On the topic of Mission and the New Player Experience (NPE)
#This is a constructive discussion. #Feel free to agree, disagree, and articulate why.
I mean, the New Player experience has to be rethought. If this isn't up there for Riot's priority list, I don't know what is. For the sake of this discussion, I'll call it NPE.
Missions is another great step in the right direction. I applaud Riot for this design decision, and am grateful they're still making steps in the right direction. However, the priorities are quite meddled around, in my opinion. Anyway, I'm not here to criticize, I'm here to construct and discuss. Missions can greatly help with the NPE. Why? It's an easy way to reward players for learning the mechanics of this game, without having other pointless limitations. Here, let me list some issues, and how missions can help out with them.
#Summoner Spells
Summoner spells are locked from early on. It has been stated that this is because it helps new players try out each spell and learn them. This is a smart move, as for new players, there are a lot of mechanics that all contribute to the game, and this is one which often does confuse people. Having introduced some of my friends to this game recently, I have noticed they do eventually get used to them around levels 6 and 7.
However, missions can change all this. The lockout method does work, but not by reward. They work by force, making players do what they're told. Yes, they have no other option, but there's a better way.
Using Missions, players can be directly rewarded by winning X amount of games with a particular summoner spell. Perhaps this can be rewarded with a Mystery Champion Shard, which I will talk about more soon. The point is, in ensuring that the NPE doesn't hide any of the core game experience, players can still learn the game at their own pace, and are hereby less likely to be turned off by a restriction system.
#Difficulty of Champions
Learning new champions is tough. In my opinion, the beginning roster, and the accumulation of champions as a whole needs to be tweaked.
Why?
Because some of the best champions for learning the game do cost too much IP, and vice versa. The NPE can be ruined by players picking a champion they're told to play, and instead, find out that the game's mechanics are far too hard and not worth the effort at all.
Missions can help here, by rewarding champions upon achieving a certain mastery score with another champion. In successfully mastering a beginner level mage, Missions might reward the mastery of this champion by giving the player a slightly more difficult mage, to help progress the learning curve of this game.
Take 
. The skill floor for Katarina is quite high, and especially for the NPE, such a recommendation is not wise. Why she is introduced so early on is beyond me. A much better introductory champion is 
. He teaches many mechanics for League, such as 3 hit passives, basic attack enhancers, delays, and an easy-to-use escape. BY NO MEANS am I saying Ekko is easy to master. But he's a good starting point for assassins, in my opinion. Similarly, I wonder why 
and 
are here as well. Maybe even , when 
might make a better beginner champion.
Missions should reward the mastery of simple champions with an increasing complexity of champions.
One example route: 
---> 
---> 
---> 
---> 
The increasingly intrinsic passives and stacking mechanics get progressively harder as the new champions get rewarded. This solves the NPE of champions quite effectively, in my opinion.
#Runes Reforged (Soon™)
As the new Runes system is worked on, I would like to talk a little about what I expect to see in terms of the NPE. These out-of-game mechanics need to be simplified as much as possible for beginner players, so they can focus on learning the game itself. However, new players shouldn't necessarily be weaker because of this. This is what the current system has done horribly wrong.
Although I do believe I heard a quote from Riot saying similar things, I think new players should initially be given a standard rune page. 3 rune pages should be enough, with a potential 4th being unlocked later on. These 3 rune pages should be named carefully.
- Magic Damage
- Physical Damage
- Health
These names are best because they are clear and intuitive. A new player can look at them as know immediately what they are for. There shouldn't be any tricky Keystones or extra mechanics in these rune pages. They should be standard and simple.
##One thing which should NOT stay is the unlocking of new runes. I am insistent on this point. Limiting players is not educating players, even if "It's for their own good". No, it's not. All runes should be unlocked from the start. Locking up small things does not create a sense of progression. It creates a sense of **grinding. **
What should be done is trying out particular runes with missions. Take this: http://i.imgur.com/OLwaTbV.png A Mission could say "Gain 200 health from Essence Thief". It should take the NP straight to the Rune Page to equip it when first received. At regular intervals, the player should be introduced to a new rune. But when they get the hang of it, they can then learn at their own pace. This is a much better idea than limiting learning speed.
#Honour
Establishing good player behaviour is important, especially early in the NPE, so they can carry on learning how to be new people. Hands down, one of the worst things about the League community is the toxicity. Personally, I think that this isn't all too big an issue, but it never hurts to help the situation.
Honour should be made crystal clear to new players. One of the reason for toxicity is the amount of stress players come under when doing badly. What I suggest is rewards for losing and staying calm, if there's some way to track that. One other way to do this is to decrease IP gains for winning, and increase gains for losing IN NORMALS. This way, it feels less trash to lose, whilst still winning feels good too. Winning is it's own reward in many regards.
How could Missions help out? They would help in making the players understand how Honour works. I personally believe that this new Honour system is amazing, and all it needs to do is to be embraced. Including it in the NPE would help cement this early on, and improve the game as a whole.
This last point was less about Missions, and more about ensuring that newer players do stay calm.
#Thank You! You're really kind to have made it through this post. To help it get seen, please upvote, and maybe drop a comment to help us out! Thoughtful discussions like this really help shape this game, and together, everyone achieves more!
