Developer Log: Scorpion’s move becomes a ranged attack; Blue Essence Shop may return mid year

A new issue of the official Developer’s Journal has been released, introducing the upcoming updates to skins, heroes and other game content.The content will ultimately be based on the official Chinese service. New Skins.New Skin Themes.New skin themes are being explored, with two unique themes set to launch at MSI and mid-year.New skins.Udyr, Shivana and Mondo will be getting new skins soon.Handheld skin ports.We are aiming to bring the first handheld skins to endgame in July, but the exact timing may change.”Guardians of the Stars Xena/Oleanna/Salefini are the first.”Guardians of the Stars Faixia and Guardians of the Stars Yui Lo will follow later in the year.

Blue Essence Shop.

Our aim is to bring back the Blue Essence Shop by mid-year with technical improvements.

“Fast Play mode

We are testing a “Quick Play” mode to replace the “Blind Pick” mode in selected zones.

“Quick Play mode will allow you to choose your position and hero combination while queuing. You will skip the hero selection phase and go straight into the game.

Before queuing you must choose 2 different heroes and 2 different positions, then choose 1 priority hero/position. Most of the time it will work as you wish, but to speed up the queue, positions will be filled if needed.

No longer supports 32-bit operating systems.

32-bit operating systems will no longer be supported from 4 April, which will affect less than 0.01% of players worldwide.

Moving to a 64-bit OS will improve our security, anti-cheat and hangman script detection features.

Skarner redo.

We decided to amplify his kind/primary (lawful) character archetype and scorpion setting, omitting his crystal theme entirely.

We introduced more of the crustacean’s heavy shell shape while flattening his scorpion tail on a three-pronged venomous stinger to grip prey and make him look like a formidable and indestructible beast to his enemies.

Crystal Tower mechanic removed.

The move is now a ranged attack. While it loses some reliability against a single target (shorter duration, longer casting time, no longer as accessible), Skarner can be a big threat before a group battle starts if he can drag it to multiple targets. It’s also much more strategic in terms of who to drag, how many people to drag and when.

Medium rework

The release order is tentatively Neeko → Riel → Aion.

Riel.

We think the switch style of the W skill to mount and dismount is good, but if the W skill is empty when it’s empty, it’s overly punished. She also doesn’t quite match what people expect from a cavalryman, which means she doesn’t attract players who might be interested in her.

A few goals were identified to fulfil her potential.

Make Riel feel like she’s moving fast, like she can take down enemies when mounted, while making her feel like a powerful warrior when dismounted.

Give Riel more options online and in team fights besides landing W, and make sure she can do something useful when she dismounts.

Trying to fix some issues such as unclear skill instructions, inability to use the E skill alone, and ineffectiveness of the Q skill on following enemies.

Riel now has a new E skill.

During the development process, Riel had a much faster movement speed when she mounted her horse. We also tried a number of ways to make her look more powerful when dismounting, and one version of her passive resets the cooldown on W, allowing her to constantly mount and dismount, which was fun, but ultimately didn’t solve the problem of each form of core being different.

In the end, we found that making the Q skill more impactful in both forms (it now has the stun of the E skill), increasing the attack speed and distance of her dismount and reducing the self slow went a long way towards making it the form you want in a melee.

Still working on Riel’s finishing touches, such as effects, sound effects, animations and bug fixes. Also exploring her viability in roles other than support (although that’s not necessarily one of the goals, we want to make her primarily support).

Nico.

Getting closer to completion, but her passives are giving us technical challenges.

One of the secondary goals for her is to update her tech and sustainability so that many of her existing bugs can be eliminated and new bugs can be more easily fixed in the future as they arise.

Aion.

After Riel and Nicole, Aion will be getting a medium-sized update that will focus on improving Kiku.