League of Legends Designers Say an Item Slot for Control Wards Would Be a "Band-aid Solution"

Adding an item slot solely for Control Wards is an idea that’s been suggested to the League of [...]

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Adding an item slot solely for Control Wards is an idea that's been suggested to the League of Legends designers more than a few times, but it doesn't appear to be a feature that'll be added anytime soon.

The question was posed once again in a recent Ask Riot article where several questions were tackled at once. Calling the question a "complex issue," Riot explained why having a spot for Control Wards so that players can buy one even at full build isn't an easy idea to implement.

"It's not likely that we'll implement the solution of building a slot specifically for control wards," Riot Fearless answered. "We've talked about a slot for consumables, both to help with particular roles that end up low on inventory at some point in the game, and to ensure that more players can still play the vision game when they have six items. This is a much more complex issue than folks might assume."

Continuing to explain the problems with adding a dedicated ward spot, Fearless reiterated a point that's been raised before: Running out of slots for more items isn't always bad. As games progress into their final phases, the map gets darker and things get more dangerous. Riot says that those characteristics of the late game are important when it comes to differentiating that time from the rest of the game's flow as players are forced to make more meaningful decisions about items and tactics.

The second issue goes deeper than just an item slot and has more to do with the vision system itself.

"A second issue is that this a consumable slot is a bit of a band-aid solution. We're not very happy with a vision system that is attached to the item system. It requires significant amounts of gold, and for most players, it gets strongly position bound. I'd personally be much more excited to start fixing the fundamental problems of the vision system rather than making small improvements to what we have. We've been making small iterative improvements to vision for a long time, and I believe we've hit the limit of what the system can offer without larger structural changes."

The rest of Riot's answers to questions regarding the game's meta and other topics can be seen through the Ask Riot article.

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