While the outside world was buzzing with excitement over the success of the inaugural National Tournament, and various grassroots competitions and commercial activities were in full swing, Riot Games internally adopted a work rhythm starkly different from the external fervor—a calm, 'artisan' state focused on product iteration and improvement.
Qin Feng deeply understood that the success of the tournaments and the market's enthusiasm were all rooted in the continuous vitality and appeal of the game league of legends itself.
One of the core elements maintaining this vitality was the continuous update of game content and the expansion of the champion roster.
At the core project meeting, Qin Feng set the tone for the new phase, addressing key members of the planning, art, and technical teams: "The National Tournament proved that our gameplay and competitive framework are successful.
Now, what we need to do is solidify our foundation and enrich the game's core.
The focus for the upcoming period is not to rush into launching the second tournament, but to steadily expand our champion pool, aiming to increase the total number of champions to eighty within the next few months."
This goal was not blindly pursuing speed.
Unlike the previous 'champion factory' style emergency development to meet player enthusiasm, this time, Qin Feng emphasized'steadiness' and 'quality'.
"What we need is differentiation and tactical depth, not simply a stacking of quantity," Qin Feng wrote several keywords on the whiteboard.
"Every new champion must have unique mechanics, a clear role, and be able to bring new chemical reactions to Summoners Rift, rather than just another'similar to X' champion."
Wu Tong, the head of the champion design team, led his group in a new round of brainstorming.
Unlike before, when they primarily referenced Qin Feng's 'idea bank,' this time, the team was encouraged to engage in more original thinking.
"We already have 'hook' champions (Blitzcrank), 'global' champions (Twisted Fate), and 'clone' champions (Zed)," Wu Tong guided the discussion in an internal meeting.
"Next, we can think about some more fundamental mechanical innovations.
For example, is it possible to design a champion whose core mechanic is to steal or temporarily copy an enemy champion's skill? How would this revolutionize BP and team fights?"
"Or, a champion that can change terrain?" another planner suggested.
"For instance, temporarily creating a destructible wall, or altering the terrain properties of a small area.
This would have a huge impact on escapes, chases, and team fight formations."
"Also, we already have 'energy systems' (Lee Sin, Zed).
Is it possible to design a champion whose resource is related to 'time' or'space'? For example, after casting a skill, a temporary 'temporal mark' is left at the original spot, and reactivating it produces different effects?"
These bold ideas were proposed one by one and discussed for feasibility.
Qin Feng also participated, but he primarily played the role of a guide and gatekeeper, affirming the team's creativity while also raising critical questions from the perspective of game balance and underlying code implementation, ensuring that new champions would not disrupt the game's overall ecosystem.
At the same time, Art Director Chen Ran's team faced new challenges.
The increase in champion numbers meant a further enrichment of Runeterra's world-view.
Each new champion was no longer an isolated combat unit but needed to be integrated as a 'living' character within the existing world-view system.
"This new support champion from Ionia, Rakan, the Charmer, his skills are agile and elegant, so his attire, weapons, and skill effects must be filled with the unique natural and spiritual beauty of Ionia," Chen Ran emphasized when communicating with concept artists and 3D modelers.
"And his backstory needs to explain why he possesses such illusionary power, what is his connection to Ionia's Kinkou Order or the resistance?"
"And this cold-blooded assassin from Noxus, Talon, the Blade's Shadow, his design must highlight Noxus's iron will and efficiency.
His cloak, throwing knives, even his recall animation, should all convey a militaristic coldness and precision."
The art team worked closely with the narrative team to conceive backstories, design dialogue, and create exquisite concept art and models for each new champion, ensuring they became three-dimensional, believable characters from visuals to lore.
The refinement of skill effects also became more meticulous, aiming for both flashiness and clarity, without excessive visual clutter that could hinder gameplay judgment.
The increasing complexity of champion mechanics brought considerable pressure to Li Ming's technical team.
"This champion that can create terrain requires real-time server-side calculation of how terrain changes affect unit collision and skill paths, which demands extremely high synchronization."
"The champion that can steal skills is even more complex in logic, requiring the establishment of a temporary skill mapping library and handling various extreme cases of skill interaction."
"The addition of new champions also means an expansion of client resources, so we need to further optimize resource loading and memory management to ensure smooth operation even on low-spec machines."
The technical team embarked on a new round of tackling challenges, optimizing underlying code, and establishing a more robust skill interaction framework to ensure that these imaginative design ideas could be stably and fairly presented to all players.
After initial development, each new champion would enter a more rigorous internal testing phase.
This not only tested their skill strength and bugs but, more importantly, their compatibility with the existing champion system.
"Is this new mage too strong against melee champions?"
"Will the late-game power of that new ADC squeeze out other ADCs' play rates?"
"Does the jungle clear speed and gank efficiency of this new jungler disrupt the current jungle meta?"
The balance team collected large amounts of test data, communicated repeatedly with the design team, and made subtle numerical adjustments and mechanical modifications.
This process was tedious and time-consuming but crucial, as it determined whether new champions would enrich the game experience or disrupt the game environment.
The entire Riot Games company, like a precisely operating laboratory, was busy working on the new champions that were about to be released.
There was no eager response to the external clamor, only repeated deliberation and refinement of product details.
When the first new champion, Rakan, the Charmer, officially launched with a version update, players were pleasantly surprised to find that not only were his skill mechanics novel and interesting, but his magnificent appearance and heartfelt backstory (forming a couple champion with Xayah, the Rebel, who was released later) quickly garnered a large number of fans.
His unique knock-up, shield, and charm crowd control brought entirely new gameplay and engagement strategies to the support role.
Subsequently, distinctive champions such as Talon, the Blade's Shadow, Ekko, the Boy Who Shattered Time, and Taliyah, the Stoneweaver, successively joined the Rift.
The arrival of each new champion sparked a new wave of research in the player community, developing new tactical approaches and constantly refreshing players' understanding of the game.
As the champion pool steadily advanced towards the goal of eighty, the tactical landscape of Summoners Rift also became richer, more colorful, and grander.
All of this was quietly accumulating strength for the next, even more glorious season.