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Female Onboarding: An analysis of the first time female League of Legends experience.

Infero··84 votes·16,224 views

I was inspired by Tien Larson's post and decided to chase my curiosities about the initial experience for first time female players. I should note that this particular study was approved by my Institutional Review Board. In this study there were two training periods and five competitive games played. After each game participants answered a survey to gauge enjoyment and perceived difficulty.

Why did I do this:

  • To understand the on-boarding experience for first time female summoners.

Who:

  • 8 first time female summoners.

What did I do:

  • Observed the effects of basic training and intro bots on enjoyment and perceived difficulty.

Note: each game the teams switch sides

Day 1

Training Received: Team SFA = Basic Training Team Jacks = Intro Bots Training

After Training:

Game 1

Imgur

Team SFA (blue) vs Team Jacks (purple)

Things to Note:

  • Ryze (SFA Soraka) frustratingly died many times.
  • Perceived Difficulty: 7 (very high) of 7
  • Enjoyment: 3 (a little low) of 7
  • Itemization….or the lack thereof.
  • Three boots of swiftness on Garen.
  • Almost all kills were tower assisted.

Game 2:

Team Jacks (blue) vs Team SFA (Purple)

Imgur

Things to Note:

  • Ryze (SFA Soraka) She was upset/mad after this game, frustrated with move/attack mechanics.
  •    Perceived Difficulty: 6 (high) of 7

  •   Enjoyment: 1 (very low) of 7
  • Team Jacks started scoring kills away from tower.
  • Itemization favoring Team Jacks (Intro Bots).
  • SFAashe figured out how to use her Enchanted Crystal Arrow, followed by a legendary spree of 8!

Day 2

On this day the teams received the opposite training from day 1.

Training Received: Team SFA = Intro Bots Team Jacks = Basic Training

Game 3

Team SFA (blue) vs Team Jacks (purple)

Imgur

Things to Note:

  • Ryze (SFA Soraka) bought ITEMS! 
    • She also figured out how to chain her skills!

  •     Perceived Difficulty: 5 (a little high) of 7

  •     Enjoyment: 5 (a little high) of 7
  • Before this game both teams received the opposite training.
  •    Example: Team SFA first received basic training, now they went through intro bots.
  • Post-game the players discussed how to stay under tower when out numbered and wait for the opponents to leave tower before attacking.

Game 4

Team Jacks (blue) vs Team SFA (purple)

Imgur

Things to Note:

  • Ryze (SFA Soraka) nailed a positive Kill-Death ratio and actually enjoyed doing it!
    • Perceived Difficulty: 4 (not high or low) of 7
  •   Enjoyment: 6 (high) of 7
  • This was a brutal 30:34/51-68 game.
  • Team SFA’s first tower takedown! They Cheered!

  •   First victory! They Cheered Louder!
  • Very few kills were tower assisted.
  • SFA Annie (Garen) Discovered how to use the bush.
  • With a spin out for a kill….and spin back in!
  • Post-Game players discussed bush mechanics.

Game 5

Team SFA (blue) vs Team SFA (purple)

Imgur

Things to Note:

  • I call this game “Ryze Shuts it Down.”
  • 27/12 Double frozen heart, Double Rod of Ages.
  • She giggled through all 9 of her double kills.
  • Perceived Difficulty: 2.5 (low) of 7
  • Enjoyment: 6.5 (very high) of 7
  • Team SFA’s second win, and complete shut down, allowing no towers to fall.
  • All champions ended with decent itemization.
  • Sparkyjo (Team Jacks) owned 5 boots of swiftness at one point, later sold 4 of them.

Some Graphs to show Enjoyment and Perceived Difficulty over 5 games for SFA Soraka, Team SFA, and Team Jacks.

SFA Soraka

Imgur

Team SFA

Imgur

Team Jacks

Imgur

The Take-Away Question:

What would you like to see implemented that might make this game more appealing to you, or other first time female players?

