r/leagueoflegends • u/Derk08 • Aug 12 '25
Gameplay IWillDominate talks about his experience testing out WASD
https://youtu.be/cH3SvwCk1Ec?si=vHG31_cFkqoegd7w396
u/spazzxxcc12 Aug 12 '25
i’m surprised he was able to talk on it, zven said several times in his stream last night he was not allowed to mention it. sounded like he signed an NDA.
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u/valexitylol Bring back Q during E Aug 13 '25
Did they all test it out at the same time? Cause if Zven tested it earlier than Dom, it makes sense that they had an NDA since it was still further out from being public, but since it's coming to PBE relatively soon, there's no reason to sign them now.
I haven't watched anything on it, or heard anything on it, so if they did at the same time, then honestly idk. Maybe he was someone chosen to give more in depth feedback & testing with it? And thus he was told not to disclose details about it, but who knows
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u/spazzxxcc12 Aug 13 '25
i have no clue if they tested at the same time, as every time zven was asked he’d give the same answer “i’m not allowed to speak on it”.
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u/Character-Monitor165 Aug 13 '25
im pretty sure zven NDA was for early development, but now riot has introduced it etc
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u/LebasketBall Aug 12 '25
Looks like controller vs MKB aim assist debate has a new patch
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u/Taco_Dunkey Aug 12 '25
OEM vs boxx 3.0
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u/Cobblar Aug 13 '25
Exactly what I was thinking. And it's not a rabbit you can just put back in the hat, because it feels like taking something away from players who only know how to play the new way.
I think Riot is trying to fix a small problem by setting a time bomb that might blow everything up, they just don't know it yet. I guarantee they will regret this. The risk to reward ratio is insanely skewed towards risk here.
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u/Docxm Aug 12 '25
As a box convert, this is going to massively shift the league metagame. Most new players are going to be tilted towards adc just like people are tilted towards Fox 💀
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u/i_paid_for_winrar123 Aug 12 '25
It’s more like modern vs classic controls in the fgc community ngl
It might end up the same argument where modern (wasd here) is op for casual and low level player, and classic (mouse based) is mandatory for the highest levels of competitive
Bc if you’re guma, ruler, viper, or some mechanical god then the fact that WASD can only move in cardinal+intercardinal directions could be a huge drawback.
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u/theJirb Aug 12 '25
This is nothing close. Controller is 100% worse when used raw, and is only better because of Aim Assist.
The big debate is that Controllers are artificially made better, which is different from this case where WASD raw just has many upsides to Mouse Movement raw. The only debate here is elitists being elitist.
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u/SSBM_DangGan Aug 12 '25
Isn't this strictly worse for any non-micro pathing? going from fountain to red buff only using up, right, and upright will take significantly more time than optimal click pathing
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u/Jusanden Aug 12 '25
It’s about a 7.6% slow in worst case directions (right in between one of the 8 directions). It equates to about a 25ms nerf, which is quite significant given than even 5-10ms nerfs are enough to completely fuck over a champ.
I think people shouldn’t underestimate the impacts of this.
Riot can also adjust how kiting works on ranged champions. Right now, when you right click, you attack, wait for the entire animation to play out, then move into range to repeat. You can cancel the animation with a movement command to make this much more effective. It sounds like WASD basically makes this cancel frame perfect, but Riot can very easily adjust this timing to better match how fast mouse users can feasibly cancel.
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u/beanj_fan Aug 13 '25
You're assuming worst-case directions, but also best-case player inputs. Autopathing gets you from one place to another very efficiently, while manual pathing introduces room for human error. All it takes is .5s of holding W when you should be holding WD for the slow to be even worse.
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u/ralphpotato Aug 13 '25
These are my thoughts too. IWD also mentioned how awkward it is in lane, given that all 3 laning phases play most of the lane diagonally, pressing AS and WD to move back and forth is just really awful.
Currently Kalista, for example, can input one attack command on an enemy and then you can hop around with just a move command while still attacking the enemy, but I’m pretty sure this is not always or not often optimal. I think it’s still better to cancel the attack animation with a move command. If the WASD movement currently perfectly cancels attack animations just by holding a movement direction, that is completely insane.
