Riot’s short and long term plans for League of Legends

Every once in a while, the League Development team at Riot Games releases a statement in which they discuss their plans and opinions about the game. For League enthusiasts, this resembles a great opportunity to get to know in which direction the game is moving towards. In their latest announcement, they discussed the state of the game at the moment, their short-term goals coming into the new season and what are their plans for the future.

Short term goals

So far they are satisfied with how most of the changes in the preseason have transpired. The Hextech Drake performs within expectations even when stacking becomes a thing. Imagine a scenario where one team slays the first two dragons, the Hextech rift spawns, and the enemy team gets the next four Hextech drakes. Statistics show that a bonus of 20 ability haste and 20% bonus attack speed don’t make the Hextech Soul an overpowered win condition. Objective bounties have already proven to fit those criteria and that’s why they have already been adjusted accordingly.

The Chemtech Rift and Soul however have proven to be a bit trickier to balance considering their impact varies from champion to champion. That’s why on patch 12.1, the first patch of season 12, they are adding some Scryer’s Bloom plants in certain locations, which should help both teams defend their own jungle. Currently, if you are on the losing team while on the Chemtech Rift, trying to reestablish vision in your own jungle is a dangerous task. Many analysts have warned about this feature’s possible effect on professional play.

Teleport nerfs

On the same patch, the summoner spell Teleport will also receive changes with massive implications. Before the 14 minute mark, the summoner will have a longer cooldown and can only target ally towers. You can’t Teleport anymore to Elise spiders, Zac’s passive blobs, minions, wards, etc. After the 14 minute mark the cooldown is greatly reduced and can target the same objects as it can on ‌ live servers today.

This change is being implemented to try and reduce the impact that Teleport had on influencing the outcome of other lanes. Champions like Katarina, Gwen, Camille among others all abused Teleport and the trend of playing without Flash. Now if you Teleport to bot lane or die to a gank and you don’t have Flash, the consequences will be a lot harsher. These changes also don’t change the dynamic of the game later on and in higher levels of play where Teleport usage is crucial.

Lifeline items and champion changes

Sterak’s Gage will also be adjusted due to it being universally abused by multiple classes of champions. To provide alternatives for the Sterak’s purchase, the items Death’s Dance and Maw of Malmortius will also be receiving changes in the first half of 2022. Champions like Janna, Ahri, and Rengar among others will receive drastic changes in the form of mini reworks, similar to the ones to Tahm Kench, Lucian and Irelia late last season.

Long term goals

In the long term future, Riot are thinking of reducing burst damage across the board. They have noticed that fights are visually harder to understand and thus counterplay is harder and harder to achieve. Although they don’t want to discourage aggressive decision-making in situations with high stakes, they still believe that burst kills happen way too quickly and often.

Reducing damage output overlaps with the next issue they mention which is the healing and shielding power creep. Items and runes provide way too much sustain and healing in the game currently, and although some progress has been made by nerfing Ravenous Hunter and Vamp Scepter, the problem still exists. The issues overlap because reducing burst levels means longer fights, and longer fights are dependent on sustain capabilities.

Reducing damage, healing and shielding in League

Riot Axes, the lead gameplay designer, stated in a comment that they have playtested a version of League in which damage, healing and shielding are reduced by 20% across the board. These are some of their notes and beliefs. Late game fights and especially team fighting become more engaging, with better structure. Tanks become very overpowered in this environment and are crucial for success.

Healing becomes much more powerful – even at -20% healing, each point of healing is much more valuable than on the live game because of the damage reduction. The more time it takes to kill someone, the more value their sustain brings them. Burst mages (especially ones dependent on a single rotation – Lux, Syndra, etc) quickly become borderline useless and it isn’t clear how to buff them without undoing the reduction in damage output. AD assassins are forced to pure glass cannon builds to remain above burst thresholds and to be able to fulfill their role.