Meddler

Meddler

IronStylus

The Future of EU West

Errigal

"Greetings Summoners,

I would like to introduce myself and talk about the stability problems we have been having in Europe. My name is Paul Breslin and my role at Riot is to head up Europe. Our top priority is delivering the stable platform you deserve. The recent problems on EUW stem from a storm of capacity, Internet connectivity and patch updates issues. As a player, I know this is not good enough and I would like to talk about what we are doing to level up our services dramatically for Europe.

First, I’d like to tackle a claim that really hurts to read – the idea that Riot doesn't care about EUW players. I can personally promise to you that this isn’t the case. Improving service here is a top priority across Riot and I promise you no one is blind to the pain you’ve been experiencing. It’s an historic problem for European players, I get that – but it’s one we’re truly dedicated to solving.

New EU Server Centre – We have been building a brand new facility in Amsterdam to house the EU servers. We’re building it with the latest designs in infrastructure, all new hardware and bigger/more servers than the current facility has. It will be the newest datacentre for any Riot region, and will be the latest in terms of overall system architecture. This is a massive undertaking that’s already been in the works for several months, and it’s not something that can happen overnight. I hope we can share some more behind-the-scenes details from the new data centre once it’s ready to power on.

Dedicated EUW strike team – On top of the team working on the long-term solution of the new data centre, we also have a dedicated strike team of Rioters from many different disciplines, who are responsible for the stability of EUW. The team is headed by Riot TMX from Europe. To give example of what the strike team do, over the past couple of weeks they have upgraded load balancing hardware, added chat servers, and diversified our internet connectivity by adding more circuits to our data centres. As a result, we’re seeing less impacted playtime on EUW over the last week and that trend is continuing to improve.

Communication – You’re all absolutely right that a big weakness here (and one of the core reasons European players rightly feel neglected) is that our communication around service issues hasn’t been timely or sufficient in the past. We’ve taken great care to solve this, and I hope you’ve noticed an improvement in the visibility, frequency, and quality of our communications during recent service interruptions on the forums. Feedback is greatly appreciated here.

Riot Direct – We know that the internet routing from you to our servers isn’t always ideal. In the past we’ve worked with partners and our datacentres to help direct traffic from you to our servers, but there are constraints that we weren’t willing to accept. With that in mind, we will be taking over the management of network traffic from players to our servers. We’ll be able to change how player traffic hits our servers, and can react quickly to changes/service disruptions and can constantly fine tune traffic flow to best suit players.

Game Metrics – We are building performance monitoring tools into the game client and server that will allow us to track framerate, network performance, and a host of other performance metrics. This new layer of monitoring will alert us to make pre-emptive adjustments to network and game settings to prevent or limit any impact on players.



I hope this gives you better visibility on the issues and reassures you that our top priority is to deliver the game experience we know you deserve. As the above initiatives come online we’ll go more in depth about them ahead of time to make sure everyone is aware of the changes."

RiotGeneral

"We have not fully committed on what services will migrate to Amsterdam and what services will remain in our current data center. However it is the responsibility of Riot Direct to bring optimal ping to EVERYONE in Europe regardless of platform. We have some really smart dudes building relationships with major ISPs in Europe to optimize the latency for players as soon as possible."

RiotGeneral

"I can't get into to much detail about the amount, but I can say that we are significantly increasing our upstream capacity and taking our routed edge to the edge of some pretty serious ISPs in Europe.

With every ISP we add, we bring the routed "hops" closer and closer to the players until (hopefully), all traffic will take the optimal route to and from the data center, and the overall latency for players will lower.



We can't promise green ping for 100% or players, but the goal of Riot Direct is to bring the *Green* to as many players as possible."

Chager

"We've actually added a lot of servers to the EUW infrastructure in the recent past, but there is a point where you hit a diminishing return for adding servers because the entire infrastructure needs to be redone. Amsterdam gives us the opportunity to go through and completely rebuild it and to make changes and advances based off the lessons we've learned since EUW was built. So yup new servers, and more of them, but also a better layout and configuration."

Simple and Recolor Skins

IronStylus

"I'll go check on this matter again. I think there was some internal discussion on it, but I'm not sure how it panned out.

To clarify, we're not going to do any "recolors", as in, same geometry of the model, just a texture or pallet swap on the existing geo. If "recolors" were done it'd probably happen similar to how we went about re-doing old skins for newly VU'd champions. Master Yi is a decent example of this I feel.



Again, no idea how the discussion turned out, but I'll poke my nose around. I'm in favor of a simple tier of skins, but I'm not 100% certain as to what the feelings of the team are."

