The Experience for Beginning players is Awful

As someone who is legitimately new, I have to disagree with giving new players masteries and runes. There is already far, far too much information to take in (nearly 140 characters being the most distracting facet) access to runes and masteries will simply be providing them with a piece of information to ignore. The way they're inroduced gradually allows players not only to find their playstyle before making purchases, but to also understand the base stats they're manipulating.

Jungle does need some focus though, fully agreed. Support does too. Jungle is the single most abstract playstyle of all the lanes and it's not immediately apparent what to do, you're playing the big picture rather than the small right-clicking objectives people in lane have learnt. A basic tutorial of how to gank would do wonders!

I have to contradict here a little:

Yes, the new player experience is awful, but that's due to toxic players and smurfs and the smurfs of toxic, banned players! Not due to the Unlock-System.

I wont deny it, the points you made in your thread are valid... IF you are an experienced player already! But as a newb? Who cares for the damage Zed is doing in 'trades'... who cares for the JGL being the most important role - those guys have to learn how... NO... WHY to lasthit and Build Items - not JGL routes and Gank patterns! How do you think a new player around Level 3 would ever JGL?

Getting leashed by Bot and kiting the JGL creepwith his Attack Speed Marks and Armor Glyphs while utalizing his AA-resets to prevent to much DMG before ganking a lane? NO they'd just DIE or farm 24/7 leaving their team 4v5 as... Zyra JGL - she's a Plant, she belongs into the Forest, right? That's BS!

Than the unlocks: Sure thing, give players full 30 mastery point at 1, and again I ask, what do you expect? 12-0-18 on Support 12-18-0 in Mid to let players learn their roles? NO! The dude picking the Champion which evetually is going bot because someone else want middle - lets say Heimerdinger - would go like 10-6-14 because it looked good to skill offensive, defensive and the thing in between.

When I got killed my first time by a Jungler I was like 'WTF this is unfair he leaves his lane and just kills everyone' before I realized how is doing this (with smite) why he is doing this (because he wants more gold for his Team) and why I should be able to do this as well.

You (and most Smurfs) have to understand how BAD new players are in League - it needs for ages for a new player to understand the game - it takes forever to understand the interaction of Masteries and Runes and how they effect Champions. Giving 1 point per Level encourage players to read and understand their masteries each ime they Level UP. The Grind is necessary for new players to have a basic experience of the game before getting into a ranked enviroment. And as expensive as Runes/Pages are: They first allow some basic experimenting with the cheap ones before pushing each player into the one or two role(s) he likes the most by making him spend alot of IP on this one role/champion.

League Grinding system sure is not perfect. But it's good. It encourages new players to keep playing (which is important - still a F2P-Game). It motivates to buy RP (which is important as well) WHILE slowling adding more and more depths to the new Player.

A long time ago when I hit 30 and shortly after the Ranked - I just understood how to JGL and how to play more than 3 Champions aka Brand/Heimer/Swain(RiP). But than I was able to play with 1200 Elo dudes i was matched with in ranked and even climb from there ( I still thought / would be the most broken summners on Swain and / on Heimer... but hey, I won games! xD) - unfortunately I didn't know about the season rewards back than and 'just' got the my Silver Cup instead of the Gold. =P

Little Edit: If you try to show a friend the game, dont play with him - that's the worst thing you can do. First show him the game by playing your selfe - than let him play as he pleases. After some games you can give him some advice, maybe recommend some good streamers to speed up his learning. Not like: 'Hey your stupid, you bought Thormail against an AP Champ sell it!' during the game, that has nearly no effect, but like. 'uhm dude, why have you bought Thromails?' after he loses -> "Cause I'm stupid" That's how you learn things. =P

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My main gripe is that it promotes bad habits with players and teaches them only to play League of Legends Lite Where there are never junglers, so many never learn, and you have very little access to masteries or runes,.

I feel this pretty much sums up all of the unnecessary barriers to entry in League. Bot games don't feature junglers and create a false impression of how the game works, one made worse by the level-locking of Smite (seriously, why do summoner spells even have level requirements), and runes and masteries combined are worth about one top-tier item's worth of stats and bonuses, which means lacking them hugely diminishes the power of newer players in a game they're already at a disadvantage in while learning. Several Rioters have mentioned that they haven't addressed these issues immediately because they value depth over accessibility, but considering how none of these systems offer any real depth, it might just be better to do away with them entirely, i.e. by removing masteries and runes, and taking off level restrictions to summoner spells.

