What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy!
Just before we start, we have a message from our sponsor GGEsports.com.
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Big thanks to GGEsports.com for supporting our content, and let's jump right into the
video.
At the current pace of champion development, there will eventually come a point where League
of Legends would end up having too many champions.
Having said that, it’s not like Riot can suddenly stop updating their game or start
removing champions, which means it’s time for them to start thinking long-term and planning
for the game’s future.
One way they are doing this is by shifting the priorities of the champion design and
rework teams, and that’s what we want to focus on today.
The June Champion Roadmap update from Riot Reav3 contained a lot of interesting information
about upcoming reworks, but it also contained a pretty big announcement that inspired this
video.
Up to this point, Riot has had distinct champion design and rework teams, but the announcement
has confirmed that these teams will no longer be limited to one or the other.
Instead, there will be five separate teams of designers that can either work on new champions
or full scale visual and gameplay updates, depending on what’s needed at the time.
Although a move like this could potentially allow all teams to focus 100% on a new champion
each, it seems that actually the opposite is true, and the main drive behind the change
is to free up more designers to work on reworks.
Reav3’s post confirmed that Riot will be slightly ramping up the number of VGUs and
slightly decreasing the number of new champions made, with evaluations and tweaks being made
to the ratio as time goes on.
From a business perspective, creating a new champion is a far more lucrative endeavour
than releasing reworks.
Not only do most players already own the champions that end up receiving reworks, but there’s
a lot more risk attached - when you rework a champion, you potentially risk upsetting
the player base for that champion if the rework isn’t what they wanted or expected.
Comparatively, new champions tend to have appeal simply because they are new and exciting,
and changes can be made if they aren’t perfect on release.
That makes it all the more surprising that Riot would move away from the cash cow of
creating new champions, but the change is focused on the long-term and absolutely necessary
to ensure the longevity of the game.
Riot’s dedication to reworking older champions is nothing new - after all, League of Legends
has been around for a long ass time, and many of the champions that were originally quite
groundbreaking now seem super outdated.
The list of champions Riot wants to rework is gigantic, to the point where spending 30
minutes on the official forums will find mention of a solid 20 to 30 champions that Riot has
expressed interest in reworking.
Over the years, Riot’s champion development standards have increased dramatically, and
to keep the game fresh and modern it’s important that they extend these standards to older,
less polished champions too.
With the spotlight on reworking champions rather than developing new ones, it’s also
surprising to hear that Riot will be discontinued their seasonal class updates, in favor of
focusing on individual reworks.
Roster updates have always had a bit of a mixed reception - they tend to succeed in
giving all the reworked champions a fresh identity and a good shake up to the meta,
but having so many updates bundled together makes it difficult to predict the outcomes,
leading to extended periods of imbalance.
On top of that, they carry the same risks as individual reworks, but on a much larger
scale since you have the potential to alienate the mains of multiple champions all at once.
Riot has felt that up until this point, the pros have outweighed the cons - particularly
since they help set the boundaries between classes so it’s easier for new champions
to slot in, but class updates have also caused Riot to neglect champions that needed reworks
but weren’t technically part of the class being updated - Azir being a named example
in the post by Riot Reav3.
That means that some of the five design teams will be picking out champions for rework based
on how high of a priority they are, rather than waiting for that champion’s class update.
Riot also confirmed that one of the teams will be getting started on Aatrox’s rework,
which will hopefully ease the concerns of people that were looking forward to the diver
class update.
Overall, it’s going to be a pretty interesting shake up, and we wouldn’t be surprised to
see Riot double down on skins to make up for the loss in revenue that developing less new
champions will cause.
It’s obvious that Riot have been seriously considering the future of League of Legends,
and despite the risks, reworks are a far better investment into the game’s future than just
constantly churning out new champions.
Dropping the pace on those new developments also helps to stop Riot from reaching the
point where the game simply has too many characters, which will hopefully keep things relatively
stable in the future.
It’s probably going to be a bumpy ride with player upsets along the way, but this shift
in focus from Riot will likely prove to be a very good decision.
Thanks for watching the video everybody!
I just wanted to take some time here at the end to talk about a fun little thing I've
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