The new player experience

Marshbouy·Feb 27, 2016·13 votes·924 views

I have a friend who just started playing league and hes lvl 7. he already wants to quit because hes getting put up against smurfs repeatedly for no reason. He had no idea what anything in the game did after going through the tutorial. I told him how to play all the stuff and it got a little better. On top of this the first game he played in normals (he was lvl 3) had a level 10. That difference is staggering. The new player experience is terrible, its not even skill that decides if you win or not, its pure chance. Due to the fact that he cant win any games and the low amounts of IP you get hes only gotten about 3000 ip in total by level 7 and after over 20 total bot and normal games. the new player experience needs serious fixing

11 Comments

NyaboronFeb 27, 20162 votes

I think that having to level up to earn masteries and unlock rune slots (and eventually the right to buy actual good runes) is really stupid. Even the difference between a lvl 17 and a lvl 18 is a keystone mastery. You can't even get smite until level 12 or something, and flash at around lvl 10 or so? I do like that you don't get to play ranked yet until you've established yourself with a minimum game count under your belt as well as 16 purchased champions.

As for smurfs, there isn't really much you can do about it other than make normal mmr scale more dramatically so that smurfs quickly get weeded out and placed with other smurfs. I started playing the game just before bots was a thing, so you went into the game right into pvp. This was also the time when winning your lane was much, much more important than it is today.

MarshbouyFeb 27, 20161 votes

lvl 10 for smite and i tihnk 7-8 for flash. the biggest issue is the lack of a good tutorial

NyaboronFeb 27, 20161 votes

There isn't really any way to make a good tutorial though. Is it going to teach you about the 5 positions and not give you smite for the first 9 levelups? Teach you how to insec or wardhop? It gets you last hitting and shows you how to siege towers. You have to establish your own priorities of how to get everything done. New players pretty much stand still and attack champions so teaching people kda ins't everything and creeps/towers will kill you if you aren't paying attention to them is a good idea, but you can only do so much in a tutorial.

MarshbouyFeb 28, 20161 votes

aside from having you buy thornmail on ashe, missing a lot of towers, on the aram map, turrets are out of whack, enemies are hilariously low level and easy to kill, only has you level up one ability, yea its bad

AckelopeFeb 28, 20161 votes

Honestly a series of tutorial matches focusing on different aspects of the game could be good.

Guy Fox TeemoFeb 27, 20162 votes

Obviously the new player experience isn't the best, but after about 15-20 games the normals queue willl probably taking out of having any chance with a smurf. (Also probably should play bot games anyways)

Taric the GayFeb 28, 20162 votes

I got matched with full smurf games rather quickly in my PvP experience. 4th game contained nothing but smurfs. Didn't lose a PvP game until game 7 where my ADC kept disconnecting and I got placed against a self proclaimed diamond smurf. I was not mad about it since I would rather I face that diamond player than a genuinely new player.

But to throw your friend straight into PvP is a horrible idea. Every game has a smurf right now. Stick to bots for the time being. Beginner bots. When he can beat them easily move him up to intermediate bots. When he can beat those easily then get him into pvp. The best time to start ranked is around level 20. You can buy good runes, you have access to all summoner spells, and most smurf are absent at this level leaving you with genuinely new players.