riot games: Last News

Riot Games has confirmed that it will be overhauling Valorant‘s Fracture map in order to address balance issues.Riot Games’ level and game designer Joe “Pearl Hogbash” Lansford took to Twitter on August 27 to explain the plans the team has for the Fracture overhaul, stating that certain areas of the map will be changed to help balance issues for both defending and attacking teams (via GamesRadar).“So, Fracture’s been out for a year now. We’re working on a couple of changes right now,” Lansford said.

Riot Games has revealed League Of Legends champion Udyr’s rework, showing a close-range brawler that can use different fighting stances to channel the power of demigods.Revealed today (August 9), Udyr’s playstyle remains largely the same: the Freljordian fighter still has no conventional ultimate ability, and instead can switch between four low-cooldown stances to enhance his auto-attacks, health and speed.However, all four of Udyr’s stances have been changed. Udyr’s new passive means that besides switching stances, every 30 seconds he can Awaken his active stance – which adds new effects to the ability.

Riot Games has shared the patch notes for version 12.14 of League of Legends. This patch is focused on toning down the power of enchanters and healing-focused champions, incentivising early-game drake fights, as well as bringing Gangplank back in line with the rest of the champion roster.Riot has acknowledged that Gangplank should not be both a lane bully and a late-game carry, so they are taking away his laning power in exchange for some small buffs to his late game.

Riot Games – the developer behind Valorant and League Of Legends – has shared that “nearly every game” that the company makes will be competitive with “some sort of esports component to it”.At the launch of Riot’s Project Stryker broadcast centre in Dublin, Needham spoke to NME about the company’s plans to incorporate esports into future Riot titles – including Project Lion, an upcoming fighting game.“If you look at Riot’s games, almost all of our games are competitive games, with varying levels of whether they’d be good sports or not,” said Needham. “We’ve talked about Lion publicly, obviously esports is a really core part of the fighting game community, so we’ll be investing there.”“But all the games that Riot produces, we really look at games that can span generations.

Riot Games designer on League Of Legends has shared a preview of patch 12.14 before its release later this month.Patch 12.14 is currently set to release on July 27 next week, but lead designer Matt Leung-Harrison has shared a preview of the update today (July 20).“We’re going to be focusing on stability for the rest of the season (barring some crisis) to allow for players focusing on their ranked climbs and heading into Playoffs,” explained Leung-Harrison.Full patch preview. We're going to be focusing on stability for the rest of the season (barring some crisis) to allow for players focusing on their ranked climbs and heading into Playoffs.

League Of Legends champion, Nilah, has been nerfed less than 24 hours after her release, which is a new record for a Champion adjustment.  Nilah released on July 13 as part of the 12.13 patch for the game and was nerfed shortly afterwards, with her attributes taking a hit across the board. This comes off the heels of her win rate being over 52.60 per cent after one day, according to LoLalytics.

League Of Legends, developer Riot Games has outlined how the patch affected the game.In May, a durability update made every champion in League Of Legends less fragile. A month on, Riot Games has shared that it thinks the update went “relatively well” and revealed the effects it has had on the game.“Players from all regions are enjoying more opportunities for skill expression and we’re hearing feedback that combat is better paced and more understandable […] We believe that slower combat gives players more opportunities to demonstrate more strategic skills like positioning and cooldown management,” said Riot.The developer went on to say that it has seen a decrease in snowballing in games, which refers to matches where one side “snowballs” a minor early-game lead into an advantage that wins the game for them.“We think some degree of snowballing leads is good, after all players should be able to capitalize on their early game advantages to influence the outcome of a game.

League Of Legends players worked with developer Riot Games to create an artificial reef, shaped like champion Nautilus, to drop in Moreton Bay, Australia. Now, a local diver has shared a look at how that reef is faring seven years later.Taking to Reddit, user AussieEquiv shared a series of images, tracking Nautilus’ evolution from hunk of artificial reef to useful, important part of the ecological environment.“Hey all, You might remember some of my posts previously on the statue but for those new Players I’m a member of The URGQ SCUBA Dive Club who are the custodians of Curtin Artificial Reef.

Riot Games has shared patch notes for Valorant Episode 5 Act 1, which will bring in a new map called Pearl while taking existing map Split out of rotation.When Pearl launches, it will not appear in competitive queues for another two weeks. Instead, the map will be playable on a Pearl-only queue in that time, giving players a chance to learn its layout before having to play in it competitively.Pearl is an underwater city “directly inspired by Portuguese culture”, and will feature no unique mechanics “to keep things a little more straightforward”.In the meantime, Split has been “temporarily” removed from the map pool in both unrated and competitive queues.

