devtrackers.gg
It's a weird concept, and a weird problem, but I think Riot has been specifically iterating on the problem, and with this set, they've achieved the ultimate goal in gaming. I look at set 3 as Riot's first acknowledgement that it should be the biggest problem they address, that being the fact that the game gets stale very quickly without ways for skill expression to occur beyond rock/paper/scissors once you get into the highest elo metas of the game.
Set 3 to me was the realization that OK, we need to make BOLD moves to address this problem. Having variation in the galaxies was awesome, and it highlighted something I think, that skill expression can be achieved through randomness.
Set 4 was all in on that concept, push it to the limits and see what happens. Everyone will remember it for the Chosen mechanic but literally everything was given steroids. It was also the intro of "evergreen" characters that grow stronger as the game goes on, with Veigar and with Warlords.
Set 5 was the pullback from set 4. Scale all the impact of all the randomness waaaay back, but continue to look for ways to introduce more random choice into the game. Personally, set 5 was the most boring set for me overall. I played it the least out of any set.
Set 6 feels like the perfect sweet spot I have always needed but never knew this was actually what I wanted. As a pivot player, the highs of this set are better than set 4 to me. Set 4 became a VERY fixed strategy because of how impactful the Chosen's could be. Set 6 has these same power levels as options, but they are weighted against other upgrade options as well. That is the secret sauce of perfection.
I don't really have any significant revelation regarding all of this, more so just wanted to say thank you rito for really such an awesome set.
External link →