League of Legends - F2P MOBA (like DOTA) part 2

[crownjules]

Riot did some eCommerce AMA on Reddit yesterday. A couple points they brought up:

• Thinking about giving more refund tokens if you buy certain amounts of RP
• Also considering a special Summoner's icon that evolves as you purchase more RP
• Custom HUDs, announcers, and map styles (I'm guessing skins for the map) but this is not a priority
• The most popular skins are Pulsefire Ez and Spirit Guard Udyr
• Harrowing skins will hopefully be out by end of month, including some new ones, and will be available for two weeks
• They're tossing around the idea of Rune bundles for IP but holding off until the end of S4 since there are some rune changes coming
• They're considering removing T2 runes and allowing you to upgrade T1 to T3 for a reduced IP cost
• SKTT1 championship skins will be coming but no exact time
• Considering selling physical merchandise and you'd also get a champ/skin code with it
• Possible rental system where you can try a champ/skin before you buy
• Survey will be sent after the Harrowing to all previous limited skin owners to see how well Riot handled it (if you aren't aware, Riot is re-releasing all the past limited skins and current owners will be compensated by getting some RP)
• Possible ward skin for Season 3
• Bundle gifting may be possible in the future

 

[Snock514]

Team builder queue & more

 

[Fenixgoon]

Team builder queue & more

that sounds pretty f'ing brilliant.

my only concern is that teambuilder is going to "build" an ideal comp to which it assigns players.

in other words, it might stifle strategy development (though you could also argue that since teams are doing it at the highest level of play, you don't have to worry about it so much in solo queue)

 

[zebano]

that sounds pretty f'ing brilliant.

my only concern is that teambuilder is going to "build" an ideal comp to which it assigns players.

in other words, it might stifle strategy development (though you could also argue that since teams are doing it at the highest level of play, you don't have to worry about it so much in solo queue)

From what I understand you queue for a role and a preferred champ so if you want to run Xin in bot lane you can queue for that. Hopefully you find someone who wants to play Pantheon bot lane!

 

[crownjules]

From what they've said in responses, they want the team builder to be very flexible so as to not enforce any particular meta. You can try and queue up as any champ in any position you like and captains can build a team of 5 supports if they wanted.

Xerath is getting a rework on PBE. New skills with new spell effects:

Overwhelming Power (passive): Gains % magic penetration. Every 10 seconds, Xerath's next basic attack restores 4% of his max mana. Attacking an enemy champ restores 3x the amount.

Arcanopulse (Q): Same but now the spell charges up. The longer you charge it the longer range it has.

Cosmic Strike (W): A single shot of Xerath's old ultimate. Champions hit by it get slowed for 3 seconds. Players in the center of the blast take more damage and get slowed more.

Spellsphere (E): Like his old E except it stuns without needing to land another spell. Is a line skillshot now instead of a targeted ability.

Ascension (R): Roots him in place, grants him vision in a large area around him, and he gains 4 shots of Arcane Barrage which is super long range (2900/3600/4500 range) which are triggered with LMB or RMB. Lasts up to 7 seconds. Upon coming out of Ascension, he gets a MS boost.

 

[EDUSAN]

seems like a good change.

so his old W now is disguised as a charged up Q and R. E doesnt have larger radius now?

 

[crownjules]

Season 3 extended to 11/11.

They've also added that everyone Silver and above gets a Victorious Ward skin.

 

[redrider4life4]

idk why they are re-working all these champs when Heimer has been broken forever, need Heimer love

 

[slpnshot]

Heimer has a lot of changes on the PBE currently, but I'm guessing he's hard to change because his kit is so unique. They don't want to have another Karma rework where no one is happy before/after the update.

 

[crownjules]

Almost won a 4v5 ranked game last night. Our Ori disconnected around the 8-10 minute mark, reconnected briefly, then disappeared for the rest of the match. They were just a bad team. But they finally figured it out and stuck together and there was no way we could get through their Udyr, Leona, and Darius meat shield to get to Brand and Caitlyn without our fifth player.

