RAID Shadow Legends interview: Ihor Mishchenko discusses the game's Community Weeks event, happening now

Following its fifth anniversary celebrations, RAID: Shadow Legends turns its attention to its community. Rather than trying to bring in new players, Plarium plans to commemorate its existing players and how their contributions make the game as ludicrously popular as it is. We recently had the chance to ask Ihor Mishchenko, Director of the Community Management Department at Plarium, about everything taking place.

Could you introduce yourself and your role on Raid: Shadow Legends for our readers, please?

I am the director of the Community Management department. Our team handles communication, feedback analysis, and building relationships with our existing players.

Whereas anniversary events (like the one RAID just had) partly focus on getting new players into a game, Community Weeks seems almost entirely on those already invested. Why did you decide to take this approach?

All anniversary events were aimed at both new and existing players. However, Community Weeks is the first of its kind and truly focuses on existing players because we have such a dedicated and vibrant RAID community and we wanted to celebrate them; RAID wouldn’t be the same without them. And we didn’t want to just make an event for them, we wanted to have them be an integral part of it.

Can you talk us through the events that will take place over the next six weeks?

The first part of our “Community Weeks” event is the 14-day loyalty program happening now through June 9th, where players can receive a brand new free Legendary Champion named Chronicler Adelyn. The Champion itself can be obtained by logging into the game for 7 total days before June 9th and the following 7 days of logging in allow players to receive resources to upgrade the acquired Champion.

The second important activity for us is RAID's first-ever community champion skills vote, which is running now through April 25th. Our RAID players are actually helping create the skill set for our new Champion named Vault Keeper Wixwell that will be available to everyone through a Fusion Event beginning May 9th. Plarium provided 12 skills separated by the Champion’s role (damage dealer, support, tank.), dividing them into 4 groups with 3 options for each skill.

Every couple of days, we activate voting on the dedicated landing page for a particular skill. At the end of the voting period, based on the community choice, we create the skill set for the Champion. The only reason we can even do something like this is because the majority of our players are experts in evaluating RAID Champions, so it is truly an honor to have such a dedicated fan base.

In parallel to the community champion skills draft there is also a community awards voting to select the most outstanding community representatives in various categories. Over the years, a highly active community of talented, vibrant and passionate individuals has formed around Raid: Shadow Legends and we want to make sure they have their moment to shine. There are 23 different categories the community will vote on including Best Fan Artist, Best Cosplay, Best Content Creator, and much more.

The culmination of the community and champion skills voting will be the RAID Community Awards Show on May 3rd, hosted by one of our outstanding content creators, Nub Raids, and longstanding RAID community manager Cirilla. During this 25-30 minute event, we will summarize the results, announce and award the most prominent community members and their contributions, as well as announce the results of the Community Champions Skill Draft.

The final phase of Community Weeks will be the Fusion Event from May 8th through the 24th, where players will be able to obtain the community-voted Champion by participating in dedicated events and tournaments.

The Fans Skill Drafting event is a fascinating concept. How did the initial idea come about?

We’ve been gradually progressing towards something like this for a while. Previously, we conducted an Art Concept contest among the community, and the winning concept was realized in the Champion Kalvalax. Our player base actively shares feedback and ideas for new RAID champions on social media, so this time we decided to give the community the opportunity to determine the skills that a new champion should possess.

We also wanted to implement the player perspective into our champions. The discussions around skill options helps us see different perspectives on the abilities of champions, as well as better understand the needs of our players at this stage of the game based on what they select.

On that same note, how did you approach designing the skills? Is there a concern the character could end up being too over or underpowered?

The game design team meticulously crafted all skill options to ensure they are well-balanced with the rest of RAID’s comprehensive roster of Champions. They tested various skill combinations to ensure that the overall balance of the Champion, no matter the community outcome, would be in line with others so this issue could not happen. If the Champion turns out to be underpowered in one aspect, he will excel in another.

What do you hope celebrating prominent community members will do for the game?

First and foremost, we wanted to give the prominent figures of our community the respect and attention they deserve for all they have done to help RAID become the game it is today. We also see this as a wonderful opportunity to highlight different areas of our community: fan artists, cosplayers, YouTubers, moderators, creators of new strategies, and many others and validate their efforts. We believe this is an excellent way to show how diverse our community is in its structure, yet strongly united. With this event, we aim to acquaint the community with itself and amplify community bonds.

The Community Award show takes place on May 3rd. What can fans expect from it and where can they tune in?

The Community Awards Show premiere will take place on our official YouTube channel. During the show, we will announce the winners of all 23 categories, which are divided into four blocks of nominations. The different blocks include Community Choice (voted by the players), Content Creator's Choice (voted by the content creators only), Milestone Rewards (defined by game statistics), and lastly, Developer's Choice (voted by the development team) to recognize individual outstanding players for their remarkable achievements.
Furthermore, we will present the results of our Community Champion skills draft to our players. And the icing on the cake will be the opportunity to see Nub Raids in a new role, both for us and the RAID Community.

Are there any plans to do similar community-focused events in the future? Or is it a case of seeing how this one goes?

This is the first event of its kind for us, and we are very excited to see it through. We hope that this event will become something we do on a recurring basis, whether that’s an annual tradition for our community or every few years.