In 2021, League of Legends introduced a new class of items: “Mythic Items”. But three years later, it’s clear: they were a failure. Players have been complaining about this for years, and now Riot Games acknowledges it too.
What are Mythic Items?
- Mythic Items were introduced in 2020 in a video (via YouTube) and came early in 2021 to League of Legends. They were meant to be items that significantly affect gameplay. Some well-known old legendary items were also upgraded to “Mythic Items”.
- Players can only purchase and equip one Mythic Item per game.
- The items then have special effects: They enhance every other legendary item the player has equipped with a special effect, such that a player might have exceptionally high armor penetration or increased movement speed.
What is the problem with these items? As Dotesports reports, with the numerous meta changes to LoL, many, perhaps even all, Mythic Items have become irrelevant and no longer assist players. On the contrary, they are now perceived as an obstacle.
In January 2023, we already wrote on MeinMMO that very few players use the strongest items.
In a reddit thread from June 30th, a player even asks: “Should Riot remove Mythic Items entirely from the game?”
The player states: The items have been in the game for two and a half years now and it feels like they bring nothing but limit options because you are forced to buy them.
Mythic items also cause too many balancing issues.
Each Mythic Item has somehow defined the meta at a certain time and Riot has to constantly change and revise them.
Riot also unhappy with Mythic Items
What does Riot Games think? The balance lead for LoL has already hinted in an interview that Mythic Items do not work as intended (via youtube):
- The goal was for players to be able to choose between different Mythic options.
- For some heroes like Viktor, this worked well; he had the option between some strong options – about 40% of the champs worked well in this regard.
- However, other champs had only the choice between 3 bad options for Mythic Items – 60% either only had a single item with no choice – or only poor options. Especially tanks like Singed were particularly badly off.
The balance lead states that they wanted Mythic Items to be the central item of a build, but quickly realized: for that you simply need more; that is just not possible. They would have needed about 30 more Mythic Items for that. But since you can only use one Mythic Item, they would have had to increase the item selection from 150 to 180. That would have made the game even more complex.
It is said that internally they are dissatisfied with the current state of items and are considering changes.
Phroxzon even hints that they are willing to “move away” from Mythic Items.
However, no concrete plans are known yet regarding how, when, and if Riot Games will address the problem.
Items that change everything work better in WoW or Diablo 4 than in LoL
Phroxzon talks a lot about the difficulty of the items: In PvE games like WoW or Diablo, it is cool to have a powerful item that changes the entire player experience: In a PvP game like LoL, however, it is not nearly as cool because you have to consider the gaming experience of fellow players and ensure they don’t feel treated unfairly.
Moreover, LoL with its 5vs5 format is simply incredibly complex.
Riot Games has constant difficulties balancing LoL correctly. There are also some false myths circulating:
LoL developers say: A myth concerning champion balance that many believe is false