Riot Games has released a new article discussing Valorant‘s map diversity and explaining how it has made improvements to tune it for competitive play.In the new game health article, a member of the competitive team on Valorant, Brian Chang, acknowledged players’ frustration with encountering the same map multiple games in a row, explaining that as a result, “we wanted to make sure that we could improve the diversity of maps played without compromising the health of matchmaking (by influencing things like queue times or match balance).”Chang said that when the game launched, map selection was “truly as random as it could be” and all maps had an identical chance – 25 per cent – of being chosen regardless of what the players played recently.However, according to new Riot stats, over the course of five games, 26 per cent of players saw the same map three times or more.Fast forward to 2022, Valorant now has seven maps, and feedback from North American players informed Riot Games around March of this year that 67 per cent felt like they were encountering the same map multiple times in a row.With patch 4.04, the developer implemented a more diverse map selection change, so instead of making it a random process, it opted to create a deterministic choice that selects the map that minimizes streaks.

Riot Games has revealed more about the upcoming 12.10 update for League Of Legends, with focus on reducing the overall damage present in the game.Announced today (May 6), champion durability of the entire roster is being tweaked, with the following stats being increased across the board: Base health, health per level, armour per level and magic resist per level.Riot says that to properly balance these increases, some other changes will need to be made in 12.10, so nerfs to sustain and buffs to Baron, Turrets and mana regeneration will all take place as well.“We believe that there is currently too much damage in League Of Legends and [this] isn’t beneficial for letting players showcase their skill by giving them more opportunities for counterplay and to live out their high moments,” said Riot.The developer also assures it isn’t trying to “create a meta where there are no kills 15 minutes into the game,” with Riot saying pros of lower survivability include that a lot players enjoy high-kill games, and that it rewards good play with kills.Players should feel like their champions deal and take less damage, that burst champions need to commit more resources for quick kills, bigger counterplay opportunities should be seen, and teamfights should last longer.Riot says it still thinks champions should be burst killed, rewarding those that are “extremely ahead”, but that the team’s intent is to not “overnerf burst champions” overall.“We still think that League Of Legends is at its best with fast-paced, high intensity combat; but now that it’s gone too far in that direction we need to rein it back a bit,” explained Riot.“We don’t think any particular champions, items, or systems are out of line (even if they may have contributed to

Riot Games has shared a preview for League Of Legends patch 12.9, detailing some sizeable changes to Olaf and Taliyah as well as a nerf aimed at players taking Pyke to mid lane.Today (May 4), Matt Leung-Harrison – lead designer for game balance in League Of Legends – has detailed what players can expect from patch 12.9.Changelists are still subject to change. All of the champion adjustment lists are pretty lengthy, but some of the notable changes are listed here.

Riot Games has released patch 12.8 for League Of Legends, which gives champion Swain a sizeable rework to take him out of his current support role.Patch notes for 12.8 have confirmed that the biggest change in this update is Swain’s rework. The goal of this rework is to remove Swain from his current support role and return him to the game’s solo lanes, which is where he was originally intended to be played in.“Swain has certainly made a name for himself in bot lane since his last mini rework, but as the commander of the Noxian front lines, he should also be one to strike fear in his solo lane enemies’ hearts,” explained the patch notes.Swain will now receive more healing from his passive effect, and while the champion will no longer pull in enemies immobilised by allies, his E can now be re-activated to pull in all enemies hit, rather than just one.

Valorant patch, the character Jett will be receiving some major nerfs to address issues some players have been facing.With the introduction of patch 4.08, Jett’s dash (called Tailwind) will only work after a short delay once the ability key is pressed. Following that, Jett will activate a 12 second window where she is empowered to immediately dash on the next button press.

Valorant esports player Jay “Sinatraa” Won was suspended by Riot Games for “failing to fully cooperate” with an investigation into accusations of sexual assault.However, yesterday (April 12) Sinatraa took to social media to say he was “ready for a return to competitive play.”Sinatraa was a pro gamer and a member of Valorant team Sentinels when his ex-girlfriend Cleo Hernandez released a statement on Twitter detailing her relationship with him. In the lengthy post, Hernandez detailed multiple instances of alleged sexual assault, gaslighting, and mental and emotional abuse at the hands of Sinatraa alongside supporting evidence.Within days, Sinatraa was temporarily suspended by Sentinels with Riot Games later handing out a six-month ban due to his failure to fully cooperate with the investigation.Speaking about the decision Alex Francois, the Head of Competitive Operations for Valorant Esports said that while the investigation “did not come to a definitive conclusion”, the Competitive Operations team that was reviewing the case “had serious concerns with Sinatraa’s conduct during the course of the investigation.”The ban expired in September but since then, Sinatraa hasn’t taken part in any professional tournaments.However, yesterday (April 12) he took to Twitter to say “It’s been a year since I was forced to step back from competitive play.