#1 Shopping focused tutorial. #2 Choice of character in the basic training. #3 More focus during training on interaction and strategy with towers.

Currently, at least two of the participants have continued playing :)

There is lots more data...I just hit the highlights. If you have questions, ask here or add me in the client.

Cheers!

85 Comments

RiotRiot Nitsuabo21 votes

Thanks for sharing this, and for your hard work on it! When I see interesting stuff like this I can't help but ask for more =)

So, two questions:

  1. Given your design and results, what followup would you be most excited to run?
  2. If you were setting the strategy for a team trying to improve onboarding, what would you prioritize highest based on these results?

Thanks again!

Infero14 votes

So In full disclosure, I have several follow up studies in the works.

Given your design and results, what followup would you be most excited to run?

Teaching tower mechanics via relational frame theory. Which is essentially teaching the relationship in one direction and the "learner" infers the relationship in the other. Example, I teach A is the opposite of B, you infer that B is the opposite of A. Therefore, instead of learning tower mechanics on the offensive, teach the defensive mechanics. Example: Watch as the enemy champion assaults a tower unharmed and backs away without being hit before all his minions are dead.

If you were setting the strategy for a team trying to improve onboarding, what would you prioritize highest based on these results?

I would set a strategy similar to what we use in applied behavior analysis, break behaviors down to their basics. Break an interaction down in to it's collection of behaviors, pick one behavior. Look at motivating factors and other things that need to be present (or absent) for the targeted behavior to occur. Then apply an understanding of consequences, or what does the player get for exhibiting a behavior. I <3 talking about behavior analytics.

In this study I was watching essentially first time pc gamers attempt to right and left click their way around. Watching Team SFA on day one experience frustration because they were losing so badly due to poor/no itemization and poor understanding of tower mechanics. I've addressed tower mechanics already, between games 3 and 4 the players created and shared their own rule for buying items "every time you die open up the shop." Thus creating a rule-governed behavior which was essentially reinforced by killing (see SFA Soraka's progression).

Also, they disliked playing the intro bot game on summoner's rift. Much preferred learning mechanics on Howling Abyss.

If you have any more questions I'd be happy to field them!

Cheers!

Edited for clarification

Cyrex Wingblade7 votes

Also, they disliked playing the intro bot game on summoner's rift. Much preferred learning mechanics on Howling Abyss.

I think this is actually a very important sub-point. The jungle and multiple lanes is very overwhelming to a true first-timer.

Honestly, I still hate the jungle, and find it annoying as a meta-aspect. I'd much prefer straight-up lane-matching with the jungle literally just as a set-piece, but apparently everyone loooooves the jungle and junglers...

Infero4 votes

This brings up another interesting point, in the first training of intro bots, all 4 players went top....and died a lot to the tower. Some occasionally went mid...or into the jungle and experienced similar success.

Howling Abyss introduced control in where they could go, even though it may have taken awhile to make it to the middle of the map (at least the first time).

ChickenWrap17 votes

My sister started playing League and bought two Banshees Veils and two sets of boots and didn't buy anything at the start even after going through basic training.

Of course, I noticed when I went to check on her and quickly set it up so that she was ready for success. Now she's asking me three times as many questions a day about League than my AMA got in its prime.

I would like to see a shopping tutorial and for bot games to not let you leave the base until you buy an item to help solidify the fact that it's very important to do. I would also like the shop tutorial to explain in detail how Unique passives work so that people don't buy duplicates of the same item (like Boots of Swiftness!) thinking it will help them. Most of the issues beginning players have are completely item focused. If we can remove confusion there, new players will have a much better time, I feel.

Infero10 votes

Every single participant in this study commented on the difficulties of using the shop. Additionally, they gave suggestions on what should be in a shopping tutorial as part of the qualitative data I collected.

I'm glad to see some reliability in my findings, being that your sister also had difficulty with the shop.

