Riot has stated in a recent blog that they’re currently exploring ways to create better abilities to tune roles holistically, noting that they’re considering changing the way minions will work in the 2024 LoL preseason.
We’re about a third of the way through the 2023 League of Legends season, with Season 13 bringing in the Chemtech dragon and new jungle pets to shake up the long-standing MOBA. The current season of League still has a way to go, with about 16 more patches until we hit the preseason for 2024, however, that hasn’t stopped Riot from experimenting with the game well ahead of schedule.
Riot has expressed in a recent blog post about struggles with balancing classes with fighters and ADCs as examples in this season. Whilst Lead Champ Designer Riot Axes believes the two classes are in a more or less stable state, they’ve stated that the current toolset they have to balance classes feels too limited. Axes mentioned that simple changes such as reverting Teleport don’t make the game better, but instead introduce a new set of problems for the designers to solve.
Due to the limited toolset, Riot is looking to expand and explore new ways to balance classes in a more holistic manner. One of the potential solutions being explored is through the changing of minions.
“One of the opportunity spaces we’re considering for Preseason (no promises to ship anything, but we’re exploring it) is towards creating some better ability to tune roles more holistically,” Axes stated in the blog post.
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Changes to minions was the specific example mentioned by Axes, “for example, differentiating the minions in each lane.”
Riot has toyed around with minions before, previously adjusting both the gold and experience rewarded to minions in the middle lane. These changes could mean we have different minions in each lane of League of Legends, fundamentally shifting the game and how it plays.
It’s worth noting that these changes are currently under exploration, meaning that they aren’t confirmed to be added in for the 2024 Preseason, however, it’s good to see Riot is looking to experiment with new ways to balance League of Legends.