What’s wrong with League?
If you take an average person and put them in front of any shooter you do not have to explain anything. After a few minutes of playing, they will grasp the concept and figure out all the rules by themself. They will not be good at the game by any means but they will understand the core concept of the game. This rule applies to most modern video games, except a few. One of these games is League of Legends. If you take a person who knows nothing about the game and just let them spontaneously play they will have trouble picking the game up even after a few games played.
What’s wrong with this game? Why is it so hard to pick up? There are much more complex games out there that are easier to pick up. League of Legends however suffers from multiple barriers that make it a special case.
The first of them all is the fact that most games are grounded in something else. Shooters are grounded in military conflicts, real or fictional. Players understand the rules of warfare because it is present in our reality. It features concepts we understand from the start, like guns that we know from our experience with reality and other media. Nobody will have to explain to you that you should never hide behind an explosive barrel or that you should aim for the head for maximum effect. Everyone knows that it is obvious everyday knowledge.
League of legends has this problem that it is not rooted in reality in any means. Farming here has nothing to do with agriculture. It makes perfect sense to have four swords and two helmets despite having only two hands and one head. Unskilled eye observes events unfolding in the game and has no clue what is a result of what. There are no references the human brain can utilize to understand the game. The lack of any proper official tutorial or guide book reinforces that problem even further. Riot forces you to play against bots for quite a while so you get familiar with the game by a harmless experience.
How to get into League?
Perhaps you are a person who would like to start their adventure with a new type of game or maybe you would like to drag your friend into it. How to do it in a way that is least troublesome and will minimize the risk of the new player bouncing off from unusual game formula?
The most proven method of getting into the game has been a friend. Get yourself a guide who will introduce you to everything. The individual approach will also make sure that you get everything right step by step. So if you want to get into the game, find someone who already plays it and ask for a quick tutorial. If you want to get your friend playing you are in luck as you already form a pair. The next step is to be his guide and make sure he understands everything.
Let’s say that you are not a very good teacher or maybe your friend is not so good at it. We have to remind ourselves that it is still just a game despite being unusual and complex. People often try to explain the actions in the game in the order as they appear but this is a mistake as it only confuses the new player even further. Fortunately, there is a quick guide below on how to quickly explain the core game concept with as little confusion as possible.
Where to start?
The very first thing you have to explain is the main goal of the game. To win a game in League of Legends you need to destroy the nexus. Everything that is done in the game is done to achieve this final goal. It is the big colorful crystal that is in the center of the base. Obviously, it is not as easy as walking into an enemy base and destroying the thing. In order to make the nexus targetable we need to destroy all the objectives along the way. Let us leave the details for later. For now let us just note that turrets will be our first objective.
The next concept to understand is lane and minions. In order to destroy the turrets you need minions. In theory you could just kill off the enemy minions and push the turret right away. BUT… there is a problem, there is an opponent who is here to do the same thing. If you push under their turret you will put yourself in a very disadvantageous position. Attacking the turret is not our first priority. Keep in mind however that this will be our long term goal. First we have to wrestle advantage from our opponent.
Here comes the concept of farming. For quite a while most players will be too weak to attack objectives. The fight now takes the form of a race to get as strong as possible as fast as possible. In League of Legends you make money in a very odd way. If you kill a minion or a monster you will be given a small amount of money. If you are a new player keep in mind that the money is given only to the player who performed the last attack against the entity. For now… get gold and get stronger. And if you want to avoid annoying grind you can get a not ranked account from https://www.unrankedsmurfs.com/ it will be a great time saver for you. And honestly a stress free experience, which is what you want when playing games.
One final thing that you should explain are champion statistics. If your friend use to play Warcraft 3 it’s perfect. Because all League of Legends statistics are based on units statistics from Warcraft 3.
To boost these stats you will obviously need items that you will spend your gold on. Do not bother with builds just yet. For now just figure out a generally good build, so there is not too much to take in too much at once. Unless you are particularly interested in that.
Finally to get better you have to play the game and explore it by yourself. The most effective learning is by practice and repetition. In LoL there are 5 roles and 150 champions. This creates so many match ups and situations that it is impossible to learn them all by reading and studying. You have to experience them all and eventually you will memorize at least most of them. From there on it is an open road to figuring out the game. Good luck!