Due to the impact of the well-known pandemic, not only major tournaments have to limit their organization, but many people also have to take a break from school and work from home. Riot Games is no exception, as many of their employees across various roles have been working from home.
In the current state where the end of the pandemic is still unclear, League of Legends must be maintained. Riot Mark Yetter, the head of League of Legends design, made important announcements a few hours ago. It not only reassured players that the game is still functioning normally but also outlined the development plan for League of Legends during this special period.
Previously, Riot Games categorized player levels into four tiers:
Normal (from Iron to Gold)
Skilled (Platinum – Diamond)
Elite (Master – Challenger)
Professional (professional players in general)
However, their current champion balancing method is not very accurate as the data at the Elite level is too sparse, with skill levels differing greatly from other players, leading to situations where champions may not need nerfs but still get hit hard. Therefore, Riot Games will expand the Elite tier to include from Diamond 2 to Challenger and change the metrics for evaluating champions. Note: the following statistics are calculated within the Elite tier.
Criteria for Overpowered champions:
Old: Greater than 45% ban rate.
New: Greater than 54% win rate if below the average ban rate threshold, reduced to 52.5% win rate if the ban rate is more than five times the average.
Criteria for Underpowered champions:
Old: Total ban and pick rate less than 5%.
New: Total ban and pick rate less than 7.5%.
This change allows Riot to accurately assess champion strength since at higher skill levels, most champions will have higher win rates compared to other rank tiers. Riot Games does not want their evaluations to be unfair to a champion simply because it is played by the best players.
In addition to changing the criteria for evaluating champion power, Riot Mark Yetter also revealed Riot Games’ plans during this extended break. Most of their major Esports events will either shift to online mode or be canceled, and promotional plans for tournaments or out-of-game events are also stalled. Therefore, Riot will focus on League of Legends issues such as the client and numerous game bugs. Their goals include:
Ensuring League of Legends is maintained stably.
Ensuring all servers worldwide operate stably.
Using this extended break to upgrade the Client.
Fixing all existing bugs in the game.
Hopefully, Riot Games can achieve all these goals, especially the last two since they have plenty of time and need to focus on fixing bugs, as that seems to be the only concern for players right now.
