Meddler's

Table of Contents

2018 End of Season Rewards and Honor

Keyru

"Hey everyone,

We’re making a change to the Honor eligibility for End of Season rewards.

At the start of this year, we changed the policy for end-of-season rewards to be dependent on your Honor level as opposed to just your recent penalties. Over the last weeks and months, we’ve heard your feedback that it feels rough to be knocked down to Honor 0 or 1 by a chat restriction in the closing days of the season, so we’ll be offering a one-time only re-grant of in-game rewards in February 2019. Here’s how it works:

If you’ve received a chat restriction only this past season, and are Honor 0 or 1, you will have an opportunity to climb back to Honor 2 by February 11, 2019. If you are Honor 2 at that time, you will get all the rewards you’ve rightfully earned with your blood, sweat and tears.

this past season, and are Honor 0 or 1, you will have an opportunity to climb back to Honor 2 by February 11, 2019. If you are Honor 2 at that time, you will get all the rewards you’ve rightfully earned with your blood, sweat and tears. The above does not apply to any other more severe penalty type, such as 2-week suspensions, botting, boosting, cheating, or permabans. If you’ve received any additional penalties other than just your chat restriction, you won’t be eligible. The climb is possible in that timeframe, and as long as you’re playing to win and not making anyone else’s experience a bad one, you’ll get there quickly just by playing a few games a week. This only applies to your 2018 tier, so even if your rank changes, you’ll receive rewards based on where you ended up in November.

To be clear: we will be keeping the Honor eligibility in place for future ranked seasons, and going forward the results of this one-time exception may be helpful if we decide to explore possible tweaks to the to the Honor 0 and 1 experience in the future.

As always, give us your feedback on this change, and if you’re still climbing out of Honor 0 or 1, we’ll see you in February!

FREQUENTLY ASKED:

How do I hit Honor level 2? Do I have enough time?

Just be kind to yourself and to others while you're playing League. Even if you start from level 0 and only play a few games a week, you've got more than enough time to hit Honor level 2 by the deadline. There isn't much more information Player Support can provide you other than what is mentioned in THIS article, under "Reform Period" and "Honor Lock".

I'm so close to Honor level 2, but I got suspended. Can I be eligible for this re-grant?

Sorry, this is specific to chat restrictions. If you've been suspended and your behavior's back on track, you'll have no problems being eligible for rewards next year.\

Can I transfer servers to restore my honor and get the rewards?

No, we'll check your Honor level on the server on which you would've received rewards. So, if you're Gold in Brazil, you'll need to also be Honor level 2 in Brazil by the deadline.

Can I qualify if I receive more than one chat restriction?

Yes, you can. Chat restrictions are the lightest punishment you can receive, so as long as you haven't been suspended for other egregious behavior, you're going to have a chance to reform and qualify - no matter how many times you were chat restricted.

Does this mean Honor requirements are gone?

No, we'll still have Honor requirements next season. This is a one-time deal.

What does "punished" mean exactly?

Anything other than a chat restriction that impacted your Honor Level. Examples: 14-day suspensions, boosting or cheating related bans, etc.

Is Riot excusing abusive behavior?

We are not. We heard your feedback that it didn't feel great to receive a chat restriction, especially at the end of the season, and being locked out from your end-of-season rewards for the lightest penalty we have. This change is to offer a one-time second chance to players that demonstrate reform from smaller infractions exclusively. The weight of the chat restriction should remain the same (and we won't be lifting any that are warranted), but we felt that the impact it had on your Honor Level and Season Rewards was a little too much in this case."

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: November 16

Meddler

"Hi folks,

Usual Disclaimers

These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get delayed or even stopped. If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler

Nexus Blitz on PBE next week

Nexus Blitz should be back on the PBE next week ahead of its second test run on the Live servers in 8.24. Really looking forward to seeing what you folks think, feedback on it's going to do a lot to help us understand whether to make it a permanent mode or not. Additionally, seeing as how today's a quiet day in other news I figured it'd be good to take a look at some of the new stuff coming with it.

The new base area, now looking much less like a rough prototype:

A new mini jungle area between the two lanes that we're trying out:

Walking Nexuses from the Sudden Death Event with new models:

A new event where champs are matched up in a series of 2v2s and 1v1s while the rest of the game watches:

A new event reward, the Poro King, who'll help push lanes:

Another new reward, the Battle Sled, which is a vehicle you and other allied champs can jump in. Controls like Sion ult, exploding when it hits something, dealing AOE damage and scattering its occupants around:

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: November 14

Meddler's

"Hi folks,

Usual Disclaimers

These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get delayed or even stopped. If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler

Updated Run Animations

We've currently got some work underway to improve the run animation of some of our older champions. We're targeting champs who either aren't in need of a full VGU or aren't likely to get one in the immediate future. Walk/Run anims are being focused on here since they're played more than any other animations, so you generally get the largest improvement in overall feel for a single animation upgrade.

