Recently, Riot Games presented some changes for League of Legends that are set to come to the game this year. The most notable is probably the WASD control. Twitch streamer NoWay reacted to this during his stream and is already worried about it.
Is WASD control coming to LoL? Although the developers at Riot are concerned that it might become too powerful, they want to implement WASD control in the game after over 15 years. This is mainly to attract newcomers. They have a slow plan for it:
- First, the feature is to be tested on the PBE, the test server of LoL
- Then it will be rolled out in the unranked queues, i.e., the normal matches
- And afterwards in the ranked mode
This way, they aim to fix potential bugs and issues before they could cause problems in ranked play. Twitch streamer NoWay reacted to the information about the new control, and although he does not yet know what to think of it, he is worried about it.
WASD could change a lot, especially for 2 roles
What does NoWay say about WASD control? In a YouTube video, NoWay reacted to the latest developer update from Riot Games. It also addressed the WASD control that is supposed to follow in the future. He directly says:
Okay guys, I have no idea what to think of this. It could very well be that it’s broken and that everything you’ve learned over the past 10 years, 15 years, you have to relearn completely. And that would be really intense. […] I am so afraid of WASD.
Why could it be so powerful? In the reaction, NoWay already explains that some champions might be quite strong with it. WASD allows for more precise movement, which makes dodging even stronger. For him, WASD movement sounds like a huge advantage, at least for the roles ADC
and Control Mages
.
This is because this type of champion relies on kiting. That is when you use abilities and auto-attacks while moving, for example, when you flee from a melee fighter but attack him at the same time. With WASD, this will be simplified.
A champion that immediately comes to NoWay’s mind is Aphelios. He only has 2 spells, so maybe one could assign the abilities to the two mouse buttons and focus only on WASD. If it happens as NoWay says, the champion meta could also change.
NoWay does not believe it can be balanced
. In the update, the developers emphasize that they want to balance the WASD control with the classic control. However, NoWay questions how that could even be done: What can you change? Do you want to give WASD players artificial delay or what do you want to do?
The reasoning that it is only
for new players seems strange to him, precisely because of the balancing.
However, he thinks other future changes like the return of Doom bots and the new jungle timers are good. He finds the new attempts against smurfing important, even if he does not fully agree with everything. Riot has a new game in the pipeline: The new game in the LoL universe is like Street Fighter and Tekken, and will soon receive a closed beta
