After League of Legends’ ARAM game mode got its first massive gameplay overhaul back in December of last year, Riot is now looking to consistently update the mode and make changes based on player feedback. And today, the League devs announced that they’re adjusting several features in ARAM, including new additions such as Frostgates and Tower Rubble.
The biggest change Riot plans to make on the Howling Abyss is in regard to Tower Rubble. When towers go down in ARAM, they leave behind debris on one side of the lane, effectively halving the distance that champions can travel side-to-side. This often leaves champions stuck in a small space in teamfights and makes pushing down the map’s single lane more difficult.
The addition of Tower Rubble—for the most part—has been viewed negatively by the game’s player base, according to survey data conducted by Riot. “We think that at the end of the day, we changed ARAM more dramatically than we needed to,” Riot’s lead game modes designer Daniel Emmons said in an update today. “A lot of the combat focus was drawn to the choke points and vision, and away from the normal teamfighting push and pull that folks play ARAM for.”
With that in mind, Riot said the ARAM devs will very likely adjust the way Tower Rubble works in a future patch, or just outright remove the mechanic altogether.
On the positive side, Riot said that the ARAM team is happy with how players have received “Frostgates,” the ARAM version of Hexgates that came to the game mode with the overhaul late last year. While they’re not on the chopping block like Tower Rubble is, Frostgates will be getting some adjustments in a future patch, likely through an indirect change that focuses on death timers. According to Riot, “Frostgates had a somewhat negative trend with overall ‘game flow.’”
Riot will also be making consistent balance changes to ARAM, keeping an eye on champions who are in need of a buff, particularly. League players should expect ARAM to get another round of adjustments in the near future, starting with the series of changes to Frostgates in Patch 13.4. No word was given on a possible return for ARAM Clash.