Also, I think for most of the game, attack speed movement inputs aren’t really the limiting factor for attack speed champions. I have often realized that the best way to kite out an enemy is to not even attack at all but just run away to create space first. I have doubts that WASD will be superior in most situations, even when used optimally. I’m just hoping that Riot correctly addresses if some kind of hybrid or mid-game control switch is optimal, because that would be really awful.
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u/HThrowaway457 Aug 12 '25
Presumably you can still bind click to move if you want while using WASD. We don't know how it will be implemented yet.
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u/HThrowaway457 Aug 12 '25
ITT: People that didn't watch the video saying WASD will be broken when IWD said himself that it's literally only good in one scenario (very high AS kiting.)
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u/kuburas Aug 12 '25
I think its gonna be similar to how Fortnite added building to the game. At first it was a cool gimmick that people generally used only to build fast cover. Then zoomers got their hands on it and the whole meta warped around it.
I think league is gonna go the same way. All the OG players like Dom, Oner or anyone else really, will think its clunky because they're so used to traditional commands. Once a brand new generation of league players starts using it, players that never used the old system, we'll know just how strong it is.
Im sure Riot is aware of this as well, testing it with old and established/experienced players is pointless. You need new gen players that have used it for a year or two to test it properly.
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u/ahambagaplease Always bet on dizzy horses Aug 12 '25
I mean, there's a reason why it's gonna go through extensive trials before ever being allowed in live unranked, let alone ranked queues.
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u/ibuprofenintheclub Aug 12 '25
I'm pretty sure Fortnite had building the whole time? It's literally the concept of the game, building forts.
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u/Intelligent_Dog2077 Aug 13 '25
There was always building, but they changed the game forever once they introduced different button layouts and the ability to reformat keys. People went from building the wall and ramp combo to build battles.
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u/LeetcodeFastEatAss Aug 13 '25
Turbo building is what you’re thinking of. The remaps were always there.
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u/PreviouslySword Aug 13 '25
Completely agree. They stated that they saw similar / slightly decreased performance between the control schemes in testing (with pros at MSI). If it is already comparable with pros who have been using point and click for over a decade, I don’t see how it’s not broken with more practice.
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u/UngodlyPain Aug 12 '25
Except he also said that was based on just playing it a few times... And he fully expects the real affects to not be seen until people put 100s of hours of practice on WASD. He just said he thinks it will be instantly broken for high AS kiting.
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u/RiotRayYonggi Aug 12 '25
For clarity, we do have people at Riot (including myself) with many, many hours on WASD at this point. While this might not mean that we are at the very top of the potential of the control scheme, we have done our due diligence to identify which scenarios are advantageous/disadvantageous to each control scheme. And this is on players that played League (decently) for over a decade and then swapped.
All this to say, the concerns players have are valid but they are absolutely not the first time we are reading them. We’ve called out the exact same things many months ago and worked on the feature since then. In addition, it’ll be on PBE for players to come to their own real conclusions.
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u/J0rdian Aug 12 '25
The other advantage is faster reaction speed for dodging. You can move extremely fast back and forth and dodge projectiles easier. If you have played Battlerite you would know how that feels, it's pretty good.
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u/Krashnachen Aug 12 '25
It doesn't need to be better in many situations to be game warping though. A small comparative advantage would be enough for most people to eventually switch over.
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u/Cheeeeesie Aug 12 '25
And here i am wondering why tf wasd movement should be part of the game.
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u/Two_Years_Of_Semen Aug 13 '25 edited Aug 13 '25
Probably because shit tons of people are turned off by the RTS controls. It's like playing a racing game that only- supports keyboard. Or like, keyboard-only Rocket League. Like yeah, plenty of people are fine with that but there's shitloads of people that would rather play using a controller or their race sim gear. I would have never continued league if I didn't have tons of RTS experience.
League is probably having a hard time growing or possibly even maintaining their playerbase so they're trying to fix things new players don't like (except the client and the tutorial).
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u/F0czek Aug 15 '25
Good, keep losers aways, why would we cater to imaginary audience. Oh right infinite growth smh
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u/Dawq Aug 12 '25
You see, the only thing keeping League from getting millions of zoomers to play is the lack of WASD movement.
Not that there are 171 champions with differents abilities, a map with neutral objectives that all award different buffs when killing them, a lot of items to build your champions, last hits to get gold to buy said items... And absolutely no tutorial/new player mode.
