LoL: Riot Games, accused of making secret changes to the game without communicating it

Photo: Riot Games

In League of Legends, everything can change very quickly… Every two weeks, players are usually entitled to a small upgrade. Obviously, there are exceptions, such as during the Christmas holidays or when there is a system hack. But the pace is still steady and you have to read the patch notes carefully to see if your main gets tweaks. Nerf, buff, rework… The balance team always has their work cut out for them.

But in Reddit, a Senna player had an atypical malaise. Riot Games would have made a change to the champion without making the change public! Phreakthe company’s Game Designer, spoke about this decision that has generated some controversy, especially among players with a higher level in this champion

A niche but very popular mechanic modified into Senna

The user bullshit_spotted highlighted the issue in Reddit . In fact, he had noticed that since the last patch (13.1.B), his Senna had received a small change in a very precise mechanic: the combo w+flash that allowed him to surprise his opponents by performing an immobilization out of nowhere. Since the update, it would no longer be possible to achieve this combo and you have to settle for a Flash + Wmuch more visible and predictable.

But the worst part of this story is that Riot Games did not communicate this change in the patch notes. We read the summary well and only his mana regeneration has been changed. At no time was a change reported by the developers and this lack of communication did not go deeper within the community.

Riot Phreak explained the reason for this adjustment

When asked about it, Phreak I speak. Your transparency and initiatives to speak to people are appreciated, although we cannot be entirely satisfied with this, as some transparency was lacking in this latest version. This is how he explained that most of the time, if there is no communication from Riot Games on this type of issue, it is that they want it. He dismisses the forgetfulness hypothesis and argues that the developers considered the change it was too small to include it in the patch notes. Admittedly, this Senna mechanic is niche and only concerns experienced players. But for the hard-working and professional, we found that this miscommunication shouldn’t have happened.

Above all, many users started to complain… The case of Senna would not be an isolated case. A lot of the mechanics in the game would be based on elements that sometimes border on exploit bugs. Without going into details, we can mention cancellations of auto attacks, hit box either combos with use of flash. As players quickly get used to these mechanics, it becomes difficult to distinguish the exploit bug from the actual mechanic.