League of Legends: Devs Reveal Prismatic Items Are Supposed To Be "Unbalanceable"
Arena is currently on the Public Beta Environment for testing, but players have quickly realized just how powerful the new prismatic items are.
With LoL Patch 14.9, Riot is bringing back Arena. This time around, the game mode is going to be around for an entire ranked split, meaning players will have the chance to test their skill in the sweatiest game mode for an entire 4-months.
Some players have expressed their worries on Reddit though about the new prismatic items that have been added to the game and just how strong they are. They also noted how these items seem like a mess to balance, but it seems that this is something Riot intended.
League of Legends: Devs Wanted Prismatic Items To Be Hard To Balance
In the new Arena mode, players will be given one Prismatic Item a game. These items aren't optional, but one has to be chosen. These items will give champions insane buffs, but they can also have some negative effects when not utilized correctly, bringing in more variance to the game.
The problem that some players see is that these Prismatic Items don't seem to be able to synergize with every single champion in the game — with over 160, that also seems pretty difficult to try and pull off. This has some players worried that the items cannot be balanced properly.
It seems that the discussion garnered enough attention that even Matt "Riot Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison, lead designer on the League of Legends team, got to weigh in. He explained that this is a design-decision made by the Arena team.
The intention is you don't have full control over your prismatic items. If you rolled a good one then you're probably more likely to have a good average placement. If you didn't, it doesn't mean you're doomed, a strong player will still be able to have high average placements even through suboptimal item offerings.
In other words? If you roll a Prismatic Item that isn't ideal and lose, then it's just a skill issue. Okay, he didn't truly say that, but it seems that the team wanted to bring in some aspect of uncertainty into the games to make the climb a little harder.
For now, players still seem skeptical regarding these items. It'll be interesting to see how things play out once Arena is live and whether Riot is willing to make changes and adjustments, if these Prismatic Items are game breaking.
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