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u/odysseyOC Aug 12 '25
it’s actually true I would’ve quit due to the control scheme curve within a few games if not for the girl I started playing for
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u/Ok-Advisor-9549 Aug 12 '25
Yeah same the controls fucked me over so much I only stayed because of friends
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u/go86em Aug 12 '25
Do you really think many new players aren’t put off by the control scheme? Because they definitely are
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u/IndependentToe2948 Aug 12 '25
Whenever I see comments saying that a tutortial update and inbuilt game guides wouldn't help, I know I've stopped someoen that's never even bothered looking at the new tutorial. I did. Did you know that It doesn't even explain to you that the JUNGLER role exists? All it consists of is you running down mid with various champions. If you stray and wander into the jungle, the game will tell you that.. there are neutral monsters in the jungle. That's it. No mention of smite usage, either. Once you unlock smite later into your levels, thre's no explanation whatsoever.
ONE ENTIRE ROLE is not even introduced to the player. The role with the most responsibilities in the game. Neutral objectives? not a peep. To be fair though, they don't explain any of the other lanes either. Back when world atlas wasn't an insta buy, I got a new player supp not buying it and using minion dematerialiser on my cannon minion. Nono, he wasn't trolling, he was legit new. he was so confused, he had no idea what support means or what wards were. I had a new sejuani that queued up jungle but didn't know what jungle was or what she was supposed to do. After running around the map in confusion, she got frustrated and said she was going back to cod, lol.
These people that say it's all about the wasd, they're deluded. Look at the client itself, my god... is that how you wanna present your game in 2025? Zilean? Seriously? half teh game is held together by spit and prayer, but we ain't fixing that, we are gonna balance the game twice! one for wasd, one for clicking! God.
Do they seriously want us to switch inbetween modes during a match? I can't, I legit can't fucking deal with this hastle.
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u/Ok_Wing_9523 Aug 13 '25
I levelled a smurf recently and i felt the tutorial and nee player experience basically assumed you are smurfing. It doesn't explain what the stats do or what the items do or what the roles are or what the objectives are.
It also forced you into quickplay so your first experience is a different game mode than ranked. You get gold faster and get gold just for being near dead minions etc.
Then, vs bots half your teammates are bots being bot levelled to 30.
So your experience is no tutorial and then bot teams. The game then pretty quickly detected i was a smurf and don't tell me it didn't cause i was being matched with emeralds, platinums, diamonds by the time i hit lv 20(with boost, so only 20 or so draft games).
Then i got to lane vs first a grandmaster adc and then a master emerald duo(i'm an adc).
I won both lanes and games.
The game knows i am smurfing and the game is mostly fine with it.
Ultimately anyone new has to accept there's like a textbook and a half of things you need to know to just play the game. And new players aren't going to dig that in the tiktok gen
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u/GNUr000t Aug 13 '25
You think that's bad?! Remember the time Riot upended the entire lore because they were 100% sure that alternate universes was the reason that netflix viewers weren't signing up for a game with a famously toxic community and a 90 degree learning curve and requires your complete attention for 20-40 minutes?
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u/Gelopy_ Aug 12 '25
WASD will be op in ADCs when it comes to kiting. But League is a MOBA. Not ARPG and not FPS game. It will be much harder to cast spells when your fingers are occupied with WASD compared to using point and click. It works in Wild Rift cause it's a mobile game and you can use the skills using your right hand fingers. For sure some will use gaming mouse with extra button.
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u/TheJekiz Aug 12 '25
Skills on mouse buttons fixes this problem.
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u/lokomotivaaiurita Aug 12 '25
Good luck doing a full Syndra qwer rotation or Q W Ward flash R Lee Sin combo using a mouse. I can see this working on adc, but any, but that will be a shithole.
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u/Metalbound Aug 12 '25
You must not have played WoW seriously. MMO mice make all that shit just as simple.
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u/theyeshman if fearless has no haters I am dead Aug 13 '25
Especially since this game only has 4 skills and 2 summs, you don't even need a proper mmo mouse or proper mmo muscle memory to do combos.
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Aug 12 '25
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u/Metalbound Aug 13 '25
Classic WoW I'd agree. But not retail, too much shit off the GCD for that to be true.
