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I was able to get an easier hold on Path of Exile than LoL.

doiminat0r3600··43 votes·5,148 views

When I first started PC games, these were my first two games. If you've seen Path of Exile, you would know that it is a very complex game with a lot of factors to consider. Not even to mention the skill tree. That thing is Fucking huge.

http://webcdn.pathofexile.com/public/PassiveSkillTree.0.10.0.jpg

And this isnt even the updated one. It's a bit more complex than that one.

I was able to grasp it becasue the game threw everything at me at the same time. Skill trees, special abilities, auto attacking, item builds, possible characters, and even the flexability of all of them. If you want to have a witch that uses her hands, to punch things with a claw, then so be it. You can do that. If you want to make a spell casting tank, then you can do that as well.

I was able to grasp everything and figure out what I wanted in a span of about 2 weeks.

League is different. The only thing I could do at the beginning was jump into a tutorial game and buy items and get kills. Then, I realized there is a leveling system. My first thought was, "Maybe if I reach max level, Ill get some of that hard to get currency." Nope. I did not. I also realized how deep and complex it was after getting a few levels and how AP vs AD actually mattered on certain champions. I also figured out that you dont get refunds back, you cant refund stupid purchases such as buying a full page of mana regen Tier 1 runes (when they existed) for 2000 IP. All of this I learned the hard way. There was nothing saying that refunds didn't come back. There was nothing saying that I had to buy runes to stay above my enemy laner. There was nothing to say there was even a meta of 1 top, 1 mid, 1 jungle, 2 bot lane. I had no idea. Partially becasue smite was locked until a higher level and flash was a bit insiginificant because nobody had that either. The most essential spells in the game and nobody had them. Then when one team did but the other didn't, it was ridiculously easy. This caused another issue about how players are supposed to be able to take in large chunks of information at a time. Then before they can process it all and get used to it, it throws another big thing at you (ie. Masteries and runes then junglers, like WTF man???)

I was finally able to grasp everything in LoL in about 6 months.

Riot didn't tell me that rune pages were essential. Riot didn't tell me that masteries existed and expected me to just see them and go "Oh hey look. I get 1% more damage. That's like, another item right???" Wrong.

This wasn't meant to be a "Terrible new player experience" kind of post. But it's turned into one. Riot puts no thought into its new community. They think that people that are new to MOBAs or new to PC entirely are able to do everything required to be successful in the game. This is ridiculous.

TLDR; Riot doesnt give new players the full experience when they first start. They keep things from the new player saying that the entire game is too much for them but yet other games are considered better because they fully expose the new players to everything.

56 Comments

k wìx12 votes

Path of Exile is f'n amazing.

That's really all I got out of this thread.

As for new player experiences?

PoE is a single-player Diablo clone. League is a vicious pvp moba game.

Any game thats online-focused and is pvp is going to be harder to learn and pick up - it's not a solvable problem.

Valderis Vandala14 votes

Even so, League is utterly atrocious when it comes to information. If you don't use third party websites you're just shit out of luck on how most things work.

k wìx6 votes

Sure, i'll give you that - but again - the same is true of most online multiplayer pvp games.

**You either suffer and learn the hard way, or you go research the game. **

ShaolinToilet1 votes

You shoulda done your research. Poe is not a single player game.

Blue1011 votes

it's also not a competitive PvP game. So the point is still valid.

Altonius Amakiir1 votes

I chose suffer and learn the hard way, long run it seems to have made me more skilled than my friends who chose research, but my god did it feel awful for a while.

Troll for Trump4 votes

PoE has that problem too.

It doesn't tell you about currency exchange, trading, how to use Jewellers and Orbs of Fusing correctly(don't spam them for that 6l)

There are a lot of other things, too.

It's a multiplayer game. The thing with multiplayer games, and even single player, is how the player can make changes to the game's that the developers did not forsee. In games like WoW, PoE, Diablo or TF2, you create entire economies. In most multiplayer games, you can make metas. Even in a mobile game, like Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, or Puzzle and Dragons, you have metas.

Single player games, you have a bunch of easter eggs and other things that you should look up to help you progress through the game without as much of the torturous grinding or whatnot you would've gone through.

When they first make the game, it's focused on introducing something new. After that, they just try to sustain the game.

Valderis Vandala4 votes

How does any of that excuse not knowing how most basic abilities work or interact with items or each other? I have to go to a wiki just to know the damn AP and AD scalings on abilities, this kind of shit is inexcusable.

I'm not talking about what is meta or what is the best rune page for X champion or what the community is doing, I'm talking about basic information about champions, abilities, items and their interactions.

