The League of Legends patch 9.15 notes were filled with changes to the game. All of these changes were overlooked by the community, however, because of one small sentence. Patch 9.15 would be the end of the legacy cursor.
Rest in peace, legacy cursor
After eight years, the gauntlet cursor was finally updated in 2018. At the time, the change made sense. The game’s UI had evolved over time, and the legacy cursor had become dated in comparison.
Still, for creatures of habit or merely nostalgic players, the legacy cursor remained in the game as an option to toggle. And when they announced the new cursor, Riot’s lead producer on the developer team, Joseph “New001” Tung, promised the ability to use the old cursor.
In some ways, the legacy cursor may have been more of a hassle to maintain than one would imagine. For example, when playing Qiyana, the cursor will change to highlight what element is being hovered. This might not be much work to implement in two cursors, true. But if players were hardly ever using the old cursor, then Riot’s extra effort would have just been a waste.
Additionally, the option to use the legacy cursor was just one more setting in a laundry list of customization options for players. While more customization is generally good, so is keeping the settings tab concise.
Not-so warm welcome
But the story doesn’t end there. The overwhelming response to the 9.15 patch notes did not concern the champion changes at all. Everybody seemed to only care about keeping the legacy cursor.
Just a quick scroll through the patch notes’ comment section will give you an idea of the community response. The top ten replies to the patch notes were all complaints about the removal of the cursor. Several Change.org petitions were created in support of the cursor. And Riot Games quickly took note.
Riot’s lead gameplay designer, Mark “Scruffy” Yetter, took to Twitter to respond to the situation.
We're working to get the "Legacy Cursor" option back in for the 9.15 patch.
We'd still like to clean up this old setting someday, but enough players have expressed their preference for the old one that we want to respect that.
— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) July 30, 2019
And so just like that, the legacy cursor option will be heading back into the League of Legends options menu. And while it is safe now, it is entirely possible that the cursor will not be around forever. In fact, in a mid-patch update added to the 9.15 patch notes, it seems likely the old cursor is on its way out the door.
The question that comes out of all of this is simple. The community responded in support of keeping the legacy cursor an option. Riot Games responded by reintroducing the cursor in patch 9.15. But how will Riot handle the situation next time, seeing as their plans are “removing the option entirely in the future”?
Do you still use the legacy cursor? Would you care if the legacy cursor was removed as an option? We’d love to hear your feedback on the situation in the comments section! For all things League of Legends-related and more, be sure to stay tuned to Daily Esports!