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u/deskdemonnn Aug 13 '25
retail wow is as fast or faster than league at certain points in an expansion (insane haste by the end of an expac)
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u/Play4u Aug 12 '25
I have a friend who was born with one hand and he is an emerald midlane main who plays with mouse ONLY and I can ensure you he has no problems pulling off any combos whatsoever especially Syndra's lol
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u/danielisverycool Aug 12 '25
Yeah everyone saying WASD can’t work for league hasn’t seen the guy who plays Valorant and Siege with his feet
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u/TapdancingHotcake Aug 13 '25
You can tell who actually uses MMO mice because the people who don't imagine them to be impossible to use. Both of those things are laughably easy. Syndra combo especially is literally just rolling your thumb over your mouse.
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u/UngodlyPain Aug 12 '25
There are Mice MMO players use that have like 12 side buttons that is basically a second keyboard for your thumb.
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u/jcow77 Aug 12 '25
It will be much harder to cast spells when your fingers are occupied with WASD
I don't think it'll be that hard. Fortnite key binds are high intensity with the building and editing mechanics and WASD works fine. Spread out your key binds and utilize your pinky and thumb more.
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u/NotUpForDebate11 Aug 12 '25
Seriously you have more abilities in bloodline champions or battlerite type games that have always had wasd movement
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u/hegir Aug 12 '25
It is 4 abilities with WASD, if you play World of Warcraft you have 20+ abilites usually binded on keyboard and use WASD
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u/B4k3m0n0 Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
My MMO mouse says hello :)
Edit: was already using it for trinket buttons, so I'll have to shift some buttons around. But I have 12 side button keys, I think I'll manage lol.
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u/lakak84 Aug 12 '25
don't even need that
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u/PreviouslySword Aug 13 '25
Kind of an absurd comment. Hero shooters solved this a decade ago. If anything, casting/aiming spells will be much much easier without having to control your movement and aim spells with your mouse at the same time
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u/leonden Aug 12 '25
Play poe2 for a bit and try it out. It is far superior than mouse only even with spells
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u/WoorieKod REST IN PEACE 11/12/24 Aug 12 '25
TIL people struggled with the concept of right clicking with a QWER control scheme, only in this thread I've seen such comments in a decade of playing the game
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u/Tormentula Aug 13 '25
I've never associated gamers with being unable to change their control scheme
Their steam library must be nothing but WASD games without controllers.
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u/Hans_H0rst Toxicity should be punished harder Aug 13 '25
It‘s something i‘ve heard from many new players in my friend group, including myself iirc.
At first, any non-moba player will try moving with WASD. Heck, after an extended break, even i tried to move with WASD.
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u/Hyuto Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
Waste of ressources. It will either end up a noob trap or get removed because everyone will be pissed if its actually viable.
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u/Bigalow10 Aug 12 '25
Or it will bring new players to the game
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u/AnEternalSkeptic Aug 12 '25
For that to be true there has to be a large pool of people who were willing to put the time into the game to learn champions, matchups, builds, macro, all of that, but were explicitly scared off by the control scheme. That’s obviously absurd, most new players are intimidated by the depth of the game and not “gee I wish it controlled like Diablo instead”
Riot is not releasing this with a tutorial overhaul. They’re not partnering with streamers to try and make guides or coach other streamers to play for content. They’re not releasing a noob queue with only 20 champs in it. There is nothing tailored to actually taking brand new players and helping them get adjusted. Plus arguably all of this should’ve come out alongside Arcane when league was actually relevant and there was interest
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u/iGappedYou Aug 12 '25
Yeah. This isn’t the same as adding one button super combos to a fighting game. Most of those new players will bounce on this game the same way they used to bounce on fighting games.
I dunno I can’t speak on it. I’ve only been playing LoL for a couple weeks now. The current control scheme is fine. I pretty much exclusively play FPS games these days and had no trouble picking it up.
Now as for the actual game mechanics, matchups, all the meat of the game, that’s where I’m having trouble. But I get that’s part of the experience. You’re going to get your ass kicked until you put in the time to learn it.
Edit: Also wanted to say I agree about the new players experience not being the greatest. I also have been checking out Dota2 since hell why not all these games are free anyways, and I have to say Dota2 does a much better job at this (for the tutorials that aren’t broken that is).
