League of Legends is known for many aspects. But if there’s one that can scare off new players, it’s probably its bewildering number of playable characters. With thirteen years of experience, Riot Games’ game has had time to build a large roster of charismatic and interesting characters.
However, Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison, game balancing team leadannounced that the League team plans to stop adding new champions so as not to scare away new players. Fortunately, as Leung-Harrison explained on the Broken by Concept podcast, that final point will come when Riot will no longer be able to add intuitive characters.
“We still have a lot of leeway to get there. […] There are a few things that cause a lot of champions to be unviable. One of them is the lack of intuition of champions. Let’s say I run into Thresh, he throws a hook, and it looks like a hook, but he goes right over someone. You will wonder what is that? […] If we’re making champions that aren’t intuitive, making more is a problem because it massively multiplies the number of things you need to understand to play the game.”
The developer also admitted that some champions are not the most intuitive and has in particular cited the example of Gwen. In his case, the core of his kit was based around an ability that presented a “hard visualization challenge.” New players often have struggling to identify the movements of the sacred seamstress.
However, the cap of the League roster is not about to happen. Riot’s dev team is more excited than ever to design new characters for its title. For the game’s masterminds, “part of League’s magic lies in its never-ending mastery curve.” This is what keeps players coming back again and again.
The next champion to land in the rift is actually a rework. Indeed, Udyr finally sees its kit and its design retouched to adapt it to the taste of the day.