Jeremy Lee: "The League of Legends will be different in five years"

The executive producer of League of Legends was very optimistic about the future of the video game.

Jeremy Lee, executive producer of League of Legends at Riot, answered our microphones during San Francisco's coverage of the Worlds final. Jeremy was very excited about the new changes that are going to be introduced in this preseason, as well as optimistic about the future of the video game. He has also defended Yummi 'cloak and dagger', while he has told us little things about the new system against toxicity.

QUESTION: You are the executive producer of Riot, and that role includes a lot of things. What is the role of the executive producer in a big company like Riot?

ANSWER: It's funny, because I don't consider Riot Games as a great company, I worked at Microsoft before here, and there you did feel that it was a great company. My job is to defend what the players and the team need. I do it from within Riot, and from the outside talking to players and the press. At the end of the day I need to make sure everyone shares the same vision for the future of League of Legends. It's a great job, sometimes a scary responsibility, but I feel very lucky.

Q. At the press conference there was much talk about the future of the League, the future of eSports, that eSports are going to be the entertainment of the future... How do you see the League in 5 years?

A. LoL is going to be different in five years. I don't know exactly how, because we evolve based on player feedback, but our goal is for League of Legends to become a multi-generational game. That means we always have to be introducing new players to the game and have existing players stay with us. The best we can do is keep evolving, listen to the players and make sure the game is what they want. There are things that are never going to change in LoL, like we're always going to try to make the game have the best possible competitive integrity, that it's fair, that it's balanced... It's always going to be a game where the more you play and the more you know about it, the better you will be.

Q. One of the most important and, I think, difficult challenges for Riot is to attract new players, attract new people. What do you consider most at Riot when it comes to attracting new players to the League?

A. It's a good question, we think about it all the time. What we don't want is to chase new players at the expense of losing the ones we already have. I think some games have done it in the past and it hasn't turned out very well, so the hardest job for us is doing both at the same time. One very interesting thing about new players coming into LoL is that most of them haven't grown up playing Starcraft or Warcraft, like I did when I started playing, so many of them aren't familiar with MOBA mechanics. We have to make sure that we make the game accessible to those looking for a competitive strategy game.

Q. How do you assess the great changes that season after season are being implemented in the game? Bounties, new dragons, items...

R. Every year we have the preseason, when the competition is over. This is the opportunity to make systematic changes to the game that aim to make it better for the players. Sometimes these changes are very big, like introducing new dragons, changes in runes... and sometimes more sudden. For example, something I'm very excited about in this new season is the new communication tools, but not every preseason will have drastic changes to the game. We are always looking to balance the game, make it better and fresh without adding too much complexity.

Q. There will also be a lot of changes this year, like in the jungle. Many people think that jng is the most broken role, don't you think these changes will make the role even stronger?

A. We are always working in the jungle. The jungle has a huge impact on the game, but that can be a hindrance and intimidating for new players who want to practice that role, there are too many expectations placed on them in the game. I think we haven't found the right balance for this, but we're going to keep working until we get there.

Q. At a conference a few years ago, you commented that you designed a champion in 6 steps, which of them is the most difficult for you?

A. The most complicated step is the first one, it is to discover a new champion. Many times it takes us much more time than other steps, we seek to offer a unique gameplay experience that does not exist in any other champion while we work on the DNA of the character. Give it a unique personality, a voice in the game... It is in this step where there are more changes, some projects are cancelled...

Q. Right now there are 162 champions in the League, isn't that enough? Will it ever be enough [Laughs]

A. It's funny, because when I started working on League of Legends seven years ago, the first champion I worked on with the team was Jhin. At that point we were wondering: should we stop after a few more champions? And this is a conversation that we're still having now, seven years later, and it's going to continue for sure. There are still characters and experiences that don't exist in the game yet that we know players are looking for. We can focus less on bringing out champions at some point and more on updating old ones, but I have a hard time imagining a future where we don't keep bringing new champions into the game.

Q. When you design something new, how much do you take into account the competitive world? Because it is not the same to design something for the normal game than for the competition.

A. This is one of the most difficult parts for the designer and for the team. We are dedicated to making League of Legends the most competitive game, not just for professionals, but for everyone. We have a balance team that plays every day, some are challengers, others masters, others gold... and they are able to give us the feedback we need. We also take into account the feedback from the teams and professional players, especially everything in the preseason, and of course we are also open to listening to what the players give us through social networks or through any of the other ways they have to communicate with us.

Q. Is the new toxicity detection system that has been put into practice in recent weeks seeing good results? Is it a positive tool for the future of LoL?

A. Yes, I'm very excited about how the team is working on this. It's a team that we started a couple of years ago, and we've been experimenting with experiments and ideas on how to make the game more sane and accessible to everyone. This is just another one of these tests, and we're getting good results. I think we will share more details about this soon.

Q. Now I'd like to talk about Yummi, not how broken she is, but how she's the weirdest champion in all of League of Legends, we don't have anything like that in the game. What was the process of designing it like?

A. I feel very protective of Yummi, because a lot of people want to remove her from the game. Yummi brings some great things to the game, her voice is great, she's funny, she's cute... she's very unique. Something that I think we have done successfully as a team is that it is a good champion to bring a new friend to the game, a very good option to play if you are not used to other champions that need more complex mechanics. The mechanic of a magical cat coming out of you in the middle of the game, going into the jungle... for all this I think it's great. We are working on changes in Yummi now, we are not going to touch the essence of the champion, just some little thing in his gameplay to make the game more healthy.

The future of League of Legends and Riot go very hand in hand, and everything indicates that it is promising. The numbers grow year after year, and non-video game projects such as Arcane or Ruination do nothing but promote the development of the title itself. Riot did a fantastic job in these Worlds, favoring the development of one of the best World Cups in history, and they will continue working so that LoL continues to grow and remains at the top of eSports.


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