One doesn't gain the reputation of "the most played video game in the world" without having a ton of disagreements among the fanbase. League of Legends has so much divisive elements and characters to warrant a page of its own.
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Base-Breaking Character
- Many champions who have had significant work done on their gameplay and lore have had very divisive discussions as a result, primarily between those who like the updates and see them as improvements of previous flaws, or think the changes completely undermine/ruin a more preferable previous version. Some really notable examples:
- Evelynn, mostly in early years, was a highly controversial champion due to her uniquely stealthy assassin playstyle, considered both interesting but really difficult to balance. The peak of this was during her 2012 "Stealth Remake" that drastically revamped her kit, arguably to "In Name Only" status. There was predictably a ton of division, with some finding the new Evelynn much more enjoyable, others finding her even more problematic, and others simply turned off by the fact her gameplay was practically unrecognizable, regardless of whether or not they had accepted that her original design and focus was something that time had proven just wasn't healthy for the game or capable of working in any capacity.
- Trundle's complete visual/lore overhaul from being a scrawny, leprosy-ridden Pint-Sized Powerhouse to a domineering, True Ice club-wielding brute tied to Lissandra still has mixed reception even years later. Some like the new, current version and agree with Riot's decision to overhaul his character, while others find it a lot more boring and much prefer his older conflict.
- Season 8 Aatrox is among the more controversial visual-gameplay updates, not helped by the fact that unlike previous champions that had one, he was still relatively popular and even had a sudden surge of viability right before the update went live (Though this was likely due to his ability to exploit several broken items), which didn't sit well for his many fans. Character-wise, is his new, more openly villainous yet tragic angle an improvement over his previous graceful warlord incarnation, or a complete In Name Only mockery of it? Gameplay-wise, is his newer kit a more creative take on his aggressive gameplay and fixes the problems in his original kit that warranted the update, or is it a lazier, clunkier clone of Riven that completely leaves out what made his original gameplay fun? Come years later, after another rework that turned him into a proper drain tank, many had welcomed Aatrox's new gameplay and sees him as more graceful and fit better to League's current design philosophy compared to Riven's, whom people now sees it as a rather clunky and taxing mess that's just harder to play and balance than Aa's.
- We'll just get this out of the way: most, if not all champions by champion designer CertainlyT — both of original creation and of reworks — have become the most notoriously divisive among the community. They tend to be seen as very boundary-pushing and fun to play, but also tend to draw a ton of criticism from a design standpoint as being unfun or toxic to play against, with nearly all of them having had time as a High-Tier Scrappy or worse. How much of this is an issue, of course, is greatly up to individual mileage.
- Darius is one of his first major splashes in controversy, and still receives heat years since his release despite a ton of patches. There are those who see him as overpowered due to his generally-high damage and health potential, and his ultimate being toxic in design for being perfect for chained Kill Stealing, often getting recognition as a Internet Jerk magnet. Others, however, think he's perfectly fine at being the Mighty juggernaut he was designed to be, with a fair amount of defined strengths and weaknesses for counterplay.
- Zed got a ton of flack early on due to his hypermobile, yet exceedingly deadly (when properly executed) design, and to this day is still argued over as to whether he's ultimately fairly-designed for an assassin, or frustratingly toxic and guilty of introducing the "League of Mobility" and a ton of Power Creep in his wake.
- Yasuo is something of an extension of Zed's deal, being another hypermobile assassin with the fairness of both his hypermobility and assassination power constantly being brought into question. The arguments aren't helped by the presence of his infamous Wind Wall, as well as for being a notorious "noob trap" champion that looks cool and fun to play, but is difficult to actually play well and attracts a ton of flamers/feeders.
- Zoe, quite likely the most contentious champion Riot has released in years. Lore and personality-wise, opinions vary as to whether her hyperactive Great Gazoo personality makes her endearing and welcoming in her levity, or simply obnoxious and tonally out-of-place within the game and its universe. Gameplay-wise, her simple, but ridiculously bursty-when-effective kit is either really fun and satisfying, and is just balanced enough to be fair to fight against, or is a poorly-designed nightmare in every aspect that's terrible to fight against whose mere existence is frustrating.