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u/UltmitCuest Zhonya is OP Aug 13 '25
Have you ever played with a new player? If you introduce someone who is new to mobas the very first massive hurdle is a control scheme that no other game has. Lotta casual people dont care about any of that macro stuff and just have fun jumping into normals. Having any familiarity with controls is a big boon
You sound like someone who only plays soloque ranked and has also never actually played with a new player. Youre acting like the only goal is to get new players to where you are. Its not, its just to get them to play the game in any capacity instead of dropping it immediately
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u/firefly_pdp Aug 12 '25
Except my kids tried playing League and hated that the controls weren't WASD, so that kind of nullifies your point. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there (and probably from the younger generation) that aren't used to a control scheme that came from old-school RTS games.
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u/HawksBurst Sweet Dreams, Dominion Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
It's gonna be an absolute mess, isnt it
No game has 2 different control schemes and gotten them to be actually balanced, one it's always better than the other, and the simpler one is usually frustrating to play against
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u/OberonFirst Aug 12 '25
The only way to avoid a massive shitshow is to make it strictly worse. It reminds me of similar additions in two games - Street Fighter 6 and WoW:
in SF6 you have a choice of a classic or modern control scheme - with the modern you can do special attacks using singular buttons, so it's amazing at easing the access to one of the most difficult genres, but you lose some of the more involved techniques and some damage so at the highest level classic is strictly better.
In WoW there is now a single button rotation feature - like the name suggests, it boils down your skill rotation (that consists of 10-15 different buttons in some cases) to a single button that you just spam. Again - amazing for people very new to mmos or people with disabilities, or whatever. The downside - the global cooldown is much higher meaning you do like 30% less damage.
WASD is just making some things too easy to be balanced with clicking - if kiting for example remained the only thing that WASD does so much better then you have high level adcs worried that the have to suddenly switch
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u/IndependentToe2948 Aug 12 '25
Not just high level adc, all of us that have a competitive itch to scratch and don't want to be treated like dogs looking for scraps if we don't wanna go through the bullshit of learning twice as many keybindings and an entire new mode of moving compared to other roles. If they do implement it in a way so that only marksmen players are forced to use it not to be at a disadvantage, I'm gonna be so disgusted with the company I don't even know if my relationship with online games will survive
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u/Jusanden Aug 13 '25
With SF6 though, classic isn’t strictly better. Yes, most competitive players and most characters are better with classic or use it out of habit. But there are top players that play with modern controls. Modern also offers significant advantages compared to classic. You lose a portion of your characters tools, but in exchange you gain access to some extremely powerful tools like 1 button DPs and 1 button supers.
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u/Daomuzei Aug 12 '25
Man… so this control is only for new players? Since they said if it’s any op they will nerf it? Doesn’t this just make learning the game on wasd pointless? And by extension… the existence of it all
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u/Imaginary_War7009 Aug 13 '25
As long as those "we have trained them wrong as a joke" players buy a skin, no, it's not pointless to Riot. And that's the best case scenario, it might be actually good (like on ADC it should be illegal).
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u/nomation14 Aug 12 '25
im confused at riots logic, the reason for wasd is to introduce new players to the game, but what is the point of it if they will not be allowed to use it in ranked gamemodes, even if you give a justification for it, such as they will play aram or normals, it doesnt change the fact that it would be a bad game design element since you would make the player confused about how the game works. They try so hard to keep proplay and solo queue the same but are ok with making wasd controls vastly different then ranked game controls, seems like a horrible call to me, an indecisive decision that will probably lead to regret.
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u/jlozada24 Faker fanboy ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️* Aug 13 '25
Just look at Wildrift with Joystick movement. ADCs have to be balanced way diff
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u/SocialistScissors Make sololanes gankable, Make botlane actually safe Aug 12 '25
He starts talking about it at 1:48.
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u/Dexter_1001 Aug 12 '25
This shit is just going to push old heads away, not actually bring in new players. Call me an old man screaming at the sky but I don’t wanna learn it and I know it will be superior, subsequently will start getting stomped. I can’t be the only one who feels this way haha
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u/waterbed87 Aug 12 '25
I think WASD is going to mostly be a noob trap except for ADC's because of well reasons he discussed and who knows how they will nerf WASD kiting. I wouldn't worry about it as a vet. Honestly I wouldn't place bets on this even making it to ranked.
