As a Game Design leader a super frequent part of my job is to run brainstorms or problem solving meetings with the team

(Because it’s not all about a single genius coming up with all ideas)

After a lot of these I’ve found it’s not one size fits all - here are 3 that I like: 1. The round robin - this is for when you want deeper discussion and conversation to happen. It’s not about the most ideas or coming to the answer in one go as much.

State your topic, go around the room to let each individual pitch an idea or even just muse on the subject

A design value I’ve been chasing a lot is to “respect player’s intelligence.”

It’s a challenging one and big polished AAA game dev process struggles with it in particular.

(Thread) This most frequently is related to how you present information and guidance to the player.

Ultimately you don’t want the player to get hard stuck but if you spoon feed them everything you remove a TON of the best parts.

Item choice deep dive today - going through the whole roster to see how far along we are on our strategic choice goals for items.

Check out the article here:
na.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev…

Big thread Tanks

A few more subtle changes that aren’t highlighted on the article about mythics and legendaries:

(In thread) Tear is now a starter item. This let’s you start stacking while you build a mythic and complete seraphs or Muramana second.

There is a trade off though it’s weaker for lane with a scaling payoff.

Last but not least is Fighters. Mythics and changes in thread: Death’s Dance and Ravenous Hydra
Death’s Dance was definitely filling the “everything item” role with damage, vamp, and both resists. We’re refocusing DD into an armor fighter item and opening up Ravenous Hydra to fill the “caster AD vamp item” role.

Support Mythics and other big changes in thread Chemtech Fumigator is giving support champs access to Grevious Wounds when their team really needs it. The CC amplified effect is a great way to emphasize skilled play.

AP Mage Mythics and thread (Including AP Assassin and Fighter) AP Fighter/Assassin Mythics
After Mythics we want AP assassins to draw from the normal pool of AP items.
For AP Fighters we want them to draw from AP items and flex into tank items late game optionally (like AD fighters).

Tank Mythics and thread with other big changes: Force of Nature is back in a new form. This is the mega MR item for dealing with heavy AP comps.

Marksmen Mythics and thread with other changes: Guinsoo’s Rageblade is keeping it’s core niche as the on-hit multiplier but gaining a new effect to dramatically increase build flexibility for on-hit champs. With access to both normal on-hit choices and crit choices, we hope that on hit builds are significantly less linear.

As we approach PBE for the item system overhaul we wanted to prime some more high level changes and their goals.

Critical Strike:
-Bring a bit more power into the early curve and slightly less exponential payoff
-Broaden the choices for champs building crit You will have to see everything when it comes to PBE to get the full picture, but we want to get goals out there to show the intention for each change.

We'll be sharing a few more changes over the next week before PBE to reduce the amount of overload when it all drops.

More Preseason Info
-Details on the shop update
-Our philosophy and goals with icon updates
-Full preseason on PBE in less than 2 weeks!

na.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev… A WIP view of the new All items and quick access sidebar.

Don't read too much into the item icons here, this is a shop UX image.

Huge info here for all of our ranked and matchmaking plans this preseason:
-Division promo removal
-Rank Informed Matchmaking
-Rank Seeding
-Duo removal in Master+
-Chromas for victorious above gold

euw.leagueoflegends.com/en-gb/news/dev… Division promo removal is just like it sounds, no more promos from gold 3 to gold 2.

Promos will still exist between tiers like gold 1 -> Plat 4

Mythic item goals are to combine a powerful fantasy with strategic choice.

Take the marksmen choices we presented today:
(thread) Crimson Shieldbow
- Powerful offense combined with necessary defense.
- Choose in games with unavoidable burst threats like talon/rengar

Riot Pls! Big update on preseason item overhaul.
-A new item class "Mythic Items." Very powerful but you can only have one.
-Mythic items shape your build and add unique stats to your other items.
-More WIP item shop interface
-Player behavior update And the current WIP Mythics for the marksmen class

Feedback on the Mid lane changes has been extremely useful. Thank you all.

Our updated plan is to move these to after worlds patch. More info in the thread.

(1/4) With the extra time we can:
1. Strike the right balance with mid lane roaming and influence
2. Build in long term systems that let us adjust position power more easily (avoid a situation like last preseason where we wanted to buff top but had to buff all solo lanes)

(2/4)

Patch 9.24 Changes Preview:

Bigger change lists in the thread. Almost final, but a few tweaks may still happen. This is the last patch of the year, but we expect to do a balance hotfix in late december (9.24b). Senna Nerfs - focused on nerfing adc senna more than support

9.20 Patch Preview with the changes. Small patch, though pretty needed stuff for a few champs that haven't had attention in a while.

Thread has full lists for Viktor, Shaco, and Garen. Viktor Changes

Getting into game design is hard and from the outside seems like a black box, but if you're passionate about games you should definitely go for it.

My top 4 tips from my own experience in this thread:

(1/5) 1. Get other dev skills (programming, art, sound). Don't shy away from getting your hands dirty, this is the best way to make your ideas reality.

(2/5)

For those interested in our champ dev process, I usually play every new champ or update we have in dev about 1 time a week. That amounts to 7 different prototype projects in the last week.

(1/4) The designer and I go over feedback on whats working, whats not, and where we think we should go with the next iterations.

Often the iteration didn't hit our goals for the champ and sometimes we reconsider our goals in the first place after seeing the results in game.

(2/4)

A common misconception with matchmaking is seeing people from other tiers means it's a poorly matched game - they are usually close in MMR but have not yet grinded the LP to be in the same league.

That said - there are real things we want to fix with matchmaking (see thread) We are looking to skew towards tighter matches for longer waits. Testing shows good improvement - this should go to live soon.

We also see issues where swapping some players around on a team would yield better position preference - we're working on this fix but it wont be soon.

9.14 Balance Micropatch Releasing Tonight
Akali - slight buff
Tahm Kench - buff
Galio - slight buff
Fizz - slight nerf
Casio - slight nerf
Singed - QOL

Detailed changes in thread: Akali
Base Health 550 >>> 575
Base HP regen 6 >>> 8