Riot discusses progress and setbacks of League Client Cleanup Campaign

Riot is still focusing on the client's bootstrap time.
Image via Riot Games

Slowly, but surely, the League of Legends client should be getting better.

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Riot Games updated its fans on the Client Cleanup Campaign today, explaining its progress and setbacks over the last couple of months. While the devs have successfully decreased the number of plugins and apps needed to start the client, the bootstrap time has been slowly increasing in recent patches.

“For the first couple of patches of the year, we were seeing meaningful improvements in bootstrap time as a result of our plugin work,” Riot said. “However, starting during patch 10.3 we started seeing bootstrap times slowly move in the wrong direction.”

One possible explanation for the increased time to boot up may be the additional strain placed on League’s servers in recent weeks, Riot says. With far more players being relegated to staying indoors due to the coronavirus, the server infrastructure is taking a hit.

But the devs also found an issue with a client feature called Affinity. The tool allows Riot to specify which plugins need to be loaded before the client can boot up. The devs discovered it’s been broken since 2018, inadvertently loading every single plugin during bootstrap and postgame loads.

While the setback is disappointing, Riot plans on implementing a new solution that will “prioritize plugins properly.”

After solving the bootstrap time issue, Riot’s devs will turn to reducing client response times in champion select.


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Author
Andreas Stavropoulos
Staff writer for Dot Esports. Andreas is an avid gamer who left behind a career as a high school English teacher to transition into the gaming industry. Currently playing League, Apex, and VALORANT.