Most members of the League of Legends community don’t pay attention to champion popularity, but this metric is one of the most important for Riot Games. The studio wants the game to be as diverse as possible in terms of characters in the games.. This forces the devs to do extra work by updating or improving fewer select champions. However, what few people realize is that the same goes for the very popular ones.
The paradoxical situation of the most popular champions
The variety of champions we see in League of Legends is not limited to a few champions played. The goal of Riot Games is to find a point of balance where the characters do not deviate too much from the averages, which are not necessarily perfect. It’s a problem if Skarner is selected in 0.5% of rated games, but it’s the same when Ezreal appears in more than 24% of games. The first harms diversity by being unattractive, but excessive interest in the second closes the door to other options.
Cases like Ezreal’s are even more problematic for League of Legends developers. When the champion is not playing, the protocol is open and includes a major upgrade in almost all cases. But they can’t do the same with the most popular characters. If the design is good in terms of aesthetics and gameplay, it would be really silly to change it.. This leaves Riot Games little room for maneuver and forces it to seek alternative solutions that do not upset what has already been done.
Hidden target of Nila, Ion and other champions
The developer’s decision to limit the popularity of Ezreal, Zedi, Yasuo, or community-loved characters to both a simplistic approach and slow performance. As confirmed by Ryan Mireles, Game Director of League of Legends, We’re talking about creating new champions for players of the most popular characters.. The developers themselves openly admitted that Yone was an attempt to reduce Yasuo’s popularity, and Zeri’s goal was to “steal” part of Ezreal’s audience. This is something that happens quite regularly.
In this context, Nila has a few goals that aren’t obvious when you see her at a glance. Besides being an obvious invite to players who normally use Yasuo or Diana for a bot, it’s meant to boost the popularity of the role somewhat, as well as attacking some of the more popular characters. So back to Ryan Mireles’ explanation, Riot Games hopes the new champion will steal fans from Wine, Kai, and Samira. This is not an easy task, but necessary given that the pick rate for all three is over 10%.
Except in extreme cases, the popularity of champions has little or no effect on their balance.. Despite the MMR, the public has shown time and time again that they choose champions who are preferred over those who will be more effective in advancing the rankings.. In this sense, the effectiveness of Nila will depend on the degree of public appreciation. We’ll all try eventually, but it’s a long stretch and it won’t be easy against some of MOBA’s most popular characters.
Source : Millenium