No doubt we would have mopped the floor if Ori was there. The fact that Riot doesn't implement a measure like DOTA2 does to help out players who find themselves in the unenviable position of losing a team mate is disappointing. I lost 15LP instead of gaining ~20LP because of that DC. One player's connection represents ~35 LP swing.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

To those with the AMEX card. How do you get the routing/account number.

On the AMEX serve page, the routing number and account number section is just simply blank.

 

[crownjules]

To those with the AMEX card. How do you get the routing/account number.

On the AMEX serve page, the routing number and account number section is just simply blank.

Click on My Account.
Under Funding and Transfers, click on Direct Deposit.
Mine displays the routing and account numbers right there.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Almost won a 4v5 ranked game last night. Our Ori disconnected around the 8-10 minute mark, reconnected briefly, then disappeared for the rest of the match. They were just a bad team. But they finally figured it out and stuck together and there was no way we could get through their Udyr, Leona, and Darius meat shield to get to Brand and Caitlyn without our fifth player.

No doubt we would have mopped the floor if Ori was there. The fact that Riot doesn't implement a measure like DOTA2 does to help out players who find themselves in the unenviable position of losing a team mate is disappointing. I lost 15LP instead of gaining ~20LP because of that DC. One player's connection represents ~35 LP swing.

How does DOTA2 deal with it?

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Click on My Account.
Under Funding and Transfers, click on Direct Deposit.
Mine displays the routing and account numbers right there.

That's the problem. That section is completely blank.

 

[EDUSAN]

How does DOTA2 deal with it?

when a player gets DCed there is a sign saying "xxx player has 3 minutes remaining to rejoin" or something like that

if that player doesnt return there is a sign that says "now is safe to abandon the game"

so i guess you dont lose any rating if the team leaves

 

[crownjules]

How does DOTA2 deal with it?

Well it's not like you can avoid losses, but it's better than the current nothing that Riot has in place.

If someone abandons the game (disconnects, AFKs, or clicks Leave Game and then does not return in 5 minutes) before first blood, no stats are recorded and the game becomes "safe to leave".

If the abandonment occurs after first blood, anyone can leave the game without penalty. You will still take a win or loss depending on how the game plays out without you. If any team has all 5 members abandon then that team automatically loses. Abandoned champs are taken over by AI.

So it's not like you really avoid taking the loss in many situations. But at the very least, you can avoid wasting your time in a game you know you have no chance at winning and go start up another game. Although my example above is one of the very few where it seemed like we actually had a shot at winning.

 

[JeffNY35]

I haven't played this in ...almost a year I think now? How are things? probably 50 more champions...

 

[crownjules]

I haven't played this in ...almost a year I think now? How are things? probably 50 more champions...

They slowed down the pace of releasing champs A LOT. We've only had 7 champs released so far in 2013. The current meta is basically assassin mid based (Fizz, Kass, Ahri) with the goal of catching one of the enemy team, killing them, and then pushing objectives with your superior numbers. But S3 is a few weeks away from ending and pre-S4 will bring a host of changes.

Speaking of which, Morello is stating that supports will be getting a lot more gold in S4. In a couple posts on their forums he talks about them really digging into the gold flow to supports and bringing it up.

 

[Fenixgoon]

They slowed down the pace of releasing champs A LOT. We've only had 7 champs released so far in 2013. The current meta is basically assassin mid based (Fizz, Kass, Ahri) with the goal of catching one of the enemy team, killing them, and then pushing objectives with your superior numbers. But S3 is a few weeks away from ending and pre-S4 will bring a host of changes.

Speaking of which, Morello is stating that supports will be getting a lot more gold in S4. In a couple posts on their forums he talks about them really digging into the gold flow to supports and bringing it up.

i wonder if you'll see a lot more aggressive/AP supports then. could be interesting instead of just having a healer/CC'er

 

[crownjules]

i wonder if you'll see a lot more aggressive/AP supports then. could be interesting instead of just having a healer/CC'er

Undoubtedly. Most of the heal/sustain supports are barely taken these days since they've been nerfed so hard. Sona only shows up because of her game changing ult. Being able to build an AP semi-carry out of bot lane will just further fuel more Zyra, Annie, Morgana, Lux, and Nidalee type picks in that lane since they no longer are restricted by income to just the typical support items.