- Post-VGU Akali is immensely controversial, once again being another mobile assassin who suffers the same criticisms as any other assassin, including Zed and Yasuo above. More specifically, her Twilight Shroud is a high point of contention due to its Anti-True Sight nature, either being an interesting and creative ability that gives Akali an enjoyable and uniquely stealthy niche, or is a Power Creep-y mistake that breaks the rules of stealth and only exists to make Akali an annoyingly unfun opponent to fight against.
- Qiyana is a rare instance of a modern wholecloth champion who is divisive less in gameplay (although being a Difficult, but Awesome AD assassin, there's no shortage of that), but more in terms of an actual character. In terms of visual design, is her appearance distinct and effective in its simplicity, or a bland and generic waste? Is her viciously arrogant personality entertaining and engaging in the same way as most League villains, or is it straight-up unpleasant and unlikable? Simply put, not everyone agrees.
- Yuumi and her gameplay. Her fans find her fun and uniquely rewarding to play, while her detractors wish she would be removed from the game entirely due to perceiving her as having a lack of counterplay due to being unable to be targeted while she's on an ally. Not helping the problem is that due to the nature of her kit she is either very powerful or utterly useless.
- Seraphine, oh Seraphine. From as early as her presence was first made public (before she was even officially tied to the game), Seraphine has gone down as what may be the single most controversial champion added to the game in recent memorynote , attracting as much passionate hatenote as staunch support regarding everything from her design, to her gameplay, to even the her very existence in the game to begin with. Part of the strong responses have to do with how she’s managed to be incredibly divisive in completely different individual matters; a general rundown of some of the specific talking points:
- For starters, there’s the way that she was initially teased, built-up by a grassroots Twitter Character Blog through the K/DA-verse before she was depicted as part of League's canon. seraphinedotwav attracted a lot of genuine fans who were onboard with the ride and saw her involvement through K/DA leading into the rest of the game as something exciting, but once the connection to League was confirmed, many critics spoke up, declaring her a cynical creation by Riot prioritizing the success of K/DA over the integrity of the actual game. This has led to a very nasty back-and-forth of accusations, with one side claiming that Seraphine fans were mindlessly accepting being blindly pandered to to their own detriment (especially given how her K/DA launch skin was an ultimate skin), while the other saw the haters as just hopping on a toxic bandwagon that made little rational sense given how the type of fanservice she provides is not at all a new thing in League. The rollout of K/DA's ALL OUT was greatly underscored with this backlash, illustrating a substantial divide in anticipation between longtime League fans and those who came around specifically to enjoy K/DA and Seraphine themselves.
- Her very Idol Singer-inspired design has received plenty of criticism as being simply too out-of-place for League of Legends, and given the aforementioned perception that she was made for K/DA first, many decry her as being lazily shoehorned into the game (for what it's worth, lead producer Reav3 denies this theory
and claims her League design was solidified way before the K/DA tie-in). She also has plenty of defenders basing that given how much of Runeterra is a Fantasy Kitchen Sink anyway, her design fits in just fine (especially given that In-Universe, she's supposed to be a flashy performer in the already modern-skewing Piltover/Zaun), and that much of the hatred comes less from Seraphine herself and more just a general hostility towards Kpop and cutesy idol designs. There are also those of varying synthesis of both points, with a substantial third camp that has no problem with the idol inspiration in concept, but wanting changes to her actual design, most commonly citing some of her earlier concept art that featured her with more steampunk aesthetics◊. Seraphine's updated design in Legends of Runeterra managed to win over several of her critics due to embracing a more toned-down, naturalistic approach to her design, but this sparked another conversation on whether or not this redesign should be her new default appearance, with those against it arguing purposes of lore (her LoR design is supposed to be her Beta Outfit that would develop into her much flashier look seen in League), while others just wish Riot pulled the trigger on fully replacing a controversial design with the more widely-liked alternative that was already made with fan feedback in mind. - Another huge bit of fuel to the fire is her similarities to Sona, a quite beloved but pretty outdated magic mage champion, with many accusing Seraphine and her gameplay as Sona erasure given how much she copies and modernizes her abilities. The common retorts include that Sona already has a dedicated audience as a supremely beginner-friendly champion, their Magic Music themes and gameplay are different enough for the overlap to be acceptable, and that Seraphine's overall fun and interesting enough to keep around as a character distinct from Sona. Seraphine's genuine popularity as a support/mage has also complicated matters, prompting heated discussions on whether or not she's just straight-up an improvement to Sona, as well as whether or not she's just too strong in general.
