League of Legends devs confirm “heavy handed” lane swap changes but are they going too far?
Riot Games/LCKLane swapping in League of Legends has always been a point of contention among the community, with the strategy only becoming more controversial after increased use in pro play. Now, bombastic upcoming changes are set to flip the meta on its head.
On Twitter/X, LoL’s Lead Gameplay Designer Matt Leung-Harrison confirmed several changes have hit the PBE designed to discourage lane swapping in the early game.
Though there have been calls for Riot to address lane swaps consistently over the last few years, few could have predicted them to pull the proverbial trigger quite as hard as they have here.
There are two major things to note here. The first is that the changes only really affect the very early game, with lane swap penalties only applying between 1.30 – 3.30 for Top lane and 1.30 – 2.15 for Mid lane.
Secondly, Leung-Harrison confirmed that the alterations, which he himself describes as “heavy-handed,” are only designed to be temporary. Though it’s unclear how long it will take, the development team is working on a more elegant solution for the long term.
This latest move has done a lot to further underline the difficulty Riot has in implementing updates that benefit both pro play and solo queue simultaneously, so how is this likely to play out moving forward?
Pro play needs some lane-swapping restrictions
Riot Games KoreaThe recent LCK Cup finals saw Gen.G take on HLE in a best-of-five, with several of the games throwing into sharp relief why professional League of Legends needs some lane-swapping restrictions.
Game 4 saw Gen.G’s Top Laner Kiin sitting on a laughable CS of just two, almost five minutes into the game. Though he would manage to recover to take the win, Game 5 saw even more chaos from the intended format, as HLE took their first tower before minute 7 (and it could have been even earlier).
At the same time, Kiin found himself without a minion kill until almost 5 minutes, while his would-be opponent in Top Lane, Zeus, only had 5.
While it was undoubtedly fun to watch on this individual occasion, it still felt like an underwhelming closer to an excellent series. Matches that play out like that are equally less of a test of skill and more about early-game strength and overloading individual lanes.
These new rules will undoubtedly make that a thing of the past, and pro play will likely be all the better for it once implemented.
Solo Queue faces a much more uncertain future under new rules
Riot GamesThe benefits to pro play aside, what these changes do for most of the community rolling into Solo Queue is another thing entirely.
The biggest what-if relates to the all too common practice of players deliberately griefing. Leung-Harrison addresses this in his statement, saying, “We know that bad actors may attempt to use these changes as a testbed for griefing. Simply put, if you engage in this behavior to grief your teammates, we will detect it and punish you.”
Despite that well-meaning intention, it will come as scant comfort to those who suffer through consistent griefing in some areas of the game. That said, it sounds like the detection techniques are already in place, so we’ll see how effectively rules are enforced in light of this update.
On the flip side, there are plenty of ways that the detection system could easily affect perfectly legitimate strategies, like early invisibility ganks on Teemo or Twitch. Leung-Harrison confirmed that these are unfortunately considered potential “collateral damage,” as the dev scorches the earth before a meaningful long-term solution can be found.
Whatever does happen moving forward, every rank from Iron to Challenger is likely to play out differently once these changes hit live servers. Whether the Rift ends up being a better place for it once it does, remains to be seen.
