LoL Rell Mid Scope Update - developers reveal MSU process

League of Legends Rell is expected to get a new mid-scope update added to the game soon.

As a champion who struggled heavily with her pick and win rate, it's great that Riot is trying to alter this.

Her early stages in the game also made her very low on everybody's wish list.

And as a champion steeped in cool design, mechanics, and more, it makes sense for her to receive this update.

Mid-scope updates give champions a complete overhaul of their abilities, styles and more.

So, Terra “Riot Yasuna” Ray is going to explain how mid-scope updates work and see whereabouts the update is for Rell.

Let's take a look!

Rell Mid-Scope Update

The key focus for the development of the new and improved Rell was...

Lean into the Mounted/Dismounted fantasy: Let Rell feel fast—like she can charge enemies down while mounted—and let her feel like a formidable fighter while dismounted.

Increase Play Pattern Variance: Give Rell more options in lane and team fights besides landing W, and make sure that while she’s dismounted, there are useful things she can do.

Sand off some QoL issues: We’ve heard your feedback on some of the more frustrating parts of Rell’s kit, so we wanted to help alleviate some of them. We want to smooth out things like poor ward clearing, not being able to use E while alone, and Q having reduced power on subsequent enemies.

The design team has taken a few stabs at a Rell midscope before, but nothing really stuck... except for her new E.

That’s right, Rell’s getting a completely new E which was inspired by one of the earlier explorations from Rell’s original designer Stash “Riot Stashu” Chelluck.

We also tried a bunch of ways to make her dismounted form feel more empowering.

In the end, we found that making Q have a much stronger impact in both forms, boosting her dismounted attack speed and range, and softening the self-slow went a long way toward making it a form that you wanted to be in during chaotic fights.

The Mid-scope Process

The main goal of a mid-scope is to give these updates to champions who have lost a bit of their shine over the years.

Or those who have become problematic for the game.

Midscopes follow a pretty unique process in comparison to other champion updates (like ASUs or VGUs).

In general, we follow four phases:

1. Finding the Right Opportunity: We use a combination of both data and passion to help find midscope targets. Does a champ have an overall declining play rate? Are their mains dropping them? Is a champion currently unhealthy for the game? And ultimately, has someone on the team seen the issues and said, “This champ is not living up to the player fantasy we want them to have right now, so I’m going to do something about it.”
2. Exploration and Kit Lock: This is where we start experimenting! We start by spitballing ideas on paper. The best are put into the game and playtested (playtests happen at least twice per day) and then adjusted based on feedback.
3. Planning and Coordination: Once things are in the “Goldilocks Range” (basically once they start feeling justttt right), we start looking at everything that changed. At this point we loop in art and the Gameplay Analysis Team. They can point out the relative power levels of changes or just give us insightful, high-level gameplay analysis from the changes.
4. Iteration, Refinement, and Polish: This is where we start making everything ready to ship to players. It’s a pretty careful tightrope of balancing the time we need from everyone involved against their other work like new champions in development, or even other midscopes.

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