- Finally, there's the matter of Seraphine's writing and characterization. In combination with the "Riot forced her into Runeterra" belief, detractors see her as an annoying and unlikeable Mary Sue with bland, saccharine dialogue, and a poor backstory with no meaningful place in the world, while she also has plenty of fans who like her for who she is as a cute, fun, and harmless character that doesn't need to be taken so seriously, seeing the constant targeting she suffers as unwarranted and annoying. There's also the infamous fumbling of her lore regarding her possible awareness that the hextech crystals that she uses are powered by Brackern souls; whether the clarification that she in fact does not actually rectifies matters is greatly up to debate.
- Demacia as an entire faction has gained a steadily divisive reputation, namely after the introduction of Sylas and its present status quo. The simplest, most divisive issue stem from how Demacia establishes itself as the archetypal Good Kingdom but has a major systemic flaw as being an Anti-Magical Faction, one which is definitively enacting genocide on magic-users in their borders. While audiences universally condemn the kingdom's Fantastic Racism (which has indeed been depicted without fail in canon as a very bad, villainous thing), opinions are massively split as to whether this flaw is forgivable or not, whether it's a source of internal systemic conflict to add morally complex stakes to the setting, or if it just completely undermines anything noble or just about the kingdom and makes Sylas' revolution seem vastly more justified.
- Sylas himself also has division, mostly coming down to whether or not he should be seen as agreeable. Pretty much everyone accepts his reasoning for why he wants to overthrow Demacia, but how he acts upon it is far more questionable; is his destructive uprising really in the best interests of the people under Demacia's rule and tyranny? Considering the deep systemic flaws of Demacia itself, does that really matter? Whichever way you slice it, fan opinions range anywhere between accepting of his cause and his flaws (or sometimes not even of the latter) or just thinking of him as a straight-up villain. This also ties into a matter on how Riot "should" be depicting him, with many considering it a waste if he isn't being depicted strictly with a certain observed/preferred edge to his morality.
- Viego has a fair share of back-and-forth debates surrounding his design — given the amount of buildup and focus dedicated onto him as League's biggest Arc Villain to date, a sizable portion of fans argued that giving him the appearance of an attractive and fairly young man was the wrong move, especially as previous, now non-canon lore built him up as an older, traditional evil king (with some especially cynical takes believing that it was changed for Fanservice reasons). Just as many fans side with Riot's decision, that making him a Royal Brat makes more sense for his backstory than the alternative, and that he stands out in a good way compared to many other, more traditionally intense-looking Big Bads in the game and its universe.
- His role and personality also broke the base: Some are actually okay with his personality (and even agrees it gives him depths) and acknowledging the great threat he brought, giving out The Worf Effect to certain champions like Pantheon or Karma. For some, they think that aside of giving Pantheon (who is a fan favorite) a jobber effect after his good showing against Aatrox was a disservice to the character and this is compounded with how they viewed Viego's personality to be 'a lovestruck Royal Brat throwing a temper tantrum' which is considered unfitting for his role in the story and how he's in the end considered a Big Bad Wannabe: He's sealed with great efforts, but his enablers, Thresh & Vex (who have since betrayed him), still roams free, and another threatening Shadow Isle entity, Mordekaiser (who now actually fits the description of 'more traditionally intense-looking Big Bad'), is free to plot his next move.