Thank you very much for sharing :)

Garlyle Wilds7 votes

Every new player I've convinced to join League has had difficulties with the shop at first, male or female. In many cases, they don't develop a habit of 'check the shop every time you go back' for a few games, or even understand they have to go back. Nevermind just feeling completely overwhelmed with items, even in the Recommended page.

Infero4 votes

Good to hear!

If you haven't played an intro bots game, I suggest it!

The recommended items page is different, shows how to create upper tier items and offers a decent progression. The curve I think that is missing (and that I address in another of my current studies) is an explanation of AP/AD.

Thank you for your post!

Baitsa Dasuto2 votes

That reminds me the first time I was playing League (my very first MOBA, my very first online multiplayer PC game other than some shooters in the 90s and my first Online-RPG-like game) - I was completely overwhelmed by the shop and when my team mates told me to buy something I told them "I don't know what to buy, so I'll save my gold for next game" :D

redniwediS10 votes

This is absolutely fascinating! I would love to see how this would compare vs other groups, be it male/female, young/old, ect. Might be difficult to set up, but it would sure be interesting.

Infero8 votes

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

I think I could feasibly set those up.....the only difficulty is finding willing female participants. I feel lucky to have lured 8. But you bring up an interesting point...something I left out.

Mean Age of Participants: 30.5 Range: 19-44

Raw: 19, 25, 27, 29, 33, 33, 34, 44.

Thanks again for your interest in my research!

Hotarukin2 votes

As someone who doesn't really do... this... at all, but finds it really interesting and fascinating to read about, I apologize if you already answered any of my questions within your posts and I simply missed them, or failed to understand the impact thereof.

**1) ** Do you feel that age had any sort of impact upon the learning curve? 2) How did you determine which participant went to which team?
3) Do you feel that this may have impacted your study at all? 4) Did both teams regularly converse with each other while playing?
4b.) With just their team, or with the other team? 5) Was the chat system used frequently, or at all to aid in concepts? 6) Did they use pings to quickly convey concepts or at all? **7) ** Did you ever grant knowledge of the system that wasn't directly experienced by the players, or aid in the understanding of concepts that may have been difficult or beyond them? 8) Do you feel that the champions chosen had a direct impact on level of individual enjoyment from the learning perspective? For example, did players enjoy Ashe more than Jinx overall, did the Ryze players grow from high perceived difficulty to lower on both teams? 8b) Did the players involved ever discuss the dialogue of their characters within the framework of the game? As a player I find the character tidbits for a character like Jinx to be amazingly satisfying, while the callouts for Ryze feel somewhat boring. 9) This is a big one! When I first started playing, I didn't understand why Garen could spin around on top of my tiny Yordle Gunner, but the second I shot at him his entire wave ganged up on me. What sort of data were you able to gather on the player's perspective on interacting with minions? 9b) As timestamps aren't available, do you feel that the players grew more accustomed to 'farming' minions?
9c) Did they prefer to attack champions over minions, perhaps to the exclusion of farming, when a champion presented itself? 10) How integral to the learning experience do you feel that communal learning was in your study, especially compared to individuals trying to learn things without communication? 11) One thing I'd really like to see studied is having a player watch a stream or a youtube video of someone explaining league concepts and showing how things are done instead of either training method, and seeing how they fare.

Infero4 votes

First thanks for your interest in my research! I'll gladly answer all of them!

  1. Do you feel that age had any sort of impact upon the learning curve?

I don't, mostly these were well educated people, 1 bachelor student, 6 doctoral students, 1 phd. I say that because in general these people have a higher analysis skill level and are comfortable with computers.

  1. How did you determine which participant went to which team?

Simply, there were 2 tables with 4 chairs, I let them sit anywhere...so sorta random assignment.

  1. Do you feel that this may have impacted your study at all?

I don't given the random assignment

  1. Did both teams regularly converse with each other while playing?

Not at first, but on day 2 they started little by little...by the 5th game there was a lot of chatter.

4b.) With just their team, or with the other team?

Usually team only, occasionally there would be "DIE LADYJACK ANNIE"

  1. Was the chat system used frequently, or at all to aid in concepts?

Chat system was not used.

