Hey Everyone, I’m Jon, aka Bellissimoh
and I’m the Product Lead for Personalization here on the League Dev Team.
Today I’d like to share some of the behind the scenes reasons for the
choices we’ve made over the last year, as well as talk a bit about some of the
things we’ve got in store for you in 2020.
As each year passes by, the number of champions in League continues to grow.
With League nearing 150 champs now, it’s getting more and more difficult to
make skins for all of our champions.
On top of that, we often prioritize popular champions with larger audiences.
We do this because our goal is to delight as many players as we can
and support our business through the next 10 years of League.
Reasons aside though, it sucks to have to wait years for a skin for your favorite champion.
In 2018 we shipped just over 80 skins to players
and in 2019 we broke the 100 mark.
This year, we’re trying to push past 120 skins.
So, what are we doing with those extra skins in 2020?
We’re going to be hitting a lot of champions that haven’t seen skins in a while.
Specifically, we're going to be cooking up something for...
Skarner, Xerath, Mordekaiser, Kindred, Rek’Sai, Vel’Koz, Karthus, Sion, Twitch, Taric,
Pantheon, Nautilus, Trundle, Bard, Ornn.
And, yeah... Taliyah.
This means we’re going to be making skins for a lot of our most popular champs as well.
Like Lux, Ezreal, Ahri and Kai’Sa.
These skins reach a huge number of players and directly fund our ability
to make skins for champs with small-but-dedicated player bases.
As we increase the amount of skins we make over time
one of our hopes is that champion mains can count the time since they last got a skin
in months instead of years.
Since we’re developing more skins than ever this year
we’re also going to spend some time exploring new creative thematics.
Today, there are only a few thematics that are universally loved across all regions.
And while there are some stand out hits
there are also thematics that you’ve shown us that you’re just not that excited about anymore.
This comes through loud and clear through a variety of different signals.
Players purchase these skins far less than others
and even those who do purchase them don’t use them that much in-game.
We also survey players around the world
to make sure that your opinions match the signals that we’re seeing.
Now this doesn’t mean we’ll never do a Snowdown skin ever again
but it does mean that we need to take the time to understand why most players didn’t like it
and to find new creative ways to approach these themes so you WILL be excited about it next time.
High Noon is a great example of how we can breathe life and depth into an old thematic
and we want to do more of this in the future.
If you have any suggestions or ideas on new themes you’d like to see in League,
or ideas for a new take for an older thematic
let us know.
Every year for Lunar Revel, we’ve offered skins that have typically been
exciting for players in Easter Regions but haven’t been as resonant with our players globally.
This year we wanted to try something different that could hopefully excite players everywhere.
Our vision for this new thematic was to create a new take on a well-loved sci-fi fantasy
by bridging eastern and western inspirations.
So we created Mecha Kingdoms, a legendary sci-fi universe where
the greatest heroes from warring kingdoms unite against a monstrous threat...
by piloting giant mechs.
Defending this historical world are...
Garen, Leona, Draven, our newest champion Sett...
and finally, Jax has got a real weapon, a giant mech in the shape of...
Jax himself.
Mecha Kingdoms is launching today as the first major event of 2020.
Speaking of events...
In 2019 we got a lot of feedback around events
specifically that it felt like their quality had dropped over time.
Mission variety was low and not every event had a game mode available.
We want each event to feel like a unique experience that all players can be excited for
which is why our goal moving forward is to make participating in events
more rewarding, more novel and more memorable for everyone.
This year we’re planning on game modes for all of our major events
pushing for more variety in our missions, and also improving our Event Pass system.
Last year one of the main things we heard about Event Passes was that it
felt like you had to play too much to get all the things you wanted.
It also felt bad to use tokens to buy things like ward skins or emotes
if you were ultimately trying to get higher-tier rewards.
We believe that getting all the rewards in an Event Pass shouldn’t require you to sign your life away for 30 days.
For the 2019 Worlds Pass, we added more milestone rewards so you can get more
stuff for free and also so you can save your tokens for the things that you really want
like exclusive event chromas and prestige skins.
For the last event in 2019, Dawn and Night, we changed the Event Pass win of the day structure
so that you could save up all your wins and complete them on your own schedule.
Can’t play during the week? No problem, get all your win of the days on the weekend.
Between improving your experience with Event Passes and making sure there’s
always something new to do, we hope to make 2020 a year to remember.
In 2019 we announced Eternals, a champion-based stat tracking system
that allows you to flex your moments of glory both in and out of game.
To be frank, Eternals were met with a lot of criticism
and it was serious enough to where we pumped the brakes and delayed the release
so we could make major changes and address your concerns.
We heard feedback that Eternals shouldn't be an RP only feature
and that you should have a way to earn them, not just buy them.
We want as many players as possible to experience Eternals without having to spend money
so we’ve developed a new Starter Series that is available for Blue Essence or RP
permanently.
This set will track your Takedowns, Structures Destroyed, and Epic Monsters Slain
for each champion you pick up the Starter Series for.
Also in a post-launch update, we’ll add Eternals that can be earned via Ranked Splits
providing a path over time to earn every Eternal Series in the game without spending RP.
We also heard a lot of feedback from champion mains on our Unique Eternals
with many of the initial versions feeling too generic or focused on the wrong parts of a champion's kit.
Our goal is to create skill-expressive and memorable stats that you’re stoked to show off.
So in the latter half of 2019, we worked with players on PBE to hear what kind of Eternals you wanted to see.
As a result, Unique Eternals now track more complex and interesting stats
like how many skill shots you’ve dodged with Vlad’s Pool.
So whether it’s showing off how dedicated you are to the devil himself
or how good of a Freljordian Sniper you are.
We hope Eternals really capture the highlights of playing your favorite champions.
It’s your feedback that helped our designers and team find new and interesting stats to track.
So please keep letting us know what types of things you’d like to see Eternals track moving forward.
Lastly, for players who aren’t interested in the feature
or don’t want to know when they’ve been someone else's 100th kill
we’ve got toggles for you to mute the experience as you see fit.
We hope that you like the changes that we’ve made to Eternals, and look forward to its release early this year.
Before we go, we wanted to let you know that there are a few new types of content we’re experimenting with.
And while we’re not really ready to show anything yet, expect to...
hear something from us later this year.
We can’t wait to... announce them!
Thanks again for taking the time to watch this video.
It’s your feedback that helps push us to be better tomorrow than we are today.
Here’s to 2020.