The new honor system in League of Legends hasn’t been out for too long, but players are already beginning to report some mild signs of improvements in their games when it comes to their team’s behavior. Plenty of players still have some questions regarding the new honor format and some suggestions for how it can be improved, and one of the proposed changes that have been voiced most often is the addition of a progress bar to track your honor level.
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Riot Simurgh from the player behavior team opened a thread recently on the League boards to discuss the new honor system and field any questions, and the progress question inevitably came up among others. Simurgh responded by saying that the lack of visible progress isn’t meant to be a lack of clarity, but rather a way to make sure players don’t shoot for honor for the wrong reasons.
“We didn’t want to anchor people on the ‘grind’ to honor levels,” Simurgh answered. “By not having progress indicators, we wanted to root the reinforcement for being sportsmanlike on the feedback you get from other players (the honors), not any artificial motivation from being ‘close to the next level.’”
The Rioter expanded on the statement by saying that the behind-the-scenes algorithms that play into calculating honor level wouldn’t work well in the form of an XP bar format since they take into account a player’s behavior over many games.
Perhaps players thought that ranking up their honor level to receive the higher-tier rewards would move faster than it appears to, a frustration that might explain why the progress bar has been requested. Simurgh reaffirmed that they don’t plan on adding one to the system at all though and also said that leveling up your honor should take awhile and shouldn’t be a quick grind but should instead be a noticeable improvement throughout a season.
“Keep in mind though, this system has few levels and is meant to last over the course of the season,” Simurgh said. “You should expect to rank up in Honor over the course of weeks-months, not days.”
Players brought up additional questions such as premades honoring each other and the ability to honor enemies, and Simurgh agreed with some of the suggestions and said that the team is still looking into improving the honor system as feedback rolls in.