What if you had to go to a third party website just to learn what some basic ability like "Landwalk" does in Magic the Gathering? Not a perfectly equivalent example but you get the idea I hope.

Troll for Trump3 votes

You don't know which path you want to take in the skill tree in PoE either. You don't know what you should build to optimize that character, either.

You need to learn some things over time. And, in most games, it's the numbers.

PoE's case is the statistics, currency exchange, which ability is most dps (not viper strike), etc.

MTG, it's what the staples are

A Basic Island1 votes

most people actually do spam jewelers/fusings for the 6l

putting 4x wheystones or scraps on it each time is way to time consuming, more so if it isn't white

Troll for Trump1 votes

I think it's better to just trade in those chromatics/jewelers/fusings to get one off the market, but idk, depends on whether or not you like gambling

Venomar1 votes

Riot should embrace this to be honest. I know plenty of games that put a giant red blinking "CLICK ME" links to thier third party reference/theory crafting/guide/build sites in thier client or in a readily accessible place and not once have I seen someone complain about it.

"Thousands of people have spent millions of hours researching, exploring and understanding the mechanics of your game to a level of detail that you could never have conceived or have ever possibly understood on your own as a developer initialy. Then they have conveniently compiled all this data into these serveral website locations with well thought out, informative, and well constructed guides. What could we possible do with all that information?"

"eh, that turtotrial we had an intern throw together one weekend back in 2008 is good."

I'll never forget when I found "elitist Jerks* when I was playing WoW. It was after several years and I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the game and roles. The level of depth that these dudes took it too, the specificity of rotations and skill orders, the math, down to the thousanth (when dealing with factors In the millions), for a video game. My only point in bringing this up, is to illustrate the level of depth and amount of commitment people have to their video games and figuring out EVERYTHING about them. Give people channels into THOSE tools, that the community creates and spends thousands and millions of man hours on, rather then giving them your own half assed system and saying "well that's it, now you're on your own, figure the rest out and have FUN."

But nah.

doiminat0r36004 votes

Well, POE really has any kind of customization you want. The only thing I see missing is free cosmetics lol. You watch one beginner video thats about 15 minutes and its all layed out for you. With league or games like league, you watch hours of gameplay sometimes to just figure out the basics.

Adriqnohee1 votes

POE is multiplayer and has PVP.

k wìx1 votes

Right, but again - the core focus is generally a single-player or co-op driven experience. You can play PoE by yourself and have an AMAZING time, it also works really well to help teach you the mechanics of the game and play at your own pace in the process.

When the game is pvp multiplayer focused, it's not the same. Problems like knowledge of the game can become an issue. I still maintain my point - it's an unsolvable problem with this style of game.

morris17 votes

That skill tree seriously almost crashed my computer when I tried to open it.

AninLegions7771 votes

Thought I was the only one. My screen froze and the song I was playing turned into an eerie screech. Yikes!

dunder kill4 votes

I also play PoE and its much easier to pick up PvE games than PvP games like LoL. If you were to do a fair comparison, you would have to compare PoE to Bots in League. Even most new players have no problem dealing with bots. Trying to compare PvE to PvP straight up isnt fair.

doiminat0r36001 votes

You can claim this but the PvE is a relaxed experience that is meant for farming of gear by the developers. Try playing in the multiplayer section without good gear. You'll eat those words.

Epicanian3 votes

it took you 6 months to learn this game? lol

Papa Andrei4 votes

Its been 2 yearsx and i am still learning

doiminat0r36001 votes

You are still considered learning until you are masters ranking or LCS. Even diamonds are still learning. You dont consider to be mastered until you know what every champion is capable of at every level of the game.

Epicanian3 votes

right... but you said it took you 6 months to learn the game. Are you in the LCS?

badooga3 votes

Riot knows this and is planning on fixing this, but we do not know when. In the meantime, they should simply make Runes free (and remove Tier I and Tier II completely); this would have no downside for Riot (you can't buy actual Runes with RP), and it would improve the new player experience as a whole.

doiminat0r36002 votes

Tier 1 is gone. Tier 2 is extremely cheap to the point where a few hundred IP is every Tier 2 rune in the shop. The issue is, Tier 2 doesnt cover as many things as Tier 3. Tier 2 doesnt have hybrid pen or %HP. It's a bit weird.

MXXXXXL1 votes

[deleted]

badooga1 votes

I really doubt that buying IP boosts so that you can get Runes faster is a common thing, if at all (if you are going to buy RP, it's most likely so that you can get a skin or something along those lines, not an IP boost).