  1. Did they use pings to quickly convey concepts or at all?

No pings were used.

  1. Did you ever grant knowledge of the system that wasn't directly experienced by the players, or aid in the understanding of concepts that may have been difficult or beyond them?

I did so a lot in the post study, but not during data collection.

  1. Do you feel that the champions chosen had a direct impact on level of individual enjoyment from the learning perspective? For example, did players enjoy Ashe more than Jinx overall, did the Ryze players grow from high perceived difficulty to lower on both teams?

Jinx was enjoyed the most, due to her commentary during game. Only the one ryze shown individually (SFA Soraka) had any sort of solid movement in perceived difficulty.

8b) Did the players involved ever discuss the dialogue of their characters within the framework of the game? As a player I find the character tidbits for a character like Jinx to be amazingly satisfying, while the callouts for Ryze feel somewhat boring.

Jinx ALL THE TIME! during game, post game, pre game, post study....all the time.

  1. This is a big one! When I first started playing, I didn't understand why Garen could spin around on top of my tiny Yordle Gunner, but the second I shot at him his entire wave ganged up on me. What sort of data were you able to gather on the player's perspective on interacting with minions?

Well, unit collision was a complaint during game "I can't move this minions are in my way" kinda comments. Other than that...on howling Abyss minions are less impactful.

9b) As timestamps aren't available, do you feel that the players grew more accustomed to 'farming' minions?

Nope, last hitting was lost as was xp from minions. It became a "KILL the other team" game.

9c) Did they prefer to attack champions over minions, perhaps to the exclusion of farming, when a champion presented itself?

Always attacking champions. Bigger targets, more noticeable is my opinion.

  1. How integral to the learning experience do you feel that communal learning was in your study, especially compared to individuals trying to learn things without communication?

I think it played a huge part had I separated them into different rooms. However, I would hypothesize that the information gained in this way would be similar to starting the game with a friend...or a friend bringing you into the game.

11 One thing I'd really like to see studied is having a player watch a stream or a youtube video of someone explaining league concepts and showing how things are done instead of either training method, and seeing how they fare. I actually have a study in progress that studies viewer comprehension of key objectives and game content during an esports broadcast.

Thanks for all the questions, I loved answering them!

Hotarukin2 votes

Thank you very much for the response! One last thing: Did anyone at any point start yelling Demacia? :P

Infero3 votes

Nope...but that would have been beyond awesome. it was more like "DIE DIE DIE other person!"

Riotdavin9 votes

This is very interesting. What was the reason for the group design of having two groups play against each other rather than doing 8 individual longitudinal training sessions? It seems that from an analysis standpoint the former approach makes things a little cloudier, but from a logistic standpoint I could see how it's quite a lot easier to run!

Also relevant to your interests, our Research internships just opened up... ;) http://www.riotgames.com/careers?department[]=490&location[]=9&search=

Infero6 votes

From a data stand point I treated this as a single subject experimental design which controlled for training order effects (4 participants for BACA and 4 for CABA). Though the data appears as a group design (team sfa and team jacks), all of my "hard" data is restrained to the individual. In all honesty I would have preferred to employ a multiple baseline design, but that gets a bit tricky from a logistic stand point.

What was the reason for the group design of having two groups play against each other rather than doing 8 individual longitudinal training sessions?

I was interested in observing how each training type prepared one for a pvp experience.

Also relevant to your interests, our Research internships just opened up... ;)

I would love nothing more to chase data/research curiosities from the inside... sadly, I'm not eligible to be an intern.

Thank you for your comment, super glad you liked it!

Riotdavin6 votes

We should talk. Drop me a line on twitter (@onidavin) :)

Baitsa Dasuto2 votes

I really hope this one has a happy end. :)

Lavantant3 votes

did they ever get the position though?

