A newbie’s long, winding journey to League of Legends (and first impressions)

I must admit that for all of my years of gaming, I never really invested much into Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) / Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) gaming. I was aware of it during my Warcraft III days, but living in college with a pretty lackluster internet connection meant my attention turned back towards the PlayStation 2 and single-player computer games (wow, I feel old).

It really wasn’t until I went to Blizzcon last year did I really reinvest any significant time in a MOBA. As my wife stood next to me in line waiting to play Heroes of the Storm, I must admit that I really had no idea what the game was about. I sat down and browsed through the playable heroes. Quite a selection of Blizzard alumni was available. I picked Jim Raynor, and my wife picked Diablo. After getting a crash course on the controls, we were set free to reign supreme in glorious battle. We marched aggressively down the south lane into battle… and were subsequently annihilated at the first enemy tower we encountered. So began my bloody adventure into DOTA.

It was fun, although difficult; we seemed to lack the situational awareness of everybody else. In hindsight, we were not only new to the game, but the genre - and I suspect great targets for the opposition. Over the course of the next two days at Blizzcon, we tried various heroes and strategies, but always arrived at the same conclusions: walk slowly, work together, and always use AI fodder to your advantage.

I know my view of the game is overly simplistic, which explains why we were so horrible. Yet we managed to have an absolute blast, primarily because we were playing with Blizzard alumni. Thrall, Tyreal and Arthas all are great eye candy, and are the stuff of legends, even when you manage a paltry one win and six losses over a two day span. Of course, being at Blizzcon wasn’t too shabby, either!

Yet, going back home to the thought of playing League of Legends with non-Blizzard lore didn’t appeal to me. I browsed the website and thought, “cool story bro.” Don't get me wrong: lots of effort went into each character, but I don’t have the same love for Caitlyn, the Sheriff of Piltover as I do for Sylvannis Windrunner, Queen of the Forsaken. The PlayStation 4 launch didn’t help out much, nor did the surprise Wii U my wife got me.

It wasn’t until last weekend when I was watching the Starcraft II World Championship Seriesdid I stumble across a playlist of League of Legends championship play, and realize what a mistake I had made. It looked fun! Sure, the characters were generic: knight guy, wizard girl, hawk archer lady, etc, etc. ... but that’s OK. The combat was fluid and I got the bug; so I decided to take the plunge and download the free to play title.

After a quick download and some patching, I jumped right into the fray. I was asked if I knew what I was doing or if I needed some help. Choosing the latter, I was taken to a tutorial of the game. And let me tell you: the tutorial is excellent. It takes all the scary parts of the game and breaks them down into manageable bite-sized pieces. I learned where to place my hand on the keyboard, how to read and understand the UI, and even managed to pick up some of the lingo that players use in combat. It was a nicely paced hand-holding session that left me feeling adequately equipped to enter some practice matches.

My adventure begins with four other human players battling against a team of computer players. It’s a great way to break into team combat against a formidable, although somewhat tactically oblivious, opponent. I choose Quinn, a marksman, and in Blizzcon 2013 fashion, gallantly strode down the south lane. This time, I waited for my AI support. As the battles of DOTA passed flashed before my eyes, I stalked my prey in the bushes and waited. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a 2 on 1, and I was mercilessly slaughtered. It didn’t end there; I finished dead last.

A whopping five levels below the next character in our game, to be more exact. “Quinn sucks” is probably now burned into the lower left corner of my monitor as the team chat seemed to focus around nothing else (who could blame them?). Ah, the online community. Now I remember why I typically only play multiplayer games with my friends. But that’s OK. I’m sure most of the community is friendly, like the people I meet here, but it did make me laugh. “I’m new!” I feverishly typed. “To bad, loser (sic).” Sigh.

Despite the hazing, you know what? I really enjoyed my session. Well, not the getting demolished part, but the actual gameplay. Althogh I performed horribly, I felt like I made a difference in key points in the battle. I used ranged and guerilla tactics to snipe off enemy forces, and managed to pull off a few well timed heal spells to keep my stronger allies in the fight just a little bit longer. I’m sure I was used as bait by my team mates, but we ultimately got the win, so I’m OK with that. Of course I still have much to learn, and I can only anticipate how much worse I’ll do against human opponents who are much smarter than the AI foes I faced.

So yes, I know I’m late to the party, but I’m here now. I was surprised to learn that League of Legends has over twenty seven million active players, daily. That’s a lot of competition to sink my teeth into. And a lot of experience I need to combat. A few of my thoughts:

What I love:

+ A real sense of progression from beginning to end, thanks largely in part to a smart gold system that rewards you for being near the action. Crafting new gear is intuitive as well.

