New ‘League of Legends’ Turret Design Previewed

League of Legends’ turrets are getting an updated look in the preseason with the outer defensive structures having a barricade in front of them to make them last longer.

A feature discussed back at the beginning of September, Riot Games is making the turrets in League of Legends at bit sturdier by giving them more defenses in the preseason period. Instead of just upping their base stats or giving them more health to chip away at, the barricades will provide some extra defense but will also give attackers something to target and benefit from.

“TLDR for those who didn’t read the last update – outer turrets will have a barricade in the early game that makes them more durable, but you can break off pieces of it for gold rewards,” said League of Legends gameplay producer Richard “Riot MapleNectar” Henkel after showing the early designs for the barricades in the image below.

Since the plans to beef up the turrets were originally revealed, the Rioter said that there haven’t been any major changes made to the structures, but he added that Riot is continuing its work on the turrets to polish them.

“The goal here is that the power and balance of lane matchups are still similar, but turrets live longer and are more satisfying to interact with since there are multiple pieces to destroy and rewards to collect. We also want to reduce some of the feels bad cases of a turret falling at 7 minutes after one jungle gank when the lane was in a good position.”

Riot MapleNectar also included an image that showed what the turrets looked like in-game, a screenshot that was also included in his tweet below showing the updated turrets and barricades next to Nunu & Willump for scale. He added that the turrets still have a final paint job and more tweaks to the model planned.

Outside of the turret changes, Riot Games is also making other adjustments to League of Legends’ various mechanics to affect the pace of the game. While scaling up minion health and turret damage resistance, Riot Games is also changing the way that minions gain movement speed.

“We’re replacing the old system where minion movement speed scaled up based on how many turrets had been killed in that lane with a simpler mechanic of minions simply gaining MS over game time,” Riot MapleNectar said. “This is a more neutral mechanic that allows teams that are behind in turrets to make a counter push if they can win a team fight.”

The changes aren’t yet enabled for testing but are planned for a release during the preseason period.