Nine Ravens7 votes

A few questions:

  1. Was there a particular reason you used teams of four instead of teams of five as standard for Summoner's Rift?

  2. Nothing about this study seems particularly female-oriented. Do you feel the participants being female affected the results in a particular way, or do you think you would see similar results if the participants were male only or mixed gender?

  3. Did the players make use of the Recall spell? Were they more often recalling frequently to recover health/mana or staying in lane until they died?

Infero4 votes

Thank you for your questions!

Was there a particular reason you used teams of four instead of teams of five as standard for Summoner's Rift?

Easy question, Attrition. I originally had 10 participants, but 2 of them never showed up...either day. Lucky me that attrition was an even number.

Nothing about this study seems particularly female-oriented. Do you feel the participants being female affected the results in a particular way, or do you think you would see similar results if the participants were male only or mixed gender?

I would attribute the female orientation of this study only to the fact that all participants were female. While i'm sure there would be similarities to male first time players (untested), I believe that my qualitative data would be female only (their comments on the physical look of the female champions (Jinx and Ashe).

Nothing about this study seems particularly female-oriented. Do you feel the participants being female affected the results in a particular way, or do you think you would see similar results if the participants were male only or mixed gender?

Recall was used once or twice per team during the intro bot training. Recall is disabled on Howling Abyss, therefore it was a "stay in lane till you die" situation. Interesting to note, 2 of the 8 players....incidentally both Garen players learned how to use pots.

Thanks again for your interest :)

soylent shipment6 votes

This was very interesting and well done, I loved looking through the post, seeing how the first timers changed their approach to the game and discovered new mechanics and strategies. Do you plan on doing any more studies like this about other aspects of League of Legends or maybe a survey of how summoner's have changed over their entire league "career"?

Infero6 votes

I have a few other studies in the works...I'll post them as they are completed. Feel free to participate in one of them. and feel free to share that link with other summoners :)

Honestly, I love chasing curiosities. That's really the core of my gamer/researcher being.

Thanks for your awesome feedback!

RabbitLeader3 votes

Done, will definitely be interested in seeing what you pull from this.

Lavantant6 votes

so we're all on the same page; to make the game more accessible to new people there needs to be more emphasis on the store.

maybe we should talk about what should be discussed, like "boots dont stack yo" or maybe something that makes it so that if you ACTUALLY cant buy 2 boots, or so that you cant buy 2 of the same non consumable until youre level 10, or maybe something that explains that numbers in that redish color scale by AD and numbers in that green scale by AP.

these are just my ideas and they might not match up with any of yours, but i would like to see if i was any help

Infero4 votes

First of all, thank you for reading through my research :)

+1

I think those are excellent ideas! Some sort of immediate consequence to doing things would be amazing.

Such as:

"boots dont stack yo"

or just grey out the boots option so purchasing another isn't allowed?

but buying an AP item for an AP champ

"Excellent item!" or some comment that is specific to the item and character....that would be an incredible amount of work...but worth it.

Thanks again for posting!

Hotarukin3 votes

In addition to this, why are item tooltips not color-coded? This could also go a long way towards helping players understand. 'Red-orange' for attack damage on the item with 'red-orange' on the ability tooltip would lead to color-coded concepts, which I feel would help people visually learn things. Doing the same with ability power, mana, health... and so on would likewise lead to a hopefully better experience for quickly determining what is what.

The fact that the only place you see color coding for modifiers is on abilities seems like a design flaw. Ideally, it could be on your stat pane, the items in the store, and possibly even on your character sheet. Simply modifying the color palette from stark white seems like a great place to start increasing clarity! Making it an option you can turn off (if you prefer the clean white) makes it a sort of training wheel, even if you dislike the technicolor aspect.

Pyrrasu5 votes

I wouldn't have had any clue how to play this game if I didn't have friends telling me how to buy items, avoid tower hits, etc. I haven't experienced intro bots but from your data it looks like it helps out new players a lot more than the old tutorial.

