Chapter 205: Global Live Playtest! Adjusting Well, Waiting for the Brothers

After the Esports Spring Festival Gala, the LPL entered its off-season.

However, the so-called off-season is actually not long; from the end of the matches on the 18th to the next match on the 30th, it is only 12 days, less than two weeks.

"Let's go~"

"Waiting for you guys, come early!"

Because the bot lane duo wasn't going home, they had originally planned to stay at the Shenzhen base and look around the neighborhood.

But since everyone else had to go home for the New Year, there wasn't even a cook or a housekeeper at the base; it was inevitable that the two would feel a bit lonely staying in the empty base, and they couldn't even order takeout.

The observant Flandre sought out Ye Bo to discuss it.

The two of them then found their teammates and invited the two brothers to come home with them for the New Year.

At first, Deft and Beryl felt it might be inappropriate, but under the warm invitation, they finally set off together.

Because Flandre is from Xinhui, Guangdong, not far from the Shenzhen home stadium, they decided to go to Ye Bo's home first, and before the end of the break, they would go to Guangdong to meet up with Flandre's group of six, then return to the base together.

On the way back.

Ye Bo was communicating via video conference with two Riot designers through a video translator—mainly regarding the coordination for the launch event of the new Aurelion Sol.

Perhaps it is because Ye Bo is the only player in recent years to use Aurelion Sol on the professional stage.

And he even single-handedly forced this hero, who was originally lonely in a corner, to become popular again in global ranked games before the rework!

Riot officials specifically contacted him through Tengjing to invite Ye Bo to host a "global live" playtest session.

"OK!"

"Player Ye, the ideas you brought up are very interesting. If there are any further questions, let's communicate more."

At the end of the call, the two slightly balding Riot staff members smiled and made a Chinese New Year greeting gesture toward Ye Bo.

"Happy New Year~" Ye Bo also replied with a smile.

It was interesting.

The two designers who came to communicate with him were the designer of the new Aurelion Sol and the designer of Akali.

They talked about a lot, and they talked about a wide variety of things.

Communicating with designers provided a completely different perspective on the game; the perspectives and logic for viewing various designs were different.

This made him feel both novel and gave him new insights.

Furthermore, according to the designers, the next hero to be reworked soon this year will be Neeko, which is also a very major rework.

Closing his laptop.

Ye Bo turned his head to look at Beryl, who was busy tapping on his screen: "Yo, Genshin brother, playing a new game?"

"Yeah, Honkai: Star Rail, open beta in two months, want to try it?" Beryl tried to promote it again: "It's quite fun, mainly because the female character modeling is very good!"

"When I have time~ When I have time~"

Beryl had tried to get Ye Bo to play Genshin Impact several times, and Ye Bo always gave this same answer.

He was used to it, only thinking that the other party might just not be interested in anime-style mobile games.

It was just that Beryl had originally thought that, based on the things the other party had said in the past, he should be a "kindred spirit."

But in reality, Ye Bo really just felt he didn't have the time, not that he was unwilling to try new things.

As long as he thought about how his collection wasn't full yet, and about the next match and the new version, he always felt there were many challenges waiting for him in Summoner's Rift, and he always had a "sense of busyness."

Fortunately, Ye Bo liked this sense of busyness.

It made him feel very fulfilled.

Beside him, Deft was quietly watching the scenery of the mainland passing by outside the car window, looking relaxed.

Meanwhile.

At Riot headquarters in Santa Monica, Los Angeles.

The two who had just hung up the video call were also full of smiles.

"Interesting guy."

CertainlyT rubbed his chin, looking at what he had just recorded.

"Why did you come over today? How is Neeko's progress?" KingCobra teased his colleague.

"Not bad, but the main work is Phlox's responsibility; I'm just providing some creative input~"

"That guy Phlox... then you'd better keep a close eye on him, watch out for him pulling some crazy stunts that affect your performance this year, haha."

Thinking of the anecdote that broke out about Phlox a while ago—a Riot designer playing Ryze in a Silver-tier game on the North American server, dying 183 times in 13 games, leading to being reported and banned.

