While Riot devs completely overhauled the League of Legends item system this year, they’re not done yet.
Game director Andrei “Meddler” van Roon discussed the state of the game in today’s “lol pls” video, focusing on the new item system that made its debut in season 11. And Riot’s looking into adding a few non-Mythic items to “fill in some gaps.”
“A couple of examples of those are an Enchanter item we’re trying that’s meant to be good against dive or anti-carry heavy teams or a tank item aimed at countering split pushers so that even if you’re not a splitpushing champion yourself or able to one-v-one a splitpushing Trynd or whatever, this is still a good item to turn to in those situations,” Meddler said.
While season 11 is already five patches in, Riot wants to add more to the items to supplement areas that may be lacking. An Enchanter item that’s good against dive comps can help a support protect their AD carry if the opposing team organizes a four-player assault in the bot lane. And tanks getting a counter to splitpushers would help alleviate some pressure, especially if they’re losing lane.
The new item system’s goal was to offer more choice, build diversity, balance, and excitement for new and returning players. But such a big undertaking came with some hiccups.
Meddler believes that individual items overshadowed potentially interesting build choices, like Goredrinker and Sunfire Cape. Riot has already addressed a few overpowered outliers this season, like burst items, Bami’s Cinder gear, and systemic healing. And it seems there are more goals in the works to improve the state of the game.
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