First Win of the Day

chipmunkpunk··3 votes·442 views

So, i'm still relatively new to the game, i pretty much suck actually, and i'm in the VS AI beginner que to try to learn how to play better. and nearly every game ends in less than 8 minutes because some gold player is there to get his/her first win of the day. Not only is this abuse of the mechanics of the game, but it ruins the experience for those of us who are actually TRYING TO LEARN. It does no good for new players to get one kill, half an item built, and then have to start over because someone else doesn't have the patience to not win quickly. I've asked a couple of them WHY are you in the beginner que if you're gold, their response was that the game was faster that way.

Please please please Riot, put level caps on the beginner/intermediate vs AI games so that high rank high level players do not ruin the learning experience for newer players. i'm sure this can be done without causing problems for high rank/high level players with low rank/level friends by allowing anyone to be in a 'custom' match but if it's not 'custom' please stop letting them abuse the system.

if i play PVP, i lose because i don't know how to play, when i try to play vs the AI so that i can learn and gain XP (we cannot gain experience and level up in 'bot' games'), I end up learning nothing due to players in the beginner Que who simply should not be there.

8 Comments

Mysticman892 votes

Tbh watching what the gold players do to win quickly is probably more insightful to how to actually play then anything you might learn from bots (and indeed, you might learn bad habits from bots).

chipmunkpunk1 votes

watching some jerk run from lane to lane stealing kills and all the minions is how to learn how to play the game? if thats the case, then i'm not sure i'm that cool with this game. i get no experience from 'custom' games, and the only games where i get reasonable experience are the ones where i get a kill or two, and its becoming impossible with the almost pro players ruining the experience for me. i could care less if they're good players, they should be playing with OTHER good players and giving me the chance to actually practice instead of just rushing through to win.

Mysticman891 votes

Roaming to other lanes to get kills is a legitimate thing in actual games, and if you can push up the lane in order to be able to roam and get kills, then it's often something you should be doing. It's a lot more difficult in real games versus players of course as they'll push back and will be trying to kill you and/or take tower, plus kills are somewhat rarer compared to bots so unless someone roamed, there probably wouldn't be a kill to be had at all. (And remember, you do get gold/xp for kill assists too, so not personally getting the kill isn't a huge deal as you'll still be getting an advantage over your lane opponent, both in terms of the immediate xp/gold, and from the time you can then spend farming before they can get back to lane.) Seeing how they get the kills is also potentially insightful regarding where they position themselves, when they'll chase and when they'll back off, when they'll use abilities and what they'll save, etc.

As for them taking all the minions, what is it that allows them to steal all the minions, and what aren't you doing that yourself? The only difference between their csing potential and yours is a handful of runes/masteries, and 99% of the time if you're csing properly then that won't make a difference, so watch what they do to clear the wave(s) effectively.

Experience, as in the stuff from the 1-30 leveling system, is independent of your performance in the game and only on game length, if it's win/lose, as well as the type of queue (bots being poor for xp compared to pvp). Kills don't influence your xp at all. (Incidentally, I think winning a ton of as-short-as-possible games is actually more efficient xp than a handful of hour long marathon games, even though you'll get more xp per game in the latter case, the base xp you get makes the short but high volume approach make up for it.)

Remember that PvP games matchmake you with similar leveled/mmr people, and you're high enough level that you're sortof shooting yourself in the foot if you don't 'force' yourself to play PvP. Level 1-20 or so (probably less) real new players are understandably apprehensive about playing PvP since they feel like they don't know the game and they'll get stomped. They would in theory get matched with other people the same level as them, and it's quite common for people to be all "this is my first pvp game, sorry in advance" to get responses along the lines of "Don't worry it's my first PvP game too", and it can be actually somewhat fair game (if perhaps a perpetual facepalm experience to any spectating veterans). In practice there's probably random smurf accounts mixed in in that level range since they're the ones who aren't afraid of PvP games despite being low level, but if you lose a handful of games you'll be 'under' the smurfs mmr wise and get truly fair match ups (as in people who don't know the game versus people who don't really know the game).

Levels 20-30 though people who are legitimately new often start braving PvP. It's less smurf infested by that point, as the smurfs generally started earlier and have significantly higher mmrs by the time they're in their 20s levelwise, but you'll still bump into the occasional one who'll trash you, but often times it's people who've mostly played just bots up until that point, so relatively fair. It'll be frustrating to both sides as they discover that almost everything they learned from bots doesn't work anymore, but it'll be a fair first step towards learning how to play.

By the time people are freshly level 30, most players will have dozens if not hundreds of PvP games under their belt. If you manage to make it to 30 via only bot games, when you do go to pvp, you'll almost certainly get stomped. It probably won't even be because you get matched with some super pro smurf or gold+ ranked veteran, it'll be players who legitimately just got to level 30 on their first account, but who actually learned the game via playing PvP pre-30 when the game 'expected' them to. And then you'll play some more games and get stomped more, and that'll repeat for awhile until you either get frustrated and quit, get frustrated and return to bots (and then get bored and quit), or your mmr drops low enough that you're matched with similar bots-only people and trolls who dropped there not due to lack of game knowledge, but rather their active desire to make others miserable. These are not good options, which is why everyone has been urging you to avoid playing bots. It's not trying to pick on you, it's genuinely trying to set you up for success.

Trying to learn the game by playing bots is like trying to learn chess by playing checkers. You'll learn the most rudimentary things (theres a grid, theres pieces on the grid, there are rules about how the pieces move), but you can hardly be said to have learned chess. Even if you become a top tier checkers player, if you try to play chess against even an awful chess player, you'd lose, since they still know how to play. The things you can reasonably learn from bots is the layout of summoners rift, that there are champions, they have abilties that do things that you can activate with QWER, getting the last hit on minions gives gold, and towers shoot you unless theres minions around and they hurt. You don't need other players to cooperate with you to grok any of that stuff, you just sortof need to get in there and play around with the buttons a bit.

Even something like csing you won't really be able to learn effectively in bots, since bots offer unrealistic amounts of harass/waveclear of their own, which will completely alter how one last hits in a 'real' environment.

chipmunkpunk1 votes

stealing cs regardless is crap, and the better more experienced players should not be doing it to noobs. we need the practice. live games bot games whatever, we need the practice, i'm still having issues with farming because of the jerks that did this to me while i was trying to learn how to farm. people that are not new to the game, should not be in the queue with noobs, end of story. riot needs to stop letting this happen regardless of whether or not those players are 'doing the right thing' to win. your mentality will only create lemmings whom will rely on smurfs to carry them.

Mecha MaIphite1 votes

There really isn't much you can learn from bots other than basic controls, CSing and combos. You can practice all three in a custom game. From there, you won't get any better unless you play against actual players.

chipmunkpunk1 votes

i cannot even learn that because the games end to fast for me to realize what i've done correctly or incorrectly.

chipmunkpunk1 votes

theres a difference betwen playing vs players, and having to play vs the players on your own team.

chipmunkpunk1 votes

so what you guys are telling me is deal with it and try to learn from the idiot pros that are in the beginner section to exploit the system mechanics. great, good advice..

noted.. exploit mechanics as often as possible.

any other tips?

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