 

[Unoid]

I "direct deposited" from one of my chase bank accounts using acct # and routing number, to my LOL card.

I only got 1000rp, I thought it would have been the 10k RP for a DD.

There's no way I'm going to have my employer deposit to my serve.com account lol card.

Did I do the wrong "direct deposit" to my serve card to not yield the 10k rp?

 

[redrider4life4]

"Direct Deposit" is a specific action your bank has to take, if you just transferred money once that is not a "direct deposit". Direct Deposit is something that you set up to do over and over again, not one time cash movements.

 

[crownjules]

Just had one of those games where you feel godlike.

I was vs. Rammus, Blitz, Udyr, Ahri, and Cait as Trist so I took Cleanse. I've been favoring it lately over Barrier since I can never rely on teammates and vs 2-3 strong diving champs with CC. I literally cleansed off Rammus taunt every time he used it on me and probably avoided 2-3 deaths during teamfights. Ended 15/2/15.

 

[crownjules]

Here's stuff that's been mentioned by Riot or by pros who have been involved in testing the S4 changes:

- Supports get increased gold through more passive gold, more gp/10 items, and less warding duty
- New item slot for a vision only item
- Per person ward limits
- New masteries to help supports
- Going to try having the utility parts of support spells (ie. AD buff on Janna's shield) scale with AP
- New jungle camp (ranged, apparently hits hard) has been added on the blue buff/wolves side of jungle
- Means junglers have more path options which will make them more unpredictable
- New items for carry junglers
- Changes to dragon rewards
- Changes to FB and tower rewards
- Rework of both brush and jungle terrain
- Efforts to rework game flow to reduce snowballing
- % penetration will only affect bonus AR/MR

Overall, they're saying S3 -> S4 changes are going to be much bigger than the S2 -> S3 changes. Supports are lining up to dramatically change in their influence on the game.

 

[crownjules]

Some of the specifics on vision changes were announced by Xelnath and Xypherous:

- Sight Wards (green) are now called Stealth Wards but otherwise stay the same
- Vision Wards (pink) now cost less, are permanent, no longer stealth, and take 5 hits to destroy.
- Each champ is limited to deploying 3 Stealth Wards and 1 Vision Ward on the map at a time.
- Each player has a trinket slot which is filled by one of three different trinkets that can be swapped out for free at the shop. The three different items do one of the following: 1) Reveals and disables invisible units for a short period (does not include stealthed champs), 2) Can place a shorter duration Stealth Ward or 3) a mini Clairvoyance.

I like the first few changes, but I feel like the Trinket is overkill. Guess we'll wait and see.

Xelnath then went a little indepth about what changes they're making to improve supports.

A couple changes to items/new items:
- Philosopher's Stone now grants additional gold when a nearby ally last hits a minion.
- Executioner's Emblem executes minions below 200HP and grants gold to you and a nearby ally when you last hit plus a small bonus amount of gold to the ally. Can happen once every two minutes.
- Spellthief's Blade makes it so abilities used on enemy champs grant you gold. Only effects the same target once every 10 seconds.

Some other changes they're making or exploring:

- Increasing passive gold to champion's that aren't last hitting
- Introduce bonus gold and XP in the jungle and lane for player's that fall significantly behind their teammates
- Possible cap per player on expenditures on wards
- Masteries that grant bonus gold in shared lanes
- Changes to GP/5 items that reward effective support play
- Assist streak bonus gold


edit: And some new things leaked by Misaya:

- Minions spawn at 1:00, jungle monsters at 1:30
- First tier turrets now give 250g to the killer and 75g to allies
- New jungler item gives a significant boost to gold income
- Baron buff remade. Now gives you an increased tower killing capacity and MS boost instead of regen and AD/AP.
- First Blood within first 4 minutes of the game has reward cut down to only 240g.