- It's saying something that Riot had to give out a lot of Broad Strokes and Author's Saving Throw in order to fix up the mess that Viego and his event made, with some like Ruined King said to be a more acceptable version of him.
- Akshan has an especially contentious reputation among the fanbase for his questionable gameplay design and writing:
- His gameplay as a marksman/assassin balanced around his signature team-wide revival ability is hotly debated. Detractors consider him one of the most poorly-designed champions due to the sheer amount of features to his kit, which alternatively possesses far too much skill-gated synergy with itself or is too convoluted and unfocused to make feasible (a common question is "Why exactly does Akshan need a revive ability beyond lore reasons, and is it worth balancing his kit around it?"). Meanwhile, defenders argue that his design fits a necessary niche in the marksmen/assassin archetypes, that his gameplay based on prolonged pursuits sets him apart from all-or-nothing Glass Cannons that either kill enemies in one shot or die trying, while also being fairly tame at snowballing compared to more conventional marksmen. Complicating matters is the fact that Riot — fully aware of the potential ramifications of his kit — generally keep his numbers undertuned, so he's never had a point in time where he's conquered the metagame, but whether that's a sign of Riot keeping a lid on things or an admission of poor design is often contested.
- Character-wise, Akshan's place during the already hotly controversial Ruined King event is called into question. In terms of his personality, detractors criticize him for being a milquetoast goofball with relatively clean-cut personality for a supposed outlaw, which is out-of-place considering the seriousness of the rest of the Sentinels (with Gwen alternatively fitting in as the token "nice" member). Supporters argued that as a character, Akshan is more of less inoffensive and is not completely unlikeable like the detractors would like everyone to believe, calling the detractors out for exaggerating the issue. To add even more heat to the debate, his reason for existing in the story — primarily to introduce the Absolver to solve the conflict of the Ruined King saga — has earned much more widespread criticism as being a clumsily-handled Deus ex Machina, but whether that's a strike on the quality of the Ruined King Saga as a whole or Akshan as an individual entity depends on who you ask.
Broken Base
- The great mass Retcon/Continuity Reboot of 2014, erasing the titular League of Legends, Institute of War, and Summoners out of canon for the ongoing lore, prompting a massive rewrites and further Retcons for champions galore. To say that it utterly fractured the fanbase would be an Understatement, with many arguments being made both for and against Riot's decision. Were they correct in assuming the Retcon was necessary to expand the world? Was it just Riot being lazy and slapping players in the face? Somewhere in between? You make the call.
- With skins being such an anticipated feature for every new patch, there's a lot of heated discourse about what champions should receive new skins over others. The most common points of debate are the lack of skins for moderately popular champions (examples include Aurelion Sol, Ivern, and Ornn) as well as the overabundance of skins for extremely popular champions (including Lux, Ezreal, and Riven). Acceptable as per the game's free-to-play business model and enjoyable as their own skins, or laziness and greediness on Riot's part?
- Dynamic Queue was set in place starting in Season 6 as a replacement for Solo/duo queue, allowing players to team up with pre-made groups for games, including ranked games. Immediately, there were reports of long queue times and dubious matchmaking (stories of single-queued Platinum-or-lower-tier groups being matched with Challenger-tier pre-made groups were frequent), alongside accusations of abusing the system to gain easy ELO, and vocal confusion when Solo Queue was due in "a few weeks after season start," then remaining silent until eventually announcing it was cancelled in late May. It was so controversial that even minor discussions from the legitimacy of said claims to whether the system is inherently healthy or not really were that hotly argued and fought over.
- Fortunately for many players, Riot seems to have rescinded their opinions and announced later that year that Dynamic Queue was a misstep and that traditional Solo Queue was to return by the next season.
- Fortunately for many players, Riot seems to have rescinded their opinions and announced later that year that
- The return of all of the event gamemodes in a rotating queue has caused some smaller divisions. The major focus of this queue to a lot of people will be URF. The diehard fans of URF are no doubt pleased to have it back, but some other groups within the league community are worried that the originally for-fun mode will start to grate upon the nerves like the previously poorly received "Draven Day" for 2016 April Fools.
