League of Legends Dev Update: Midseason, Bots & Champs – Insights and Future Plans

The League of Legends team recently released a new video in their “Dev Update” series, aimed at keeping the community informed about upcoming plans and developments for the game. In this latest installment, Riot Brightmoon, Meddler, and Reav3 discuss a variety of topics, including the upcoming midseason changes, a significant bot banning wave, and new features and improvements that players can look forward to.

Major Changes to Ranked in 2023: Splits, Rewards, and Skins

First on the agenda is the mid-year partial Ranked reset, which is scheduled for July. Alongside this reset, the team is planning a series of midseason changes that will be less impactful than those introduced during the Preseason.

In 2023, League of Legends players can expect significant changes to the Ranked system, as announced by the game’s development team. These alterations aim to keep players engaged throughout the year while rewarding their accomplishments in a more meaningful way. Here’s a rundown of what to expect:

  1. Two Ranked Resets: Season 2023 will feature two Ranked resets, with Split 1 starting in January and Split 2 beginning mid-year (exact timing TBD).
  2. Promotion Series Changes: Promotion series between tiers will now be Best of 3 instead of Best of 5, and visible rank influence will be removed from matches.
  3. Upgraded Rewards: Ranked rewards will now include Hextech Keys, Chests, and other unlockables along the progression track for each split.
  4. Simplified Reward System: Players will earn “split points” for each Ranked game they play, with more points awarded for a win and slightly fewer for a loss.
  5. Two Ranked Skins: With two Ranked splits comes two Ranked skins, now available to players of all ranks, not just Gold and above. Chromas based on players’ final rank at the end of the split will still be earned, encouraging players to keep climbing for more colorful chromas.

Chris “cwal” Wallace, a game designer at Riot Games, explains that the team decided to revamp the rewards system to make players feel more rewarded for their time spent in Ranked. By increasing the number of rewards and placing more of them earlier on the track, players who don’t usually play Ranked games will be more motivated to participate. The updated system also simplifies how split points are earned, with more points awarded for a win and slightly fewer for a loss.

Additionally, the Victorious Skin model has been reevaluated, and now players below Gold rank will also have the opportunity to earn the skins if they play a significant number of games. Gold players and above will still receive skins and chromas at the end of the split after completing placements.

These substantial changes are set to roll out in 2023, and the developers will closely monitor the impact on player engagement and satisfaction throughout each split. Keep an eye out for an upcoming video from the League of Legends team detailing these changes and more.

League of Legends: Assessing the State of Mythic Items and Upcoming Midseason Changes

As for champion updates, Ivern is set to receive a midscope and jungle buff sharing in the midseason patch. Additionally, the team has announced a visual update for Jax, and a 2v2v2v2 mode, complete with a new map, is slated for release this summer.

Riot Axes, the lead gameplay designer for League of Legends, provided an update on the state of the item system and Mythic items in the game. Since the introduction of the Mythic item system in Preseason 2021, there have been several successes and areas for improvement. The item shop update and recommended items have streamlined the user experience, and the Mythic items have provided flexibility, coolness, approachability, and balanceability to the game.

However, there are still some issues with the Mythic items, such as satisfaction, generalist content, complexity, and content creation. In response to these issues, Riot Axes revealed that there will be significant midseason changes, focusing on ADC itemization, enchanter items, and Lethality items. The goal is to create high-power, high-satisfaction capstone effects that define builds.

ADCs will see changes to their itemization with the redesign of Kraken Slayer and Immortal Shieldbow as Legendary items, while Infinity Edge, Quickblades, Rageblade, and Galeforce will be Mythic items. Enchanters can expect reworked items to provide more satisfaction, better build paths, and higher satisfaction outputs. For Lethality items, Prowler’s Claw will be reworked into a Legendary item, Duskblade will be reworked, and Youmuu’s Ghostblade will become a Mythic item.

Riot Axes concluded by mentioning that the future of Mythic items is still being assessed, and the midseason changes will help inform their decisions moving forward. Once the changes have settled, they will share more thoughts on the future of itemization and plans for the next Preseason.

