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Streamlining the New Player Experience !

Kat Head·10/5/2015, 2:10:07 AM·12 votes·1,353 views

The new player experience in league of legends is a bad one. The tutorial is in need of a update along with the recommended items. The sheer amount of crap you need to learn to begin sucking at this game is astounding. Smurfs are everywhere (not all of them bad), combined with toxic players previously banned on old accounts. The most toxic players I have ever encountered were in the leveling experience. It takes seemingly forever to hit level 30, where the game actually starts. When you arrive at level 30 you have a terrible champion pool and most likely 2 rune pages of fail. New players are the future of League of Legends, Riot should do more to ensure that people enjoy and are well informed in the leveling process (where is it written that leveling should suck ?).

Amumu Annie Ashe Garen Kayle MasterYi Nunu Poppy Ryze Sivir Soraka Warwick

  • These 12 champions are 450 IP apiece, my petition is that all of these "Heroic" champions be made completely free. Mini video guides (5 min guides) should be made covering the basics of how to play them and instructions on what lanes they are meta in and what lanes they are also viable in. Links to fan guides should be provided. How many of these champions are purchased with RP ? I believe the loss would be negligible and the gain far greater.

  • My second petition is that the new "starter" runes that were put on permanent sale would begin to be available for purchase at Level 1. Block purchase of any other items (excluding 1 IP temp game mode icons) with IP until all of the permanent sale runes were purchased. This would push smurf accounts into spending money on RP earlier (to buy there favorite champs and boosts) and ensure that new players had these essential runes. Riot wins, the player base wins. Use those runes to create a small rune guide for new players, instructing them on the dangers of taking x over y. Give examples of the basic rune pages that those runes are intended to fill out.

  • My third petition is that all summoner spells be available at level 1, with again a mini video guide to cover the basics. The Jungle is a tough place without smite. Top, Mid and bot lane need to start figuring out what summoners they prefer to use at this low level. This would be a buff to both smurfs and new players.

  • The server test bonus IP weekend was really the only time I have just grouped with tons of random people for normals, and it was fun. Something similar to this should be added for levels 1 - 29, to encourage grouping and making friends. Obviously the numbers could be adjusted according to what Riot would think was profitable and did not cost them to much money. The fact remains, a new player today would need YEARS to obtain all runes, pages and champions. This idea would help a good bit and encourage grouping and making friends, who loses here ?

Number of players in party --> Bonus IP awarded 2 --> 50% bonus 3 --> 75% bonus 4 --> 100% bonus 5 --> 200% bonus

  • My fifth and final suggestion is that the tutorial should be updated asap, new players need to understand turrets and how to buy stuff in the store. The old tutorial is outdated and has some unfortunate information.

With so much focus on end game and solo queue it is understandable why Riot has let the leveling experience languish. The time to address these issues is now. Those first few levels are when people decide if this game is something they wish to invest in or not and I really think Riot is losing potential customers due to how perilous the climb seems to be.

P.S. Try not to vote option 4, I could not resist.

http://i.imgur.com/UTTLptZ.jpg?1

14 Comments

Ace Access 10/5/2015, 12:28:38 PM2 votes

wait, this game had a tutorial in the client ?

I learned how to play from youtube videos because there is no such thing as a tutorial in this game

Wahre Gesicht10/5/2015, 1:28:33 PM2 votes

Started in leagues in July 2014. I can still remember my firsts days and I would say.

*Buy champions to play drafts was my first great emotion in leagues. I was level 11 summoner. If the Riot had given me 10 free champions have denied me this experience.

  • Runes that really impact the game from level 1 summoner will make the game more difficult for the beginner. I for one just bought runes at level 20 summoner. *All summoner spells be available at level 1. This would have hindered my experience. Do not have to be roles until level 10. It is only 5 against 5. Divided into 3 lanes. Do not have to be sup, adc or jg. If someone asked role in my early days I just did not know I did not even want to know anything about it. My concern was to learn not win. So I would not hear of metagame. *I have no opinion about events for level 1-29 summoner.

