Between all this Freljord and skin RP price change talk, not much is getting done on the ole' general forums. Good thing I'm here to wrap it all up for you or you might get overrun!
Hippalus responds to skin RP price changes
The forums are still aflame with discussion about the recently announced skin rp price changes and Hippalus, Riot's eCommerce director, has stepped in to address a few issues.
He started off by rejecting the statement that Riot is just ignoring community feedback on the decision.
When asked how each tier was decided upon, Hippalus commented:
A summoner then asked "Why did it take so long to start doing 1350 skins?", to which Hippalus responded and proposed a potential solution:
He also responded to why Special Weapon Zac, which the community tends to label as just another recolor, is in the 975 tier.
Furthermore, Hippalus had some good news for those waiting out for ( if I'm not mistaken ) Arcade Sona, Pool Party Ziggs, and Astronautilus - they will be going on sale at 487 despite their upcoming price increase!
As a general response to the forum outcry, Hippalus stated:
While we've heard murmurs of recolor skins ( that is just a color swap, no other features ) potentially making a comeback, we haven't actually heard much lately. Hippalus replied to a comment about them, saying:
Finally, and perhaps the most savory piece of information, Hippalus shared the time frame on the release of the next ultimate tier skin ( think Pulsefire Ezreal ! ) by simply saying:
In addition to his comments yesterday, Morello had a few more things to say about Sion's future rework.
He also responded positively to a player request that Leona should be able to proc her own passive on MINIONS AND MONSTERS , a change that would allow her to jungle.
"Actually we're ok with players telling us when they don't like our prices (or anything else we do) and is helpful to understand when and why they're upset or annoyed. Just because the game is free doesn't give us a license to be ******bags with pricing."Continuing on about the announcement in general, he said:
"The price changes were done so that we''ll have tiers for different levels of effort that go into skins, and I'm glad at least one person agrees they make sense. The 79 price reductions and 18 (now 17) increases were part of that and not some scheme to make more money. I've seen claims on here that Riot makes more money when we raise prices AND we make more money when we lower prices, so this plan is doubly evil. Who can argue with logic like that?"
"Finalizing which skin goes into which tier was the toughest aspect of this and we knew there was no solution that would make sense to everyone. The skins team put together a plan that combined the skin features with the amount of overall time and effort that went into the skin. Sales data wasn't used at all in choosing the tiers.
But it's not an exact science with clear break points, so that's why the descriptions have some overlap and use the word "some"."
Further discussing these new tiers and what to expect, he says:
"As the announcement shows, there will be roughly 5 times as many 975 skins created as any other tier in 2013. 1350s will be only 7-15% of new skins in 2013 and since there are already three on the list (iBlitz and the Warring Kingdom skins), there are not many more 1350s to come this year.
I'm confident players will be pleasantly surprised at the quality that comes out at 750 and 975 in the coming months, but I understand we have to prove it.'
A summoner then asked "Why did it take so long to start doing 1350 skins?", to which Hippalus responded and proposed a potential solution:
"The short answer is that we didn't want to charge 1350 for new skins without a longer term plan and structure. If we had, every 1350 skin would have been met with complaints that 1350 was the new 975. And we were focused on other areas (champion pricing, gifting, etc.) and OK with the reality that some of our skins were probably underpriced.
On a related note, we're considering the idea of launching 1350 skins on sale for 975 (or close to it) for a week after release. Would that make these changes better for you?"
He also responded to why Special Weapon Zac, which the community tends to label as just another recolor, is in the 975 tier.
"Per the skins team, Secret Weapon Zac has new animations, new VFX, new SFX and a custom recall, so he is solidly in the 975 tier. On top of that, Zac skins are much more complex to create than most champions because of his model design."
Furthermore, Hippalus had some good news for those waiting out for ( if I'm not mistaken ) Arcade Sona, Pool Party Ziggs, and Astronautilus - they will be going on sale at 487 despite their upcoming price increase!
"The three that were released in mid 2012 and have not yet been on sale will go on sale for 487 before the increase. And as always, if you bought them in the two weeks prior you will be eligible for a refund through Player Support."
As a general response to the forum outcry, Hippalus stated:
"Short term fallout I can handle. If weeks and months from now, players feel that they were lied to and this change has cost them money or forced them to pay more for the same content, it will have been a mistake. I am fairly confident that will not be the outcome, but if it is, we'll find a way to fix it.'
While we've heard murmurs of recolor skins ( that is just a color swap, no other features ) potentially making a comeback, we haven't actually heard much lately. Hippalus replied to a comment about them, saying:
"Cool new ways of making recolors available to players are being looked at, but there is not enough of a plan in place to know if it will ever be a reality."
Finally, and perhaps the most savory piece of information, Hippalus shared the time frame on the release of the next ultimate tier skin ( think Pulsefire Ezreal ! ) by simply saying:
"Month"More Tidbits from Morello
In addition to his comments yesterday, Morello had a few more things to say about Sion's future rework.
"This is a very long post (and again, raises the engagement barrier) - I'll try to look over it. I did wanna make a quick post to explain, though.
It's hard because meeting current gameplay expectations would be hard to do, and what to do with him (do we make him an undead mage guy and remove the axe, or make him a Zombie Giant?) could go either way. Since we do care about some existing expectations when we relaunch a character, we can't just throw that piece of the puzzle out the window. It's possible that a relaunch could be shipped that does, but not without a robust cost/benefit analysis (to players) of that decision.
One thing to clear up quickly, though, is that "nothing" isn't an option on the table because we agree it's critically bad. The question is how to take such a schizophrenic gameplay pattern and such a one-dimensional character and make it into something great. We could recraft him into a different character favoring one or more elements - which (and how) is where the problem-solving is crunchy."
He also responded positively to a player request that Leona should be able to proc her own passive on MINIONS AND MONSTERS , a change that would allow her to jungle.
"Only on minions/monsters bothers me a lot less. Worth a discussion with the team at least (though, Leona's not exactly weak right now...)"While this certainly isn't anything definitive, how would you feel about Jungle Leona?
No comments
Post a Comment