Some 'League of Legends' Items Are Being Removed to Make Way for New Ones

Riot Games is planning on cleaning up League of Legends' item shop by removing "dead" and unhealthy items to make way for new ones. With how many items there are in the game's store, Riot said the overcrowded nature of the marketplace makes it difficult to explore "exciting and meaningful new items." Removing items that either don't benefit players much or lead to unhealthy, unimpactful decisions will be Riot's plan for paving the way for those new items, whatever they may be.

We don't yet know what the new items will consist of, but we also don't know what items will be removed. Riot detailed its plans for cleaning up the game's item shop in a post on the League of Legends boards, though it didn't give specific examples for what would change. The post did give some insight into item traits that might warrant an item being removed though. Unhealthy items that reduce or remove counterplay or give instant access to certain effects, low-usage items, or ones like Zeal items that are quite similar to each other are candidates for removal.

Once some of these items are removed, Riot said it plans on adding "better versions of certain niches."

"Once we free up space, we want to deliver better versions of certain niches that we haven't been able to fill in the past," Riot said. "As an example, we'd like to make a healthy 'tower pushing' focused item that doesn't have the problems of Banner of Command or Zz'Rot Portal."

Lethality items were specifically mentioned as a category that'll be looked at. Riot said assassins who prioritize attack damage and lethality often don't have access to diverse build paths with the game's current item options.

As for the actual removal and addition of the new items, Riot said it'll try to do both at the same time and bundle the changes together so that players aren't left without options.

"We don't want to just rip out items and tell you 'hey, we promise this will be better soon,'" Riot said. "So our approach is to combo future item removals with item reworks or new items that often replace them in spirit and overall make for a more deep and satisfying item system in League of Legends."

No timeframe for when the changes might happen was given beyond "later this year," though additional comments from Rioters within the comments section did single out Mikael's Crucible and Ohmwrecker as items that might be altered or removed.

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