The new player experience in this game is awful

This is going to be a pretty long read, so brace yourselves. Also, I want to make it clear that I'm not going on a crusade to bash riot here. There are things I see that contribute to the miserable experience of the new player and these are things riot can address. Keep in mind, to an extent, there's absolutely nothing riot can do about some things aside from punish toxic players. The learning stage, at the very basics, can be an incredibly frustrating experience in any walk in life and this can sometimes bring out the worst in people, especially on the Internet behind a monitor where there are no real consequences for the things you say (aside from extreme cases of course).

I started back in Feb 2012 around Ziggs release, which was basically the start of season 2. Obviously tons of things have changed since then but I was fortunate enough to be starting with a bunch of other people I'd had known for years so we constantly played in 4-5 man premades up until we all hit level 30. Even then, this experience was miserable with trolls, afks, smurfs (which there's only so much riot can do about smurfs), toxicity, misinformation from the game itself (this is relative and I'll explain later), etc. I can only imagine how awful this would've been for someone who was riding solo and learning this game without a more experienced player they know to consult constantly about the game. In short, I feel like my introduction to the game was a lucky one.

So let's start with smurfs. The harsh truth is, there's nothing riot can do about smurfs. Any solution that you throw out there would just be opening pandoras box, things like making riot endorsed level 30 accounts purchasable (hello boosting and inexperienced players bringing down the quality of play in ranked) etc. The question you need to ask is why people smurf in the first place? Most players with a lengthy amount of time invested in this game just want to have separate accounts, that's one reason. Another, and more common reason, is that someone's main is currently suspended and typically those players will bring that toxicity into low level games as well, and then you have people like me who has a level 22 account because I've used it to play with friends who are new to the game - I know, I'm not crazy about it either, it's not fun stomping new players but the alternative is making my new friends play vs plat/diamond/master players, which isn't fair to them. The best I can do is be as constructive as possible to new players, which I try to do. But I've also gotten my smurf in trouble for going off on smurfs for making the playing experience pretty miserable for the players who are clearly new.

So in short, riot can't do a lot about smurfs. They'll always be there and you hope that people have the decency to be as helpful as possible to new players, at the very least, just shut the hell up and don't rub it in when you're up 10 kills and 100cs on a new player, as if being stomped wasn't bad enough.

Here's the next thing I'm bothered by: absolutely awful recommended builds. I know that a lot of new players will explore build sites and if they don't, likely have them recommended along the way. But that doesn't change the fact that some of these recommended builds are absolute noob traps and completely terrible. Let me give you an example:

I've a friend who watches me play a bit, he's pre level 30 (21 to be exact) and be picks up on some of the things I do. Recently I've been playing a lot of Jax jungle, he seems me do it, he's new and impressionable so he does it. I noticed that poachers blade is a recommended build on Jax, which is literally the absolute worst jungle item you could build on Jax (and basically any jungler for that matter). Naturally be builds it, doesn't counter jungle and loses out on the helpful clear speed ramp up from trailblazer, the ganking potency increase from chilling smite or even the dueling power of challenging smite. He asked about it after he played and I told him it was the worst thing he could possible build and his response was literally "wtf why is that recommended?" I don't know. I don't have an answer.

The thing is, this isn't exclusive to just Jax. There's a lot of really crappy recommended builds for champions out there that aren't updated with game changes as consistently as I'd like to see, not to mention some are just flat out bad. I feel like riot expending some more resources into having better recommended builds would be a great benefit to new players because they likely will use them. Going with a shit build because it was recommended and putting yourself in a disadvantageous position just because of it doesn't help.

This one is the big one and it's going to be pretty long on its own. Runes and masteries.

I am sorry, but there is absolutely no reason, going on 6 seasons in, 7 years in, that the runes and masteries experience and element to the game is as absolutely ass backwards and expensive as they are. There are so many things wrong with runes and masteries not being available to level 1 accounts and onward. I'm fine with runes costing IP but they're overpriced as fuck, as are rune pages. And not having all 30 masteries for level 1 and onward is just as absurd and backwards. For starters, it's widely known this game is pretty rune and mastery dependent in general but there are also extreme cases where not having access to them completely limit your potential for champion picks and respective roles. Same with all summoner spells not being available at level 1.

