We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

League of Legends designer opens floor to questions after player complains Riot ignore feedback

Lol-handshake

Yesterday, Riot Repertoir – aka David Capurro, Riot’s associate game designer – created a thread on the League of Legends boards that invited questions from players after forum user HIMM Sandwich complained Riot too often ignore fan feedback.

In response, Capurro answered 109 questions – by HIMM Sandwich’s count –  on a variety of LoL-related topics; what he might’ve done differently in certain areas, why Riot operate in certain ways, and why characters are designed the way they are, amongst a whole host of other topics. Sandwich praised Capurro’s efforts in a follow-up post earlier today. 

LoL novices might wish to stop by our list of best League of Legends champions for beginners.

“Today I have been reading a thread by HIMM Sandwich that basically comes down to how it feels like Riot sometimes ignores player sentiment/feedback, and then goes silent when asked for answers,” says Capurro’s original forum post. “I won’t be the best source of insight on projects that I didn’t work on, but feel free to use this post as a place where you can ask specifically about any of the projects I’ve worked on in the last year or two, and I’ll do my best to give you honest, direct answers about why things were made the way they were, and how I/we feel about these projects currently.

“Keep in mind that if they’re outside of issues I worked on, it’s likely I won’t be able to meaningful answers, and also that I won’t guarantee you’ll like what I have to share on some topics.”

Capurro then listed the projects he has been and is currently a part of which include: Nidalee Champion Update, Ryze Champion Update, Ashe Champion Update, Juggernauts Champion Updates – Garen/Skarner, Marksmen Champion Updates – Quinn/Kog’Maw, Taric Champion Update, and Mages Champion Updates – to which questions were levied at.

While I’m not particularly into League of Legends myself (news editor Ben’s yer man for that), and therefore don’t quite grasp the minutiae and specifics of every post in the thread, it’s nonetheless great to see such developer-player interaction – something that’s by and large missing from the games industry in general.

Too often, the faceless anonymity of the internet allows for vast, unforgivable amounts of mindless negative commentary. Conversations like this aren’t going to stop that from happening, but it is genuinely refreshing to see such distinguished levels of maturity and civility throughout the chat.

Original poster HIMM Sandwich echoed this in a reply in praise of Capurro earlier today. “I just wanted to thank Riot Repertoir for his heroic effort last night responding, answering and addressing many of our questions and concerns about topics he could speak properly about,” it says. “I never imagined my poorly worded, grossly oversized monster of a post would get as much attention as it did, least of all a response from a Rioter. If this sort of thing happens more frequently, then maybe people like Repertoir won’t have to spend hours at night responding.

“A short chunk of time here and there over the course of a week would yield similar if not better results, both immediately and moving forward, by placating player bases while also granting developers access to the thoughts of their fans before shit hits the fan when something goes wrong.”

The LoL forum thread in its entirety can be found here, while this on Reddit focusses in on one particular response.