The Adventures of Beginners, and Call for Help

Cassia··1 votes·1,793 views

Hello. My name is Panic, or Acid, and I am new.

I can't say that enough. People call me out, saying why I am so bad, and all I can say is,"I'm new, chill." And here is what beginners have to go through, just for anyone to read, but then again, I am not saying I am the voice for the beginners out there, but..:

We start not knowing what to expect. I started not even knowing what characters, or a map is. It was terrifying doing the beginning map, because I had no idea what to expect. I couldn't nail the attacks, I was so confused. Later, I played Jinx in a map, "Co-op vs. bots" and I thought I was doing okay. A little after that, I started playing against real people, and I can not even start thinking about how many times I had to say,"Chill, I'm new." Some people told me to go out and fight, and stop being a wimp, and to those people: At first I was a little annoyed, but I realized, yup, you can't do anything unless you get out there and do it yourself, so thank you. And then there are the people who tell me to lay off because: I'm feeding the strong people points for dying, and because I suck. Well, my mouse isn't the greatest, and people usually lead me off, mainly because I can't stop attacking.

I didn't have a good experience of being new, to be honest. Everyone expects me to be good, when I just started. (In real life too.) So I just wanted to say, new people have feelings too, and shouting at us, calling us "noobs" or "idiots" isn't going to make us play better. I was this close to going over to their houses and smacking them upside the head. I don't care how far away you are, because I will.

And I was wondering if anyone would help me get better at this. I don't like watching other people play, because that's in my personality: I do, not watch. And I don't have the time to sit around, watching others play 30 minute round streams. My attention span isn't that long.

Is there a way to get better, or do I just suck in general? And to the people that are calling new people out: Chill. Thanks. Losing one game won't kill you.

17 Comments

OhBoyItsaMegaman2 votes

Having someone inexperienced on your team is no reason to get upset. a.) It's a game, b.) it's an unranked game, c.) it's a level 8 unranked game. If someone is screaming at you, it's not because you did anything wrong. It's because they're an immature asshole. Feel free to mute and/or report these players. You don't deserve to be abused for poor performance for any reason.

As for improvement, it is mostly a matter of practice. You can practice in bots or in normals, it's up to you. You may also want to make some friends on the boards or in chat rooms and try to play as a premade group so you will receive only good feedback from your team as you try to get better.

Cassia1 votes

Thank you, this really helped. :)

Randomonium2 votes

First off I'd say buy a good mouse and keyboard. If you're already bad why would you handicap yourself even more with inferior products? I have a a great gaming mouse (Logitec G602) that cost me less than $40. Just about anyone can afford that.

Second, play a lot of "vs AI" games. In these games your goal is not to kill the bots (that's child's play.) The goal for you is to last hit every single minion in your lane. Once you can consistently last hit minions then start trying to harass the bots while still last hitting the minions. Then once you are able to do that you are ready to go up against real players. If you put the practice in you will get so far ahead in gold compared to your opponents that it won't matter if you aren't good at dueling.

Finally, understand the priorities of the game. The most important thing is CS. Getting minion kills gives you gold, gold is the key to winning. Second is vision. Wards are your friends and both greens and pinks are almost always worth the money you spend on them (as well as upgraded trinkets.) Third is objectives. Towers, dragons, barons, and buffs give you long term advantages that you can use to get and maintain a gold lead. Last is kills. Contrary to popular opinion kills do NOT win you the game. I have won plenty of games where my team was down in kills because we had superior CS, superior vision, and we were better at taking objectives.

I know you said you don't have time to watch people play but if you get a chance check out my stream where I do instructional videos to help myself and other players improve.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2EZm50wNGmfJal7IHM_b8Q

http://www.twitch.tv/randomoniumlol/profile/past_broadcasts

Cassia1 votes

Thank you, but I don't completely understand what the wards are for. How do they help?

Randomonium1 votes

Your team only has vision where your teammates are, your minions are and your towers are. The rest of the map is obscured in the "fog of war." Wards are an additional way to give you vision of the map so you can keep track of the enemy team's movements. Have you ever walked into the jungle only to jumped on by the whole enemy team and killed? Wards help prevent that from happening and allow your team to realize when one of your opponents is isolated from their team, allowing you to collapse on him and kill him.

Wards come in two flavors, green and pink. Stealth wards (green) cost 75 gold and give you vision in an area for 3 minutes and are invisible to the enemy team. At any given time you can have up to 3 green wards on the map per person. Vision wards (pink) cost 100 gold and give you vision in an area until they are destroyed (i.e. one pink ward can last an entire game if the enemy team doesn't destroy it.) Unlike green wards, pink wards are visible to the enemy team. However, pink wards can see invisible creatures (like evelynn or teemo) or invisible objects (like green wards or teemo shrooms.) At any given time you can only have 1 pink ward on the map per person.

The yellow trinket (warding totem) allows you to place 1 ward for free every 2 minutes. These wards last 1 minute before level 9 and 2 minutes after level 9. Furthermore, this trinket can be upgraded to a Greater Stealth Totem or a Greater Vision Totem once you reach level 9. The Greater Stealth Totem allows you to place 2 wards for free instead of one and those wards now last 3 minutes. The Greater Vision Totem allows you to get 1 free pink ward every 120 seconds. There are two other types of trinkets (sweeping and scrying) but I don't want to bombard you with too much info. Just focus on warding at first.

Wards are most commonly placed in the brush to give you vision in that area (since you can't see into or past an area with brush.) Wards are also commonly places in the river or along common gank paths to track movements of the enemy team.