The initiative to try to help beginners is very good. But I think the main thing is the willingness of veterans to help. I for one did a second smurf so I got level 6 summoner. So I had access to free champions a second time. This is a tip I always give, make a smurf and not move from level 5 Summoner. Playing only custom that does not pay off experience.

Kitty cat Katarina is my favorite skin by far.

Hiemdol10/5/2015, 6:19:37 AM1 votes

I like the idea of improving the new player experience as a generality and in fact kind of like the idea of giving a small amount of starter champions to new player, but I can understand why that may not be a perfect solution.

When a player has a small champion pool the free champ rotation can force a player to try things that they might not other wise have thought to try. In a game with a massive amount of choices picking the "best" starter champ from level one may be a bit much. Just going with what ever random thing can help a player to discover things naturally while giving them goals. Cho was free my first week playing and when I found I enjoyed him I immediately started saving. Goals like that can help a new player feel invested. With an array of champs from the start players would likely be much higher level before they began to try free champs on average thus reducing personal goal and thus potential investment.

The same reasoning could also be applied to why Riot offers what amount to two full Tier 2 rune sets for less then 1500 ip (with overlapping yellows and blues) if I recall correctly. I may be wrong on that I had loads of T3 when the price changes happened so didn't track the changes all that much. Never the less goals feel good when reached so setting artificial goals can help players keep a level of interest. That being said I am all for the removal of T1 and T2 ruins. There are more than enough of these little things to keep players collecting for an excessive amount of time.

One draw back though may be that this is another large decision for a new player to make while likely not having the appropriate information to actually make it. I knew what ruins I wanted to buy first because I did a lot of online research on different set ups. There is a very real chance a new player might not want to spend the time calculating the runes they want and just go with either ill-informed or impulse buys just to not feel pressured to have some all the while deciding if they should save for a champ or rune from lv 1. I do not feel that is a fair burden for a new player in such a complex game and gating the level for higher power runes forces a new player to focus on getting champs they want first thus solving the issue before it can begin.

Also for complexity reason I am not sure giving all spells from lv 1 is such a good idea at all. As you pointed out jungleing is hard without smite, but should a sub level 10 really be jungleing? The macro level game decision making a good jungler needs is way higher then someone playing their first couple of games likely has. Not to mention the community expectation to have a jungler now would creeps to lower levels than it currently is. This can create tension between players who know what jungling is due to research and others having no clue because they are just on a fresh account to try a new game to them. Why give player that many more things to know from level one. Just playing a MOBA for the first time can be hard enough on many players without expecting them to start with optimal setups at level 1.

All in all I agree that the new player experience could use some help but I don't think these suggestions may be the way to go.

Mimy10/5/2015, 2:12:18 AM1 votes

That post thumbnail... lol

Pentarina Only10/5/2015, 11:50:05 PM1 votes

Yay for Katarina mains!

GreenLore10/5/2015, 2:16:21 PM1 votes

Overall I think some ideas of yours are great,some aren't.

-Giving champs for free isn't that necessary in my opinion,I mean 450 ip is something that you can easily get in 3 days(just 3 wins of the day).However the number of 450 champs could be a bit higher.(with the current system we pretty much get one more champ in the 450-class for every 9 new champions).

-The tier 1&2-runes have their uses,since they give you the ability to use runes that much,but don't punish you when you don't use the runes correctly.Overall I think it was a really good idea to halve the price of the most often used runes as it encourages players to buy these.(Though I think runes could be still a bit less expensive,but thats just my opionion)

-All summoner spells at level 1 seems a bit overwhelming,but I think it'd be ok to unlock them a bit earlier

Steel Blossom10/5/2015, 5:52:45 AM1 votes

First of all, mute is a thing for a reason; Riot's given you the tool to combat toxicity so pls, stfu about it. Second, you want guides? Google it. Personally, before I started the game, I watched about twenty gameplay videos and read up on a bunch of champions, and I feel that is what everybody should do. But seriously rune pages should not cost 6300 IP, or actually, anything at all. They should be like mastery pages.