Riot Games talks new strategy for League of Legends champion updates

Developer Riot Games took a break from the League of Legends preseason changes to talk a bit about the process of champion updates. Hot off the heels of their "most ambitious" project in the Sion remake, Riot is look at new ways to better approach champion updates.

The challenge remains vast – dozens of champions could use some level of love right now, and others might have taken their place once we’re done with them. So, how best to meet the task? Essentially, our latest thinking boils down to two overarching principles:

1. The scope of updates will vary immensely, from Sion-level projects to minor texture and gameplay polish efforts, all based on each champion’s specific needs and place in the overall roster.
2. Following from the first, we’ll simultaneously pursue multiple updates of varying scope. Several pipelines will exist so that no champion is left behind because its unique needs don’t fit the current mold.

Though it's not necessarily preseason talk, Riot did hint at a few already planned updates. "Moving into 2015, we plan to do updates in the Renekton to Sona range much more often than in the past, but in addition to Sion-level updates (not in lieu of them)," Riot said.

"In line with this thinking, we’re moving away from our past attempts to strictly define update categories (older terms like relaunch and rework as well as the newer TU, MTU, VU, GU, etc). Visually-focused updates will often include gameplay tweaks or quality-of-life changes, while gameplay-driven updates will frequently include opportunistic or even necessary visual adjustments like new ability effects. Updates don’t all need to fit a predetermined template, and each will be different in scope based on the champion’s needs – our goal is simply to get every champion up to the quality bar that players can expect of a modern League champion."

Current projects already in the works include updates of varying scopes to Maokai, Tristana, and Poppy.

"As I’ve mentioned, these and other updates will vary tremendously in scope as we tailor them to each champion’s unique needs and opportunities. Keep in mind that this is nowhere near an exhaustive list of our current projects, and if your favorite older champion isn’t included, fear not! He/she/it is somewhere on our radar, and we hope for an even better cadence in 2015 as we continue to incorporate our latest learnings," Riot assured.