- Fans have been rather split with Riot's increasingly broad implementation of "tactical randomness." Riot has made it clear RNG elements are unhealthy for the most part (the now-removed Dodge mechanic being its most infamous influence), but starting with Bard and Kindred's passives, eventually bleeding out in to the randomly-spawning dragon types starting from mid-Season 6, they've tried to expand with more "controlled" randomness Explanation. While these changes have remained since their implementation, fans still aren't 100% sure if this is a healthy way to develop the game in the name of diversity.
- Prestige Skins are extremely controversial for a variety of reasons, the biggest being how they're obtained, in that rather than being directly for purchase, they're exclusive to grinding through various methods, most commonly requiring you to actually purchase something in order to even begin doing so (either event passes or Masterwork Chests). Many see this as a blatantly consumer-unfriendly cash grab, others see it as decently fair exclusivity along the lines of Hextech Gemstone-exclusive skins. The fact that Prestige skins are mostly golden-themed tweaks of already-existing skins also contributes to the wedge in between opinions.
- The disproportionate amount of human champions releases compared to monster champions has become this. While it can't be debated that human champions are far more popular than non-human ones, thus being the reason why Riot will continue to lean on making them, fans claim it feels like it lacks diversity in that respect with newer human designs apparently being rather boring.
- A subset of this debate largely involves around female champion designs, namely how similar-looking a majority of them tend to be compared to male champions. Many slam the similarities as being boring and are largely driven by interests of Fanservice, but there are also plenty of defenders who argue it allows them to carry the rest of their designs. Not helping matters is how the varying popularity of female champions that break from the typical mold is frequently leveraged for and against both sides of the debate.
- Item design/balance can be just as controversial as that of champions, and have perhaps the fastest turnover rate of any major gameplay element due to just how impactful they have to deciding the viability of certain champions and the metagame as a whole. A few big conflicts of note:
- In terms of a singular item, Stopwatch (and to a lesser extent the full item it's a component of: Zhonya's Hourglass) became the most controversial when it was added in November 2017. Granting ZH's signature stasis ability (one of the game's most iconic mechanics in helping players survive burst damage), the idea was that it came at a much cheaper price and could be accessed earlier than a full Zhonya's, with its drawbacks being that it only has one use per game and otherwise provided zero stats until upgraded. Detractors claim that it's simply too good at its job and makes burst damage borderline ineffectual (major criticism is directed towards its near-ubiquity in pro play, slowing games down, seemingly verified by the fact it kept getting nerfed), while its advocates believe it's ultimately a fair high-risk, high-reward investment that's needed for burst damage and squishy targets to coexist. Riot eventually hit it hard in preseason 2024 by removing the Stopwatch, instead placing the "It Only Works Once stasis" ability to the Seeker's Armguard component of the Zhonya's Hourglass, making it over twice as expensive as before and pushing its use as a situational buy rather than a universally-worthwhile investment.
- The item shop rework itself and the problems it brought to the balancing table. With the item shop rework and the countless changes made to the lineup, there's no denying that Riot always tried to shake up the metagame while also giving players multiple options that equally viable in any conditions imaginable, aiming to reduce overall build complancency and make every item in the game viable for everyone. Thing is, certain items added and reworked tend to reign supreme over another because the situational perks and effects aren't worth the full item purchase, and players would rather much purchase items that grants them immediate effects like stats or useful properties like armor penetration and burst healing. The result only further encourages players to remain complacent in the items they choose and further stagnated the item metagame like before the item shop rework was live. A good chunk of the playerbase disliked this, seeing that Riot does nothing but to add more convoluted things that doesn't address the issue in the first place.