With the new anims we're looking to further convey the personality and character of a champion. We're also prioritizing keeping the essence of what's iconic though and looking to build on it, make sure people playing these champs still relate to movements they know and love. In some cases we'll also be using both new and old animations in different contexts (e.g. old anim as regular run new as haste run, new anim while a specific ability is active, new anim as pre boots run etc).

Compilation of the proposed new runs done so far below. We're still working on these, so it's an ideal time for feedback, whether here, on Twitter, the various LoL art forums or wherever. Still a little while off shipping them, will likely get them onto the PBE for an extended period soon though so you can also get hands on experience with them if desired.

End of the Ranked Season

The 2018 ranked season has just come to an end. Hope it treated you well if you took part! As you've probably seen we've got a range of changes planned for ranked in 2019. Couple of recent videos talking about a lot of that for anyone that missed them:

New Tiers and Changes to Placements:

Rewards and Ranked Splits:

Ranked is very much a system we're still working on. We've made a range of changes since we first started talking about this stuff in April and we think we're in a good spot to get the system onto the live servers. We're going to keep iterating on it further though. Feedback on what's working for you and what's not still extremely appreciated as a result, that will help us improve it further.

Regular Balance changes and preseason

When we do larger systemic changes like those in preseasons we see some champs who previously needed balance work end up in a pretty balanced state and others who were previously ok needing changes. As a result we'll be holding off on almost all balance work until we've seen where 8.23 puts champ power levels, then reacting to the new state of things. 8.23 will be a light patch balance wise as a result."

Ask Riot: Ranked Edition 2

Since we’ve been talking about Ranked 2019 so much, we’re continuing with a few special editions of Ask Riot so you can get all your Ranked questions ironed out. Keep ‘em coming!

Do I keep the Challenger recall forever if I drop below Challenger in the future?



Nope! Ok, we’re done here…right?

Just kidding! Here’s how the Challenger recall works: As long as you’re actively Challenger, you’ll have the recall effect. We want to incentivize intense competition at the top of the ladder, and we think exclusive, in-game rewards that you only have as long as you hold your spot can be pretty motivating.

We thought about basing the recall on past rank or granting it permanently whenever a player gets promoted to Challenger. We felt both options would have been an awesome reward for achieving greatness, but we didn’t think they would be as effective at driving competitiveness during the season. We’re interested to see how it plays out, so we’ll be watching next year to assess whether it’s having the intended effect.

RIOT SAPMAGIC & GORTOK

How will autofill work in the new Ranked system? Are there any changes?



Yes! There are a couple changes—and also yes—autofill still needs to stick around. The only caveat is that these changes only occur with position ranks. First, If you are autofilled and win, you’ll splash a little bit of bonus LP into your main position. The idea’s to make autofill games more meaningful. Second, since we will track performance by position, your autofill games will be much more fair. Put simply, if you main Mid and get stuck supporting, you’ll play at your support MMR, not your K/DA Akali MMR. We talked about details like these over the summer and you can bet we’ll be talking about it more soon.

How will the balance team handle the three-split season when it comes to tuning and large-scope changes like preseason and midseason? How are they going to deal with three splits?



To be totally honest, we’re not 100% sure yet. Since this is the first season we’ll have splits, our plan is to try some things and adjust based on your feedback.

Here’s our current thinking: For players, splits create natural breakpoints where you can set new goals, earn new rewards, or jump back into Ranked. For us, they’re a pretty good opportunity to make necessary changes to the game. That doesn’t mean you should expect to see large changes every split, but generally speaking if we need to make changes that could be a bit disruptive, we’ll try to do it around the beginning of a split and then mostly stick to smaller-scale changes for the rest of the time.

We’ll continue to use Preseason as an important period of downtime to set the foundation for the following year, so that’s when you can still expect to see the largest changes to the game.

Next season, if you are Silver and gain the first split upgrade, but in split 2 you reach Gold, does your whole armor set upgrade?



Yes! Your armor will reflect your current rank in the queue you’re playing in. So, if you’re gold in Solo, but Silver in Flex, you’ll see different armor sets.

RIOT SAPMAGIC & GORTOK

Thanks for reading this week’s Ask Riot. Have a question?



Head over to Ask Riot and sign into your League account. Check out the Pro Tips, then ask away.

