Regularly, League of Legends tries to improve the experience for new and experienced players. However, some features have not met the desired success and have been received rather negatively by the player community. This includes a new feature that sounds quite good in theory.
Which feature is being discussed? At the end of September, Patch 14.19 introduced a new feature for the shop: the Item Queue. Riot itself described in the Patch Notes for 14.19 that the item system can be intimidating for inexperienced players.
The Item Queue was designed to counteract this somewhat. With the new feature, you can mark legendary items. These will then be displayed with a small icon at the bottom right when you have the gold. A bar around the item shows how much more gold you need for the item.
If you right-click on the item, the shop opens directly with the marked item.
If you want to buy a legendary item but don’t have enough gold, a component of the legendary item will be automatically purchased for you. Items with the highest cost have priority.
However, the expectation of many players regarding the term Item Queue was different.
Another MOBA does it similarly, but better
Are there similar systems in other MOBAs? The MOBA SMITE also has an Item Queue system, but it works a bit differently there. You can put items and entire builds on a waitlist, and when you return to base, the next item (or component) in the list is automatically purchased for you.
This is a good system for beginners, who can adopt a build from an experienced player into the Item Queue system, and then the system buys everything in that order.
You can set this up for every god in SMITE, so beginners no longer have to worry about items and builds during the match.
Such a system is what players likely expected from the patch notes, as seen in a current reddit thread. Many players express dissatisfaction with the Item Queue.
The community doesn’t seem to like the feature
How does the community perceive the feature? In a recent reddit thread, the user psychedelianaut explains that for him, the feature is anything but Quality of Life
. He even states that the new system has contributed nothing positive to the shop, only frustration. He doesn’t seem to be alone in this. The thread has over 3,500 upvotes and more than 200 comments.
The commenters seem to largely agree with the thread creator, as truly positive comments about the feature are hard to find:
- leditstuffforfun:
In theory, it’s a nice idea, but damn, it’s horribly implemented. I thought it would […] also buy automatically, but it just queues the item, and the small display at the bottom doesn’t seem to be accurate.
- Celmondas:
I just want the option to turn it off. Buying the components sounds good, but most of the time, you don’t want them in that order.
- Mango_Weasel:
I don’t even know exactly what it does. I came back after a long break and was surprised that it didn’t buy for me automatically.
Many players are bothered primarily because they cannot turn off the feature. If they click too many times, a component is purchased that they might not have wanted at all. However, there are also voices that are not as troubled by the feature:
- dkoom_tv:
Honestly, I mainly see it as an improvement for new players.
- HeyItsPreston:
I think this is for the very new players who barely know what an item is. It’s nice that it’s activated by default, but yes, there should be an option to turn it off.
- Jokuki:
I always thought this was a feature for new players who need help buying items. It helps newer players visually see what kind of gold breakpoint they can work towards.
In theory, this feature doesn’t seem so bad, but it still needs some fine-tuning, and especially based on feedback from many players, there should be an option to turn the feature off. With some updates to existing features, Riot is also causing discontent: LoL: Players feel that the update of a feature has completely devalued it – “No one cares”
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