Hey everyone,
I'm Ryan "Reav3" Mireles, lead producer of gameplay on League.
You might remember me from all those champion roadmaps.
But today, for reasons I can't even fathom,
they put me in front of a camera again to talk about all of League this time.
So buckle up as I dive into some of the champions we have in development.
After that, I'm going to pass the metaphorical mic over to Riot Phroxzon,
who is going to talk to you about the recent durability update
as well as our plans for preseason.
So before we get into the new champions coming up this year,
let's take a quick look back at the champions we've released in 2022 so far.
First, we had the speedy ADC Zeri.
Then the girl boss, Renata Glasc.
After that, the Void Empress herself, Bel'Veth.
And then most recently the joyful Nilah.
And just around the corner we have the Udyr VGU,
complete with a dad bod worthy of the Freljordian gods.
Udyr's development has been a long journey, especially since
he's been the first VGU that we've done that's had an ultimate skin.
We appreciate you all being patient with us on this one.
And hopefully the wait has been worth it.
So in addition to the new champions we've released this year,
we've also been shipping a lot of mid-scope updates
to various champions, including Janna, Ahri, Swain,
Taliyah, Olaf, and recently, Sivir.
Because we slowed down the release of new champions,
we've had a bit more time to ship smaller updates
to champions on the roster that have fallen behind the pack.
So the goal of mid-scope updates
isn't to reimagine a champion's visuals, theme, or gameplay.
That's reserved for VGUs.
Instead, we want to freshen up champions that aren't living up
to the expectations of the players who love them.
We try to strengthen their fantasy even more, rather than reinvent it.
So for Swain, we pushed his fantasy of an
unkillable frontline mage to the max.
And for Ahri, we focused on her fantasy of a mobile mage
rather than the assassin she had become.
We saw really great responses to these projects,
as well as a healthy play rate spikes after their release.
Given all of this, we want to keep pursuing mid-scope updates
and we already have a few champions we're exploring,
including Neeko and Syndra.
So now let's talk about some projects I've been super excited to share with you.
So later this year, we have a new top lane tank hailing from Shurima,
who I briefly mentioned in the last champion roadmap.
This new champion will introduce a part of Shurima that we haven't explored yet.
The city of Nazumah!
Now, Nazumah is an oasis city state in the southern outskirts of the desert.
And unlike the rest of Shurima, they don't bow to Azir.
Situated on one of the only water sources for miles, the people of Nazumah
had to compete with giant monsters just trying to stay hydrated.
It was a hard fought struggle, but they eventually claimed
the oasis as their own and built their society around it.
Now, 500 years later, this new champion leads
the warriors of Nazumah to hunt those same monsters
using the rare resources they gain to build their infrastructure and weapons.
He actually fought one of the largest monsters the desert has ever known
creating his unique Ntofos out of its rare regenerating hide.
Ntofos are huge, blunt weapons that can be used defensively.
But at any moment, he can shatter them, revealing carefully crafted blades,
capable of tearing through any foe in seconds.
Soon after, the hide will regenerate back to it's blunt form
so he can, like, bludgeon the crap out of you.
It's honestly quite impressive to see.
But you don't have to take my word for it.
The entire city state is basically permanently impressed by him.
I mean, he's K'Sante, the pride of Nazumah.
You don't get that title for nothing.
So after K'Sante, we will be releasing the highly anticpated Aurelion Sol CGU.
To remind everybody, a CGU, or "Comprehensive Gameplay Update"
is a new type of update we are testing out on Aurelion Sol.
So the goal is to completely reimagine ASol's gameplay
without changing his visuals or narrative at all.
Since let's be honest, those aspects of Aurelion Sol
are still amazing, even by today's standard.
But I know what you're thinking.
“LESS TALKING MR. REAV3 MORE ACTION!
And by action, we mean videos!"
Okay, fine.
Twist my arm a little bit more, will you?
Now, keep in mind the visuals are still a work in progress.
One of the goals was to enhance his dragon theme.