We promise to read every question, but we can’t guarantee they’ll all get answers. Some questions may already be answered elsewhere, and some won’t be right for Ask Riot. This isn’t the best place to announce new features, for example, and we might skip conversations on issues we’ve talked about in depth before (though we can clarify individual points).

We are listening, though, so keep asking. We’ll make sure your questions are heard by the Rioters working on the stuff you’re curious about."

Worlds crafting content update

"Worlds, Tales from the Rift, and K/DA content will be available for crafting (except Worlds and Spooky Position Orbs) again between November 16, 2018 at 8:00 a.m. PT to December 3, 2018 at 11:59 p.m. PT.



Last day to get Worlds tokens

You'll stop being able to earn or buy tokens on November 19, 2018 at 11:59 p.m. PT. After that, you'll be able to craft all Worlds, K/DA, and Tales from the Rift content using your remaining tokens (except Spooky Position and Worlds Orbs).

Prestige Edition Kai'Sa

A Prestige Edition skin is a standalone skin with a loading screen border, splash art, and VFX. You don't need the K/DA Kai'Sa skin to own the Prestige Edition. You can get it by forging it with 2500 Worlds tokens, or from loot drops in chests, orbs, or rerolling skin shards. It follows the same rules as mythic skins.

To earn enough tokens for K/DA Kai'Sa Prestige Edition, you'll need to purchase tokens from the shop or pick up the Worlds Pass, which lets you earn tokens from every matchmade game."

Quick Hits

The Riot Games Merch Instagram teased an upcoming merch drop featuring a Zoe x Star Guardian crossover:

"I've got a magic present for you! Here it comes!" Zoe's magical merch journey starts November 19th.

"With days to go before their epic showdown, Teams NXT and WWE along with their coaches TYLER1 and IMAQTPIE come face-to-face before the world!"

"Your weekly dose of server problems, NA League news, and other!

Our team wanted to be a bit more transparent around server issues, as well as other information that the NA playerbase may want to hear about. This is 100% a work in progress, so feedback around what’s here, or what you might want to see, is highly appreciated!

Ranked just ended, so everyone suffered and worked and triumphed into Diamond 5 for the last time ever. Wave goodbye to that meme, say hello to Diamond 4 (Wood tier where?)! If you saw some boosters, never fear, punishments are forthcoming and a bunch of hopeful cheaters will in fact, cheat themselves out of rewards. Sorry, not sorry, you’ll be punished soon enough. For a fun brief look into anti-cheat, this Nexus article is pretty good (Hi Mirageofpenguins).

A WWE wrestling showmatch is coming soon™, and a whole bunch of pro players now free agents! Seriously, sign them, they’re pretty dang good. Also, NA Scouting Grounds is ongoing this week, and with powerhouse rookies from last season performing so well, this year’s prospects may continue to impress.

With some changes to the new season hinted, a new champion about to be teased, and some really awesome fan-made K/DA art, it’s been a pretty good week. And the servers didn’t break (that much)!

Server Stuff:

RP purchasing died on NA for a few hours (11/12/18, ~2 hours).

We pushed out a deploy to a database, but had a very very very long query running at the same time, which prevented the deploy from rolling out until it finished. Once it did, the deploy finally worked, everything matched up properly again, and purchasing was turned back on.

Update caused inability to log in or update account info (11/14/18, ~30 min).

A series of configuration changes caused authentication to burp, as the new config was implemented. A reboot of the service fixed the problem (turning it on and off again does work sometimes). If you weren’t trying to log in, or change your password, you probably didn’t run into this when it happened.

Game Stuff:

Emotes load properly (Fixed 11/12/18).

Sometimes emotes wouldn’t work for players when they loaded onto the Rift. We have fed the appropriate poros the correct number of free-ranged Poro-Snax to fix the underlying bug with emotes. Feel free to display, flaunt, and taunt as if nothing happened at all.

Morgageddon & Couch Command"

Reminders

To round out this red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events! Nexus Blitz will be returning for more testing in Patch 8.24! Check out this post for dates and details!

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Today's red post collection includes details on end of season rewards and Honor,quick gameplay thoughts for November 14th & 16th, this week's Ask Riot, and more!Continue reading for more information!Here's with details on end of season rewards and honor:also posted his thoughts for November 16th, providing some screenshots from Nexus Blitz that will be hitting the PBE for more testing next cycle:Here's quick gameplay thoughts for 11/14 covering updated run animations, end of the ranked season, and more:Check out this week's new Ask Riot - "More Ranked 2019 talk on Challenger Recall, Autofill and balancing around splits!"Worlds, Tales from the Rift, and K/DA content is available in crafting through December 3rd and the last day to earn Worlds Tokens will beHere's a reminder from Riot Games Support: