Prior to the final League of Legends patch of 2019, Riot Games’ design director Andrei “Meddler” van Roon gave fans some insight today into what the developers will be doing this month, including an examination of how the preseason changes have affected both the jungle and support positions.
If Riot needs to, it’ll make adjustments in Patch 9.24b. One of the main focuses that the team has for the jungle is comparing the average level of players at different stages of the game before and after the big preseason changes. Riot also wants to take a look at the variation between jungler performance after the changes to the jungle.
“The removal of catch up XP was intended to bring about bigger differences between high and low performing junglers,” Meddler said. “We do want to make sure we haven’t swung too far the other way though, [and] make sure small mistakes or good plays aren’t leading to large advantages/disadvantages.”
Meddler also said that Riot will be investigating if there are any specific jungle classes or styles that are overperforming or underperforming.
As for the support position, Riot will be taking a look at whether the drop in income after quest completion was too extreme, while also trying to see if the warding portion of the quest is being completed too early. There aren’t any specific changes ready to be announced yet, though.
Riot needs to be diligent at adjusting positions and champions since it sent the huge preseason changes to live servers. Many of the new aspects to the game have shifted the meta once again, but it should still remain relatively balanced.
Patch 9.24 will go live on Wednesday, Dec. 11, while the 9.24b patch will be sent to the live servers a week later. Don’t worry, though—it’s only a server-side update and a new download won’t be needed.
