The Bounty System is receiving a significant overhaul in the upcoming patch.
The Bounty System has long been a core aspect of League of Legends. This system assigns a “Bounty” to players who have accumulated significantly more gold than their counterparts, providing extra rewards for opponents who manage to defeat them. The additional gold is awarded based on the bounty amount on the targeted player’s head.
Initially, bounties were only handed out for champion kills, but a few years ago, Riot expanded the system by introducing Objective Bounties. This allowed players to collect bounty gold by taking key objectives, such as killing Baron Nashor or destroying towers. At times, it wasn’t as precise as it should have been, and certain strategies could be exploited to avoid or manipulate the system.
Recognizing these flaws, Riot has been discussing plans to overhaul the system for some time. After several months of anticipation, the long-awaited rework is finally here.
LoL Patch 14.21 Bounty Changes
Champion Bounties
- Bounties will no longer fully reset when a champion scores a kill or dies. Previously, bounties would disappear entirely under these conditions, but with the new system, some bounty gold will remain.
- Bounties on champions will now be calculated based on the amount of gold a champion has earned or given away, rather than being determined by factors such as kill streaks, death streaks, assists, and creep score.
- Gold earned from champion kills will directly correlate with the amount of gold given away when a player is killed. However, when multiple champions are involved in a takedown, the player who dies will be counted as having given away even more gold.
- Gold earned from assists will now contribute toward creating positive bounties, with the amount of gold from assists playing a proportional role.
- Gold earned from farming will also be factored into bounty calculations. Champions who farm well will move out of a negative bounty state faster, meaning they could become prime targets for opponents looking to cash in.
Objective Bounties
- The importance of gold, turrets, and Voidgrubs has been increased when determining objective bounties. This means that taking these objectives will play a larger role in whether a team is assigned an objective bounty or not.
- The value of experience in determining objective bounties has been decreased, meaning that gold and objectives will now be more heavily weighted.
- Objective bounties will deactivate more quickly, making them less of a lingering advantage for teams that have fallen behind. This will help balance the pacing of the game, ensuring that teams are not able to rely on objective bounties for too long.
Release Date
The changes to the Bounty System, along with Patch 14.21, are expected to be implemented on Wednesday, October 23, 2024. These updates are set to bring more balance to how bounties are assigned and collected.