After the Netflix success of Arcane, many are considering whether to venture into League of Legends. After all, the game is already on the market for pretty long.
I tried what it is like to start all over again...
At Riot Games, they should be rubbing their hands together happily.
The studio is increasingly being compared to the old Blizzard, the Netflix series Arcane was a bombastic success - and now also strengthens the most important fracnhicse: League of Legends
I have a pretty changeable relationship with LoL. It used to be the game that connected my entire circle of friends - and what fantastic times we had back then!
In my pink-tinged memory it looks like this:
Every afternoon got some cold beer out of the fridge, boot up the PC, say hello to everyone and then we went together to the summoner's rift. Fun and joy (and the occasional roar of anger) until I fall to bed late at night.
But unfortunately it wasn't that nice in the long run. And that wasn't even because of the infamous toxic community.
(See also my post Does competition destroy the fun in playing games)
Server instability, overpowered heroes, weird changes in their seasons and the amount of time that needs to be invested just pulled me off at some point.
Yes, I will...
In order to experience for myself what completely newcomers can expect, I created a new account and played through the three-part tutorial. In a few minutes you will learn what the MOBA is basically about, how to control your champion and so on. At the end you can choose a hero each.
What strikes me a lot: In the past, you got a lot fewer rewards afterwards, today you can put together a solid pool of champions very quickly at no cost.
The tutorial explains the most important steps in the game and hands you over a few champions. However, no tutorial in the world can prepare you for the real, highly complex interplay of 157 champions, five very different player roles and countless objects, runes, neutral monsters and so on.
LoL is a complicated game (I still think that DotA2 is more complex though) that you have to put a lot of sweat and tears into if you want to be good... mainly tears.
The tutorial is well made and easy to understand. You will still need a lot of practice to be able to compete
Are you returning to LoL after a long break (like I did)? Well... you're going to face a lot of new features!
A hell of a lot has happened here since the early seasons. It starts with the almost 160 completely different champions and doesn't stop with the new elemental dragons and items.
An example: The Chemtech dragon can give your entire team a kind of additional "guardian angel". After death, every champion returns briefly and can fire off all abilities.
Those mechanics make the gameplay around objectives much more important than it used to be.
So be prepared to pay dearly.
For example, a Camille completely tore me apart because I just didn't have the right counter-play in my mind any more. And even a mediocre Miss Fortune became a problem because a new item shortened the cooldown of her ultimate.
Many of the relatively new champions bring unusual skill sets with them - for example, try to explain this damned Aphelios in an understandable way.
One slain... 4 more to go
But at least for me personally, it's just like this:
The return is still a lot of fun. It's kind of exciting to see all the changes. As if I were visiting my childhood home after many years, which has now been thoroughly polished.
Under all the new decoration, the familiar home is still hidden with all the pink memories that stick to it. Apparently I was gone long enough to now accept the innovations benevolently.
And thanks to the current Arcane hype, I can forge even more memories with old and new friends in LoL.
So, my advice to you: If you're thinking of trying again with the MOBA, give yourself a go! Fortunately, trying doesn't cost anything here...
Last but not least:
I am pretty sure there are quite some LoL-Players in the Hive Gaming Community. How do you experience the hype around Arcana? Many new players? How did the community changed in the last couple of years?
At least in unranked, I have the feeling that a lot of toxicity has gone?
Let me know you thoughts in the comments below 👇
I don't think theres A LOT of new players. Especially if u go to normal games its mostly smurfs leveling up their new accounts, but yea for sure there are some new players, especially due to Arcane. And to be honest, the League of Legends community was allways the same... Toxic as fuck (in my case even in unranked people been toxic just as if they played for 999999$) :D You just go /mute all and then play your own game and try to carry/have fun :D
And yea its a lot easier to unlock new champions, even some free skins, new icons and a lot faster to get to lvl 30.
Anyway have fun in league man! I think the longer u play this game the less fun and more tilt u will have, so enjoy while u can haha :D
It is a game that will never go out of style, note that the mobile phone version has just been selected as one of the best competitive games of the year in Google play store
Hey there, great post! I just this year started getting back into League - before I even heard about arcane. They really fixed a lot of the fundamental issues I had with the game. When I left, game lengths averaged around 50 minutes, and were often far above that - extremely strong base tower lazers, teir 2 tower giving shields, dragon and baron essentially just giving gold and some minor stats, and itemization and balancing completely revolving around lategame scaling, because of items like DFG.
Additionally, I only have had a handful of feeders, and they almost always get immediately banned aftwards. Also, the system for remaking games based on leavers/afk is confusing, but once I figured it out is invaluable.
It's nice to see you can put together a decent roster rather quickly now. I remember when I played it back around the time it released you had to play like 100 matches or probably more to unlock a hero for free. Was immense.
True! I also remember beeing like "how the hell am I going to unlock all of these?!". It's much easier today. Luckily.
I was just posting on someone else's LoL post that I am hesitant to get involved in this game because of 1, how toxic I have heard the community is, and 2, because everyone that I know that does play it seems to be a bit obesessed with it. This is the reason why I stopped playing MMO's. While it does seem fun, I think i'll just enjoy other people's adventures in this game rather than getting involved myself.
Yeah... the addiction trap is real :-/
Hell, I wish someone finally rolled out a play-to-earn version of it. Remember how community developed DOTA 1 from Warcraft? It would reward the devs financially too, I assume.
...still no guarantees that a bunch of toxic a*seholes ruin it 🤦