LoL looks to address its biggest issue that players have been grumbling about for years – Riot announces major balance change

In League of Legends, players die too quickly. Many professionals see this as the main problem in balancing LoL. The Lead Gameplay Designer says: They really overdid it. In the next few weeks they want to talk about how to slow down again in combat.

What is the biggest problem in LoL? For years, many experts and players have seen a kind of “ping-pong” with the life bars as the biggest problem in LoL:

• The damage in League of Legends is so high that players go from full health to 0 health and die in an instant – there is no way to react
• In order to compensate for the high damage and so that “healing” brings something to LoL, the healing is also extremely strong: In LoL, people can heal themselves from “almost dead” to the full number of life points within seconds using “life steal”.

The expert Doublelift criticized this “ping-pong” meta in October 2021: On the one hand, people would die too quickly, on the other hand, they would immediately regain full life points.

Doublelift expressed this criticism a year ago: In general, this is a view that many people share: League of Legends has, in their eyes, generally “gone too fast.”

Riot wants to slow down “fights” in LoL

This is what the developers say now: In a recent discussion on reddit about increasing the “time to kill”, “Bryan “CatchesAxes” Salvatore, the lead gameplay designer, comments. He is exactly the man who is responsible for something like this.

Salvatore explains that Riot wants to talk about upcoming changes to slow down combat in LoL over the next few weeks:

On average, we believe League of Legends is at its best when it’s fast-paced and exciting, but yes, we think it’s fair to say we’ve shifted the balance too much toward damage: it’s hitting visibility (“I can’t tell what just killed me/I can’t tell what I should have done differently”) and it pushes the way you show your skill (“The skinny/The assassin has all his kit used, so he deserves the kill.

Bryan “CatchesAxes” Salvatore, Lead Gameplay Designer of LoL, Riot Games

Glass cannons must kill in 2 seconds or they are useless

What is the problem? The Lead Game Designer explains why damage is so tricky. You can’t just say, “Okay, now everyone’s doing half the damage.”

There are some Glass Cannon champions that need to kill quickly or they’re useless. That applies to Kai’Sa, for example. She must be able to knock out “backline champions” in 2 seconds or she is just “worthless” because she then falls over herself without having done anything.

However, the problem is champions like Nocturne, Veigar, Kayn, Cassiopeia, Vayne and others who build tank items and still one-shot or one-combo ADCs.

Anyone who can kill a character with a combo also has to be a “Glass Cannon” and basically only carry paper in order for the “risk vs. reward” formula to work, according to Salvatore.

So you’re going to be targeting “Trank Bruisers” and mages who you think are too tanky.

Riot wants to put more emphasis on “risk vs. reward” in balancing

This is behind it: The statement by the lead gameplay designer is now causing uncertainty among many as to whether it will affect their champion and how exactly the changes will affect gameplay.

Riot did not want to look at the cards here, how to change the balance.

However, the designer once again made it clear how he imagines the balance to be: You can dish out a lot of damage with a champion, but then you have to live with the fact that you can’t stand anything yourself.

The lead gameplay designer sees the problem in the champions that dish out too much and are still too stable.

Over the past few months, Riot has repeatedly attempted to tweak the balance:

LoL announces systemic changes to the meta to solve a major problem