Infero5 votes

You should have a look at intro bots, it is pretty amazing! I especially enjoy that the AI don't show up in lane till around lvl 3-4. Lots of great reminders (like "BUY ITEMS" when you back)....some not visible enough as reported by my participants.

I think there were key things gained by each tutorial and in combination created some fun matches to watch.

Thank you so much for your interest and comment :)

Champion Skin2 votes

Hmm I guess I had the fortune to learn the game in steps kind of.. I played Wacraft 3 (RTS) and I first learned how to play and control the game (playing the Campaign/story) And after that I learned how to play Arena and MOBA's in custom games (Player created maps/modes) like the well known dota and lots of other things So League of Legends wasn't all that hard for me to pick up I guess I was kind of lucky in that regard

Infero2 votes

I had a similar background when I came to league 4 years ago.

Luckily I had a good set of friends to guide me with itemization, in that I was lost.

Cheers!

Lissanna3 votes

There's still a lot of things that introbots don't cover, like using the item store and what champions work best for what lanes. I still don't really get how the jungle area works (e.g., what mob packs give me what kind of buffs, and whether or not I'd want to kill them). I find that external guide sites like Lolking help with some of the basics (it's how I've learned about runes, summoner spells, items, and such). I tend to leave a Lolking webpage guide open while I play and keep an eye on items and what order to train my spells in.

Deep Terror Nami5 votes

Yes, first time female players should focus on shopping. Priceless.

Infero6 votes

It was originally brought up in the post-study chat.

"This might sound cliche, but a shopping tutorial would help immensely." -Ladyjackashe

Priceless.

Norahs4 votes

As a participant of the study (changed my Summoner name since I decided to keep playing), and someone who died the most often during most of the games, I felt that buying items was not discussed enough and it's so critical to the game. As I've learned more about the game, the only way I've been able to figure out the best way to shop, I've have to ask Trashur and my honey what to do and what works best with each character. I had no idea (at the time) that the little items could be made into more powerful ones, and I had no idea which ones you couldn't "stack". I know that there are recommended items for each character, and the items give a description, but when you're learning how to play, and continually dying, you don't have time to read all that. Also, as a non-gamer, I had NO CLUE what most of the stuff meant. It should be noted (because of the context of the comment) that I HATE shopping in real life. ;)

Infero3 votes

^^ SFA Annie

Norahs4 votes

You gave away my cover!!! ;)

Deep Terror Nami3 votes

I have this crazy, unexplainable feeling that your name is Sharon. I don't know why.

But ya, only reason I had any clue how to itemize when I started LoL was because I had played some Dota :3

Lissanna3 votes

As someone who was NOT part of the study but recently playing in the last few months, I agree that the store is one of the most important parts of the game that isn't introduced in a way that is helpful at all. I remember the intro tutorials telling me to go back and shop, with nothing being available on the recommended page for the amount of gold I had on my character. They may need to add a tier of low gold cost items to the newbie store pages to help prevent the problem of people who get stuck buying the same pair of low cost boots. I had to start making custom gear sets (that I didn't learn how to do until I was summoner level 10 and randomly found the page) to set up what items I could buy early vs late game.

Infero2 votes

Thank you so much for the comment!

I'm glad your experience shares similarities with this study's outcomes, your voice really adds some weight.

I'll ask you this, have you experienced intro bots? Riot made some solid steps in including low cost items into the recommended page. Intro bots was a strong move in the right direction in my opinion. Hopefully you'll like it too!

Cheers!

Lissanna3 votes

is that the summoner's rift intro difficulty on co-op vs the bots? If yes, I spent a lot of time there after I did the tutorial level like 3 or 4 times. As a fansite writer for a different video game, I spent a lot of time reading help guides outside the game to get a good feel for how things worked, since I figured out I couldn't learn them from inside the game. In the end, fansite new player guides are always going to be an important part of supporting people who are new to a game (well, if players can find them!). Reading and posting on these forums is also part of my game learning homework.

Thanotos Omega3 votes

TBH i am a dude and i always thought they needed to do allot more to explain this crap, Since it's so different then most games even a long term gamer like me had problems learning everything,

Infero4 votes

Thanks for chiming in!

