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Riot Games Discuss League of Legends Design Values

Riot Games Discuss League of Legends Design Values

League of Legends developer Riot Games took to their official website to have a little sit-down with the game’s fans and players alike. In wanting to establish more of a foundation for communication, Riot Games wrote up a post addressing that the studio will be making an effort to make its game design values more apparent to League of Legends’ player base.

It’s long been our belief that to make a long-lasting game, ” Riot Games’ lead designer Ryan Scott began in his introduction, “ we can’t set our sights on a single target. Being able to constantly work on League of Legends means we’ll never stop evolving and (hopefully) improving the landscape of the game. Hand in hand with that philosophy is also our desire to improve how we communicate – to have a real, meaningful dialogue with all of you guys so we can stay connected to the community while also holding ourselves accountable for the changes we make.

This got us thinking that we should really sit down to establish a foundation for our talks: our values, ” Scott continued . At the center of every discussion, shared values – or knowing where we differ – are necessary for the conversation to have meaning. Also, and more importantly, we can have conversations about where we’re successful and where we need more work. With these values out in the open, our hope is that if you don’t agree with a change, you at least understand where we’re coming from.

Scott then went on to discuss the various features and aspects that League of Legends offers and what Riot Games will continue to do in order to provide for the game’s players, as well as reminding said players that League of Legends is a team-based game and offering insight as to what will happen in the game’s future.

In the post, Scott sectioned Riot Game’s values into topics: “Mastery”, “Meaningful Choices”, “Counterplay”, “Teamplay”, “Clarity” and “Evolution”–each one respectively covering what League of Legends offers to the player and what players can anticipate from Riot Games in the future for each topic. Each topic has been detailed below.

  • Mastery: League of Legends is about the pursuit of mastery and challenge. A player can grow in skill, teamwork, decision making and adaptability, but being the best means learning all paths, not just picking one. We’ll always find new ways to reward and support a player’s developing mastery of the game.

  • Meaningful Choices: A meaningful choice requires tradeoffs. If it’s a no-brainer, it’s not interesting. If nobody understands the consequences of their decision, it’s not engaging. If there’s a better choice rather than a different choice, players become followers rather than pioneers. We support new strategies by ensuring that trade-offs exist for the game as a whole.

  • Counterplay: Rich and exciting fights need to be two-sided, not one-sided. In order to dominate your opponent, you need to consistently outplay them, not just pull off that one perfect kill. League isn’t won at champion select and no phase of the game should be decided before a team steps up to fight. We strive to ensure a player’s decisions, actions, and reactions matter.

  • Teamplay : No victory is won alone. Players need to rely on teammates to augment their strengths and cover their weaknesses. Supports can’t make plays without a team to follow up, and marksmen can’t dish out the damage without protection.

  • Clarity: Players should fight their opponents, not the game. We strive to present information in a clear and precise way so that League can be about dominating opponents with skill and teamwork – not through bookkeeping hidden information.

  • Evolution: A constantly evolving game is a healthy game. We will continually update League of Legends with new champions and mechanics. As long as we work through the lens of our design values, we believe we can create a more satisfying and compelling experience.

Now with Riot Games design values out in the open, Scott is hoping that players will be more understanding and more open to conversation regarding the design decisions behind League of Legends , as well as outlining that Riot Games will be held accountable for when it makes changes to the game that go outwith its values.

In other news, the One For All gamemode will be briefly returning to League of Legends on Thursday, May 29 through to Sunday, June 8, and it’ll be added to the Howling Abyss map entitled “One For All: Mirror Mode”.

[ LeagueOfLegends.com ]

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