You can't jungle at all without full masteries or runes unless your name is Warwick or Nunu. Most other champions just die to fast or have their clear speeds greatly reduced because of their inability to survive the harsh jungle due to not even having access to all masteries, nevermind runes. This makes jungling from the get go a pretty miserable experience for new players. And with all the streams, story's you run on your front page and promotion of competitive games, a lot of these players are already aware of what these roles are like jungling, not to mention likely knowing someone who guides them anyway.

I get why you want them to not have to worry about runes and masteries at early stages, not to mention the feeling of earning things with each level. But frankly, that feel to league of legends went away forever when it wasn't just a humble game with a small following, it died when this became the most popular game in the world and its trailblazing the path for Esports and setting precedents galore. People see streams, pro games, spectate front page games galore - they don't care about earning a new rune slot or mastery point anymore.

The other part of this is learning the value of runes and masteries and wanting players to learn them slowly and not being overwhelmed with another element to learn from an already complex game. But the reality is, it's not even that big of a deal anymore. Most runes are trash, a select few are only good outside of the niche ones. There's also guides galore that tell you how to properly set your runes and masteries for respective champions, not to mention you can easily make recommended runes and mastery sets for these players. The game quality without full runes, or at the very least, full masteries is absolute shit. Granted new players wouldn't know this, but why hold it from them? They're going to learn it sooner or later, just give them access to it from the start.

The next part of this is the absolutely ridiculous cost of runes and rune pages. You're still budgeting these costs as if there were only 50 champions in this game when there's well over 100 now. Hell even when I started at 80-odd some champs this made sense but with the total amount of champions in this game, it's awful how expensive runes and masteries are. Some quints alone will run you 6300 freaking IP just to fill out YOUR QUINTS. That's a god damn champion! Not to mention the 810 ip reds, yellows and blues. And did I mention the absolute garbage runes that have no place in this game that new players could potentially waste Ip on and thus further decrease the quality of their new gaming experience? Hello death timer runes.

Now imagine this. You're a new player and Zac is free, right? You try him out and holy crap, this guy just calls your name. He should buy a suit! But guess what, Zac costs 6300 IP. And you need to still buy runes, you still want to buy other champions to fit other roles that you're comfortable with when you have to fill a role you're not maining. Not to mention, Zac costs 6300 IP when champions are still being released and there's well over 100 champions and riot shows no sign of slowing down on that one. The burden of budgeting your IP as a new player is so straining and frustrating that in reality, it's hard to feel positive about knowing youll have to invest so much damn time into acquiring IP alone. Even bronze and silver players that are relatively new still have limited rune page selections, limited runes and champions. So the argument that this prevents new players from going into ranked with incomplete rune pages and limited champion rosters doesn't homd water because that's happening now with relatively experienced players because there's so much damn things you have to buy with IP and it's all overpriced as fuck.

Let me put this in perspective: remember when I said I started in February 2012, almost 4 years ago? I have about 3500 normal games played, 400 arams, 1200 ranked games played and I FINALLY just bought my last rune page while barely having enough to own every champion. I even bought a few champs with RP, which isn't an option for some people. I don't even own every rune, just the non garbage ones. It took me 4 freaking years to acquire this. 4 years. But I started this game with 80 some champions and a significantly less complicated game overall, imagine what players starting now feel considering all the new shit? Like holy crap. My current Ip balance is around 9k.

The bottom line is, runes need to be less expensive by a significant margin, rune pages need to be cheaper and runes and masteries need to be available from the beginning of the game, if at the very least level 5 or so. I know there are reasons to not have these options available but they don't outweight the alternative they're currentlt presenting. These things alone, in combination with needing to have at least 3 IP refunds per season, would go a long way to improving the new player experience in my opinion. It's just amazing that new players can play this game now facing this prospect of all the grinding you need to do to buy all the overpriced stuff that's required to play this game well, I was overwhelmed when I was new. Man, compard to what they face now, I had it great.

So again, I want to stress that my goal wasn't to just smash riot here, there's frustration behind this on my part too because I have friends who are new. I realize some of these suggestions I've made could potentially open the door to more elo boosting but quite frankly, the expensive runes and rune pages and champions don't fiscourage that much anymore, which is likely why Lyte is working on a new system to catch boosters entirely and i wish you luck with that. I just feel like these things could generally make the new player experience feel a bit less daunting when they already face some of the extreme circumstances they do and those circumstances are things riot can't really do much about. But these suggestions are. Thanks for the read.