In League of Legends, the difference in win rate between red and blue is not an illusion on the part of the player, as blue used to have a higher win rate, but now it is red. Riot is aware of this, and while the higher win rate of red is not noticeable in the lower divisions, the difference in the winning percentages between red and blue in the higher divisions creates a balance problem. Designers are looking for a solution, but it will take some time.
Last week, the League of Legends community was once again boiling over the imbalance on both sides of the Summoner's Rift, a discussion sparked by a fan's survey of win rate data that said that the red side with high tiers had a much better win rate than the blue side, making the game less fair. While the issue has rekindled buzz among the player community, Phroxzon, lead game designer at League of Legends, said his team has been "working on the issue for a while" and is already working on changes.
Phroxzon admitted on his personal account on July 7 that "we've been working hard to optimize the balance between red and blue," but he also reminded League of Legends players that it will take some time for developers to figure this out. He also added that Riot Games has been convinced that this will not affect the lower tier players in ranked play – only the top tier of the top tier will really be affected.
This means that in low tiers like Bronze, Gold, and Emerald, there is indeed some imbalance in Red's win rate, but most of the time these resolve themselves. However, in high divisions such as Diamond, Masters, and Challengers, the difference between red and blue can have a significant impact, with red having a higher chance of winning.
We can also see this in the raw data: in the lower qualifying matches, the blue team has a 51.1% win rate, which is relatively balanced, and even higher than the blue team. Above the Emerald tier, the win rate for Red jumps to 49.4% and Blue drops to 50.6%, with the difference already small. Then, in the Diamond division, the situation is reversed, and in the Masters and above division, the win rate is clearly skewed in favor of red, with 47.1% for blue versus 52.9% for red, and the difference in win rate has reached 6%.
For those high-ranked players who are actively playing ranked matches, they are clearly aware of the difference in win rate, which has become the biggest pain point among high-ranked groups lately, and well-known foreign streamers like NoWay are leading the way in the hope that designers can reduce the win margin advantage of the red side as soon as possible. How to balance a difficult map in the League of Legends office is a question that is often asked.
Sara can only imagine that the biggest changes will be felt by the least number of League of Legends players, who are mainly concentrated in the upper echelons of those upper echelons, when the designers finally settle the balance debate between the red and blue sides. Their most likely update revolves around the matchmaking system in the League of Legends lobby, as Riot Games has typically given Red a higher average hidden score over the past few years to compensate for the disadvantage of players playing on Red due to poor viewing angles and peculiar map perspectives.
However, this help to secretly improve Red's overall team's hidden score does not take into account the changes in the summoner's rift after the massive update of Season 14, where the terrain of the red and blue sides became more symmetrical, and the potential advantage of the blue side was reduced, and the blue side ended up suffering the most losses.
To better address this, Riot is working on other changes, and there may be changes that will affect the entire player base, but there should be fewer of these things and longer intervals. The League of Legends development team has yet to confirm when these changes will arrive, but judging by Phroxzon's information, it will take some time to completely resolve the issue. He will release patch 14.14 on July 9, hoping to come up with some emergency solutions to reduce Red's advantage on the map.