Jbels2 votes

Holy shit dude, post a snapshot of the tree, or put a warning, clicking that link literally crashed my computer

Arakadia2 votes

LOL, that thing took me a while to low and it was ridiculous how detailed for how big it was.

doiminat0r36001 votes

Imagine the new one. They update it from time to time. Now they have many more skills to expand your character even more. Some of them range from summoning minions. They even have one for an assassin character that allows fast AOE clearing and single target magic damage. Some can cast spells too.

The amount of customizability is huge.

doiminat0r36001 votes

Sorry lol. I was able to load it just fine with a 3rd gen i7 3510U. Thought it would be fine for anyone with atleast a 4th gen i5.

ModKnightsKemplar2 votes

"Considered better," but not as successful.

A HUGE part of Riot's strategy is NOT having newb-friendly design. They want to challenge people who want to excel at the game. That necessarily comes at the expense of other things.

Could they put a better tutorial in to help out some? Probably. But likely, there's a lot of internal disagreement about what it would tell players, and that's why Riot lets them figure it out for themselves. Even if they did have a tutorial that we all liked, people would still complain. Better to focus on improving the game.

doiminat0r36001 votes

A lot of games are very successful. Many cant be as successful as League simply because they didnt arrive early enough. This means that they didn't get the backing that LoL did and LoL doesnt have a casual scene really. Games that succeed in the way I mentioned all are casual with 100% optional multiplayer.

Optional multiplayer means that you get the same rewards at the same pace as single player.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

I'm not sure how that relates to our civil disagreement, but I tend to agree. My point is that comparing League to less successful games isn't all that helpful to them. They are already better than those games, and the environment towards noobs has a lot to do with that, imo.

Corrupt Bliss2 votes

LoL does have a pretty horrible tutorial. That being said, I don't think its as impossible to learn how to play League or even as difficult as some say.

There are many others games that have third party websites available. Often times when playing games the player has a question arise that the game itself cannot answer. Runescape, Warframe, and Diablo to name a few. These games all have third party websites offering vast amounts of information that is required to play the game, but is very helpful to an experienced player.

I believe League functions the same way- it provides a base of knowledge to the player which spurs innovation and questions.

Take Vandaril for example. About of the the crazy things that happen in league are found/exploited/shown by them and their team. None of these facts or tips I would know on my own, but it is definitely enjoyable to go to YouTube and see these crazy things happen!

TLDR; League is fine. New players who enjoy the game will want to find out more, regardless of the learning methods league provides. We've got an awesome community.

doiminat0r36002 votes

Lots of the games you mentioned can easily be played without much information other than "this is what this character does." You don't need to know what builds are the best. Heroes of the storm was the same way in that all you needed to know was the general abilities. You didnt need to know damage or builds because they were nearly irrelevant.

With Diablo, all you needed to know was "this is a mage" "this is an assassin" "this is a bruiser" kind of thing. Other than that, you worked off the base model that it told you to shape your character how you wanted.

With league, you need to know that this mage does this, and this mage does this, and this mage does this..... etc. You also need to know that you shouldnt use this item on this champion or that you are fragile and need to watch positioning. You don't really know that information without knowing the classes and what each champion is good at and what each champ is bad at.

oh, and one more thing

We've got an awesome community.

I hope to god this is sarcasm.

Corrupt Bliss2 votes

LMAO. Play Diablo III and tell me you don't need to know the most efficient builds. In order to even touch the ladder you must be running the most recent build, none of which you'll ever be able to optimize on your own without thousands of hours put in, and an extreme eye for detail.

Runescape was quite possibly the hardest game I ever tried to play. The tutorial was more lackluster, and I had no idea that there were even quests or objectives in the game for months until a friend told me I was an idiot, and explained the game.

Positioning and other things such as lane trading, team comps, and matchups all come with extended game experience. I can't think of a single game tutorial that would drop things of such depth on a new player.

With league, you need to know that this mage does this, and this mage does this, and this mage does this..... etc. You also need to know that you shouldnt use this item on this champion or that you are fragile and need to watch positioning. You don't really know that information without knowing the classes and what each champion is good at and what each champ is bad at.

With League, all you need to know is "this is a mage" "this is an assassin" "this is a bruiser." Those are the basics. League gives you all of that! I'm not saying there isn't room for more guidance, but I am saying that having third party websites be a source of information is not bad. In fact, I think it's great. After a new patch, I always get excited once champion.gg has their data collected! It is super fun to see which champions are performing well and which ones have bumped up a few ranks.

