Quentyn K. July 15, 2019
We’ve still got over five months left in 2019, but Riot Games already knows how it wants to update League of Legends through the rest of the year.
Riot has detailed its goals from version 9.14 onward. It’s a big update that’ll introduce changes for over 30 champions.
As you'd expect, Riot hasn't yet gone into detail about specific champion changes. We could get anything from slight numbers tweaks to more dramatic updates. Such big changes tend to introduce unpredictable bugs, so Riot expects to dish out a small update to fix any lingering issues.
Following that, Riot will spend the next several updates on light balancing, bug fixes, and game optimization. All of that will happen between versions 9.15 and 9.18. Version 9.19 will focus mostly on ensuring the game is stable before the League of Legends World Championship.
Irelia is one exception of a champion being looked at in version 9.15 due to her power level in the pro scene.
The time following Worlds will also be quiet. The few patches starting from version 9.20 will bring more maintenance as the developer continues to deploy changes that were too risky to add ahead of the major championship bracket.
This schedule culminates with a preseason update in patch 9.23 that should bring more impactful changes. Riot expects we’ll be seeing this one in mid-November, with the first details regarding what’s to come said to be revealed in the weeks prior.
Plans around the Riot offices are always subject to change, so neither the timing nor the nature of the planned updates are yet set in stone.
Riot also took time to talk about Teamfight Tactics, noting that it’ll show love to the growing game mode between versions 9.15 and 9.19. Expect to see more balance changes and feature developments over that time.
Teamfight Tactics will get regular updates and its own set of patch notes in time, but Riot will continue to address severe problem areas through hotfixes.