Incentivising Featured Gameplay Modes

Heya board and (with any luck) Rioters. Just came out of yet another frustrating loss and thought I'd drop in and mention the main issue I see with these icons you have and their role of incentivizing the featured gameplay mode as well as being a little reward.

It's nice to have a featured gameplay mode every now and again, even if I'm usually not a terribly big fan of them (tend to become "find what's OP and if that's not banned out, play it and carry 1v5 fights with this" in my experience). However, being something of a perfectionist and completionist, I naturally want to get my hands on the rewards (e.g. the icons). These are a fantastic incentive to get someone like me, who normally wouldn't touch these featured gameplay modes, to jump in and give them a shot and (at least try) to have fun!

But once again this comes down to a problem with scope and giving the wrong goals, I feel.

Pros: -Gives you a nifty little reward! -Makes people who might not normally try things try them for the sake of said reward. -Gives a reason to care about your actions in-game, because they lead to the reward.

Cons: -Makes the player more likely to focus on (or tunnel-in on) that objective to the exclusion of all else. -The goals tend to be far too demanding in terms of the scope of the goal (6 wins in BMB, for example, is far too much for someone with limited time) -These goals can conflict with other goals (e.g. wanting to kill minions to finish that part of the quest vs winning games to finish another part or alternate path) -Goals can become a focal point for trolling ("Oh, you need to do x? Let me make sure you can't do that by doing it before you can.") -It takes away from the actual fun by demanding that we fulfill certain criteria instead of just playing a silly (probably unfortunately balanced) game mode.

I hate BMB. Not because of the actual mechanics within the game or the items (though the store defaulting to the Brawler's page when I'm trying to back for a speedy buy is something of a frustration of mine), but because of this damned reward I'm aiming for. It's sucked the entirety of the fun out of the game mode because I have to care about winning rather than just messing around in what will, most likely, be a off-balanced mess of a version of a real game. I've had a number of people specifically troll me in recent games because I dared mention, "Hey, just want a quick win so I can get the icon. I've got a long way to go yet, so if it's possible to do this quick, please do."

This may, in part, be a problem with the scope, however. As I mentioned above: six wins in an off-kilter game mode that's based around SR (which usually lasts about 30-40 minutes) is a lot of time invested in something I don't particularly care for. It would be very easy for this to be just one or two wins, much like the rest of these have been in recent times. I'm unfortunately busy and simply don't have time to dedicate to this, but I feel like unless I rack up my six wins (which, so far, I've had very ill luck with) and quickly, the event is going to be over before I can fulfill this criteria and get the shiny icon. This is on top of already having to win two previous games with a special item has led me to just despising this entire mode. I can't play for fun because I have to play it for the reward.

Further, in previous parts I've run into snags with things that are unfortunate: such as people intentionally stalling out games to get enough minion kills for a part of their quest. Instead of incentivising finishing the game, we stalled out for ten minutes waiting for someone to kill minions enough to fulfill a threshold. This sends a confusing message because our goals don't meet: I want to win (and get it over with so I can move on to the next game), and they want to wait and farm and don't really care about the win (because it's not a part of their quest).

Now, let me calm down anyone reading this who already has a rebuttal with the words "git gud" or "if you hate it, why are you playing it?" typed out already because I know you're probably going to jump down my throat anyway. Yes, I know this is an optional thing with an optional reward. Yes, I know it's "experimental" and thus I shouldn't get salty over a win or a loss, as the imbalance is part of the inherent fun (see: URF mode). Yes, I know that I should shut up and just play and eventually I'll get it, probably, maybe. I'm simply making a post, hoping that come future modes: this may not be so much of an issue.

I have no problem with Featured Game Modes, though I usually do not care for them. I enjoy the icon rewards I get for fulfilling certain tasks in them, they can be kinda fun at times. I have an issue when it comes to be that the scope and goals make this a grating "grind" rather than a silly optional task.

In the interest of fairness here's a possible solution, or rather guidelines for future ideas in this vein:

-Incentivise playing, not winning. Most of these modes are imbalanced anyway. It's more fun if I don't have to care if I win or lose. -Make the goals realistic to complete in one or two games. A lot of people (like myself) don't have a bunch of time to dedicate to things like League, but we'd still really like these nifty rewards for doing what we can! -Make sure goals are all open to being completion and have overflow into one another. It's no fun to complete one task and then realize the next is "do the same thing, but now without needing the special item." -Make the goals orient around teamwork and teamplay. If there's some good to come out of these modes, let it be the making of better players by giving them ideas that incentivise them to want to work together. -But make sure the goals can be completed alone, if necessary. Trolls will be trolls, and gating off things too haphazardly will no doubt make it a prime target for people trying to get a rise out of the suffering of others that much more easy.

I very much wish I could play some of these modes without feeling like I'm behind held back from the "fun" by the requirements of an icon. This six-wins thing has me the most frustrated because it's the very last thing I need to do, but due to the nature of the game: winning is much more likely to be based on who can play the unbanned OP rather than actual teamplay or whatnot. If I really dislike a game mode, I'd rather just be able to get done with the requirements for the icon and move back into my comfort zone rather than being held in stasis by the promise of a reward being just out of reach.