More 'League of Legends' Taunts Will Play Automatically Next Year

League of Legends taunts are getting a big buff soon with more of the champion-to-champion [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

League of Legends taunts are getting a big buff soon with more of the champion-to-champion interactions playing automatically sometime next year.

Some of League of Legends' champions that have intertwined backstories have special phrases that they'll only say when they're around each other, but those often require a manual command from players to make the taunts happen. More recently though, some of the newer champions have benefitted from taunts that automatically play when they see others. Riot Games said that feature has worked out so far and has plans to shift many of the older taunt lines from different champions over to automatic taunts, that change happening at some point in early 2019.

"Something we've been trying for a while is having some champion taunt VO play automatically when champions first see specific other champions," design director Riot Meddler said on the League of Legends boards. "We think that's been pretty successful, with taunt lines set up that way getting played more than champ specific lines that require the player to use the taunt emote near the correct enemy. We're looking at shifting a lot of those older lines to automatic triggers early next year as a result. Current plan is some will still remain as manual triggers where the line's out of context, immersion breaking etc, but most would get moved over."

Specific taunts that won't get moved over weren't listed, but the Rioter did list some of the champions who would benefit most form the change. Newer champions have more taunt voice lines players can hear, so they'll benefit the most, but there's also a feature being considered where a taunt would automatically play from any champion when they encounter another character, though whether that feature makes it to live servers remains to be seen.

"Feedback, both on the concept and once changes hit PBE much appreciated," Riot Meddler said. "Champions likely to benefit in particular are those who are fairly new, so have a lot of taunt lines recorded, including Aurelion Sol, Azir, Ekko, Evelynn, Galio, Illaoi, Irelia, Jhin, Maokai, Sion, Swain, Tahm Kench, Taliyah, Urgot and Xayah. We might also have every champ use a general taunt line the first time they see an enemy champion nearby, still debating that."

Another Rioter gave one specific example of how the taunts would be automatically triggered by saying Rammus' taunt won't play when encountering a champion since it's an animation. The Rioter said the plan is to have first encounter taunts set to voice lines only.

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