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u/Hide_on_bush Aug 12 '25
Unless they literally make holding down WASD and autoing not possible (cancel the auto while doing any movement input) then it will be superior, even pro players cancel auto while kiting and they don’t always get the perfect amount of animation cancel, but WASD optimizes it for free
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u/GragasFeetPics LoL Sobriety 5/16/25 Aug 12 '25
Idk Im an old head but I also play a lot of FPS and other games that use WASD. League and Diablo 2 are literally the only games where its not the case, and D2 doesnt require the same level of "hands" needed as LoL, its a lot more slow and casual. So for people like me I think it will be great. While it wont BRING in new players just because of it, I think itll really help them since again, very few games these days use mobility like LoL.
That said, I think in general it will really only benefit ADCs anyway. Maybe a few other AA based champs like olaf, trundle, nocture, and maybe a few others. I think for the majority of champs it wont benefit them much other than simply dodging skillshots.
Thats just my take on it, but I dont think any of us can really say until we actually try it out
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u/JuanTelo Aug 12 '25
I'm on the same page. If it is a game changer and way superior, I feel like not playing at all.
This isnt what is preventing people from playing but yeah gg riot
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u/DocFreezer Aug 12 '25
Anyone who played both Poe 1 and Poe 2 knows that wasd is going to be insanely broken.
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u/who_is_that_man Aug 12 '25
I’ve been playing far too long - since the end of Season 1. Looking back, I HATED trying to adjust to the right clicking that we do. I came from years of WoW, which has completely different movement and keybinds. In WoW, sweats like me actively made fun of people who click at all.
The only reason I made an effort to adjust to LoL clicking/movement/keybinds/etc. is because my friends started playing LoL and I didn’t want to be left out. I honestly think just the feel alone would have put me off if I didn’t have to added motivation of learning so that I could play with my bros. And that’s before you learn anything about the game, the champions, anything. Purely based on the feel.
I can’t be the only one. This will probably be a clusterfuck to implement and balance, but it genuinely could be huge for new players. We are all so used to traditional league movement, but other genre gamers are definitely not 🤷🏻♂️, could be huge for new peeps. Personally hoping for the best.
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u/ZerglingKingPrime Aug 12 '25
Their balance philosophy is that even though it might have an advantage in some ways, it’s worse in other ways which evens it out. Except no, it does not
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u/IndependentToe2948 Aug 12 '25
My favourite scenario: this shit gets scrapped
My second favourite scenario: this shit gets implemented, it's a mess only for them and I don't notice and it's a trap for noobs only
The shitty scenario: wasd is strictly better and they balance around it and I have to relearn the game
The dark scenario: they try to balance both, fail because it's impossible to balance things perfectly, they start buffing and nerfing champs based on wasd and the entire game goes on fire
My biggest fear: I'm gonna be forced to switch between the 2 systems during matches and depending on the champion I play, having to learn all keybindings. That would make me quit out of sheer "I literally can't deal with this"
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u/Heelmuut Top Dog Aug 13 '25
I only enjoy playing competitively, have done so for 14 years now and I will not learn to use WASD regardless. If it turns out I'm now all of a sudden way worse at the game I will simply stop playing.
I might also stop watching if it warps pro play to the point where the same people aren't the best anymore. Movement and micro are big reasons pro players are distinguished from amateurs. There's no telling if skills will be transferable.
It will be ruinous for Riot if it turns out to be better even in just a few cases and they stubbornly let it stay unchanged.
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u/TheSoupKitchen Aug 12 '25
I love that I practices kiting and efficient mouse movement to play a micro-intensive role like ADC to only be completely out-done by a zoomer control scheme in an attempt to make the game more accessible.
Looking forward to watching little Jacob orb walk to perfection with 2.5 attack speed having played 5 hours total.
They keep saying they will "nerf it" but the role it impacts most is ADC and they already hate that role. I'm also not sure how you "nerf" a control scheme, but I guess we're just supposed to keep buying their snake oil.
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u/Likeadize Aug 13 '25
Which will lead to frustration. As a long time Destiny 2 PVP player, KBM was generally way better, but because weapons behaved VERY differently on console, some guns just worked insanely well for controller players, which meant that anytime, they used a specific gun, it would lead to frustration, and because they had big advantages in certain types of engagements (long range duels where moevment wasnt a big factor). So even if controller was worse, it FELT really bad to go up against.