The two of them couldn't help but chuckle.

Designers are mainly involved in inspiration-based work, and their ranks vary.

And Riot's lead designers generally have their own "design habits."

For example, the lead designer for this Aurelion Sol rework, KingCobra, or KC, was once the person behind the new Swain.

So it is said that the new Aurelion Sol also possesses a "collection" soul fragment mechanism similar to the new Swain.

Take another famous designer, August, nicknamed "Three-Ring Brother" within Riot.

The heroes he created include Vi, Gnar, Ekko, Jhin, Jinx, Senna, etc., almost all of which have a three-ring-like mechanism.

And the designer who reworked Akali, CertainlyT—is definitely a "genius."

The heroes he designs don't have too many habitual features; they are more focused on the linkage between skill-to-skill and hero-to-hero.

You can tell by looking at the heroes CT created and reworked.

Thresh, Kalista, Zed, Yasuo, Zoe, Darius, Aphelios... and the rework of Akali.

It can be said that the vast majority are heroes with extreme "operational ceilings" and "room for imagination"!

Among them, the mechanism designs of Thresh, Aphelios, and Yasuo are all works that are highly acclaimed by players and endure over time.

It is also because of this that CT is personally very interested in Ye Bo.

Just because... he feels this Ye really played out the kind of "feeling" he had imagined.

"Actually, the idea Ye just proposed is very reasonable." CT was still chatting with great interest.

"Perhaps we should bury more undisclosed 'Easter eggs' in hero designs, letting players explore and dig them out themselves."

"How interesting it is for players to discover mechanisms and designs on their own!"

KC scratched his already thinning top: "Sigh, even without us deliberately burying them, he can find so many strange linkages; if we deliberately bury them, it's too hard on our hair!"

CT shrugged, joking: "What's the use of hair? Look at Three-Ring Brother, that guy is already completely bald, that's why he's rated as Chief every year~"

"By the way, I have to go find Phlox; after what Ye said just now, I suddenly really have an idea!"

"If it goes well, maybe Neeko's rework time can be moved up!"

CT seemed to have suddenly thought of some inspiration regarding Neeko and ran off in a flash.

KC looked at the rushing man and just shook his head, sighing at where these guys get so much inspiration.

"Chief... competing for Chief with these guys is really hard."

By comparison, although his seniority is extremely high, he only knows how to make stacking mechanics and nerf Irelia.

Back then, he was the second blade who went crazy nerfing Irelia along with Chun-Li!

It really is frustrating to compare people.

But this is also why, even though his seniority is older than the others and he has been responsible for the design of many game modes, he has never been selected as Chief.

The "Chief" of the Riot design team possesses higher leadership positions and "authority."

As for what authority is... it's probably that if one needs to consider nerfing or buffing a hero, the Chief's opinion naturally carries more weight.

And in a sense, being Chief is also an important recognition for these designers.

After all, the selection criteria don't look at anything else; the only two criteria are looking at the data performance of the heroes they led or participated in, in terms of rank ban/pick rates and professional stage ban/pick rates.

This most directly and simply reflects which hero the players like more.

Of course, there are unexpected situations.

For example, KC, who originally had no hope of competing, saw his performance climb into the top few because of Aurelion Sol's sudden popularity a while ago—if the new Aurelion Sol feedback is good, maybe there will be a chance to compete!

The guy who made Aatrox back then saw his year-end bonus multiply several times!

This is actually why, before the official launch, KC had to come in person for a playtest event that originally only required staff to come and coordinate.

He also wanted to know.

For Ye Bo, the player who brought Aurelion Sol back to the professional stage, would he have any peculiar ideas about the new version of Aurelion Sol?

Returning to his hometown in Huzhou, Ye Bo's family treated Deft and Beryl very warmly.

On the phone, Ye Ying heard that the two teammates couldn't go home for the New Year.

Without waiting for Ye Bo to speak, the hospitable woman immediately blurted out, "Then bring them home to celebrate the New Year together, how lively that will be!"

The shy and quiet Deft's personality was already very much liked by the elders.

