Oaktreestone

Really like the changes to items to bring power spikes to a pretty even level across the board, wish they talked about changes for stacking champs in this devpost though

Stacking champions will all have (relatively) appropriate stacking speeds for the mode. They should coincide vaguely with levels that would be equivalent on SR (e.g. Viktor gets evolves when he would on SR)

F0RGERY

Is there similar compensation for champions with inaccessible mechanics?

E.g. Yorick needing minions to die to summon his army, or Bel'Veth's empowered form needing epic monsters.

Generally if the character needs it to function, we did our best to add the mechanic in. Bel'veth gets free stacks every round to simulate her scaling over game time.

giasrope

My only concern (other than the gamemode just straight up leaving after a few weeks) is the possibility of the cameos feeling like bs mechanics that get in the way of buildcrafting and skill expression. This mode is the closest we have ever got to a 1v1 and I would think the type of people that it would attract the most are the type of people that would rather win due to better build crafting or outplaying their opponents with mechanics, not because the opponent just so happenes to get nuked by a random lux laser that just wins the fight for you.

Cameos are intended to give you variance in the round. You need to be able to respond to them and react appropriately. Generally though, they're fairly predictable and can be played around. For example, Pyke always dashes towards the target furthest from him, Shaco boxes are visible (but can't be killed), and Naafiri stops on first champ hit (even enemy champs). You can use them to your advantage

Silverwing20

No exhaust LETS FUCKING GOOOOO

This was my exact response when we removed non-flash summoners.

NocaNoha

Love that you've equalized the gold [hopefully EXP too?], removed runes and brought in augments. Would love the same thing on ARAM so that people wouldn't worry as much about lagging behind [although keeping the turrets invulnerable for a period of time or similar]

As for new game mode - Would it be possible to give us one broken and one silly combination without revealing much?

Broken Combo:
Ultimate Revolution + Can't Touch This

Silly Combo:
Chauffeur + anything

Earthwake + Now You See Me

I'll let you try and figure out what those augments do.

sneakysunset

Can i sell my items? And if I do do i get full price refund?

Yes.

No.

Jragon713

What about gold stackers like Gangplank and Twisted Fate? Do they get some sort of gold gain (though even if they did, I guess I wouldn't be able to spend it on an extra crit cloak :/), or do they have some other compensation for being balanced around being ahead in items?

Gangplank gets some Silver Serpents to upgrade his ult.

Twisted Fate has a change to his gold stacking passive. The extra gold on champs that can get it is useful for item swaps (sell and rebuy) or buying juices.

Here are some commonly asked questions we've seen being asked about Arena! Got some more questions? Drop them down below and I'll do my best to try and respond

• Will I be able to make custom games?
  No, in order to have the game more ready for summer we weren't able to include this feature. However if players play and like the mode enough we're absolutely looking at adding this in the future

• Can I queue with more than 1 friend?
  We're definitely considering adding this if the game mode does well! We just couldn't get this feature ready in time for the initial launch.

• Will Arena be permanent?
  We are really excited about the mode, but we want to make sure players are as excited as we are. If players really dig it, we'll bring it back and/or explore making a permanent version.

• When is Arena going live?
  It goes to PBE later today, and onto live servers on July 20.

FallenDeus

Should have removed flash by the logic you posted in the blog... Flash tends to just be traded unless you have a way to kill them that cannot be reacted to, in which case that's just bad design.

Still lots of outplay potential in using flash to dodge a specific skill. Additionally, Flash has a one round cooldown, so greeding to win without using it has value.

GrumpyShisa

I wanted to know if there will be another spell to be used instead of flash, some champions like shaco, hecarim, rammus and yuumi don't like flash.

There is not, although some augments do take advantage of you having flash.

Hyoudou

Are there also multiple Shaco clones running around and attacking people?

(eyes flair suspiciously)

....

no?

Lulullaby_

is there anyone that can give clarification on why these gamemodes go away?

There's at least one dev blog that answered this a couple years ago, basically people play a lot the first few days then never play them again. This was the case for all gamemodes besides URF iirc.

Here's the devblog you're thinking of.

We've changed and evolved how we're thinking about games modes since this went live a few years ago, but this can show you how we were approaching it at the time.

CumFetishistory

I absolutely love this. Maybe you could just link this comment to the ARAM team as a little hint how to do balance in different game modes?

I'll let them know.

CumFetishistory

I absolutely love this. Maybe you could just link this comment to the ARAM team as a little hint how to do balance in different game modes?

Hey, thanks for the feedback, Maxw3ll from the ARAM team here. We've got some balance tweaks we want to do for ARAM, but a lot of our bandwidth has been eaten up by this mode. Once we've shipped it, we'll start working on some more deep ARAM balance work.

Lulullaby_

It might have been a different one actually, wasn't there one with graphs? That showed how quickly it fell off for gamemodes.
Could be wrong though, maybe it was an ask riot or something else.

Surprised to hear that's changed, that's lovely to hear ♥
We really love awesome modes like this 2v2v2v2 and others so I'm very grateful.

Hmm, maybe this one?

Just speaking on behalf of myself, I really appreciate the fact that Rioters are constantly revaluating our decisions based on the questions "is this what players want?" and "do players like this?" It's really refreshing to work with people that are open to change and continuously try do what's right for our players.

TheRealSlimSaady

It seems like not being able to play with more than one friend might hurt the popularity of the game mode, and the answer to three of your four common questions is "yes, if the mode is popular".

When you ultimately decide if the mode is worth keeping will the idea that "only being able to queue with one friend might hurt the modes popularity" be taken into consideration?

We'll also be measuring player sentiment. If the numbers are fine but there's a huge indication that more people would play with a different feature set, we'll take another swing.

Ssuuushi

Wood tier I love it

Wood tier rise up.

Pupulasers

And the potential of infinite subsequent weeks if this shit is like, totally lit.

And for what it's worth, we think that Arena has every potential to be totally lit.

lol hi Pu.

Spideraxe30

Can you share whats the map name for mode now or is it just called the Arena

The Rings of Wrath!

Agentawesome9

This looks absolutely amazing (and wood tier is fantastic)

Question about some of the augments that replace Flee, will Zoe be able to steal those with Spell Thief or will it just be the flashes?

Yep