League of Legends was officially released in 2009, and in the years that followed, they launched multiple servers around the world, bringing players from all over the world into Summoner's Rift. Riot Games operates directly on servers in some regions, in some regions it cooperates with local game companies as authorized agents, and in Chinese mainland it is represented by Tencent. Because Tencent took a stake in Riot Games as early as 2008 and obtained the agency rights of the national server, but the national server was tested until 2011 before it was officially launched.
As Riot Games grew, they took back agency rights in other regions, except for the national server, after all, Riot Games is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tencent. For many years, the national server was operated independently, and it was not possible to maintain the same version for a long time, so Riot Games designers generally did not consider the data of the national server when making balance adjustments. It wasn't until earlier this year that Phroxzon, head of gameplay design, announced that League of Legends' balance would take more into account the data from the Chinese qualifying.
So after so many versions have passed, do designers really consider the data of the national server, and will they directly adjust the balance because the performance of some heroes in the national server is too good or bad? Phroxzon responded this week, saying that they know that certain heroes can be outliers in certain regions, so designers need to keep a global perspective on heroes. China has a very large number of League of Legends players, but that doesn't mean that designers will focus too much on the national server when it comes to balance adjustments.
Phroxzon emphasized that they don't cater to players in a certain region, but if an outlier hero appears, they will change it. As for the status of national server data, he emphasized that Riot Games is rebuilding the national server data pipeline and data results, so that designers can more easily access Chinese data. For many years, the data of the League of Legends national server can be directly queried on the official website of 101, and when designers observed outliers, they also directly looked at the data on this website to make adjustments.
But now, instead of using this method to collect data, they can get it directly through internal tools, and the process will be much simpler. After all, it's always quicker for designers to spot outlier heroes on certain servers through their own observations than if a partner in the region came out of the area and said "this hero is too strong or too weak". Previously, League of Legends partners in multiple regions would report weekly data to Riot HQ, such as a hero being too weak in China and a hero being too strong in Hanbok.
Therefore, the designers of League of Legends pay more attention to the data of the national server, mainly referring to the information acquisition channels before their balance adjustment, which has become more diverse and convenient, and it is more convenient to read the data of the national server, and there is no need for Tencent employees to tell them what information they need to pay attention to. Therefore, it is not that the balance principle of the designers has changed, they still will not focus on the national server or players in any region, and they will still adjust based on data, so as to better serve global players.