I totally agree, I am teaching my 12 year old niece to learn the game and I needed to create a new account and then feed every game just to find players as bad as she was. Even then I had some lucky streaks where I was hitting games that were 4 v 5 and was winning nearly half of my games even while feeding. She still can't hang with anyone except beginner bots. It's really rough going, but she seems to be ok learning it the hard way like this.

You are flawed on your new player experience for a simple reason: Riot's algorithm is pretty good at spotting smurfs and spliting them from true begginers. That means all toxic smurfs that are either frustrated bronze players or players creating a new account due to being banned before.

My sister started playing without me being in the game, and while you sometimes spot a smurf, you have nearly only begginers.

I came over from dota, and let me say that league would be an easier game to learn if it weren't for all of the mechanical roadblocks riot has put in place. Masteries, Runes, even how most of the best champions are in the higher price tiers, all of these factors make it so that new players are at a severe disadvantage. Which makes no sense since they need the most help. R.i.p. balance. [zombie-brand-facepalm]

My friend keeps making new accounts for "no reason." (We all know it's because he's banned for scripting, it's happened like 7 times now lol.) I play with him cuz the game's funner playin with friends but holy shit I told him I just cannot do it anymore. The amount of pure toxicity in this game pre level 30 is insane. Want to know why?

1. Smurfs and new players are under level 30. The incredible mismatch in skill is absurdly anti-fun More importantly, 2) All the people who were banned for toxicity have to make new accounts. 90% of the people you meet under level 30 are there because they were banned for toxicity and they very clearly did not learn their lesson. If anything they're more toxic for having to level up to 30 again.

I have to second the jungle comment. I main support but can manage ok in other roles if necessary. I'm not super but I don't feed.

Except jungle. There's literally no way to get a feel for how it's supposed to work. I can't queue jungle in normals even because people get hella mad that a level 30 is just now trying a new role; but on the flip side, jg in a custom or vs AI match is pointless because the bots dont jg so you have entirely free reign.

There really needs to be a way to teach jg basics without just diving into a pvp game.

Yea LoL has to do better with new players. I was confused a lot when I started playing and did not know how to do jg.

I agree with this post. Just created a new account myself so I could try to learn some new roles with hopefully a little less pressure. The amount of advantages experienced players on alt accounts gain is already mind-numbing, but that you can get grouped with people who have run/mastery advantages to boot is pretty hardcore.

The level of toxicity at this point in the game (pre-30, and most definitely <10 at least) is horrid! It makes bronze 5 matches look like a walk through happy family memories--you know, that day dad wasn't drunk and hitting on your sister. Oh, my life. JK. I'm an only.

On top of that, no one ends up using most of the abilities they are given at the early levels. Well, except for exhaust. Flash is one of the most important abilities and should be given right off the bat. Along with teleport. And smite.

Though I do like no junglers in the early games as it should make you focus more on laning and what the different champs you face will be doing, fact is it's false security. And then you get that guy who insists on jungling despite having none of the abilities, runes, and masteries he will need to really succeed there.

And let's not even talk about the IP dump of level 2 runes. Like, why are they there? And how is a player with limited funds supposed to determine how to budget for those runes AND the champs they will have to buy along the way. I mean, I play too much. I have the hemorrhoids to prove it. And it is painful for even me with higher win rates and S for days.

And then there's the simple IP dump of champs. Like, the free rotation helps, but it's going to take some 50 games before you can afford to get the champ you want, and that's an old champ to boot. And we no longer get 450 RP? What's that about?

I'm sitting here spamming games with Zyra (my main) because she's free this week, I can play her, and I can't even be bothered to try to play other lanes and roles again because of the toxicity, lack of ability to get champs in my roster I'd like to learn a bit more about, and the uneven matchups between vets and players who have spell/mastery/rune advantages. I mean, playing a level 3 game against a champ with a keystone seems a bit wrong.