I've recently been playing with some of my friends who are between levels 12-21 and have been having a blast. They don't understand positioning, or that Syndra typically goes mid, or even know why a jungler is necessary! Despite this, I give tips and tricks here and there, but hey- if my friend builds a long sword and executioners calling that's totally fine. They'll learn the most effective build paths, understand champion mechanics, and positioning all in time. Part of the fun comes from experimentation.

Legit though, we have an awesome community. I'm a little sad that you do not think so. I love seeing community contributions, browsing through memes and games, and seeing some of the many fanarts and videos that Leagues wonderful community creates!

Papa Andrei1 votes

Idk bout you, but it took me about 3 days to beat the main campaign and all side quests in PoE...

Sammystorm1 votes

How would you fix this? Alot of the knowledge (and depth of LoL) comes from experience. I mean if you don't know what every champ does generically you are at a disadvantage. If you don't know how to pick good runes or masteries you are at a disadvantage. If you don't know all the items you are at a disadvantage. However league can't realistically inform you of all of this. So how do you propose riot fix this?

The depth needed for mastery of this game does not excuse riot for not informing new players of the basics like mastery and rune system and jungleing. Nor does it excuse tier 2 runes and ridiculous IP and level gates and the massive grind they require. However I still don't think your criticism is entirely fair.

doiminat0r36001 votes

Allow all players (new and old) to access all masteries and make runes significantly lower cost (like less than 500 for Quints and like 100 for everything else). Allow rune pages to be free, make a better tutorial, and allow players to view scalings on champions as well as stats of each champion at each level of the game.

Sammystorm1 votes

Sandbox mode which allows players to understand scaling and such is coming. Lower IP on runes and stuff I can get behind. What exactly would you want to be in the tutorial? It can't be huge and bulky but still needs to be informative. I personally think that pvp on any game is basically trial by fire. I don't think there is a good way to really help casual players get into pvp. Some people (not everyone) will always look at min maxing and actually research which will always be used against a new player. It is the nature of pvp games.

doiminat0r36001 votes

A Tank Tutorial, a mage tutorial, an adc tutorial, an assassin tutorial, and a healer/fragile defender for champs like janna and raka tutorial

The Ecdysiast1 votes

The tutorial should be a campaign of sorts, like other mobas attempt.

First and foremost, starting with how to manipulate minion waves aside from just right-clicking to shoot at them.

The Ecdysiast1 votes

Actually, what you're describing is completely wrong.

Sure, you get to see the skill tree, but you can also see all the runes and masteries before getting them.

What's best is a system that introduces players to the game at their own pace.

However, Riot doesn't want to go through the trouble of actually making their matchmaking system notice the difference between a level 30 player who's been playing for 7 years and has every possible rune and a level 30 player who only started playing after they halved the xp requirement and so has no runes because they spent all the measly amount of ip they got on the cheapest champions.

The only way to fix this issue without doing any actual work, because you know Riot doesn't like to do actual work, would be to make runes as free as masteries.

doiminat0r36001 votes

The thing about Path of Exile, is that none of it needs to happen. With league, if you dont use masteries, you are screwed. Period. You are hopelessly outclassed by enemies that it doesn't even matter if you play well. You have to have masteries to survive and conquer.

Have you ever seen a game where a keystone-less player absolutely stomps a player with a correct keystone? I haven't because it's rare that it even happens.

With Path of Exile, it's optional. You don't have to build with skills that are specific. You could just build 100% intelligence, strength or dexterity and be fine. They are completely reliable builds. You don't need to have something that modifies your playstyle in that game. In League, you NEED a keystone to succeed against someone who has keystones.

If you think forcing a player to have a certain stat is introducing players at their own pace, then there is something wrong. Especially since you gain experience faster than previous seasons, you are shoved into a "use ____ or lose" kind of game.

The Ecdysiast1 votes

There's been a boom of keystone-lacking players intentionally picking no keystone, as well as players who brought Colossus on champions with no hard crowd control because it used to be SotA.

Golden Tager X1 votes

Heheheheh, you should try Dota and see how beginner friendly it is. Much less so than League.

Treyhova1 votes

Ill be honest, when I first saw a video for LoL, I said "What the fuck is going on?". If I didn't have experience playing Smite and hadn't been watching LoL videos for a year before I started, I would have probably been fucked when I started this game. As it was, I was one of the few who consistently knew what to expect at the beginning, and that placed me in the minority. The game holds way too many things back from new players, and introduces artificial difficulty in its design.. Smite, for all of its flaws(You think League is snowbally?), at least lets you start on a level playing field with everyone (Helps you can buy all current and future gods for $30, verus the $300+ League) and not be shafted just cause this guy has a keystone and you don't.

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