LoL: Wild Rift to introduces new rank feature in Patch 3.4
Due to a matchmaking issue, the higher players progress in ranked matches in League of Legends: Wild Rift, the less enjoyable the game will be. This has prompted Riot Games to release a new feature in the upcoming Patch 3.4.
Wild Rift game director Jaren “DarkHorse4Life” Berbach confirmed the news via a preview trailer. He explained that developers were working on Wild Rift’s Legendary queue, where players will only be allowed to pick champions based on Mastery score.
More on Wild Rift’s new rank feature
DarkHorse4Life said Wild Rift developers wanted to focus on providing confidence among players. To achieve this, they devised an idea to limit champion picks based on Mastery score. It was likely intended to filter out players’ best and most used champions among the game’s current total of over 40.
“High ranking, competitive players want to be confident that their teammates are playing their best champs, so we’re adding a new gate for Legendary queue based on your champion Mastery score,” he said.
This new feature ensures players can only employ their best champion in high-ranked competitive play. The main criterion for playing in the Legendary queue is that players need to reach Diamond. That said, only 1.42 percent of players in North America are ranked Diamond.
This implies that most players are casual gamers who log into the game for fun. Playing to get a third of the 161 champions seems impractical for these players, meaning the new feature is only useful for a small percentage of players.
That said, the new feature would force players to focus and master only select champions and prevent them from randomly picking champions in ranked games. This may ensure matchmaking with good teammates. Until then, it remains to be seen whether Riot Games will bring this feature to the game’s PC version.
Other updates
Aside from the feature, Wild Rift players will be treated with four additional champions with different release dates, a new 1v1 game mode, and a support item gameplay overhaul.
The new champions are Gwen (September 5), Yone (September 22), Vex (October 10), and Warwick (November 11). According to multiple reports, there will be more new game modes released along the way.
The team made several notable changes to multiple champions in the last leg of Patch 3.3. There were buffs and debuffs for Camille, Corki, Fiora, Jax, Kassadin, Pantheon, Renekton, Teemo, and Veigar.
“It’s our final balance before Patch 3.4, and we’re focused on making adjustments to some champions who have been dominating and struggling in the Baron Lane. Welcome to Patch 3.3c!” the team wrote.
Other notable patches on items include balance fixes on Gargoyle Enhancement, cost increase on Guardian Angel Enhancement, cost decrease on Magnetron Enhancement, and cost decrease and passive increase on Navori Quickblade.
The developer also added a new free-to-play champions rotation, with details provided below:
Sept 1 – Sept 7: Amumu, Aurelion Sol, Corki, Diana, Jax, Pyke, Rengar, Senna, Teemo, Tristana
Sept 8 – Sept 14: Akali, Akshan, Graves, Lucian, Miss Fortune, Nautilus, Rakan, Renekton, Wukong, Xin Zhao
Patch 3.4 is expected to be released on September 15, 2022.