Beryl could also be considered half a social butterfly; once the language problem was solved, he chatted naturally about everything.

"Come on, everyone, let's clink glasses, Happy New Year!" Ye Ying raised her drink cup.

Beryl, gnawing on a crab leg, hurriedly directed his mouth and looked around for something to wipe with.

And beside him, Deft had already tacitly handed over a napkin.

"Come play at home whenever it's the off-season. It's good that you guys usually take care of our Ye Bo; this kid is very mischievous and doesn't know how to take care of himself..."

Ye Ying chatted naturally about everyday life.

But Deft clearly didn't quite understand this kind of Chinese-style small talk, so he quickly waved his hands and said very seriously: "No, Auntie, usually Ye Bo takes care of us; we should be the ones thanking him."

"Mm... % # mm-hmm." Beryl's cheeks were huge, and his speech was still a bit slurred.

After the meal, Deft took the initiative to help clear the table and quietly patted and held back Beryl, who was about to leave the table.

"Oh, no need to clean up, no need, you guys go do your thing, go do your thing."

Ye Bo pulled the two of them into the room: "It just so happens we can try out the game together. It shouldn't take too long; once we're done, I'll take you guys out for a stroll~"

As expected.

Chen Rui's mouth twisted into a smile again.

Although the global trial event was an official Riot livestream, because Ye Bo had a streaming contract, they ultimately had to negotiate with Bilibili to host a dual-platform broadcast.

Overseas, it was just "rebroadcasting" for promotion anyway, so the officials barely had any regulations.

This led to even many strange websites rebroadcasting it.

But domestic streaming platforms naturally could only choose Bilibili.

The traffic from this was satisfying!

"Coming, coming, brothers~" Ye Bo's voice was the first to appear in the stream.

When Beryl and Deft appeared in the stream without warning, the moment the broadcast started, the chat flooded in like a tide!

【There's a surprise bonus!?】

【The Alpaca and the Genshin Brother are spending the New Year at Master Ye's place? What kind of god-tier teammates are these? Look back at the DRX era, they were fighting internal politics with the P-kid right after the match.】

【Why is it streaming on Bilibili? I thought it would be on something like the League of Legends mobile app.】

【Holy crap, it's actually a global stream! I just used a VPN to open P-hub to study math, and when I refreshed, I saw this and immediately switched back to watch. This is Master Ye's status!】

【What is P-hub? Is it the foreign version of Bilibili?】

【Just watched the preview video for the new Aurelion Sol, he's so cool.】

Ye Bo operated the PBE test server account provided by Riot, turned on the accelerator, and switched the language to Chinese.

While waiting, he also glanced at the chat in the official League of Legends Twitch stream on the right, greeting the overseas viewers.

It was mostly English, but Ye Bo could still see various terms like 【Ye! Ye!】, 【Love you!】, 【You are my god!】, and so on.

The overseas fans were clearly even crazier, but unfortunately, they couldn't communicate, so Ye Bo was also pondering whether he should find an opportunity to learn English.

He went into the training camp first to check out the new Aurelion Sol's abilities.

"The passive is collecting Stardust to enhance abilities, Q is... whoa, I'm a fire-breathing dragon!"

"Wait, no, why does it suddenly feel more like spitting saliva? It doesn't seem as cool as the old ultimate."

"But this Q has clearly changed from the old crowd-control ability into a pure damage ability."

W changed into the old E, still taking flight on the spot and able to cross terrain; it barely changed.

That is to say, the name changed from 【Celestial Expansion】 to 【Astral Flight】.

"Astral!?" Beryl, who was to the side, heard Ye Bo's voice and jerked his head up as if by reflex.

The new Aurelion Sol's E ability was vastly different and was also one of the core abilities of this hero.

It basically summoned a "black hole" in an area that would continuously pull enemies toward the center; it counted as a crowd-control ability, and its main role in the early game seemed to be pushing waves to collect passive stacks.

But the true power of the E ability lay in—the low-health execution!

Once the health of enemy units in the center of the black hole dropped below a certain threshold, they would be instantly "executed"!

