League of Legends players are awash with emotes; small images that project above a champion in-game. There are two ways to communicate in the MOBA, with emoting usually being the quickest and often the most satisfying way to let your opponent know how you feel compared to time-consuming text comms. The only issue is that there are over 300 emotes in League of Legends right now, with only a selection of five being usable at a time in a game of Summoner’s Rift.
According to a study from Berkeley University, there are 27 categories of emotion that a human can experience. This can be anything from fear to calmness or amusement to romance, and these are practically essential in experiencing life around us. Well, the Rift is no different, and I know I’ve run the full gamut of emotion in a single ranked match more than once. Yet, without the appropriate tools to express that emotion, I’m forced to bottle it up inside and resist the urge to type furiously in chat.
With over 300 different emotes in League of Legends, the framework for expression is certainly there, but the current system of only being able to select a mere five to use in-game is lacking. With the recent news of a ping system revamp, it’s clear that Riot wants to improve non-verbal communication while in a match. The upcoming changes will hopefully make it much easier for players to ask their laners to freeze or push a wave, for instance.
The proposed ping wheel changes will mean that players have eight different types of communication to use in-game, and if the system isn’t abused by players, it could be a huge boon for solo queue team play. Choosing what types of message to send with a click of a button must be difficult; Riot needs to boil down information to its most pure form to ensure it doesn’t pollute the UI experience for everyone.
With that, there’s no reason not to add a bunch of extra quadrants to the emote wheel, right? With over 300 current emotes available in League of Legends, and more being added all the time, it’s hard to see when anyone would ever get to use more than a fraction of them. I also see absolutely no reason why my Teemo thumbs-up emote would get traded for anything else, it’s too OP.
One user in a Reddit discussion proposes a slightly different change: “I would rather get to make multiple wheels and switch them up every game like wards/runes, etc. in the champ select.” At least if you had different sets of five emotes to work with, it might offer a bit more variety.
There aren’t any changes planned for the wheel right now, but with the emote library getting bigger all the time, it’s only a matter of time before something’s got to give. For the list of current changes, check out the League of Legends 12.17 patch notes. With Halloween rapidly approaching, Riot has announced a set of Fright Night skins, and they look awesome. Creepy children and pinstripe suits – isn’t that what the spookiest time of year is really about anyway?