I'm currently working on another study in this series focusing on how and when to use the store :)

Cheers!

Adalore5 votes

The item mechanics are a weird thing to get a handle on to start with. I barely understood them when I picked up the game for the first time. :)

I think the game would benefit from a "Auto purchase" system that can be turned on, that if you open the shop it will show you what you can purchase in the order with your current gold.

Yeah maybe a toggled shop modes of "Automatic", "Assisted" and "Advance"

Where Automatic simply auto purchases equipment and gives the notice to the player. Maybe it has a little bit of a note saying "This item increases your critical chance and critical damage on auto attack" if it was an IE. and lists items becoming other things. Like... Longsword upgraded to Vamp Scepter (Provides the starting amount of lifesteal, lifesteal is used to heal by attacking enemies) and Longersword AND Pickaxe upgraded into Last whisper. (Ignores 40% of the target's armor, allowing auto attacks to deal more damage.)

Assisted would show a build paths but have paths off it in nice clear buildpaths with notes of reasoning. Maybe there are forks in the path like if "Do I want Magic Resistance?" or "Do I want Armor?" with mouse over text explaining how to figure that out and pick. The forks could be more complex or dynamic with choices that are simple like "More damage!" or "Defense!" and give a pre rendered build path.

(Starting build) > (Parts of first item) > (First item) > Fork MR or Armor? > (parts of resistance item) > (completed resistance item) > Fork, Mr, Armor, Health, More damage! > Whateverwords

Advance would be mostly as live, but I would LOVE to be able to set up buildpaths manually that lets me at a glance see how much in order that I can purchase with current gold.(and the difference to the next item.)

I think stuff like this would assist newbies and make the UI more usable to even high level players.

I would also suggest an auto skill leveler that also states why the level up is useful, that can be toggled before first skill rank. Example with ashe. Rank... W (primary combat skill.) E (More gold from minion kills! Allows you to safely check bushes or other areas safely.) W (More power to volley and lower cool down.) etc.

Cyrex Wingblade4 votes

Yay for a full-on experimental analysis! I like it!

Yeaaaah, items could use a much more detailed tutorial. Took me forever to figure that stuff out, and I"m still bad at it.

Rhyto3 votes

Interesting analysis, I'm quite pleased with this amount of work put into this. I took your survey and it was quite psychologically engaging. It was amusing encountering the redundant questions regardless of how slightly different they were. I wish you best of luck and hope you'll be able to help many other players.

Infero1 votes

Cross-posting this from LinkedIn, Sharing a good discussion.

questions: did you have a control group (mixed gender)?

It actually wasn't a group design, even though there were teams. My experimental design was a single subject BACA design. So the introduction of training methods (the other group was CABA) served as my experimental control.

did you sample new, male players for contrast?

I did not, since the focus of this study was the female experience.

how many of these female players would consider themselves experienced gamers? new >gamers? non gamers?

Actually, none of the participants considerer themselves experienced gamers, and mostly "new." I say mostly cause one participant included playing "Tiny Death Star/Tiny Tower" as her gaming background.

What I find interesting is the graphing of the experience, something we all feel, the new->player-slump as we make the transition from merely learning to QWER in the right order >to actually contributing to success on the team.

Watching the QWER adjustment evolve over 5 games was neat. 3 of the players rested their left hand in the lap...and occasionally brought it up for skill use.

A possible solution would be a more streamlined item progression, but my first fear for >such an endeavour would be the dilution of the creativity made possible by the open >ended store system.

Have you checked out Intro Bots? The store is different and does an excellent job streamlining item progression (the recommended items are different). But, lacks any training in the "what is" AP and AD.

What I especially like about the identification of the store as a barrier is the store's >inherent gender neutrality, a nod to the point I wanted to stress above about removing >gender from the equation entirely.

