The biggest changes in the history of League of Legends were written with errors. Even today we see how the studio sometimes makes failed decisions that do not convince the community and must end up removing them or fixing some of the new features included in the game. A rare phenomenon that is usually linked to large additions that aim to refresh the gameplay. We saw it, for example, with the Techno-Chemical Dragon which was already removed from the game. However, in the past, the bugs were much more serious and visible due to a very simple fact: the developers did not didn’t have a decade of experience working on the game.
The Rengar launch bug that changed League of Legends
We don’t necessarily have to label this as the developer’s biggest mistake, as Riot Games employees have always pointed out that League of Legends can be updated and that balance issues are usually relatively easy to iron out if there was a good design. However, the case of Rengar is one of the most interesting, as it exposed a trend that has accompanied most champion releases ever since, and set a new strategy for the developer.
The story was told on Twitter by Edgar Medinawho has worked at Riot Games for nearly a decade and currently serves as “ Country Manager (country director) for the Iberian Peninsula and Italy. In it, he tells how Rengar was a complete failure in terms of win rate in the first days after its release. The community expected him to be a powerful champion, but initial reactions were comments in which players made jokes about his supposed lack of damage and resistances, ranking the character as one of the most weaklings never out.
Criticisms of the developer came and went, and they were reminiscent of what we’re still seeing in 2022. However, the number was such that the studio offered to do a power boost almost immediately. Everyone agreed except Rengar’s lead designer. Trevor “Classic” Romleski has insisted to his colleagues on an idea that we take for granted today: the champion had just been released, was played differently from the others, and needed time for the community to understand the right way to play him. He wasn’t weak because of his stats, but because he generated a hard-to-learn gameplay pattern with a high mastery curve.
Just before releasing an emergency hotfix that would increase the power of the new champion, they began to see how Classick’s hunch was not at all wrong. The champion’s win rate began to increase, and he was doing better in the Rift. However, his remark was snubbed because “the process of planning a deployment was complicated”. A situation that made the champion the embodiment of hell for Riot Games. His power has become terrifying, and while he’s not one of the most broken champions in history, he has had major consequences.
Ever since then, League of Legends champions have been let loose in the rift knowing that their win rate will noticeably increase in the first few days, and that’s taken care of. For example, in the case of Zeri, the champion was on the verge of becoming the worst champion throw in history by win rate. and without receiving any positive changes, she became the most dominant ADC when players figured out the proper way to play her and what her best build was (she’s since gone through several nerfs in a row).
This lesson was so important to Riot that Edgar Medina himself learned from it without ever having been involved in the champion design department. He has simply become a legend in Riot Games and his philosophy has transcended that of champion design. The Country Manager himself assured that he used this learning when managing various promotional campaigns for League of Legends, knowing that sometimes you have to “let things breathe”.
The Barbarian King has something to worry about. Faced with his almost undisputed domination of League of Legends, somewhat comparable to that of Master Yi, Riot Games has decided to strike hard, and announces a first nerf that risks making him fall greatly in the tier list…