These are just a few of my observations. I think you should give players access to two champs for each role right off the bat. Make them old champs. That's fine. But we start with like 10, hit level 6, then we lose those ten and get whatever is in free rotation, which for the last and next month or so is mostly support champs! Boy, someone was really thinking when they implemented that idea.

And don't even get me started on the "issue with your connection" bug. Sigh.

I started playing earlier this year and i can confirm that the struggle is real. I've been gaming my entire life and I'm only doing league for the wifey even though I've come to enjoy it myself. I've picked up other MOBAs and played them but league is about as gated as it gets. I can understand the desire to want to discourage smurfs and whatnot but holy boy was it a grind.

Runes are grossly overpriced for how many you need to optimize certain Champs.

Jungling was a nightmare until like level 25 because the game is literally balanced around you having those runes and masteries. Red buff could solo kill any fresh jungler when they first pick up Smite at level? 9? I forgrt, but it was disgusting having to recall every two camps and 6 minute first clears.

The matchmaker seemed to be non existant for normals, which was the strongest deterent. I'll never forget freaking out on a bunch of people who were shit talking me one game after I had noticed how trash the matchmaker is. They were all like 500-1500 wins and I had I think 27 at the time. So I was in a game with a collective group of people who had like 7,000 hours of gaming experience and knowledge and i was sitting there with like 50, getting yelled at and flamed because I'm up against someone(Darius) who again had several thousand games played and Riot bites. Now I'm all for a challenge, but my first 100 or so total games were more of a meat grinder.

I persevered, however it wasn't without frustration. And I could see how someone without a gaming background or who isn't a similar cut of cloth and just wills themselves through the Bullshit to get to the yellow grass on the other side could go "why in the ABSOLUTE FUCK am I playing this Bullshit game?" after only a few matches and never come back.

The experience is really bad: you don't have any champions, you don't have ANY runes making it impossible to jng properly, you meet smurfs 24/7. It's just an overall terrible experience and hard to justify when friends ask if it gets better.

the worst thing is playing without a keystone versus someone with a keystone. They auto win the lane unless

1. They are really bad in comparison to you
2. Your champion hard counters their champion

I remember not having to and whenever poppy on the other team tpes I thought it was a skill that made minions invincible anywhere and tp

Give smite at lvl f*** 4 or lower. It is god awful getting to level 10 because matches take so damn long. I could be over and out a match in at most 30 minutes if I could just fill the jungle role because jungle creeps are wasted meaning the teams have to take so much more time to get gold and I doubt a match will finish before the last player get's his 4 or 5 item.

Also bots have runes and masteries now. So yeah lost my first bot game on a smurf.

I understand wanting to play with a friend who is new but half of the reason that the experience is awful for new people is because there are so many smurfs in under 30 that it's basically a contest of who has the most/best smurf on their team and everybody else gets one-shotted and harassed for their mistakes from the smurfs.

The grind will prepare the new players for the rigors of Ranked.

Nah mate, being thrown into a completely new game as complicated as league of legends is a fun experience with limited champion access, a tutorial which only promptly explains controls and what the objective of the game is, no player learning tools or access to any of the summoner spells/masteries which are fundamentally core to the game. Rune page access is restricted for some reason. They get stomped by smurfs on the way up and games ruined by bots trying to level an account to 30. Such a fun exciting time.

Riot has reached the point in LoL where new players are simply not going to join very often. The game is simply way too complex. 140+ champs is insane add runes + masteries + constant reworks.... It's nuts. I could teach anybody to be a Chess Master in the same time.

There should be a training system which introduces all spells and their uses. Some basic laning advice and same with jungling.

The experience for smurfs is aweful. It's a bit different for legit new players because they don't get hit by smurf buster.

hehe xd, my experience was fine, until I que for Pvp at lvl 5......:( no flash is OP when enemy has 2 pre-mades with thunderlords decree and flash.

PSI: I had to steal so much jungle Reds to win my first 15 games in a row...I felt so bad bc I caused a bad experienced for a smurf jungle...but then he said "F me scrub, and he would rekt me on his plat main" then I smiled and responded "hehe xd"

^^^ This, the man obviously knows what he's talking about, and his name is pretty damn cool sounding, 100+ upvotes for a reason rito!