Patch 14.2 for League of Legends was released a couple of days ago. It implemented a change that was supposed to deter people from purchasing double support items when a match starts. However, the community quickly realized that there was a game-breaking bug that caused Support players to earn a dramatically lower amount of gold throughout the entirety of the match.
The Issue
In Season 14, Riot Games made substantial changes to League of Legends - one of them being the World Atlas. This is a starter item Support Champions get as a way to earn enough gold to buy other stuff as quickly as possible.
Because players would often purchase a couple of these to get copious amounts of gold, Riot Games had to step in and address the issue. Hence, Patch 14.2 implemented a new rule that would penalize players who purchase double support items.
The penalty is that players with a couple of support items, like the World Atlas, will earn a reduced amount of gold from killing minions. This is true either by aiding their allies or by slaying the lane minions themselves. To make matters worse, every champion on the team with a support item now contributes to hitting this minion penalty.
While it is understandable for the company to implement such a rule, it seems that the development team responsible for the balancing changes did not test the rule extensively.
League of Legends players soon discovered that the penalty actually sticks even when the champion with a support item sells it at any point in the match.
As pointed out by user xblademojo, the double support item penalty can stay the entire game despite efforts to sell these items.
Read Also: League of Legends Community Pleads for Revival of Retired Mode- And Here's Why
No Response
Unfortunately, League of Legends players will have to be patient before this issue gets resolved. At the time of writing, Riot Games has yet to make an announcement about the matter.
This lack of response is probably because of the mass layoffs that happened recently, where over 500 people lost their jobs at Riot Games. If this is the case, League of Legends may have to hold off on playing Ranked for now.
Have you played League of Legends recently? If so, how impactful is this gold penalty rule? Is it really that bad or is it something that can easily be circumvented?
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