When thinking about future changes to the game system in League of Legends.
Since the release of League of Legends on October 27, 2009, the game has undergone several changes. In addition to the constantly growing champion pool, there have also been visual changes that have benefitted the game. To keep the game interesting in the future, the developers take the fans’ feedback seriously. They provide insight into gameplay changes planned for upcoming patches.
Changes in the upcoming patches for LoL
Since the World Championships in League of Legends are played on Patch 6.18, there will be a greater focus on balance changes for the professional scene in Patch 6.17 and 6.18. In order to provide more diversity in champion selection during the championship, there will be minor adjustments for many champions. This includes “nerfing” particularly strong champions like Ashe, Jhin, Gragas, or Trundle. Other characters like Draven, Jayce, or Malphite will receive a little more power to encourage players to choose these champions.
However, these changes will focus more on “fine-tuning” rather than major changes to the champions. The developers will also keep an eye on how the tower changes affect the game. It is possible that the reward for the first destroyed tower will be changed by +/- 100 gold, or the duration of the tether buff will change by +/- 1 minute.
During patches 6.19 to 6.21, meaning after the World Championship patch in preparation for the Pre-Season, there will only be minimal changes. The patches will remain similar to the World Championship patch, so players will experience the same game they saw during the World Championship. At this time, the Yorick rework should also be completed – information about a new champion is likely to be available at that time!
The Pre-Season brings changes
It is currently planned that the Pre-Season will be active during patches 6.22 and 6.23. There, the focus will particularly be on changes to assassins. Additionally, the importance of purchasing an aegis for a supporter will be reviewed.
An important point is also the comparison between gold/experience rewards for farming and rewards for roaming. Changes to the masteries are also possible. Work is being done on other projects for the Pre-Season, but these are still in experimentation stages. At this time, the developers do not want to elaborate further on this.
Katarina players will be able to demonstrate more skill after their champion update.
More bans in the pick mode
Once the Pre-Season is over, attention will shift to the ban system in the pick mode. Currently, feedback is being gathered from casual and professional players regarding their opinions on a 10-ban system. The developers understand that many players want more bans, but important considerations must be taken into account when changing this system.
- The developers feel that players already spend too much time in champion selection. The 10-ban system aims to not extend this time. For example, they are considering allowing multiple players from the same team to ban during one turn.
- They want to avoid issues with target bans. In an extreme situation, a player would need to master 11 champions if bans are focused solely on them.
- Increasing the number of bans by 4 also means that players need to own 4 more champions to play in ranked mode. Is that a problem?
In addition to potential changes to the ban system, next year they will also take a closer look at the runes.
By reducing the popular T3 runes and making T2 runes available from level 1, changes have already been made to the rune system in the past. However, the system still has fundamental design issues that need to be addressed. Runes will be completely overhauled in the future. However, this will not happen before the update of the game client. The rune update will be focused on no earlier than the beginning of the second half of 2017.
