Riot Games is at it again, reaching out to see what the players want or think about certain ideas. Recently Xelnath, a games systems designer for Riot, went onto the forums to talk to summoners about the user interface.
Xelnath focuses specifically on improving various systems and mechanics that have broad effects in League of Legends, such as improving the way skillshots render from out of sight and the like. In this case, he was looking for players’ opinions on ways to better let a player know they have been hit with various crowd control effects.
The questions he posed before the summoners on the forums are as follows:
Questions:
- What information would you like about control impairing effects in League?
- What information do you feel is the most important to convey?
- The least?
- How would you like this information conveyed?
- Where would you like it to be conveyed?
Ideas were thrown at him from all over, but some of the key ones he took notice of and looked into more specifics about.
Crowd Control indicators
One example was having the screen flash when a player is hit by a crowd control effect, with the color of the flash corresponding to the type of CC. Another summoner suggested sound effects that were dependent on the specific type of crowd control. One player suggested a set of orbs in the center of the UI that would light up based on what CC was on the player’s champion. Still another suggested having a combination, letting the player select the method that would suit them best, in their case because they didn’t want their screen flashing constantly during a teamfight.
Other suggestions included a progress bar dropping as the crowd control wears off under the player’s health bar with an icon for the type of CC or a word flashing in the same place identifying the specific impairment. Recognizing that would get cluttered very quickly if someone suffers from several CC effects at once, Xelnath suggested a bar for the longest CC and then icons for the rest, though a player quickly suggested prioritizing hard CC effects, like stuns and suppression, over the longer but less important varieties such as slows.
Other ideas
Other tidbits we learned include that there will be a tooltip in the very next League of Legends patch that will show how much gold a champion earns with the pickpocket mastery, a bit of clarification on the terminology on different forms of crowd control, possible consideration to flipping the map for the players on the purple team to keep orientations the same no matter what side a player is on, and hints on the PBE that Lightbringer will reveal stealthed traps like Teemo shrooms and Shaco boxes. As a final bit of information, the speed shrine in the center of Twisted Treeline will be going away, as it was simply having too strong of an effect.
Be on the lookout for further system and UI updates in the League of Legends, Riot’s listening!
