There's no rest for Riot, always on the hunt for League of Legends optimization. Mark "RiotScruffy" Yetter has announced the next changes that will take place in the top lane and the jungle. However, these are only initial ideas, and everything put forward here is obviously subject to change.
A top lane with more impact
Riot deplores a lack of carry potential for top laners, especially at high elo. In fact, several ideas have been put forward to solve this problem and add more substance to the role.
- Initially, a change in items should be considered, with the Black Cleaver, both Hydras and the Sunfire Cape in mind. Riot wants to promote the role of tank and bruiser, and give them more strength in late game.
- Then, the aim is to give top laners a more important role in challenging for objectives. Two options are considered: improve the summoner spell "Teleport" to react faster on dragons, or make the Herald as important as dragons.
- Finally, an increase in the rewards for top laners, with additional damage on tower plates in order to destroy them faster.
Riot wants the top lane to be less forgotten by giving it more impact. This way, ganks on the top lane would be much more valuable and the top laners could be more proactive on the map.
Improving the game experience of junglers and optimizing their power
One problem that comes up repeatedly is the lack of satisfaction among junglers. The role doesn't appeal as much as it used to, and players tend to abandon it and go back to other lanes. The goal here is to improve satisfaction in the jungle without giving the role a major impact during the early game. Riot is currently exploring options such as the following:
- Reduce the impact of ganks in early game. This is very important at the moment, so that junglers focus more on themselves and don't feel like they're just temporary tools for their laners.
To reduce the impact of the ganks, Riot would like to introduce a new system of accelerated movement at the base after death, in order to get back to lanes faster, decrease the experience shared in kills with others, and increase experience for solo kills.
The idea is to make ganks less profitable, but give junglers more to gain from solo kills during invades — in other words, to play more for themselves.
In the same spirit, Riot would like to increase the experience gained in the jungle to compensate for the reduced impact of ganks.
These changes are likely to create a variety of reactions from junglers. Those who like to receive ganks will have to change their habits and might be disappointed. On the other hand, aggressive and successful laners will probably be able to snowball their lanes a little more and enjoy the change.
Matchmaking optimization
Riot noticed malfunctions in the matchmaking. As such, the studio would like to make a long-awaited modification to the autofill system. Criticism was heard in the offices and Riot decided to introduce autofill parity, so that there would be the same number of autofill players in each team and thus reduce the risk of defeat due to bad matchmaking.
Last but not least, the snowball effect of games was mentioned, and Riot seems to be satisfied with that at the moment. Snowball is neither too important nor too little impacting in the current meta, so the dosage seems to suit Riot perfectly. This is an area in which they would like to alter the game as little as possible.
While many changes are still in the developers' minds, it remains to be seen what will be implemented and will (or won't) please the players. Riot says that they've already tested several of these changes and want to apply them as they come, to avoid making too many changes to the game too quickly and too radically.
Due to server issues unrelated to Clash, Riot have announced that the event will be delayed a further week in both EUW and EUNE regions — now taking place next weekend.
