The dumbing-down of League of Legends continues as Last Hit Indicators added in Normal and Ranked games

League of Legends has been around for almost 17 years, and rarely has been accused of being an overly complex game. Mechanically challenging and with a high level of skill expression, yes, but brain surgery or rocket science this ain't.

Still, Riot Games has decided its playerbase of tens of millions will be relieved of the burden of one more thing to think about as it is set to add Last Hit Indicators to Normal and Ranked games.

(Update: Riot walks back Ranked Last Hit indicators change. See below.)

League of Legends trades complexity for new players with Last Hit Indicator change

Previously trialed in Swiftplay and Bot games, Last Hit indicators change the color of a minion’ health bar when it reaches low enough health to be killed with a single auto attack. This vastly simplifies the process of last-hitting.

Now, as revealed by the Patch 26.13 notes published by Riot on June 23, Last Hit Indicators will be added to Ranked and Normal games.

“We think it's better to focus on skill expression in other parts of the game—rather than understanding exactly when you can last-hit a minion—and are also pretty confident that these don't degrade skill expression in lane. You still need to be mindful of positioning, harassing your opponent, considering where both junglers are, understanding power spikes, and more.”

Riot states that more experienced players are disabling it as they find the change distracting, but for most players the change will likely just remove one element to think about while laning.

This is where criticism has started to appear for the change. Last hitting is one of the fundamental mechanics in League of Legend, and indeed most MOBAs, creating reward for executing at a high level. The indicators reduce the amount of skill needed, and instead turn last hitting into a whack-a-mole.

It’s a change clearly meant to make the game more accessible for new players. But realistically, if that was the goal, why not remove all friction completely, and get rid of last hitting once and for all.

It comes down to this: Is complexity truly a barrier to new players, or is it something else? If complexity really made player not want to play games, no one would play Factorio, or Dota 2, or Chess. No one would buy board games that come with three decks of card and take five hours to play.

And even if complexity is the issue, perhaps the fact there’s 173 Champions with over 700 abilities is the issue, not a universal mechanic every single player has to engage with.

Riot walks back Ranked Last-Hit Indicators

Less than a day after their announcement, and just hours into their implimentation, Riot Games has walked back Last Hit Indicators in Ranked games, although the remain in un-Ranked play.

The company explained that they're gathering more data. Ultimately, it seems likely that Riot will go ahead with the change, but the backlash has forced the to at least delay the inevitable.