+ Well-thought out skill sets that complement each character type.

+ Punishing “time out time” upon death forces a player to carefully navigate the battlefield.

What I don’t:

- "Last hit rule" causes some un-necessary friction between teammates

I’d like to deep dive this game for another week or so, and then shift over to Valve’s DOTA2 for a comparison. What are your thoughts about this genre, or this game in particular?

Honestly, I'm not sure you will enjoy DOTA2 more, if Last Hits feels forced and unnecessary, you will find even more things in DOTA 2 that are like that, like denying, creep pulling, loss of gold upon death.

You might come upon less vile comments about your hero pick though.

What Drakoji said. If you didn't like Last hits you won't like Dota 2 much, either. Especially when you can deny your own team members and towers. And if you aren't doing those things you are doing it wrong. Denying your own creeps is important, too. Especially if you're against someone who can outlane you. Denying them as much XP and gold as possible is key.

If you don't like that system then Heroes of the Storm sounds like it is for you. There isn't last hitting and everyone is on even footing with the levelling system. XP is shared. Much more friendly if you want it.

If the small skirmishes and battles between heroes is what you enjoy the most, then I think you will enjoy league more than dota. It's a lot faster paced and the character action moves more fluidly.

But yeah, you need to get used to and understand the importance of last hits and last hit priority in either game. It's very much essential.You can play excellently in a combat scenario, but you are still gonna lose if the enemy has a much bigger economic advantage to your team, and it's important to make sure that the characters that use the money most efficiently gets a hold of it.

EDIT: Actually I took a look at the league tutorial again. I think the way they tell you to hold the hand is a little unergonomic. Keeping index-ring finger on Q,W,E and then switching index between E and R when needed should feel more comfortable, and since R is generally a longer cooldown and important spells it's nice to lower the chance of accidentally casting it on top of not having a constant need to keep a finger there since it's so rarely used. And if you are going to try dota as well I'd recommend finding room for item hotkeys. It's important in both games, but dota especially so. You want to be able to use an item as fast as you do a spell.

Welcome to the genre. As was suggested, Heroes of the Storm seems to be more like the game for you. As far as I know, there won't be any last-hitting, you level up as a team and I think there are no items.

As for last-hitting causing friction between teammates, the general meta in League (and I believe in Dota2 as well) is that top and mid lane are solo, while bottom lane is occupied by a carry alongside a support. The support usually doesn't last-hit, leaving all the farm to the carry to feed them as much gold as possible. The fifth player roams the jungle between lanes and ganks.

@benderunit22: In dota jungle is more a farm position rather than a gank one, and most games usually have all 5 heroes in lane in some capacity. 2-1-2 or 3-1-1 in increasingly rare cases. Roaming gankers generally don't get farm at all and are basically just supports that run around and lose xp a lot. But they get kills and sweet combat action. :3

We don't take too kindly to LoL players 'round these parts.

I will go against the grain here, and say that you should totally give Dota 2 a shot after about a week or two. Everybody is right in that last hitting in Dota 2 is a much greater deal in that game, but it's still free to play and it is much easier to get a party of Giant Bomb duders to help you out than in League of Legends. League is still however the easier game of the two to get into the Moba scene, especially if you want to go at it with random teammates.

However if you are absolutely against last hitting tension, try to get into the closed beta in Strife as they make last hits count for nearby teammates instead of just the last hitter. Its very rough right now since it just got into closed beta, but a major design philosophy in that game is about lessening player toxicity.

Thanks to you all for your candid feedback!

I guess I'm not entirely opposed to the whole "last hit" system as I think rewarding players for epic deeds is important, but at the same time, I can swear that some of my team mates just stood around and watched me helplessly fight / die until it enemy health was low enough to engage. I guess I'm too used to playing Battlefield with my friends with the whole "we all go home or nobody goes home" mentality. I don't mind friendly competition, but I sure felt alone some times!

You are also right, I recall Blizzard telling us that experience was shared. I'm in favor of those doing the heavy lifting of getting a bit more, but the game is still so far from launch, anything can happen.

@c2c: I wasn't even aware of this game. Thanks for the intel. I'll have to add it to my list. I'm definitely interested in the whole genre, so I'd like to dabble in everything before I drop anchor.

More to follow...

If you don't understand the game well, and get friction from other players when playing against AIs, you'll certainly get way more flack versus other players.