TouchpadExpert1 votes

Do you play bots often? Bot games usually have a more relaxed atmosphere to it and players you can probably relate to in being new. The veteran players who do go in there are much more generous and descriptive in giving tips to new players. It does get stale after a while but as you're new you should still be playing bots and occasionally PvP games just to try out what you learn in bots. Try out new champions in bots, get a feel for what they do and get exposed to all the champs in the game this way. Try to practice good habits in bots (buy wards) and watch some informative videos before a game (CSing, Orb walking, how to freeze a lane, How to gank a lane successfully, etc.) and practice these new skills. If you don't want to do that I'll teach you how to mute people. Press tab, this brings up the score card. Find the name of the player you want to mute. On the side of their name is a speech bubble. Click the speech bubble to mute them.

Cassia1 votes

Alright, I'll try out playing against bots, thank you.

TouchpadExpert1 votes

{quoted}

Alright, I'll try out playing against bots, thank you.

Yup, try beginner bots until about level 12. Level 12 you get access to all of the summoner spells so you'll have a better shot at winning a game if you play intermediate. Just be warned though, there is a MAJOR skill gap between beginner and intermediate bots. There is also a 4x larger champion pool between beginner and intermediate bots. So you will certainly be up against some champs you have never seen before. Oh... and if the bots get Karthus keep a steady eye on your health bar. Karthus bot is an asshole when it comes to his ults. He will only ever ult if he can kill someone on your team. And he is always 100% accurate. Karthus ults deal like 600 hp points of damage and its unavoidable. And it hits you and all of your teammates for that damage.

A few other tips, upgrade your masteries upon every level up. Save up atleast 7000 IP upon hitting level 20 that way you can afford a full page of runes. Runes will improve your stats considerably and carry over into every game you play. And in bots don't be afraid to ask "What abilities do I take first?" or "what items should I be building on my champion?" and you will generally get a helpful response.

3tyson1 votes

lol i added you and wanted to help you a bit but you are only level 6 you will suck for a while sir :X i mean a verry long long long time trust me

dont let those people talk you down you arent playing ranked so it isnt that much of a problem if you feed i mean thats why you are practising right...

Level 0 Magikarp1 votes

Me!! I created this particular ign because I knew I was going to be a noob... And it didn't do me justice when I first started playing LOL. But add me in game and I can teach you basics etc. I also happen to be trying to level up my smurf ign: TwoLeggedFox

Simplicate1 votes

Feel free to add me ingame if you want a few tips and maybe a patient mentor :D

Frigid Ice Storm1 votes

The reason you're encountering so much negativity is because the players that are on your team are most likely people who got their main acc banned and made a new one to keep playing league ( aka toxic players) or smurfs who expect you to be on the same level of skill as them. Just mute everyone, and learn from your mistakes. You will suck when you start out, everyone does. But keep playing and you'll get better.

Just Blame Jenny1 votes

Hi, fellow new player here! I've played about a week. (Maybe a little over that now?)

I can definitely relate to you. When I'm already having a rough day, I find I simply don't have the energy to play a game of LoL -- because I know lots of people will be jerks! It's disheartening and frustrating.

If you want to learn, though, it definitely does help to watch streams and spectate high level games. I've learned a fair bit from doing this, and feel I'm likely a bit ahead of the curve given the paltry amount of time I've sunk into the game. Which is to say that I'm still sucky, but I'm likely a little less sucky than some of my fellow new players.

If you don't want to watch games, there are plenty of guides. I always browse the champion guides at lolking (here: http://www.lolking.net/guides/ ) when getting a feel for a new champion, and practice for a couple matches against intermediate bots before bringing that champion into a match against other players.

I also highly recommend you practice your mechanics in solo games. Perfecting your minion kills (i.e. last-hitting), for example, is super important for many roles. Practice, practice, practice! (P.S. I still suck at maximizing CS. But I'm working on it.)

You could also check out foxdrop's excellent series on youtube. He has a lot of great pointers, but moreover, some of his videos are purely motivational, covering how to cope with toxic players and the like.

For my part? I try to mute the jerks and ignore them. It also helps to realize that many of your toxic teammates are either smurfs with way more experience than you, or are equally bad and simply unwilling to accept their own faults. Many of their comments, while perhaps correct, are simply unwarranted and completely unhelpful!

By way of example, I found myself in a match yesterday where every role I had any knack for was called the moment I entered the room. I remarked to my fellow players that I was willing to try a character and role I was completely unfamiliar with, but I'd likely perform poorly! Unsurprisingly, I dropped the ball pretty hard that match. More surprisingly, my teammates decided to flame me for the, gasp, shocking revelation that a new player in a new role would play as if they were inexperienced.

I laughed it off, because it was patently silly! And reported the jerks after the match.

Anyway, in short? Learn as best you can, have fun, and try not to let the jerks get you down. When you're in no mood to abide toxicity, go do something else. Unfortunately, as fun as LoL is, it's utterly rife with jerks. Though I hear it gets better in the higher ranks.

Cassia1 votes

Thank you, this helped me a lot. :D

SmoknAce1 votes

Hello fellow summoners,

I agree that yes there are too many gamers who take League way too seriously. I completely understand what you are talking about here. If you would like practice and someone who will help you grow in skill please feel free to add me. Believe it or not I actually have a life outside of League haha. I play because I want to release some stress from life, and it is more pleasant an experience when you play with gamers who behave similarly. I want every summoner whom I meet to succeed and to grow. I am not the best of players but I feel that I am good at supporting fellow gamers in their desire to become their best selves.

Good luck to you my friends and keep your head on your shoulders! ^^v

Kazaashi1 votes

The biggest tip I can give is learn how to use the mute button. It will save you the cost of high blood pressure medication from all the salt you will be getting.

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