Q&A is tomorrow at 9am so one more day of trying to knock a few of the easier questions out now. Here we go!

“Who in the industry inspires you?” – For me, the Kirby/Smash man himself Masahiro Sakurai is my main aspiration. His attention to detail, willingness to get the job done, and great focus on making games fun are exactly the type of game designer I want to be. I don’t know if I’ll ever reach his level of talent, but that’s what’s keeps me trying to improve. The dude is a legend, and if you haven’t watched his Youtube videos, you are really missing out.

“Why isn’t there an augment that lets you deal more player damage so you could play aggressive?” – A couple reasons. First, if the augment is just deal more player damage, you are already inherently weaker than other opponents who took econ/combat power, and that contradiction means the augment will perform very poorly in skilled players hands. Second, if you’re on the receiving end of taking a bunch of damage because someone took this augment, you’re likely to blame matchmaking RNG, which isn’t a system we really want people feeling like is the reason they lost. Finally, generally we’ve seen players really not enjoy accelerated games where they don’t even have a chance to build their comp. Things like littler legends, lethal legends, etc, are widely not popular for this very reason.

“When will you sell Mortdog’s beard and shampoo products?” – Never. It’s a secret that’s been in my family for generations.

“Was early champ design influenced by Artifacts knowing that they were coming?” – Nope. The sets team worked independent of the artifacts being created and focused on making the best set they could. I gave Witty some clear goals with the artifacts, and he took those, combined with his knowledge of all the TFT sets (he’s been on the team since day 1!) and made the best artifacts he could, sourcing feedback from the team. The goal was to make stuff that worked for any set, no just Inkborn Fables. I think he nailed it on most of them!

“Why not let emblems work from the bench like TaC does?” – Oh man, this sounds bad for a couple reasons. First, imagine if you had 2 Mythic emblems. Now you simply need to reach level 8 and BAM you have 10 Mythic. Since things are now accessible at a lower level, we likely have to HEAVILY nerf them. Second, for traits that are selfish like Duelist, half the fun of the emblems is seeing what happens when you put them on different champs. Back in the day, seeing who was OP with Mage was a ton of fun, and I’d hate to lose that transformative aspect of emblems so you can let them rest on the bench.

And there ya go! I’m on campus today, so time for a breakfast burrito. Yum. Hope you’re all enjoying Pengu’s Party and all the 5 year goodies. See you tomorrow at 9am for the Q&A stream. Have a great day, and take it easy 🙂