. Am I right?

RiotRiot ReinboomAug 4, 20156 votes

We were experimenting with crazier anti regen stacking ideas. Like, here's some damage that you can't heal (but the fountain can). Deal with it.

One of the items that had this was Pox Arcana. Unfortunately, the new mechanisms we built for it was difficult to get a grasp on as they were warping for the game mode as a whole. Basically, game defining well beyond what the other items were even when not as powerful. Since we changed Pox Arcana kind of late in the dev of the mode, this was a simple miss.

Now why the books replaced Morellonomicon in the first place? We wanted to see if that type of choice pattern was cool. "Here's the stats you want. Ignore that part. Now make a choice about effect."

RocketRelmAug 4, 20154 votes

"Here's the stats you want. Ignore that part. Now make a choice about effect."

This in particular I adore. I feel like it's really a good way to handle a lot of the items in the game mode.

I feel like the choice between "move really fast", "additional burst+mana sustain" and "takes structures down 'really' fast" as core identities and choices to divide between is exceptionally wonderful for the game, though that is at least in part because i 'really' want to see an AP "I push towers" item somehow implemented in the game. Is there a chance that at some point such an "I knock down structures" item could be implemented in some form?

SignErrorAug 4, 20154 votes

Why did you decide to have Murksphere upgrade from a click on item to a lobbing skill shot?

I was just wondering. Also, I liked to self cast it, so when I upgraded it to tier three, it took me a while to realize that it had become a skill shot.

RiotBuffMePlzAug 4, 20154 votes

Originally the area shield provided a lot more gold in that there was no gold cap, making the area shield a much higher risk/reward proposition. Once we implemented the cap, we probably should have revisited the casting model and made it a unit targeted ability that also shields allies near the cast target (e.g. Karma Mantra'd E).

LocoPineapplesAug 4, 20154 votes

I have a few questions, if you don't mind.

1.) Will the concept of tamable monsters be reused in any future gamemodes?

2.) Will the new items be incorperated into the rift in any way?

3.) What champion do you think had the strongest impact gameplay-wise in BmB?

Finally, a question pertaining to lore:

Why are a few select champions focused on during these events, (Azir and Sivir in Shurima, TF and Graves in Bligewater, ect), while other smaller ones such as Rammus and Fizz ignored? I understand that everyone has favorites, but I was excited to see where someone like Naut would've fit into the Burning Tides.

Kekyoin347Aug 4, 20153 votes

Were there any bugs or glitches that you guys found with the new minions when Black Market Brawlers was still in beta/on PBE?

RiotRiot DefaultcharAug 4, 20158 votes

Two of the more enjoyable (and thankfully relatively short lived) internal ones: We had one day where the Ocklepod Clairvoyance visual radius was ~1500 radius (think lux ultimate from side to side). The actual sight it granted was unchanged, but it was a bit distracting.

Additionally, while in prototype, Razorfins would actually remain "taunted" (Their current "chase and attack champions" mechanic) on corpses if the champion they were attacking died. So after chasing you down and biting you to death, they would corpsecamp for good measure

One that I believe made it to PBE: We actually had a fairly long running issue where ALL lane minions would decide to "help" whenever you were fighting Jungle Minions, Gromp in particular. Although this was nice in some ways, they were surprisingly good at getting the last hit, in which case the Gold would, presumably, go directly into their savings ("After this last lane push, I'm going to come back home and we'll retire to a farm upstate"). I remember one playtest in particular where I finished my first jungle clear and couldn't actually buy my jungle item, because I lost both Gromp and Krugs.

Blue SocialistAug 4, 20153 votes

I'm sure some of you have seen the negativity regarding the event rewards this time around and how grindy they've felt compared to other game modes, and how in some cases have caused some negative experiences (ffing because enough krakens, trying to prolong a winning game to get a Tier 3, etc.).

What are your thoughts on this and what have you guys learned from the event as you saw it play out?

RiotL4T3NCYAug 4, 20156 votes

There's definitely a lesson to be learned for us here on setting expectations. I feel like the gap between Act's 1 & 2 vs Act 3 is too wide. This is exacerbated by there being no preface or warning heading into Act 3 (something we wanted to do but eventually didn't). For 2 Acts you're spending about 1.5 hours playing some ARAMs or normals, then in Act 3 it suddenly demands 10+ hours of engagement. This is something we'll be looking at for sure in our next event.

I sometimes feel like there's a fundamental opposition within rewards. We want rewards to be valuable, rare and cool. They should represent an accomplishment or something you spent time earning (and felt good about). This exclusivity means that not everyone can get them though (if they could, it wouldn't be exclusive at all = lame). Then there's completionists who want all of the everything. This is where we could do better at expectation setting I think.

VirotoxicAug 4, 20153 votes

if you bring this mode back in the future what kind of new crazy contraband items might you put in the shop? did you consider any unique consumables?

RiotBuffMePlzAug 4, 201527 votes

Yeah I'm sure if this comes back we'd try other crazier concepts. =P We had a few concepts that we cut early, including:

A consumable item that instantly teleported you to a random position on the map when you used it
An item that created copies of itself while in your inventory, and could be thrown at other people to put itself in their inventory
An item that allowed you to instantly swap positions with an ally (globally) that had “the other half” of the item
The “Lead Slippers”, which when activated turned you metal and made you immune to enemy knockbacks and knockups

I also wanted to make a consumable that had an 8 second channel time that would play the Recall effect while channeling and would stealth you once the channel completed, but no one else thought it was a good idea. =(

GornackAug 5, 201510 votes

Honestly that last one is the best of the consumables mentioned, i think its a great idea buddy. PUSH IT HARDER NEXT TIME I WANT THIS

LuneaAug 4, 20153 votes

How do came up with the idea of Black Market Brawlers (inc. Minions and Items)? :)

DeaThSiM0nAug 4, 20153 votes

How do all the minions become bigger late game in Black Market Brawlres (not with the baron buff)?

RiotBuffMePlzAug 4, 20153 votes

In BMB we don't spawn super minions - instead, once you destroy an enemy inhibitor, all of your minions (including Brawlers) in that lane become bigger.

VirotoxicAug 4, 20154 votes

how does this affect taking out all 3 inhibs?(normally double super minions for each lane)

SeykimAug 4, 20152 votes

why cant i buy the enchantment teleport for boots?

RiotRiot DefaultcharAug 4, 20155 votes

We had to disable them due to a fairly problematic bug. They should be re-enabled with patch 5.15

SignErrorAug 4, 20152 votes

I tried out the teleport boot enchantment before it was disabled, and I couldn't see any problems.

Could you tell us what the bug was?

Draconic LordAug 4, 20153 votes

I think it was that if you used them while on the fountain and changed to a different enchantment during the channel, you could still use the teleport with no cooldown until you died.