Yesterday a patch to League of Legends (LoL) by Riot Games changed a number of mechanics to the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game. It is so that in Season Four, which is imminent, the developers can “refine League of Legends” but still “create a deeper, clearer and more satisfying player experience.” Season 3 concludes on Nov 11 and then players will see massive LoL changes to vision and how vision control works.
Wards
Ward functionality has been changed for this preseason. Vision wards are no longer invisible. Players can focus on ward placement and avoidance so that the battles will require more skill. Each player has a new ward limit. Older wards are removed as you apply new ones to remove ward spamming. Sight wards have been renamed stealth wards. Vision wards are permanent until someone breaks them. Vision wards are visible with five hit points that need to be eliminated by the enemy team. For the caster, vision wards cost less. The buff to vision wards is supposed to balance the game, but it might be overpowered.
Trinkets
All players now gain trinkets. These new items can place a ward, detect existing wards, or scan a distant point. Trinkets make wards more complex to try to control the strength of support character with this major buff. It seems like a complicated system to balance out the game. It seems risky to make such sweeping changes to an important mechanic. It should be interesting to see if this truly breaks down the arms race that normally occurs in League of Legends games to stack wards.
Reaction
The most complete rundown of the changes can be found here, but even with those frequently asked questions answered and the details laid out some players are having trouble understanding how trinket and ward changes will work together to revolutionize play. Those people who completely understand the sight/vision changes are excited. They see that support characters should see updates that allow them to be more effective and have more interesting battles because they won’t have to spam as much and they can worry more about strategy and skill.
