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League of Legends wants to stop players being pressured to play certain Champions

The planned Champion selection features will be helpful to the overall experience of LoL players. (Photo: Riot Games)
The planned Champion selection features will be helpful to the overall experience of LoL players. (Photo: Riot Games)

League of Legends (LoL) developer Riot Games is planning to bring new champion select features to improve the game’s quality of life for players.

Chris "Riot Auberaun" Roberts, LoL's Game Loop Product Lead, revealed in a dev update that they discussed adjustments to ranked queues that might potentially lessen dodging issues, such as champion select anonymity.

He said the team is looking into champion select updates that they believe would, in his words, "upgrade the experience in ways that haven’t been touched in a while".

The LoL Game Loop team is in charge of elements that contribute to and affect a player's experience, such as matchmaking, champion selection, and the different Summoner's Rift queue kinds.

Here’s what to expect before the end of the year:

Champion select anonymity

The first and most important update would be to hide all Summoner names in Champion select for Ranked Solo/Duo.

This will address the problem of players using third-party apps to check on their teammate’s information and "pressuring their teammates into things that they might not want to do".

“We think the best version of League is not one where you metagame based on the players in your lobby, weigh who’s on a win or loss streak or playing a different champion, and dodge or pressure others to dodge when your setup doesn’t meet perfect conditions,” Auberaun said.

He also emphasised that while there are legitimate reasons to dodge a lobby, some of these aren’t done in good faith and that Champion select anonymity will hopefully solve that.

Pick order swapping

This feature is available on Ranked Gaming in Wild Rift, and many players of the LoL PC counterpart are requesting the same.

While there are ways to coordinate with random teammates, this poses a problem for regions where different languages are spoken.

Allowing the teams to swap pick orders with a press of the button would “streamline the process” of drafting and make it easier for players to do.

Loadout recommender

The Loadout Recommender is a good step to address LoL's steep learning curve. (Photo: Riot Games)
The Loadout Recommender is a good step to address LoL's steep learning curve. (Photo: Riot Games)

The team also plans to provide rune and Summoner Spell recommendations during champ selection.

The aim is to “narrow the gap” between players who’re more used to the Rune and Summoner Spell systems and those who are new to them.

This will also help players trying to learn a new champion, especially since more than 180 of them are now.

While still in development, these updates will hopefully be rolled out before the end of the year.

This is also good news for newcomers to the game since these updates will hopefully make it easier for new players to learn champions and less of a harder time during Champion selection.

Anna is a freelance writer and photographer. She is a gamer who loves RPGs and platformers, and is a League of Legends geek. She's also a food enthusiast who loves a good cup of black coffee.

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