The effect was roughly similar to the "Elder Dragon Soul."

Furthermore, this health execution threshold could be infinitely stacked and enhanced through passive stacks; theoretically, it was even possible to achieve a "full-health execution"!

As for the ultimate, Falling Star.

Although it wasn't as flashy as the old Aurelion Sol's dragon breath.

However, changing it to "summoning a planet" to crash down seemed to fit the "Star Forger" setting even better.

Especially since every time 75 Stardust was collected, 【Falling Star】 would transform into 【The Skies Descend】.

That was a terrifying range that could directly spread to cover more than half the map!

"This is cool!" Ye Bo's eyes shone with excitement.

"This... how do you dodge this?" Deft, being an ADC, realized a serious problem.

Basically, there was no way to dodge it.

Even if you dodged the center of The Skies Descend where the stun was, the shockwave that would instantly spread to cover half the map and the 75% slow was enough to keep everyone in place.

"This is definitely a team-fight monster..." Beryl had already keenly sensed the characteristics of the reworked Aurelion Sol.

Q is continuous percentage damage, W is ultra-long-range displacement, E is area crowd control + area execution.

The The Skies Descend version of the ultimate is also an ultra-large-range AOE + crowd control that you can't even dodge!

"Let's play one, let's play one!"

Ye Bo couldn't wait to open the match-making mode to try it out in a real game.

However, because the PBE test server had few people and the skill level clearly wasn't very high, it wasn't realistic to expect to test the hero's actual combat strength given the huge gap in fundamentals.

It was mainly to test the gameplay.

The good news was that because it was a global stream and the popularity was quite high, the test server was actually queuing quite fast.

Once inside, no one fought over positions or heroes; instead, the chat box completely turned into a "fan meet-and-greet."

There was Chinese, English, and even text that couldn't be understood.

Of course, there was also Korean.

"Alpaca, what is this guy saying?" Ye Bo saw a Korean ID frantically typing in Korean, not knowing what the other party was saying.

And Deft took a look, but his brows instantly furrowed.

"This person is talking a bit weirdly, but it's all not very nice things."

There were already chat translators in the stream who had taken action.

【The imperial translator is here! This guy is basically saying something like 'Winning the championship was just luck because you didn't run into T1 in a best-of-five, otherwise last year's champion would definitely be T1' blah blah blah.】

【Laughing to death, found a live tadpole, he must be really going crazy, how can he still be this pressed after getting crushed twice in the group stage last year?】

【Something's not right, I'm an international student, the grammar in this is very problematic, it looks a bit like machine translation.】

【I'm Sherlock Holmes, this is definitely a water ghost and a zombie, after all, they just got crushed and can't have a good New Year~~】

【Is this Werewolf? And he's wearing a tadpole's skin? A total lowlife!】

【Look at it from another angle, could it be a century-long alliance between Bilgewater and Dave's Garden!?】

Ye Bo couldn't understand it anyway, so he didn't take it to heart and just muted and blocked the person.

But that person was clearly just looking for attention and kept coming to the mid lane to be annoying on purpose.

However, because an extra person came to the mid lane, the Aurelion Sol, who was supposed to be suppressed in the early game, actually counter-suppressed the opponent, and because of the E ability's "minion execution" mechanism, he couldn't miss any minions!

Ye Bo actually felt there was a bit of a "positive effect."

Fortunately, Riot officials were also watching the stream and almost immediately sent an in-game pop-up warning to the other party.

Of course, it was definitely to no avail.

Then they greeted Ye Bo and banned that person's account.

"That person's account was banned, but we have to play 4v5 this game," Ye Bo informed the viewers in the stream, then began to play seriously.

The chat flooded with 【True 'Your account is gone'】 in tribute to someone.

However, I don't know if it was because the new Aurelion Sol passed the dangerous period in an inexplicable way.

Ye Bo found that the laning phase wasn't actually that weak!

Or rather, as long as he could ensure he kept spitting the Q ability, the sustained combat power and damage were quite astonishing!

