by 2022 has been an eventful year for League of Legends (lol) Players. There were new items, lots of champion rework, and a handful of new champions introduced. However, some changes were so big that they shook the Lol destination forever.
Some of these changes have been inconvenient and met resistance from players, while others have integrated well into the game Lol ecosystem.
Let’s look at five of these changes that have achieved the League community speaking in 2022.
Challenges
Lol introduced challenges in May of this year, and while it didn’t change the meta or gameplay, it did give players of all skill levels a chance to feel rewarded throughout the season in their own way.
This meant that players who aren’t that keen on playing ranked games forever but have achieved other unique titles through their playstyle or sometimes sheer luck.
Points for five categories, namely Imagination, Expertise, Teamwork & Strategy, Veterancy, Collection and Legacy, can be earned by accomplishing specific achievements indicated on the challenge cards. While it is not yet in its final stage, it has certainly enriched the game for those who loved certain aspects of the game.
New Dragons
The new dragons were introduced in the 2022 preseason as a way to shake up the Elemental Rift that players have begun to get used to in 2021.
Two Drakes arrived on Summoner’s Rift and were promptly met with mixed reviews from solo and professional players.
The Hextech Drake, which grants the skill haste and attack speed, and opens gates that teleport to the other side of the jungle. It seemed like a crazy scary addition at first, but as soon as the season changes started to settle in, it was a real hit. Teleporter gates were great tools for disengaging, striking, and defeating the enemy team. He also created exciting chess-like cross-map games that made esports a little faster and more unpredictable.’
On the other hand, his undead brother, the Chemtech Drake, has been greeted with much frustration by the entire Lol Community. When the dragon was initially introduced, killing it granted the team a damage boost of up to 6%, especially useful when facing enemies with larger health pools.
Killed squad members bleed after four seconds and deal 40% less damage. Champions revived by Chemtech Dragon Soul have a zombie status indicator on their health bar.
In addition to the Chemtech Dragon Soul, the Rift is also altered. In Chemtech Terrain, bushes evaporate and toxic gas is released into the jungle, camouflaging champions and limiting their jumping and ambush abilities. The rift changes crippling bush ganking champions like Rengar, Maokai, Fiddlesticks, and Zion.
The “zombie-drake” was too revolutionary to disable as early as the end of January, when the developers went back to the drawing board after receiving tons of player backlash. This Drake was eventually reintroduced in the 2023 preseason but with a different, less agonizing kit.
Teleportation
Teleport is one of the most popular summoner spells on the Rift, and many players, including pros, have used it frequently to disrupt early game quite often.
To bring some balance back, the developers decided to reshape the spell so that it doesn’t interrupt the early game so much but has a bigger impact later in the game. The teleporter changes rolled out as early as patch 12.1.
Normal teleporter can no longer target allied minions and wards, and no longer grants bonus total movement speed upon arrival, with its cooldown increased.
At the 14-minute mark, it transforms into the teleporter unleashed, where you can teleport to target allied turret, minion award, and grant bonus movement speed.
This made the laning phase less chaotic and allowed both teams to farm more or less peacefully. Junglers and solo laners had to get creative with their movement to keep up, which led to some unreal situations in competitive play.
However, the change has also isolated solo laners even more. It led to the development team making changes so that solo lane could be more relevant to the game.
Objective sizes
In 2021, the matches had many chances to multiply most of the time and there was no chance for the other team to bounce back. However, in 2022, objective bounties were introduced, as a way for the team that had fallen behind to find a way back.
Target sizes are similar to sample sizes. But instead of placing a bounty on a single champion’s head and giving that player the money, the bounty is now spread across the map. So if an unexpected avalanche of Bel’veth or Graves occurred, players still had a chance to win the game.
This meant that players and spectators never knew until the last minute whether or not a team was going to win, unlike last year where most of the time, after watching the match start you know who was going to win. won more or less, unless the opposing team has done some miracle.
It got to a point in the spring where it was too disruptive for some solo queue players to intentionally lose to win the game. After some mid-year adjustments, however, these were effective in creating a comeback, but without destroying the winning team’s chances.
Durability update
And finally, the biggest and most important change is the durability update. The previous two seasons, it was all about damage, but there was too much of that. The developers said that the longer duration will help players show off their skills as it allows for more countermeasures.
Changes to Base Health, Health per Level, Armor per Level, and Magic Resist per Level have been increased. And with that simple change, a wave of nerfs and buffs followed on champions, Baron, Turrets, and mana regen.
In fact, this was so impactful that it changed the state of the game. More champions were viable in the new meta, team fights were longer and it made for some really exciting and intense moments in Lol sport. Since damage didn’t hit some champions as often, we saw how the pros used the champion’s abilities in every possible angle at Worlds 2022.
While it’s not perfect, it definitely brought more balance to the game. Players kept finding more ways to abuse durability with the mods built into the preseason, and then developers kept finding ways to tweak it by upgrading tanks, nerfing a couple of features, and more.
There’s definitely still a lot to improve on the game, and we may have a few things on our wish list for 2023, but we say goodbye to a fruitful 2022 in Lol and waiting for the new season!
Anna is a freelance writer and photographer. She is a gamer who loves RPGs and platformers and is a fanatic of League of Legends. She is also a foodie who loves a good cup of black coffee.
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