From a behavioral perspective, if you want to increase the female player base (recruitment and retention) you should focus specifically on female participants. Comparing them to males only reveals how they are different/same. Which is not a question in the OP, that's not to say we should exclude males in the series of needed research. The inclusion of male should only be used if one were measuring interaction with other male players...but I think that would lead a study on perception and effect of a "toxic" player on new female players.

I'm going to cross-post this into the boards, sharing your excellent questions :)

Thanks for posting!

SunnySplosion1 votes

Seriously though, I don't know what the point of all of this data was. Were you were intending to perhaps just draw up suggestions to improve the game to a group of people who are highly unlikely to be playing league of legends in the first place? Because essentially you got 8 females, none of which have had experience with games before, a group that is realistically never going to suddenly start playing league, and ran tests to collect completely useless data. What a literal complete waste of time.

The reason that I am a little appalled at this is because it was done so thoroughly, yet, purposelessly.

"What would you like to see implemented that might make this game more appealing to you, or other first time female players?

1 Shopping focused tutorial. 2 Choice of character in the basic training. 3 More focus during training on interaction and strategy with towers."

This was your conclusion. This was what everybody knew was going to to be the conclusion. The most interesting part was that this is all single subject, no control, nothing to compare too. You might as well tell a bunch of people to become artists, throw the materials at them, and then conclude when they fail, "They weren't very good artists because they had no training." Foolish!

And, not to mention, the focus on females surrounding all of this was, to say the least, creepy. Just freaking creepy.

Infero3 votes

I appreciate the time you spent reading/replying to my research ^^

Seriously though, I don't know what the point of all of this data was.

Exploratory, an interest on the initial experience of first time female players.

Were you were intending to perhaps just draw up suggestions to improve the game to a group of people who are highly unlikely to be playing league of legends in the first place? Because essentially you got 8 females, none of which have had experience with games before, a group that is realistically never going to suddenly start playing league

"League is a game best played with your friends, and too many times we bring in friends from other games only to see them become frustrated and quit." - Iniquitee

Given the highly unlikely nature...I assume you are suggesting probability. I can speak for at least two or three of my participants in that their significant others play...so it is likely that sometime in the future they might have had exposure to actual play ( "Honey, will you play this game with me?"), though at the time of this study they had not.

Looking back at the "onboarding" post, in most cases i'm willing to bet it was friends that brought us to league ("hey, come try this game.") (untested ^^)

And, not to mention, the focus on females surrounding all of this was, to say the least, creepy. Just freaking creepy.

So the inspiration for this was based on a Question posed by Tien Larson, here. Thus the focus on female participants.

"What would you like to see implemented that might make this game more appealing to you, or other first time female players? 1 Shopping focused tutorial. 2 Choice of character in the basic training. 3 More focus during training on interaction and strategy with towers."

This was an open-ended question on the post-study questionnaire and the top three most common responses (not personal conclusions).

This was what everybody knew was going to to be the conclusion. Untested hypothesis ^^

The most interesting part was that this is all single subject, no control, nothing to compare too.

I am not familiar with you or your background in research methodology, so please forgive any bits here that are "things you already know." Most people are exposed to group designs (control vs treatment groups), and generally attribute the outcomes of single subject (sometimes inappropriately called case study designs) as non-experimental. The comparison of a case study to all single subject designs as a being equal is unfortunate. The basic tenet of single subject research methodology is that the individual is of primary importance, and it is that individual piece that you lose in larger group designs (as a side note I agree that both group and single are equally important when researching a given question).

In single subject designs the individual serves as his or her own control. Notice if you will the current study Team SFA experienced a BACA design, Team Jacks a CABA, thus creating experimental control. Each type of training used in this study was tested by itself and then the other was added on to both control and measure for order effects. While maturation (learning) exists over the course of exposure to the game there are differences between the teams which I think may be attributed to the order of training. This hypothesis of course needs further testing.

The reason that I am a little appalled at this is because it was done so thoroughly, yet, purposelessly.

Thanks for noticing!

Cheers!

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