‘We messed up’: Riot is already reworking LoL’s First Blood Feats of Strength

Riot plans to change the League of Legends’s first blood requirement for the Feats of Strength, which incentivize players to play for more objectives, two days after its release.

League’s Noxus-themed season introduced the Feats of Strength mechanic, where players can focus on three main objectives to earn unique upgrades to their Triumphant boots, making it a win-condition for many players. These three objectives include first blood, the first one to take down a turret, and slaying three epic monster camps first. 

While the mechanic has already made the early game more structured for many players, the developer feels that the first blood part of it is “causing too much friction for the satisfaction & clarity of gaining it,” as League lead designer Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison put it. He shared data from ranked matches from the first two days on X, and said that the mechanic’s “actual game impact is reasonable,” but it hasn’t landed as they’d hoped with the first blood. 

“We messed up here and it should have been changed pre-release, but we’re going to own that mistake, learn from it and do better for next time,” Phroxzon concluded, stating how the developer identified the issue but it was too late to make a change for the release to change the first blood requirement for Feats of Strength.

Unlike the First Blood requirement, the first turret requirement takes time to achieve as the turret has multiple resistances in the early game which force a team to snowball their lead into one lane if they want to grab this part of the Feats of Strength. Killing three epic monster camps also takes a bit of time where the enemy team has a chance to bounce back into the match if they did not end up taking the first epic monster of the match. 

However, first blood can be completely arbitrary and feels like a coin flip at the moment, where teams lose one Feat of Strength completely if they can’t kill an enemy early with their comp. It also forces teams to be on the back foot in the early game until one can secure a kill, which releases the pressure from the matches. 

According to the developer, players should expect changes to go live with either the 15.2 or 15.3 patches, where they can expect the first blood component to be replaced by something else, which gives both teams an equal shot to gain the benefits of Feats of Strength in League.