League of Legends is about to get a lot more competitive for low-elo players
As much as League of Legends is a competitive game for most, the Ranked Flex mode is seen largely as a meme, which can mean that it’s difficult to take the game seriously when you’re playing with friends, especially in low elo.
Clash was a great step in the right direction for League of Legends, allowing you to get a team together and really feel like you were a pro player for an evening, no matter what skill bracket you were in.
Mirror Gaming spoke with Jeremy Lee (executive producer), Matthew Leung-Harrison (lead game designer) and Ellie Reed (Marketing Communications for UK & Nordics) at the 2023 League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational event, to find out more about the future of competitive play for League of Legends.
“Clash is exciting and very highly engaged with by a small amount of players, but like those that are really dedicated and really excited about having that kind of top of the line competitive experience of League of Legends," Said Lee.
“But there's still more that we can do with Clash. Clash is, I think, in still sort of its first iteration. And this year, we plan to make adjustments to a variety of elements of Clash, including changing the reward structure, and changing how the technology behind it runs, so that it's more stable.
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“I think that gets us to maybe version 1.1, there is a lot of potential still in clash that we want to look at. I think we're also inspired by what Valorant has recently done with their premiere mode.
“And I am talking with Anna Donlin [Executive Producer of Valorant], and the team about what they're seeing and what they're learning from that and seeing how we can inform clash development for the future.”
Alongside Clash bringing competitiveness back to League of Legends, Reed touched on Riot Games' plans over the summer to revamp the competitive experience.
“From a regional level, we're super excited about those players who want to be competitive even if they're not quite at that high-end level yet," said Reed.
“And we're investing a lot of time and energy and effort to kind of revamp our competitive experience that is more accessible to people that are maybe like not as great as Faker. And yeah, we were putting a lot of effort in.”
“So I think you can expect to see some exciting announcements from us over the course of the summer, about amateur-level competitive experiences where people can come together, live or not live in the region and play with other people from the region, and be competitive together.”
Despite not detailing exactly what these announcements could be, its clear that Riot Games is trying to make strides in bringing the level of competitiveness and hype which surrounds major events like MSI to those, like myself, who may really enjoy the game but aren’t good enough to professionally compete – or compete at all for that matter.
Matthew Leung-Harrison, spoke about how the Summoner’s Rift team can also inspire competitiveness amongst lower-elo players through champion balancing.
“We aspire to be competitive for every skill bracket," Said Leung-Harrison.
“So just because a player is not the best player of League doesn't mean they can't be competitive, you can be competitive. I'm awful at basketball, still aiming to be competitive with who I play basketball with. And the same principle applies for League.”
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“And the way that we balance actually is we balance for four different skill bands. So we balance for Iron to Platinum, Platinum to Master, Master Plus and then pro play, and the rules that we have – we have this balanced framework that we use.
“Essentially, anytime a champion is overpowered for any of the brackets, and average play actually trips this the most, because it's very easy for a champion to become unbalanced in average play. The rule is that we nerf it.”
“So we do pay a lot of attention to all of these different skill brackets because we want the game to be the most competitive. And because you know, the majority of our players are playing in average play so it's one of the most important skill brackets to balance for.”
Jeremy added to this point, further explaining that champions being balanced the same across all skill tiers means that professional play can help inspire competitiveness across all skill tiers. He stated that “even like right now in MSI, like the games yesterday, JDG Vs T1 we get to see really, really high-end competitive play.”
“And that's really exciting, but it also means what we want to be able to do is for players at home to also be able to see those strategies and see those champions and go, ‘Oh, I can play that in my games as well’. And maybe not to the same level.
"But they should also feel that like, those strategies and champions apply to their game as well.”
Leung-Harrison spoke on his personal experience with this, stating that “that's one of the main reasons why we don't balance separately for pro play and regular play”
“Faker’s Azir is the same as the Azir that I queue up with, obviously I’m not gonna play it the same as Faker, but we're playing the same character, it's balanced exactly the same. You can have that aspiration that I would wake up tomorrow, and I can play like Faker because I'm playing the exact same content myself.”
Honestly, I’m glad to know that even those who work over at Riot Games are still hoping they can play like Faker every day, just like myself.
It seems like Riot Games are talking a good game when it comes to competitiveness for lower elo players, whether that be through Clash, its mystery announcements or champion balancing. Right now it’s hard to say whether or not these will be enough to inspire lower-elo players, but I’m excited to see what's in store.
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