u/RiotMeddler we getting ARURF “next patch”, by next patch you mean tomorrow 25.S1.1? Or the next one on Jan 23?
25.S1.2 (so yes, two weeks from now)
didnt you guys cancel Shyv vgu bc of the seasons? and now are saying that updates wont always ties 100% to season then why cancel a rework we waited for so long... I may not undestand the things but it feels that way like you just didnt want to update her in favour of exalted skins and other champs
We want to time her release with a season that makes sense for her. She was ice-boxed for a bit for other projects that were higher priority but development has just recently started on her again. We still really want to get her update into the hands on players, we just shifted to focus on the Arcane champs (Viktor/Mel/Ambessa) for a bit.
Are we allowed any info on the roles of upcoming champs?
It’s been like 5 years since the last tank/engage support. Would kind of suck to get hopes up and then each season they release an assassin and mage or something 😭
Just is cool to know if you should expect to be excited for the champs of this year or not based on what role you main is all. But I understand wanting to keep suspense and surprise…
Currently, with Champs being very integrated with each season we don't plan on talking about them before a more official reveal. Was Rell 5 years ago at this point! Man time flies. Yeah we probably need another one in the future. I think we also need a another more aggressive fighter support like Pyke/Thresh. Been awhile since we made a support like that as well
With less new champions, what about monster champs or humanoid champs? I'm guessing there will be a new one every 2 or 3 years now?
It really depends on what the seasonal theme is and what makes sense. With the new seasonal format I think prioritizing Champs that feel cohesive with the theme and narrative of the season is more important then if the champion is a monster or not. If a monster makes the most sense for a given seasonal theme, or for a story our narrative team wants to tell then we would make a monster for it.
Are you still able to talk about gameplay related stuff, IIRC you mentioned you were lead gameplay producer but not sure if your title has changed these last few years
Im currently a Principal Product Manager on the Seasons team. Im focusing on Champs, Meta-games and Modes. So yeah I can probably talk about most of that stuff. SR updates not so much.
Pkay so now reworks are tied up to seasons, but there won't be tease until the new season drops right? But what happens to old champs that barely fit in the lore or need a update, but already have a thematic season like Noxus for example
We won't 100% tie every champ to a specific seasonal theme, both new and VU/VGUs. Sometimes it will make a lot of sense so we will do it. For "Welcome to Noxus" LeBlanc was a key figure in the narrative and we felt like her old look was so outdated that the opportunity and the seasonal theme matched so it made sense to pursue. That won't always be the case though.
As Brice mentioned in the video we wont always have a seasonal theme be base Runeterra, it could also be a AU. In those cases the New Champions or updates can really be anything since region won't be a factor. We also might explore some seasonal themes that aren't directly tied to one specific faction.
Also champions can appear in the story of a different region, even if they are not from that region or faction
Read moreI miss Reav3
Don't we all. (He's still here lol)
I miss Reav3
Im still here! Not working directly on Champs anymore though. I am currently helping a bit with the champs team while the new Product Owner ramps up.
This is crazy to me that you're talking about potentially having to evacuate from fires and then in the next breath go back to explaining game updates to redditors... Godspeed champ, hope everything is okay, and thank you for your time!
Appreciated. One of the trade offs to living in LA. Helps to have stuff to do while waiting and I generally like chatting about the game of course :)
Great dev video, lots of content. I was sad not to see a champ teaser for second season/not to hear more about the mysterious symbol at the end of the season start video but I'm guessing the storytelling of season 1 will slowly build up to 2nd season and hopefully then more will be revealed
Mysterious symbol - yep, deliberately mysterious for now. Will certainly become clear over time though
Second season theme and champ - plan is to save many of the details about that until close to the start of said season
Last I've heard is alledgedly the SEA server merge will come out at start of 25.S1. Thanks for the confirmation though, at least now that I know it's not abandoned
Was just told that's still the target by someone closer to that work, so fingers crossed should be live this week
Is LB a VGU or ASU?