Riot Games has announced that it has raised £4.1million ($5.4million) from several of its games to provide financial aid to humanitarian organisations that are working to assist victims of the Ukraine conflict.Between March 5 and March 12, Riot Games collected all proceeds from battle pass sales in Valorant, Legends Of Runeterra, Teamfight Tactics, and Wild Rift. The profits were set aside to be donated to humanitarian organisations in Ukraine amid the ongoing invasion by Russian forces.This also included profits from the Bee skin line released for League Of Legends.

Riot Games has revealed details about the upcoming patch 12.6 for Teamfight Tactics – check out the notes below.Patch 12.6 is currently scheduled for release March 30 and will reduce attack damage across the board in Teamfight Tactics.The patch also makes changes to the amount of time Teamfight Tactics players will have to choose augments while damage caused by both Electrocharge and Luden’s Echo will now scale up based on the current stage.You can read the full 12.6 patch notes for Teamfight Tactics below:Combat Recap Interface ChangesAugmentsTraitsAttack Damage ReductionUnits: Tier 1Units: Tier 2Units: Tier 3Units: Tier 4Units: Tier 5ItemsAugmentsTraitsUnits: Tier 1Units: Tier 2Units: Tier 3Units: Tier 4ReinforcementsPlayer DamageTraits In other news, Bungie has revealed that the recent wave of Destiny 2 video takedowns were “fraudulent”.

Riot Games has released an update for Valorant that includes changes to Deathmatch and CPU-bound performance.Patch 4.03 is available now and includes changes to one of Valorant’s Agents: Brimstone. Primarily, Brimstone’s ultimate has been improved and his Orbital Strike calls down three large lasers from the sky that will now better deny information. According to the patch notes:Valorant’s Deathmatch mode has also received some changes.

Riot Games has addressed issues surrounding toxicity within Valorant and its chat systems, outlining what it’s already done and what’s still to come.In a blog shared today, Riot Games has shared its thoughts on abuse and toxicity within Valorant.“While we can never remove the bad conduct itself from individuals, we can work to deter behavior such as insults, threats, harassment, or offensive language through our game systems,” explained the blog, whilst adding that there’s also room to “encourage “pro-social” behaviour”.Outlining what the studio already does to combat toxicity, the blog states that Riot currently uses player feedback to identify when some individuals are deemed particularly toxic, so it can punish them faster. It also touches on the game’s recently-added muted words list, which aims to let players choose which words and phrases they do not want to see or hear in the game.On the topic of punishments, Riot says it has issued 400,000 voice chat and text bans and 40,000 bans in January alone.Looking ahead, Riot shared its plans to expand its efforts to tackle toxicity in voice chat, on which it said the following:When a player experiences toxicity, especially in voice comms, we know how incredibly frustrating it is and how helpless it makes us feel both during the game, as well as post game. Not only does it undermine all the good in Valorant, it can have lasting damage to our players and community overall.

Riot Games has revealed its plans for the Valorant Yoru rework as part of the Episode 4 Act 2 update.In a new blog post from Valorant producer John Gosicki and game designer Ryan Cousart, both developers discussed the Yoru rework for Episode 4 Act 2, breaking down the character’s skills and how the changes will impact the game.“Our time as of writing this is focused on bringing these changes to life—these always take quite a bit of time!” the post reads. “The loop of creating art to match gameplay, playtest, and iterate based on feedback always takes a bit of time, but ultimately, it’s what leads to Valorant’s consistent, tactical gameplay.”To start off, the developers touched on Fakeout, Yoru’s ability that currently allows him to directionally mimic the sound of his own footsteps, therefore tricking enemies.

League Of Legends patch 12.4 notes have been revealed, confirming which Champions will be buffed and nerfed next.Phlox, a Riot Games designer who works on the popular MOBA game, took to Twitter to share a teaser of what players can expect when the upcoming 12.4 update drops on February 16.First up are Champion changes, and in this case, it looks like a great number of them will be getting buffed when the next patch releases. These Champions include Aatrox, Illaoi, Amumu, Ashe, Lucian, Kalista, Xayah, Sett, Rumble, Neeko, and Nami – whose E ability will be getting a nerf revert.As for Champion nerfs, Zeri, Mundo Qiyana, Veigar, Blitzcrank, Nunu & Willump, and Master Yi fall under this category.