Wild Rift Real Talk - Oct 9 2020

Hey all, FeralPony back again with another Real Talk.

Regional Closed Beta has officially begun, and so far we’re learning a lot and making rapid improvements, so thank you everyone who has been playtesting and giving us feedback.

BETA INVITES

First let’s talk about the elephant in the room: More people want to play the game. We’re thrilled with the response so far, although unfortunately due to the nature of a closed beta, everyone who wants access won’t be able to get in yet. We know that really sucks, and the team is working hard to get more players access. We’ve greatly expanded our capacity in the regions we’re already supporting, and we’ve also expanded the test to include Japan and South Korea.

CONNECTIVITY ISSUES

Connectivity Issues are a topic some players have been reporting issues on such as latency and packet loss. Please keep calling those out as they’re a big reason why we run these tests. Overall infrastructure and specifics on how players connect through different providers vary wildly from region to region, which is a large part of why we’re doing a slower rollout. We’ve spent a lot of time upgrading and improving our monitoring systems and are working directly with local ISPs so we can better address and spot and fix issues as they arise.

GAME TIMES

Game Times are a bit of a controversial topic we’ve been hearing some discussion about. Are they too long? Too short? So I wanted to take a moment to discuss our intentions and where game lengths are at now. We are not aiming to match the speed of a League of Legends match on PC. It’s important to us that Wild Rift can be played within a 30-minute period. This includes everything from opening the app, Champ Select, loading times, playing your favorite champion, and having a moment to breathe on that well earned victory screen.

For the core game itself we’re still aiming for 16-18 minutes on average. With some blowouts going faster than that and some epic comebacks taking longer. Overall we’re happy with how the average game is playing out, but we think there are more than we’d want running a bit long. We have a few adjustments in place already to address this but it’s something we’re keeping a close eye on so feedback here is still really important to us. If the game feels too long or short, why? What are you looking to see more or less of? This kind of information is invaluable to us in making the game feel great.

CHAMPION BALANCE

Champion Balance is something we’re starting to get more data on, but it’s still heavily in flux as players are still discovering new strategies and unlocking more champions. We’ve done a few changes already but we’ll be looking at addressing more champions in the coming weeks. We’re also exploring some wider systemic changes for classes of champions who are too strong or weak as an entire class. We’ll talk more about those in future patches.

PRACTICE MODE

Practice Mode has been a much requested feature and we’re excited that’ll be out soon for players. For those that aren’t familiar, Practice Mode is a tool that allows you to test whatever champions you want and practice your sweet Yasuo combos. We’ll even be allowing champions that you don’t own yet to be tried out there so you can make informed purchases as you earn Blue Motes.

NEW FEATURES

New Features are something we’ve been getting a lot of requests for. Our main priority is still getting the game out as quickly as possible, but we’ll seek to get some of these in future patches. Keep the suggestions coming!

The team is super excited to continue building the game with the community, and we look forward to opening the game up to more players.

See you next time,

Brian & the Wild Rift team