There’s been a lot of discussion around the (postponed) introduction of last hit indicators in Ranked queues. Much of the debate centers around the preservation of skill expression, with the main concern being that last-hit indicators detract from an interesting part of the game. We’ve been through these discussions before; this isn’t the first time Riot has introduced significant new accessibility features. Here’s a list of some past accessibility additions to the game to get a good comparison. I’ll also add how each feature affected the skill expression of the game.
- Jungle camp timers
- removed the skill expression of memorizing each camp’s respawn timer at all times
- Clamp cast change
- removed the skill expression of mastering some awkward legacy input types
- Summoner pinging changes
- removed the skill expression of remembering exactly if someone used a summoner spell or ultimate in a fight
- Death recap
- removed the skill expression of recognizing and calculating what effects did what amount of damage to you in combat
- Recommended items
- removed the skill expression of learning itemization from scratch
Last-hit indicators are pretty similar. A last-hit indicator is a bit of pre-calculated arithmetic on how much damage a single attack deals, overlaid on every minion’s health bar. Unlike the above, it’s a real-time indicator, so you get easy access to kill thresholds without doing the math yourself.
Minion kill thresholds might seem like a valuable piece of information, but these aren’t hidden from you. You know how else you can figure out how much damage your attack deals to a minion? By attacking a minion! League gives you a way of obtaining this information already by clicking one button. The indicators just save you an attack to check your damage. You get a little extra information on your screen, but it doesn’t play the game for you. You, as the person with a lane to win, still need to do everything else involved with farming and laning.
The skills involved with last-hitting are much more than just knowing when something can die to an auto. Last-hit indicators tell you nothing about how killing a minion will affect the wave state, or how much damage your spells do to the wave, or how much damage you’ll take from the enemy for securing a last hit, or how soon the minion will enter lethal from incoming minion damage, or which minion you should target, or how many minions you are from an item, or literally anything about the rest of laning. When you’re laning, you’re already juggling a hundred ideas at once! Removing the math question of “when will a minion die to my next auto” does degrade a skill—minion damage math—but leaves so many other (arguably more important and difficult) little skill tests and tradeoffs untouched. Even with last-hit indicators active, CSing in lane is still hard and laning is still deeply skill expressive.
Last-hit indicators are not without associated costs to your attention. The visual indicator on every single minion is one additional thing for your eyes and brain to track. It’s also not fully accurate: last-hit indicators can be inaccurate depending on various attack modifiers (notably, crit and some on-hits don’t play nicely). With indicators on, you have additional information to process compared to before, regardless of your proficiency. These mental stack costs still exist when you’re brand new to last-hitting, but they’re heavily outweighed by the overlay benefits. As you get better, however, the cost/benefit changes. The more you last-hit, the more you’ll be able to do the math yourself, and the less you need to rely on the indicator as a crutch. Eventually, last-hit indicators can feel more like visual noise. Professional player-turned-Rioter Meteos mentioned he turned them off because he found them distracting.
If you view League, especially ranked, best as a maximally comprehensive skill test, then it is reasonable to argue that last-hit indicators detract from this version of the game. However, if you view League as a game where some skills are more fun to engage with than others, then accessibility features like last-hit indicators only serve to help. Much like the accessibility examples above, last-hit indicators make learning League, an incredibly complex game, a little easier to learn. They’ll be nice when you’re new, and unimportant when you’re not.