The League of Legends developers are looking to suck the soul out of overpowered champions and breathe new life into the meta by adjusting the power scales in the next patch.
Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison, League’s lead gameplay designer, clarified on X (formerly known as Twitter) that Patch 14.9 will intentionally address the “power creep” among champions because the last few patches have heavily focused on enhancing the existing power levels.
For those unaware, power creep is a game-balancing act where newer champions become stronger than their older counterparts, making it difficult to bridge the gap between the new and the old. Lowering it allows players to have a level playing field with their beloved champions.
According to Phroxzon, there will be three ways the developers will be tackling this issue.
First, the developers will focus on champions with “outsized levels of frustration for their current power level.” These champions are like Zed and Draven, who should have to reach a certain level of frustration for the players to fit in with their current roles in the meta.
Next up, they’ll be looking at champions with high mastery like Azir, who should be harder to master and shouldn’t yield consistent results for everyone. The Shuriman Emperor often sits at over 50 percent win rate, which shouldn’t be the case.
Lastly, the forgotten champions who have been stale for a long time and are “technically balanced” but have actually been overpowered for quite some time now.
Riot Games will look to shape the meta after MSI 2024, and you might see some interesting champions rise out of the shadows to take the spotlight.