And what do dragons do? Well, they breathe fire of course.
ASol's new Q allows him to breathe fire for as long as he has mana to do it.
But let's not forget the other thing dragons do: Fly!
His new W allows him to take to the skies.
But this time, he doesn't have to walk in a straight line for like, ever.
He can now fly with the push of a button!
But really, let's be honest, he's a dragon. And if there's one thing more iconic
then either flying or breathing fire, it's flying WHILE breathing fire!
Which you can do by combining his Q and W!
We did it!
So after Aurelion Sol, we have a champion
I've been literally dying to talk to you about.
One of the things the League community hounds me about
constantly is wanting to see more Darkin champions.
Darkin fans are like, "Throw me a frickin' bone here!"
And believe you me, I'm right there with you,
barkin' for some Darkin.
Then one night at around 2:34 a.m., I woke up in a fever sweat.
And at that moment it hit me.
I'm on the Champions team!
If I want more Darkin, I can just talk to the team about it.
And gosh dang it, I did just that.
And the team was like, "Hell yeah, we want more Darkin as well!
We love Darkin!"
So yeah, long story short, we're making a new Darkin assassin.
So I know what you're going to ask next.
"What's the weapon?
Each Darkin is trapped in some super awesome weapon Reav3,
please tell us what it is! We must know!"
And while I love watching you all squirm beneath my intricate, yet vague
champion roadmap teasers, I'm not going to be that cruel today.
The weapons are like the coolest part about Darkin after all.
So, this one was actually entrapped in a dagger, which is now...
a Darkin dagger. Of course, because that's how that works.
And here's what it looks like.
OOOH, so edgy... so dark!
And as to who... or WHAT got ahold of these daggers...
well, you'll just have to wait and find out.
Another thing a lot of people have been asking to see progress on
is the Ahri update that we announced at Season Start.
Well, the ASU team has been hard at work
and is ready to share some art, like the final composition seen here.
The base version is close to complete and the team is super excited
to show you some of the progress on how she's looking in-game.
Look at all those sweet polygons!
And here's a sneak peek of her updated VFX.
Ahri still has a ton of skins that also need to be updated,
so she still needs a little more time in the foxfire oven
before we can get her in your hands.
But you can expect to see her sometime early next year.
So that's about it for champion news.
Though, I will leave you with one small thing.
On top of wanting a new Darkin,
we've seen a lot of players asking us to expand on Ixtal.
We've also heard you asking for us to make a male enchanter.
Well, I say, why not both?
I'm happy to say we have right now, in very early development,
a new male enchanter from Ixtal.
The new champion will show a very different side to Ixtal,
far from the lavish palaces Qiyana grew up in.
So take a look at this art teaser that the team working on him put together.
OH MY GOD THEY'RE SO ADORABLE!
Oh, well, that's enough cuteness for now.
So, as promised, let's hear from Riot Phroxzon on the
Champion Durability Update and Preseason.
Hey everyone. I'm Matthew Leung Harrison a.k.a. Riot Phroxzon,
lead game designer on the Summoner's Rift Team.
We work on things like balancing the game, in-game systems
like the durability update and items, and Preseason.
I've got a few things to cover today, so let's jump right into it.
A few patches ago, we launched the Champion Durability Update.
Our goal was to increase the durability
and reduce the damage and healing of every champion in League.
We've been closely monitoring the results, and after some
targeted adjustments, we're really happy with where the update landed.
A lot of you have mentioned how much you like the update
and that it feels good to have fights last longer
with more chances for skill expression.
And we're glad that it helped make League feel fresher.
That said, we don't have plans to make changes of this size
outside of Preseason in the future, unless it's really necessary.
What we don't want is for huge changes like this to disrupt
League's competitive integrity, especially in the middle of the season.
Speaking of which, let's talk about our plans for Preseason.
Similar to last year, we're making
more targeted changes to various systems.
Our multi-year goal is to bring everything in the League up to modern standards
before doing updates on the scale of Runes Reforged,
Elemental Rift, or the Item Update again.