Revamping Bots in League of Legends: Goals, Challenges, and Technical Insights

Addressing the issue of bots in the game, the developers recently conducted a major bot banning wave, which should result in fewer bots appearing in players’ games. To further enhance the gaming experience, the team has released a dev blog outlining the changes made to bot AI and the goals they hope to achieve with these improvements.

Darcy “Riot DashiJador” Ludington, the technical product lead for League of Legends Bots, and Emmett “Riot Sentanel” Coakley, the Bots Team’s current tech lead, are excited to discuss the history, reinvestment, and future of bots in League of Legends.

Bots in League: A History

Bots have been present in League since its inception, with occasional updates until 2014, when all existing bots were rewritten. However, the bots only represented a small subset of available champions and didn’t accurately reflect the team compositions found in real games.

Re-Investing in Bots

Over the past few months, there has been a renewed investment in bots to provide players with a low-stakes, less stressful environment to practice and improve. Upgrading bots will offer players an area to enjoy the strategy and teamwork aspects of League, help them hone their skills, and give designers a new suite of tools for creating content.

Goals for the Bots Project

The main goals for this project include:

  1. Providing an upgraded bot experience that mirrors the common League gameplay experience, including jungling, ganking, taking objectives, and adapting to meta shifts.
  2. Creating a better way for players to learn and improve in League in a less stressful environment than PvP, with an expanded champion pool and bots that can scale to match their skill level.
  3. Developing bot technology that is scalable, maintainable, and extendable, allowing designers to have fun and innovative ways to delight players.

Technical Approach

One of the main challenges in improving bots is building a sustainable and extendable solution for the long term. The current approach involves developing a new Behavior Tree system for Bot Decision Making logic. A Behavior Tree is the decision-making process for evaluating what action should be taken at the current time, with the highest priority actions being evaluated first. In the case of League of Legends Behavior Trees, there are subtrees for fighting, escaping, moving, jungling, buying items, leveling up spells, and more. This approach aims to support the full roster of champions and various game modes in a more sustainable and flexible manner.

Player customization is also receiving attention, with the emote wheel set to be expanded to include nine slots. The team is actively exploring additional improvements to further enhance the emote system.

Champion Roadmap: Updates, New Champions, and Skarner Rework

With the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) coming up, fans are encouraged to check out the State of the Game Esports video for more information on the event.

Lexi “Riot Lexical” Gao provides an update on the future of League of Legends champions, discussing new characters, reworks, and updates to existing champions.

Since the release of Milio, the Gentle Flame, the team has decided to focus on creating champions with simpler playstyles, aiming for a good variety of complexity levels.

The Lone Assassin Dies, But the Team Survives

Naafiri, an assassin designed for players who prefer focusing on macro plays rather than high-execution abilities, is being developed. The champion will have new tech built to accommodate her unique gameplay and thematic.

Sating an Insatiable Hunger

While working on Naafiri, the team discovered an idea more suitable for a diver/skirmisher than an assassin. Thus, they decided to develop Briar, a champion with an uncontrollable hunger. Briar has learned to differentiate friend from foe and is on a path of reformation.

The Art and the Artist from Ionia

The midlaner champion from Ionia is an enigmatic artist who insists on creating his own teaser art. However, he provided a blank canvas, leaving the community to speculate about his true nature and abilities.

A Quick Skarner Check-in

The Skarner rework is anticipated to release early next year, with the design team working hard to finalize his kit. More updates on his progress will be provided later this year.

He Still Doesn’t Have a Real Weapon

With extra time on their hands, the art and narrative team decided to update Jax. They plan to revamp his model, animation, voiceover, visual effects, and some of his splash art to match his previous gameplay update. Jax’s weapon will remain unchanged, but its importance will be amplified, as it is the only thing he has from his home of Icathia.

The End of the Road…map

The post concludes with a teaser of an upcoming adorable creature marksman champion that’s slowly hatching, with more information to be revealed in the future.

In terms of champion and skin voiceovers, around 4,500 lines that were previously broken or played over will be enabled, giving players a more immersive and engaging experience.

Platforms: Microsoft Windows

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Gaming since Nintendo! Entrepreneur, gamer, wine lover, America! Come join the fun on the GL Discord!

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