Easily implemented improvement for intro/beginner bot NPE

Sinister Snail·3/17/2015, 1:07:59 AM·1 votes·312 views

Before I get going, I want to make something clear; while it still needs work, Riot definitely has been making progress with their new player experience. They realize this is an important part of their game's health, and have been giving it a fair amount of attention considering everything else that's on their plate.

Having said that, I did have a bit of a eureka moment of how to make it significantly better.

What's like, 99% of league? Itemization? Champ select? CS? Duelling in lane?

Judgement. Everyone who's good at league understands this, on some level, whether they're consciously aware of it or not. When to push lane, when to fight 1v1, 1v2, 2v1 (5v1 LCS solo penta), or just freeze lane and ping for help. When to leave a pushed lane and help with drag, when and where to drop vision.

A new player cannot learn this; not quickly, not alone. Someone who knows the game has to look over their shoulder and point out "ok, you have zero wards up, no enemies are in lanes, and you're on their inhib tower alone; you won't get that tower before you're caught out and destroyed."

The intro and beginner bots matches need to tell you this. I'm no programmer, but I don't think it'd be that hard to write a script or whatever for stuff like;

-Looks at your vision, your location, and gives you a warning that you're way too pushed up.

-It Looks at your items and level, and tells you whether or not you can beat an opponent. Like, an indicator above every bot's head that assesses their threat to you, in broad strokes, from 'DANGER' to 'GET IM'.

-Looks at whether you have a ward placed, and pings in a bush to tell you where to ward.

-Has an invisible timer of when the last time you saw your lane opponent was, and pops up a message telling you to ping MIA (and how).

-Looks at which bots have the most kills, and tells them what defensive items to get, and why.

IMPORTANTLY, these NEED to be more visible than the blue advice thing on the bottom-right. They need to be SIMPLE, CLEAR, and UNMISTAKABLY IN THEIR FACE.

It really doesn't have to be sophisticated to be extremely helpful. New players have NO CLUE that what they're doing is bad, and they need to be TOLD what to do; even basic warnings and advice like this would help new players learn the game so much faster, and alleviate frustration. New players get SO MAD at this game when they don't know why they're losing, and anything that tells them that in advance is sorely needed. Nobody told them that the riven is 6/0 and they're 1/4.

When it comes to stuff as vital as this, with people who don't know what they're doing, hand-holding is absolutely OK, even necessary. League NEEDS to instruct new players about the most important aspect of the game.

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