League of Legends is known as being a really fast-paced battle experience, and while many enjoy that the average duration for a team fight these days is around 14 seconds, Riot recently alluded to the fact that the uptick in gameplay speed may have been an overcorrection. The studio has also announced that they intend to ‘slow the pace of combat’ in the coming changes.
We’re 13 years into League of Legends’ lifespan now, and, understandably, this isn’t your older brother’s LoL anymore. Gone are the days where team fights could keep you busy for as long as a full minute, and the entire game seems to have undergone a massive shift toward much shorter durations of combat. A recent Reddit thread acknowledges this change that has occurred within the game over the years and even saw the leading gameplay designer at Riot, Bryan Salvatore, known on Reddit as Riot Axes, address possible changes in the game’s future surrounding its fast-paced nature. When posed a question about time-to-kill in League of Legends matches, Ryan had the following to say:
‘We believe League of Legends is best when it is on average be[ing] fast-paced and exciting. But yeah I think it would be fair to say it has overcorrected towards damage, which is hitting away at clarity (‘I can tell what just killed me’ / ‘I can tell what I should have done differently’) and skill expression (‘That assassin/mage hit their whole kit, so they earned the kill’).’
Salvatore also pointed out that Riot’s primary focus at this stage has nothing to do with mage supports. He went further to say that even though the mages’ damage output could be construed as outsized, it’s not a new concept within the context of the game and is ‘not the cause for any recent damage creep.’
In another statement, Salvatore said: ‘Allowing players to pick damage-oriented supports and get enough gold to really scale with them was a major part of the changes that ultimately solved support autofill problems and we’d be hesitant to go back on those. We’d prefer to tune durability around the reality that many teams swap a defensive character (support or tank) for a damage dealing one and balance the two approaches against each other.’
As of yet, we have no established timeline for when the intended changes could hit the game. But one thing Salvatore was clear on is that the studio would reveal more information ‘within the next few weeks.’
While you wait for Riot to release more on the changes they intend to make to LoL gameplay, why not delve headfirst into our tips and tricks for League of Legends?