Heimer Feedback Continues

20thCenturyFaux





Heimer passive:

"A couple important things to keep in mind when brainstorming passive ideas:

It's about shared goals, not popularity: whatever gets Heimer in the best state is what I'll go with Try to "yes and" people whenever possible: This is a collaborative process--more like a co op game than mario kart, there's no banana peels here I am going to be a huge jerk dictator about the first bullet point: Definitely want to stress that agreeing we want a new passive isn't the same as having found one Think positive!: Negativity has its place, but in pure brainstorming an atmosphere of positivity creates the most effective result We all care a lot about this lil champ of ours, it's important to remember not to step on each others' toes in the rush ^^"

He also

"Also I forget who suggested it but I got the special RE targeter in, it now shows where all the bounces will go (won't be on PBE till next build)" He also

"Heads up, I did a huge cleanup / reorg thing with Heimer's scripts today (touched something like 700 files). There might be some weird bugs for the next little while xD"

More on Xerath's Rework Likewise we also have more discussion on Xerath's looming rework.



Xelnath started by Xerath is outclassed by both other mages and assassains.

"Let's talk about this point. Which mages out class him? I actually feel like Xerath might be incredibly more powerful and have a wider sphere of influence than many midlanes.



Leblanc, Assassins, etc should still kill Xerath. That's appropriate for the amount of payload Xerath can unload at the ranges he has. You don't get power without clear weaknesses. Melee assassins >> Xerath if they close. Xerath >> if he has peel and can keep distance."

He moved on to

"Anyways, yes, this kit has traded out periods of immobility and periods of fast mobility for a smoother movement scale on Q and a fun attack sequence on W.



This kit does not have hard combos. That is correct. W->E->Q was really the only variation Xerath had on live for closing in on stuns, excluding the mobile R case.



Let's look back at the goals of the rework:



* Keep the good abilities

* Reduce clunkiness

* Create skill options

* Satisfy the siege/sniper fantasy better

* Maximize range and damage over CC



Before, E -> Q or E -> R were about it. W->Q was basically one skill. W -> E by itself was pointless. W -> E -> Q was his CC.



That was it. That was the depth of the character. You had rigidly defined instructions, not options. Now you have the option to start with W to setup an E stun to guarantee a Q hit, or fish for an E stun to guarantee a W center shot, followed up by a Q.



I will gladly concede that maxing E first on Xerath is not really an option. It did not seem like a viable option to me before on Live Xerath easier.



Finally, Q charging on its own lets you snipe consistently. R is far more clearly a siege, finishing ability. (Perhaps so much that it should have missing % health damage? That would damage its effectiveness for opening a team fight though)



The things the kit does not have that I could not find a healthy way to preserve were:



1) A highly selective stun

2) Free massive amounts of armor driven by AP (This also felt unnecessary and out of character)

3) Hard Combos (He has soft combos instead)"

He

"E needs the warning to communicate the path and behaviour to the opponent. It is intended that using this ability for personal safety instead of opening up a window to attack is less effective, since its basically a guaranteed success without the need for a skill shot now.



Q *must* have a delay before firing - otherwise it is not possible to avoid such a long range attack. The base Q range is pretty hefty though - I highly recommend you try closing distance and just firing it off a few times - I've had decent success with this on PBE.



Q full-range charge is a trade of telegraphing your actions (creating counterplay opportunities for the opponent) for increases safety. Trade away that safety to take away their safety as well." Xelnath also

"My job is *not* to buff your character. I realize that is what you want. Live Xerath is not an underpowered champion who needed buffs. We are trying to make the healthiest champion that preserves the good mechanics of Xerath and fills the role that the many players we talked to, surveyed and interacted with indicated was their Xerath fantasy.



I, too, heavily mastered the clunky hero to gain access to his incredibly OP stats. That is why I recognize the pain you feel. However, that clunkiness pulled a lot of potential away from Xerath too." He started off the night with a reminder when brainstorming ideas for a newpassive:He also mentioned adding a new particle to show where Heimer's R + E grenade will bounce:He also warned to be on the look out for bugs when testing!Likewise we also have more discussion onlooming rework.started by responding to a summoner claiming that even post reworkis outclassed by both other mages and assassains.He moved on to discussing the reworked kit's current vs his original kit, including some of the trade offs made in the transition:He continued , explaining the need for things summoner's are disliking - including the E's "warning" particle and the Q's cast and charge time.also pointed out what the purpose of a rework is when faced with criticism that the reworked kit isn't a buff:

, EU's managing director, has posted a status update on the future of EU West, providing an update on the server and Riot's ongoing efforts to solve it's problems.When asked about this new center and how it will effect everyone's ping,When asked for more details about Riot Direct,Responding to a comment that Riot should "just add more servers",briefly commented on a thread where summoner inquired if we'd ever have more recolors or simple skins released to fill out each champions skin selection.Continuing with the recent tradition,has returned to therework thread to discuss a few things!