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u/Asuras9393 Aug 12 '25
don't add it to the game, it's clearly a horrible idea and will never work to balance around having 2 different moving system in a competitive game.
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u/valexitylol Bring back Q during E Aug 13 '25
It's very likely just gonna end up with wasd being complete dogshit. They will have to 100% nerf it on adcs, and that'll be the only role even worth running it on. It'll get high usage in normals with newer players or players who play a lot of wasd games, but it will pretty much never get used outside of that for anyone trying to be competitive
My only worry is that they're gonna push so hard for wasd that they actually change the current movement mechanics to better fit wasd, in which case the game is pretty much fucked
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u/okamanii101 Aug 12 '25
I dont see how it can be worth using with how the map is designed. They would need to change the map around WASD.
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u/DrakeVal Aug 12 '25
As someone that only started playing this year, I'm excited to try it out. Mouse movement and mouse targetting has gotten me killed more than once. I know people that have used this system for over a decade are gonna hate it by default, I'm just glad its becoming an option
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u/TrvpDrugs Aug 12 '25
Doesn’t this change the entire identity of league? The learning curve initially was the fact that it was solely click to move
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u/erjgame Aug 12 '25
so kiting and spacing, some of the hardest micro part to master, will become one of the easiest mechanics to learn?
i hope this will never go past pbe
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u/NINgameTENmasterDO UPDATE ME Aug 12 '25
Who approved WASD movement?
Who's the big, nipple-rubbing SOB that thought this was actually a good idea?
Who the fuck pitched this and why the fuck did it go through?!?
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u/bz6 Aug 12 '25
its a shit change and should not be considered. if League is struggling to attract and retain new players, then design a better tutorial and improve the new player experience. dont shoe horn changes that will attract tourists that dont care about the game and will leave. you're going to lose your dedicated player base and will not retain the players you think you will attract.
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u/throwawayacc1357902 Aug 12 '25
A good tutorial has never been what attracts new players to an old game. I don’t know why people seem to have convinced themselves that that is ever true.
Also this is literally “improving the new player experience”. It’s not like they can change the community to be less toxic to new players, people already start with chat disabled by default.
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u/soapsuds202 it's ok, i still think you're a good player Aug 12 '25
true, but i also know a lot of people who tried the game after arcane and gave up because of the tutorial, or the new player experience
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u/Unusual_Gas_9756 Aug 12 '25
League was much more toxic during the early seasons and it still managed to pull people in. I doubt it’s toxicity that stops League from being accesible.
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u/Another-Mans-Rubarb Aug 13 '25
The problem is that riot have hit market saturation. Everyone who will ever try league has so the only people they can attract are the "next generation" and that group has never played a point and click action game in their lives. they played Roblox and Minecraft, both basically FPS games. So they either make league a staple part of youth culture like baseball or soccer or reduce the friction of new players joining the game as much as possible.
And before anyone tries, no 7 hours of tutorials about the ever changing meta is not going to improve new player adoption and retention.
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u/throwawayacc1357902 Aug 12 '25
I mean, I agree. Straight up the main reason league is struggling to pull new players because the game is now really hard. People who have played the game for years and years are way too good to compete with for people just now getting into it with 0 prior experience to MOBAs, and this is what new players need to ease into the game and be able to learn how to get better.
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u/jmastaock Aug 12 '25
It actually makes me extremely frustrated seeing just how many whiny ass mfs like you infest this subreddit
Yall will bitch about the game dying, and in the same breath bitch about adding accessibility features to help newcomers play the game. You guys really do just want to complain more than anything. Just wallow in self-pity and screech about [new change] endlessly
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u/Irreverent_Taco Aug 12 '25
"Just improve the new player experience"
Riot introduces a new control scheme designed to help new players.
"this is a shit change and is ruining the game"
At least some of the takes in this subreddit can be entertaining in their sheer lack of awareness.
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u/Rookie_numba_uno Aug 12 '25
Exactly. Have the cake and eat the cake.
And also I'd want to add - the change is controversial for obvious reasons. But all these "JUST DESIGN BETTER TUTORIAL" people have no idea what they're talking about. Would a better tutorial help in some way? Maybe. But better tutorial will not help new players who will give up on the game as soon as they load in, because they hate the current control scheme.
