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Making the game friendlier to new players

Bad Plays·3/24/2014, 11:51:22 AM·2 votes·551 views

I wanted to see if we could all contribute some ideas for how to fix League's steep entry wall so that new players who look at the game don't say "I start with no champs or runes and at level 0? No thanks"

Make the 450 IP champs free for everybody and remove them from the rotation.

Keep the leveling system but remove the "masteries and runes unlocked as you level" part. This way you still have to be 30 to play ranked but you have had 30 levels of experience with a decent roster of champs and you have played with full masteries long enough to understand which ones to take.

Remove tier 1 and tier 2 runes. Tier 3 runes are available starting at level 1. Either reduce their price to Tier 1 prices or remove their price and people have them available at all times.

Have a "higher level" tutorial that unlocks around level 20 that actually explains lane dynamics, like "basic attacking your opponent makes his minions focus you and your minions just keep attacking, pushing the lane" and "how to itemize" (the thornmail part of the tutorial just doesn't work). Even have a "not getting hit by skillshots" tutorial that explains that Blitz can't hook through minions but Lux can still snare through them, to actually help people grasp the game.

People go into a game on a champ and maybe have never watched anything about that champ and just have the "recommended items" to go by. I recommend that more information is available about a champ in client before the game including: Scaling, Itemization that works, better defined weaknesses and strengths (Wukong's weakness section used to mention oracles despite that he can dash from outside the range of it). This is so people can actually understand something about their champ before they go into game. Also the "videos" of the skills at work should be updated and have a "higher play" portion to them, like showing how to navigate walls with Nidalee's pounce or using wards to hop behind people with Lee Sin/Katarina.

Lower the IP cost of all champs by around 10%-15%. This is to account for all the 1450 champs being free so it's not a huge leap to unlock new champs.

Actually release some more "new player friendly" champs (at relative prices, like you've promised before). It might take 2-4 months to design, balance and test a champion like Zed or Kha'Zix but how hard is it to design a Garen or a Nunu?

Active bot tips. We have loading screen tips but why not tips that pop up on screen during bots matches? You know the "quest" system on dominion? Something like that to advise new players how to advance. "Oh, you're dying a lot to Ashe, here is a circle that shows her auto attack range" or "Nunu's ultimate deals a lot of damage when he manages to fully channel it. Use a stun/displacement/silence to cancel a Nunu ult!" They don't even need to have a tangible reward, learning how to handle a situation like that would be great. The same tips could pop up near jungle camps in bot matches. Maybe after taking Mid/Bot tower your team gets a mission to "Slay the Dragon! Bottom and mid tower has fallen and you are all leveled enough to take on this beast! Slay it for it's gold and experience!". Same thing with Baron. These would be bots only features, though.

Feel free to post your own ideas here.

Now for a section of just fun improvements!

Border Accolades. I know I'm going to receive criticism for this one (since I'm pretty much lifting the idea from CoD) but why not a way to customize your border for the loading screen? If I'm playing a champ I enjoy why not have it list my games played with that champ? Maybe my kills and my assists with them? We already have this kind of implemented with summoner icons being able to customize, why not expand on that? I want to unlock a Ravenous Hydra icon because I've farmed up 2k minions over the course of 20 games with a Ravenous Hydra in my inventory. I want to be able to use Warwick's ingame splash art (the little square in game) as a summoner icon because I have 100+ games won with him.

I also had an idea for another fun game mode. Reverse mode! Champion scaling is reversed. Scale with AP? Scale with AD. Scale with Health? Scale with Mana. Scale with Armor? Scale with MR!

Please, commit some ideas, it took a bit to type all this out in a legible fashion :P

7 Comments

Tulare3/24/2014, 12:30:02 PM4 votes

I think that masteries and rune slots are unlocked one at a time to make the progression of levels actually a progression. Once you've decided to implement 'leveling up', then your progress from one level to the next has to include some reward. If they did away with unlocking summoner spells, runes, masteries, etc. then they might as well just say "You have to play/win N games before you can start playing ranked." Or have a single experience track with only two 'levels': not authorized to play ranked and authorized to play ranked.

I like some of your other suggestions but I don't think that they'd be pragmatic to implement. Riot has to maintain a fine balance between making the game accessible and growing its player base and making the game exclusive and stroking the egos of its most elite players. As somebody who will never be anything except a casual player among friends, I favour accessibility but I understand why Riot markets the game the way that they do.

If they wanted to make the game more accessible while also promoting esports, I think they'd be wise to take a page out of Wizards of the Coasts' playbook. In addition to the high-level play that they currently promote, create formal structure for more casual players to have a competitive experience without everybody having to struggle in the same one-size-fits-all environment. If they did that, then I think they could afford to loosen up the exclusivity of other elements of the game, as you have suggested.

