Cover-Credits:
It seems like Riot Games has failed to hit the mark and impress League of Legends players with its new update to the game client. Many players expressed their disappointment after Riot gave a new look to the client’s user interface (UI) in Patch 12.1, which also brought forth new ranked borders - now called Ranked Crests. The client, which has historically always been a focal point of criticism from the community, once again found itself garnering a relatively negative reception ahead of Season 2022, set to commence on 7th Jan.
Fans are not happy with League of Legends game client’s updated UI, lobby, and loading screen
Though the client looks the same upon opening, the player profile and queue lobbies have undergone significant visual updates. The player profile now displays the new Ranked Crests upon hovering over the player rank. The players now queuing up for Ranked: Solo/Duo and Ranked Flex will have to choose their primary and secondary roles through smaller buttons placed at the bottom of the screen. The updates to Ranked Crests and borders will also reflect on the loading screen.
League of Legends players and pros alike lashed out at Riot on social media and criticized the new visual updates.
One player pointed out how the new lobby update was “not an improvement in any meaningful way," in a Reddit post. They also criticized the new Ranked Borders, stating that they were “dull and a disappointing change” and pointed out that the old ones “had some substance to them.”
In the same thread, another Reddit user jokingly criticized how small the role queue buttons were by saying, “Role select is a skill shot now.”
However, despite the overwhelmingly negative response, a few of the players rallied to show their support for the new UI. User Sktwin2k15 pointed out that the new UI was classy: “Unpopular opinion: New ones are more delicate, simplified and simple is sometimes beautiful. For me this is it. It has a certain type of class so to speak. Earlier borders had a million edges and all kinds of weird things going on. Something a teenager would like.”
The visual updates to Ranked Crests and lobbies are just the beginning. In the future, players will be able to showcase rewards including custom titles and tokens collected from completing Challenges. With unique and multiple features, the Challenges system will allow players to level up from Iron to Master. “And just like in Ranked, only a certain number of players per region can be in these tiers at any given time. If you’ve ever wanted to be known as the person with the most pentakills on the server, this is your chance,” said Riot about the Challenges system.
With fans and players of the game questioning the early changes made to the Ranked lobbies and player banners, we can only wait and see if Riot considers these opinions when it rolls out future updates.
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