So for this Preseason, we're updating systems
including communication and vision,
making the jungle more exciting and accessible,
and bringing back a familiar foe.
Our communication system is showing it's age,
especially in comparison to some of our other games.
So we're giving it some much needed attention with new features
that will make it easier to communicate with your team and walk away with the win.
To that, we're expanding our in-game ping system
to allow for better communication with your team.
The current system only lets you share very basic communications,
and while we appreciate your ingenuity with the limited pings you have,
we wanted to give you more opportunity for clearer communication.
The updated pings will include everything you already know and love.
Plus expanded vision options and a call to engage.
We're also thinking about ways to emphasize pings with teammates,
plan macro strategy for objectives,
and keep track of where pings are on the map, even if they're off your screen.
In addition to the changes to communication, we're making some
small improvements to the vision system, as it's a bit outdated.
It's not super clear that you can swap vision trinkets,
and it's definitely not clear how you can best utilize them.
To that, we're exploring ways to make vision trinkets more intuitive.
You'll be able to see how many wards you have on the map
and preview where they'll go when placing them in walls.
Another focus this year is the jungle.
We know it's often a highly stressful role
where you need heaps of knowledge to be baseline proficient.
There's a lot riding on junglers, as they're often the backbone of the
team's strategy, while sometimes getting unjustly flamed.
So we're looking to make some changes to make jungling more intuitive
and to help alleviate some of it's more painful parts.
Our first change is improving buff sharing.
Donating buffs to your laners is an important part of being a jungler,
but it feels bad to lose the gold, experience, and bonuses they provide.
We're exploring a bunch of things to make this more painless to junglers,
like buffs leaving behind a little friend that also has a buff
and a few other potential directions.
We're also looking at ways of improving jungle camp patience rules.
The goal of this change is to make it so you don't get
overly punished by accidentally pulling camps too far.
You shouldn't have to know exactly what pixel to stand on to do
Red Buff and Raptors at the same time without one resetting.
So we're making changes that will make it less punishing when that happens.
We know some junglers like to hyper optimize their clears,
and we want that knowledge to be rewarded.
We'll still keep unique, optimal clears for different champions
like Kayn starting Raptors and Shaco doing... whatever it is he does.
All this said, we're not trying to make mastering jungle easier,
but we do want to make it easier to start jungling.
We still want you to be rewarded for taking the time
to master your role and champions.
There are some other improvements we're exploring for the jungle,
but it's still too early to share more.
So we'll check back in later.
The final Preseason change we want to talk about today
is the long awaited return of everyone's favorite drake, the Chemtech Drake.
While we're bringing Chemtech Drake back from the dead,
she won't bring you back from the dead anymore.
Instead, the new and improved Chemtech Soul
grants more damage and damage reduction when you're low health.
And when the Chemtech Drake takes over the rift,
the plants on the map mutate and become empowered.
For example, Scryer’s Bloom will grant movement speed when moving towards revealed enemies,
and Blast Cone will take you further than ever before...
like from Blue Buff to midlane.
We still have other plans for Preseason
including the usual updates and tweaks to items and runes.
And we'll share more information about our plans for these
and everything we discussed today as we get closer to Preseason.
That's all I have today.
Thanks for watching and let us know what you think about everything you heard.
I'll hand things back to Reav3 to say goodbye.
Thanks, Phroxzon!
So as you can see, we have a lot of exciting things in development.
And as always, I've had a blast finally sharing all this cool stuff
the team has been working on with all of you.
Wait!
Uh huh...
Yeah...
So I'm hearing that there is one last thing we forgot to show you all.
You all remember the skin line you voted for at the beginning of the year, right?
I think it was the gothic skin line revamp?
Well our skins team has been hard at work re-imagining that skinline
and they really want to share a bit of it with you now!
So it's time for me to say goodbye - BYE!
And time for all of you to see some sweet concept art for the new Fright Night Skins!