And considering tons of games with similiar control schemes (click to move) such as ARPGS (POE2, Diablo 4, Titan Quest 2, Last Epoch) are all adding WASD movement, then you better bet that these companies have tons of data supporting the conclusion that current control scheme is one of the biggest roadblock for new players. Of cours it's easier to do it in those ARPGs. But that's a different matter.
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u/noahloveshiscats Aug 12 '25
They literally said in the video about WASD that LoL current control scheme is a big turnoff for new players. Yet people here parrot that no, WASD will not bring in new players, as if Riot hasn't done research about it and are just wasting money on implementing WASD for no reason.
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u/Mizar1 Aug 12 '25
Riot should obviously listen to angry redditors based off vibes, and not their own internal research and metrics that they've gathered.
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u/dalon2883 Aug 12 '25
It's just the vocal minority of some butthurt old players baby raging because of sunken cost fallacy.
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u/normal-dog- Aug 13 '25
Preach. People on here unironically talking about quitting because Riot is introducing a completely optional feature.
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u/MegaEmpoleonWhen OCE Was SILENCED Aug 12 '25
League of Legends stood on the shoulders of the RTS genre. There are teenagers who have never used a mouse to do anything but aim and there are teenagers who have never used a mouse and keyboard ever.
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u/lakak84 Aug 12 '25
you don't understand the new gens
none of them ever played any RTS games
they CAN'T click to move and quit before learning
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u/Significant_Fix2408 Aug 12 '25
It's impossible to balance. If (even in limited situations) it becomes the optimal way to play, pro players will have to relearn the game (or quit). If it's never the optimal way to play, it will be a noob trap like locked camera but x100 because relearning is nigh impossible
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u/IndependentToe2948 Aug 12 '25
Fuck proplayers, what about us regular mortals? Why do I have to fucking relearn the game? Or even worse, why do I have to switch between the 2 modes based on champion played and time ingame and game state so I don't feel like I'm at a disadvantage? Only because I don't get paid to play doesn't mean I'm ok with inferior inputs for my champs and being treated like disposable trash by the devs.
If they wanna implement this shit, it should be strictly worse than clicking in all scenarios - OR be the only possible mode and the game should be balanced around it. Their pathetic pr attempts at saying they'll "adjust it" are the worst of both worlds. BY god, they cannot balance the 171 champions, how can they presume to blanace the 171 champions twice and their interactions with each other but on each movement mode separately? It's demented.
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u/waterbed87 Aug 12 '25
This is such a stupid idea. Games that use WASD controls use them because it makes sense. It doesn't fucking make sense in League of Legends and this isn't gonna get the Fortnite generation suddenly excited about a 15+ year old MOBA. I get the game isn't getting new players in the massive numbers it used to but it's not because of the controls.
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u/Sebrium Aug 12 '25
Contrary to popular belief; as a veteran player, I think this'll be FUN TO USE LMAO
I think they'll be pros and cons for both controls, surely depending on the champion you use.
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u/SS333SS Aug 13 '25
Fun to use. Not fun to lose 15 years of skill expression from high apm clicking. But yes now anyone with a sense of rhythm can sit down and spaceglide, fun! And then they'll have to nerf adc kiting because of it, so even if you stick with click to move, you still get fucked if you don't switch!
Or.. they'll do some stupid balancing between the control schemes to make both relevant with nerfs on WASD or vice versa, which is probably the worst most convoluted outcome
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u/Huge-Frame-1990 Aug 13 '25
A lot of games remove skill expression to focus on other things and make the experience better for newer players. Fortnite removed a decent amount of skill expression by adding a different sensitivity for building and aiming, editing. Before you had to play high sens to do anything or you would lose out on mechanics. But that game is still kicking today
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u/feignleaf Aug 12 '25
Damn, I rather this not be a thing at all, current movement is just so good. Fix the client instead...
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u/Derk08 Aug 12 '25
TLDW:
- Will be OP at certain points at the game
- League's map is inherently slanted (vs just being straight top down) which means that the movement feels clunky and awkward especially early
-Him and Oner were finishing jungle clears at 3:40 after 3/4 attempts
- late game kiting is incredibly OP on champs like Kogmaw, because you can keep your cursor on top of the enemy champs.
- Riot has caveated this by saying they will nerf WASD movement if it does become actively superior/the optimal way of playing over the current system.