Just one possible example: Create an 8-team tournament that costs a small amount of RP or IP to enter. After round one, the bottom 4 teams are cut and are free to go play another game. After round two, the middle 2 are cut with some token reward - maybe they get refunded the entry fee. After round three, each player on the winning team gets a good reward (maybe unlocking a champion or skin of their choice) and each player on the runner up team gets a modest reward (maybe unlocking a lower-tier champion of their choice.)

Lucilhel3/24/2014, 5:05:29 PM2 votes

I agree with you on some points, however, I feel like some of your suggestions go against the way that games work in general and would benefit smurfs more than new players.

I'll organize this by your points.

Starting with the set of 450 IP champs free for everyone... Riot mentioned in the 4.1 Patch that they were going to make a static roster of champions available to new players. Once they reached a certain level this would be disabled and they'd start using the normal Free to Play rotation. I prefer Riot's approach on resolving this issue. New players can rely on a fixed set of champions to learn the basics of the game and will likely have the IP to get one or two champs they felt comfortable with by the time they start on the normal rotation. It's an approach that avoids messy situations of people complaining that they bought the 450 champs and now everyone is getting them for free or if/how they are going to compensate that.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-41-notes --- There's a brief section labelled as 'New Player Experience' at the bottom.

The leveling system and unlocks... Goes against the idea of games and leveling up. Masteries and Runes unlocking as you level makes you stronger. If you get rid of that, then what does leveling up mean? Sure you have more experience, and maybe stronger in that sense, but that's not really how leveling up in a game works. Plus, gradually gaining mastery points make the mastery pages less overwhelming to new players and I feel allows them to invest time, as they level, to figure out what masteries do what. Having all 30 masteries/runes unlocked from the start would benefit people who are already high level to create new accounts more because they know what they are doing and they can start off as strong as they are going to get.

Removing tier 1 and tier 2 runes, making tier 3 available at level 1 and reducing or even removing the price... Seems more like something that'd benefit smurfs or people whose accounts have been perma-banned; not new players. I've seen others suggest that the lower tier runes be able to be upgraded into higher tiers. Being able to upgrade lower tiers would make them worthwhile.

Higher level tutorials would be useful. I think at level 10 instead of 20 though. Or have more advanced tutorials at both 10 and 20.

Champion videos... I think their Champion Spotlight videos on youtube do a good job at what you described. It'd be nice if they had that on the Champion pages or at least a link to it. Of course, they'd have to update or remake some when they heavily rework a champ if they don't already.

Lowering the cost of champions... If they were to make the 450 champs free, they would have to restructure their prices but I think the whole thing would be messy the way you're suggesting. Reducing the IP price of all champs by 10 - 15% would upset a lot of people who bought any champ prior to such a change.

They have a Starter Pack for beginners on their in-game store that's been on sale by 80% for a while now... not sure when that started but I think they're keeping around things like that to make the game much more accomodating to new players without upsetting those already playing. I know Best Buy also sells a starter pack for 5 dollars.

Releasing some more new player friendly champions would be good. Right now Riot seems to be trying to put out more dynamic champions, which is good as well. If they're trying to add more complexity to kits with new champs though, maybe they can rework old champs that don't get played often to be more friendly to new players.

Active tips during bot games would be good. I think around level 9 or 12 a friend was sitting beside me to give me tips as I play and simple things like when you're adc you need to move between basic attacks and not just stand there makes all the difference.

Beastlierduke3/24/2014, 2:44:28 PM1 votes

Yes this would have helped me a lot , although its too late now. I have figured it out on my own.

MSTARK343/24/2014, 2:59:24 PM1 votes

Yeah I think this would be a great idea new players get bashed

aaronautumn3/24/2014, 4:43:11 PM1 votes

Just to add on to your champion idea, I'd like to see a system where you get a free champion from each pricing tier each time you hit a level milestone. For example, at level 1 you get to unlock any 450 IP champion for free, then the same thing at level 10 for a 1350, at 20 for a 3150, at 25 a 4800, and finally a 6300 at level 30. As for the rest of your ideas, I agree.

OblongOtter3/24/2014, 11:27:16 PM1 votes

I REALLY WANT: People go into a game on a champ and maybe have never watched anything about that champ and just have the "recommended items" to go by. I recommend that more information is available about a champ in client before the game including: Scaling, Itemization that works, better defined weaknesses and strengths (Wukong's weakness section used to mention oracles despite that he can dash from outside the range of it). This is so people can actually understand something about their champ before they go into game. Also the "videos" of the skills at work should be updated and have a "higher play" portion to them, like showing how to navigate walls with Nidalee's pounce or using wards to hop behind people with Lee Sin/Katarina.

AND: I want to unlock a Ravenous Hydra icon because I've farmed up 2k minions over the course of 20 games with a Ravenous Hydra in my inventory. I want to be able to use Warwick's ingame splash art (the little square in game) as a summoner icon because I have 100+ games won with him.

I already know most of the secret things about champions but it'd be really cool to have. And I want this Gangplank as my Icon.