Riot released huge updates for League of Legends this week aiming ultimately to reduce game-time and to accelerate the speed of matches. Instead of expecting things to feel different, players were instead more surprised by the minions update.
According to Kotaku, Riot has not previously made any comment on the impending changes to the League of Legends minions in its announcement for the 2016 pre-season. The news only appeared this week when the lengthy 5.22 patch notes were released. The Summoner's Rift, the main map in League of Legends and the one that all pro tournament games are played on, Riot dropped a few bits of info about how they're making changes on the turrets and minion waves to try and shorten the overall pace of League games.
Turrets are the team's defensive structures, hindering enemy minions and champions from getting into the player's base and destroying everything. Riot's Patrick "Scarizard" Scarborough expressed that the turrets are now "more vulnerable to enemy damage" at the beginning of the match. As long as the turrets are taken out quickly, the turrets will be easier to take out. The team that's able to do so early on will be able to increase their forward momentum more rapidly than they could in the 2015 season.
The minions, on the other hand, are given a big performance boost, although situational. The team with a level advantage over their opponents are awarded combat bonuses for their minions. In effect, the leading team's minions are expected to be stronger and stronger as long as they maintain their lead. Minions are now also able to respawn fifteen seconds earlier at the beginning of the game.
A strong factor that led to these changes are the long standing issue of the online game's long match times. Earlier comments from players were very skeptical saying that these changes may lead to a snowballing- giving a leading team more and more advantages and making it more difficult for the other team to catch up. MonteCristo, eSports analysts tweeted that although the changes are good, the minions are likely to create "brutal snowballs."
As gamers continue to adjust to the many big changes to League of Legends, it is more likely they will soon get into the groove of things as they get attuned to the new meta.