Relying on his solid fundamentals, even with a 150 ping, Ye Bo still laned steadily, quickly exploring his understanding of the new Aurelion Sol's mechanics, and soon grew rapidly.

And the grown Aurelion Sol was even more terrifying; one cast of The Skies Descend felt like it was going to destroy the Rift!

The sense of oppression was immense!

After a final 41-minute battle, by the time the range of the Aurelion Sol's black hole E had grown to cover almost the entire mid-lane riverbank.

Ye Bo directly put on a terrifying 1v5 performance!

【???????????】

【He's this fierce? Another broken monster!】

【Wake up, this looks very weak in the early game, okay? If it were me, I might have been solo-killed in 5 minutes.】

【It's over, after being played like this by Master Ye, he might get nerfed before even leaving the test server, just wait.】

【Holy crap brothers! Top Esports exploded! White Moon has been kicked out!!】

Because it was a trial event, the scheduled itinerary was very simple.

After all, even someone as dedicated as Ye Bo wouldn't want to stream during the New Year.

The one-hour trial event passed quickly, so Ye Bo ended the stream and took the two of them out to walk around Wuhu.

And just a moment ago.

While the Weibo hot searches and major forums were all attracted by this global trial event.

Top Esports' official Weibo "quietly" posted a Weibo.

TES Top Esports Club: 【After friendly negotiations between both parties, head coach Luo Sheng has applied to temporarily leave the team to rest and adjust due to personal reasons, and the former assistant coach will serve as the acting head coach...】

Once this Weibo was issued, it instantly pushed the team, which was already at the center of the storm, onto the hot search!

After all, in the match that ended yesterday, the thing that was criticized the most was the coaching staff's drafting, and TES fans had long expressed their dissatisfaction with the coach more than once.

And among the comments from the masses.

The replies from several TES players were inexplicably eye-catching.

The most notable among them was Mr. JackeyLove.

JackeyLove: 【@White Moon, adjust well, the brothers are waiting for you to come back!】

But as expected, the comment section below was full of mockery.

【Hahahahahaha! V5 played too ruthlessly, they actually got the coach fired directly!】

【It's like meow!!! This is the best New Year's gift for Top Esports fans!】

【bsyy, are you even kiting? I'm asking you, are you? I watched the recording and you weren't kiting at all! You just want to be a deserter! You just want to leave Brother all by himself to become a victim!】

【Stop adjusting, I suggest bsyy just transfer to AG Super Play, that place suits you!】

【Wait, no, what exactly are Top Esports fans being optimistic about? No matter how bad bsyy is, who are you going to replace him with if he leaves?】

【Personal suggestion: buy Beryl and Ye, that way our Top Esports will truly have hope!】

Clearly, this was an interlude that no one had expected.

Even Ye Bo did not expect the impact of this match to be so great.

However, in fact.

The main impact was still the tournament format.

Aside from the public opinion pressure from that match, White Crescent's departure—perhaps a large part of the reason was also because he realized he might not be capable of handling global ban-pick.

And this match would also be a new test for other strong teams.

Perhaps it is not just TES that needs to adjust.

The New Year holiday was short.

During this time, Ye Bo took the two bot-laners to run around various districts in Huzhou, and even went to Shaxian, a two-hour drive away, to eat authentic Shaxian snacks!

Beryl walked to the entrance and exclaimed: "I've seen this nest in Korea too!"

However, because they were recognized very quickly almost everywhere they went, especially Ye Bo, it often led to crowds blocking the way.

In the end, they didn't really dare to go out anymore.

For the last few days, the three of them basically just played games at home.

Interestingly, Ye Ying and Ye Xiong later joined in as well, and the five of them played a few rounds of an alternative five-man queue.

Of course, they only played entertainment modes like blind pick and ARAM.

But the couple also personally experienced what it was like to have "True Champion Gaming Companions"!

And Ye Bo only planned to finish New Year's Eve at home before setting off to find Flandre, and then everyone would return to the base early to prepare for the upcoming Spring Split.

After all, shortly after the New Year.

They would soon have to face another strong enemy—JDG!

(End of chapter)