"Sandbox Mode" alternative - better tutorial(s)?
So, this "Sandbox Mode" discussion is pretty big right now. A lot of people have been wanting one for quite some time. Hell, I made a thread myself that got a lot of support for it a couple of months back.
I would still love a Sandbox Mode, but after thinking over Riot's decision on the matter, I can understand their reasoning. I can't speak for everyone, only myself, but when it comes to the things I've learned about League, the vast, vast majority of it I've learned by actually playing the game for the past 2-3 years, which is exactly what Riot wants: to have players learn how to play League of Legends by playing League of Legends.
So, if Riot is going to support a sandbox mode, and would rather support some other way of growing one's personal skills in League, then what are some of their options?
Well, one option I saw here on the boards was for Riot to make an actually helpful tutorial. Now, that's a bit vague, so how about instead of just revamping the current tutorial, they scrap it altogether and make a series of specific-skill tutorials?
For those wishing to practice something like Flashing over a specific wall, maybe they can have a tutorial showcasing the different uses of each of the Summoner Spells? First (hypothetically) it can start by showing you the summoner spell being used, then it will give control over to you, the player, and give you the freedom to mess with it as you see fit with a short cooldown, until you select the option to move forward with the tutorial, or go back and select another tutorial or whatever.
There can be other tutorials as well, like one focused on "Laning" (which would cover minions, towers, last hitting, gold generation, etc), and another focused on "the Jungle" (which would cover Jungle monsters, buffs, Dragon, Baron, Scuttle Crab, etc).
Maybe they can even go as far as to have a tutorial for each Champion in the game? So a sort of interactive Champion Spotlight, if you will. It can go through each ability, starting from the passive and going through their kit to their Ultimate (some special cases like Azir or Tahm Kench could have the tutorial go in a slightly different skill order). This would also be a great time to reorganize the Champions by difficulty, making it easier for newer players to know which Champions would be great to start with, and which to work their way towards in the future.
Ok, maybe individual Champion tutorials would take way too much time to produce, but my point is, with these new tutorial ideas, Riot would have a way to get new players introduced to the basic concepts of the game, setting a good foundation (which their current tutorial does not do that great a job of). I suppose we don't REALLY need a sandbox mode, regardless of how convenient it would be for us, but it would be nice to have more readily available and easy-to-access-and-find resources to improve our skills.