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Extra value: Riot wants to start a dialogue with League of Legends players

Riot's values

Riot wants to have a chat with you. The League of Legends developer says that it will never stop evolving and “improving the landscape of the game,” and that means it needs to improve how it communicated with its playerbase. 

A real, meaningful dialogue is on the cards, says Riot. So it wants to share its values with you: mastery, meaningful choices, counterplay, teamplay, clarity and evolution. That’s a lot of values. 

These values inform the type of game Riot wants League of Legends to be. One where players have multiple paths they can take and choices that have weight and consequences.

“Instead of offering a best path forward, we want to offer different paths forward that have real tradeoffs,” says Riot. “Players should see changes that reflect this philosophy when we introduce strategic tradeoffs for emergent strategies, not because they’re new and unique, but usually because they’re dominating the scene”

Clarity is what the developer is trying to achieve with this dialogue, but it also needs to be in the game itself. “Clarity means we want distinct, transparent mechanics in everything we design,” says Riot. “When the outcome of a game hinges on a player’s ability to quickly assess the situation, information needs to be clear and accessible. This doesn’t mean we tell players the best play to make, but we should make sure they have the right info to make calls as best they can.”

Riot believes that both players and designers will be responsible for the evolution of League of Legends, which is why transparency is so important. And evolution, growing the game using player feedback and iteration is one of Riot’s values. “Our commitment to evolution means we can keep League healthy and dynamic over a number of years. Mistakes will be made along the way, but with player feedback and consistent iteration, we can create a constantly improving, ever-evolving game.”

Riot says that with these values out in the open, it can be held accountable when the studio doesn’t live up to them. It’s the start of a conversation about how to move forward.

Reckon it’s a good first step?