- Mythic Items — introduced in Season 2021 and removed for Season 2024 — also gained widespread debate. The idea was that they were keystone items designed to determine player's primary gameplan, featuring distinct abilities and effects that would be your basis for what other items you would build and adapt yourself around. Some fans enjoyed this as it helped establish a better means of conveying power spikes than what was previously available, as well as establishing a better paradigm for what champions could be balanced around than the vague item-pathing free-for-alls of yesteryear. Detractors found that they only encouraged further complacency with item builds as some items ended up more compatible with certain champions than the alternatives, resulting in them becoming restrictive in practice. Eventually after a handful of attempts to shift around the status of certain items — changing some Mythics to Legendary status and vice versa — Riot eventually pulled the plug on the concept in the 2024 preseason, siding with the latter group in that it was too restrictive for what they sought to accomplish, with the inherent power they grant to certain champions ironically limiting the means for champions themselves to become tweaked, with all the former Mythics (as well as a swathe of other items) being reworked to fit the new paradigm.
- When it comes to champion design and philosophies, let's just say that both the developer and playerbase couldn't ever reach an agreement with each other.
- Which should be the bigger paradigm that determines games: champion-to-champion combat, or overall macro play and strategic movement? Those in favor of the former find that it promotes skill expression, and combat-focused balance allows the pace of the game to flow better and faster, consequently finding macro-focused play based around map movements abstract, unnecessarily convoluted, and ultimately not as exciting to play or watch. Those in the latter camp find that executing those kinds of long-term strategies and the necessary tactics to drive them (from properly farming minions/monsters, to wave management, to appropriate jungle ganks) should be appropriately rewarding, and that winning trades is far too overriding a paradigm that only reinforces the Unstable Equilibrium that continually haunts the game's balance.
- How much should champions be able to accomplish on their own? The divide is softly delineated by how much older champions were designed vs. much newer ones, with older champions tending to be dominant in a certain niche, but limited in options should they fall behind or be directly shut down through counterplay, while newer ones tend to have a massive set of tools in their kit to adapt to any sudden situations they may face, balanced by whether or not they had the skill and practice to use them well. The broad consensus is that a lot of times, the latter can easily become very overtuned High-Tier Scrappies without any fundamental weaknesses to speak of, but this provokes the divide on what is the appropriate route: detractors of the old philosophy believe that having a champion be completely narrow and easily-exploited no matter how skillfully they try is unintuitive and un-fun as an experience, while detractors of modern design philosophy find that balancing around "skill-expression" is a problematic paradigm that can result in champions who in the best-case practice cases have no opportunities for punishment.
- Should Tanks be able to deal damage? Ever since the dreaded "tank meta" that happened during a small portion of Season 6, many argued whether Tanks should be able to deal consistent damage in duels and teamfights or should they only just be able to peel off enemies' resources and disrupt enemy plays without having to deal damage. Defenders argued that if tanks can't deal damage, they wouldn't be able to do anything past mid-game because their overall damage output quickly fall off as everyone else becomes more durable as the match progresses. Detractors of the idea chides that tanks was always meant to deal with enemy's attack and peel off their resources and letting them deal more damage would make them nigh unstoppable because they can take more what the others would dealt in the long run due to their resilience.
- How important should sustain options (namely healing and shielding) realistically be? Defenders claim that healing/shielding options should be important as a means for the champions that seriously need them (namely Glass Cannons) to not be ineffectual and forced to base once they take any modicum of damage, and that they are reasonably balanced by the innate design of a lot of sustain abilities (requiring one to actually engage in combat), as well as more direct countering options like items with Grievous Wounds. Detractors find that they have far too much potential to derail the gamestate with their snowballing power, and that should any of their weaknesses not be enough (whether it be due to anti-heal options being too expensive or having poor numbers that can be shrugged off), champions that benefit from healing can get completely out of control and get away with tons of aggressive, often reckless play that rewards them in a way they shouldn't deserve. There's also a few mini-debates in this: some players don't mind healing as long as it remains supplementary and is regularly watched upon (such as with the likes of Aatrox, Yone, and Yuumi), others just find it an admission of massive imbalance that should be reworked outright to something less problematic. Other groups argue over what champions actually need healing or shielding as part of their gameplan, with some proposing giving such options to champions that don't have them, some proposing that they should be removed from champions that do have them, etc.