It's an update to her visuals and audio, with no or minimal gameplay changes
Saying it that way because at this point the definitions of VGU, ASU, midscope, other update etc feel super blurred because we've taken different approaches based off what makes sense for any given champ. I'm not convinced they're very valuable terms at this point as a result
Are there any news on the SEA servers merge or was it scrapped altogether?
Last I heard work on that was still underway (merging some of the smaller regions together for better matchmaking etc, larger regions like Vietnam would still be separate servers). Will double check that though
Is LB getting any changes to her abilities, or just visuals?
Just visuals from memory (or if there are ability tweaks in there, they're small)
Basically Splits are now called Seasons, and these new Seasons (splits) will be divided in Acts (this one being divided in 2)
The old thing that was called Seasons is probably just gonna be called the Year now...
So for the Year of 2025 we'll have the first 3 Seasons of this new model, each spanning around 4 months, and each being divided into Acts (I think they'll usually go for 2 acts per season with 2 months each)
I'm wondering if they'll go Noxus, Demacia and Ionia for the first 3 seasons this year, these being the regions they mentioned they wanna explore in future shows based in the Runeterra universe
But from the sound of it they'll also mix some random thematics for seasons inbetween the ones that actually explore the actual lore of the canon universe... so yeah, we'll probably have a bee season someday lmao
Not sure we could/should stretch bees to a full season's worth of theme, though it's now slightly tempting to try...
For 2025 we'll be sticking fairly close to core Runeterra when it comes to season themes. In 2026 we're thinking we'll try a bit more of a mixture of core Runeterra and alternate universe depending on the season, though still working on the details there so that's very much WIP thinking
I saw the fire in the news, hope everyone is OK and pls stay safe.
two questions
will we get a vgu or asu with every season or when will we get news about next 1
with mel, we had 3 mages in a short time, where are the assassins, supports and skirmishes? :(
We've had some people have to evacuate their homes already. I'm packed and watching the news (latest fire is a pretty close to home, though still small so far at least).
Champ updates will be tied to seasonal stuff too. It's not just LB this year, details to come later beyond that though
Mages - will confirm other two new champs this year are not mages. Agree we've been a bit heavy on that playstyle recently. Aurora was originally more of a skirmisher but a more mage like playstyle ended up working better for her. Mel we wanted to release close to Arcane.
Read more/u/RiotMeddler are you able to share more info about the cadence of champ and champ updates and event structure with the new thematic seasons? Now that passes are tied to seasons, does that mean you guys are doing away with big event moments like summer event/worlds or finding a way to tie them with season starts. And for champs, it seems like general cadence has gone down a bit, was that a conscious choice?
PS is there any update on the Malphite VU, or would that be part of thematic season stuff too.
New champs - plan is one per season, tied to seasonal theme and/or narrative. As a result they won't be revealed as far in advance as we used to do (which also resulted in it feeling like we were talking about things so far in advance it then took forever for them to actually arrive)
Champ updates- also tied to seasons, though given no two updates are the exact same in terms of what changes, amount of work etc, there won't be such a fixed cadence. We'll have more than just LB this year when it comes to larger updates though. For Malph, nothing to mention there, that was never something we originally meant to announce, but instead internal experimentation that we accidentally leaked in a video and then felt we should acknowledge
Big moments like Summer and Worlds - still exist, will be tied in with seasons (not necessarily with a season start, but somewhere in it's arc certainly)
Read moreI'm kinda curious if the rift basic map we have now will be seen in some way or we won't see it again
It'll be seen again this year. We'll do a mixture of standard SR and visual treatments to SR at different times
ARENA ANNOUNCED
Called it on the S2 release. Now I’m just hoping it’s all of S2 like it was last yearEdit: see below clarification from Riot. Second half of Season 1. I mistook the naming scheme and forgot it was Seasons are a third of a year now
Just to clarify a little - Arena will be in the second half of this season, not in the next season. So more like early March than early May
Are they forced to work in an office with red lighting for the whole Noxus season?
I mean, with the current LA fires right now it does feel a bit like it today...