However LOL and DOTA both discourage "hazing" or any kind of mean spirited play. In LOL after the game you can report other players (good or bad) and I recommend always doing so- good and bad.

Really, LOL is not that complicated but the meta game is where it can be rough. Certain characters, for example, have certain roles and the game doesn't really tell you in a clear way what this even means or what specifically a characters role even implies. For instance, their is a form of carry in LOL and there should be a support for them. How this works, or how players who whine when you don't do it however it is they're expecting you to, I'll never know as I don't care enough about the game to figure out what more that could imply beyond picking at the opposing team players while the carry gets the creep kills. *shrug*

Anyway, ya LOL is fun. DOTA 2 is more complicated and I recommend watching some youtube videos around that are for teaching you how the game is supposed to work so you at least have an idea if you do play DOTA 2. In both I never had a strong issue with trolls, but there is always people telling you you are playing wrong or outright being childish (they probably were children, honestly). I just immediately ignore those people. Giantbomb has a presence in both games and you can find mostly friendly players in those but there are still dick heads even when you join those too so there's always gonna be that unless you play with people you know.

You should stick with LoL. Since it's not shit and all.

I'm gonna be the oddball here, and say that I like League more then I like dota. I played league for months and then decided to give dota 2 a try. Unknowingly, I picked a champ, I think his name was Io, turns out that champ is hard and plays more of a support role. League does seem easier, but man that game is not a cakewalk to play. Some of the more technical champs, or assassins like Zed, Orianna and Yasuo are difficult to play.

However, my two scents on league or any moba:

Play against real people, you might get called a feeder or hazed at times but its the only way to learn the game. The bot matches give you a false sense of confidence and bots often do things that you'd never see real player teams do

Players tend to haze you more when you pick a role like ad carry or support and do terrible. So my advice would be pick an ad carry like Caitlyn, Draven or Varus, all are fairly easy carries to understand. I would also recommend staying away from support until you get more familiar.

An easy lane to play would be top. If you don't feel comfortable going solo top lane, have a buddy go duo top. Some players will flip if you call duo top but its not a terrible way to play atleast until you can get a handle for your favorite character.

Lastly: Try looking up item builds for certain characters before you play them, I know this sounds a tad nerdy, but when I started playing lol, I had a hard time building a champ so I would look up builds for junglers, top laners, etc.. and that helped me understand what items help with what. Eventually you'll learn the items and wont rely on following set item builds.

Good Luck and hopefully your Moba experience continues to be an enjoyable one.

@jim_efantis: People will happily sacrifice you for the greater cause in MOBA's. Not everyone is created equal. If you're a support and you die, it ain't a big deal. If you're a carry and you die? Big deal.

You also gotta learn when the time is right to go in. Just going in willy nilly doesn't go well.

@jim_efantis: Playing with friends is a near must, I got deeeeeeep into League and had a similar mindset to yours, All my fun comes from playing with a good group of friends, it makes the victories all the sweeter and takes the edge of the crushing defeats. Having played both League and Dota 2 I eschewed Dota for League because of it's added mechanics, I wanted a moba that I could leap into and the action is fast and fun (like dominion) over a more technical game. Hero movement and ability usage just feel smoother or more intuitive in league to me as I'm sure the reverse may be true for someone else.

A lot of your problems regarding friction and people demanding the killing blow on champions exists pretty much only early on as once you get past the idea that it's a race to score more kills and realise it's more about objective control, killing minions for gold and out positioning/engaging the enemy team then everyone starts working more as a team as it applies to the game's meta. The toxic community is pretty much inherent to any game where skill is involved and that's where playing with friends and putting toxic people on ignore comes in.

Ahh I remember my first weeks of league, playing co-op vs AI and thinking I had to have the most kills to win. Then I started playing PvP and mained support and top lane and realised the huge worth of being a peeling / supporting player for my Carry or the tankiest of top lane bullies who could wade into an enemy team and keep them so off balance that my team could pick off the soft targets.

@jim_efantis:

LoL has better character design and they should since you pay for those. DOTA 2 lets you play any hero any time.

DOTA 2 is mechanically the better game imo, it's more like a true team sport in which your skill and coordination with your teammates determines the outcome more than other factors. The balance is far better imo.

LoL is probably a touch easier to learn to play. Although I don't feel the heroes' roles are as intuitive as they are in DOTA 2, but that may be because I've been playing DotA since the DotA Allstars days.

A subtle thing I like about DOTA 2 is that it's pretty easy to find people to play with you know, since so many people have Steam and you can them log on etc.

Bottom line is they are both fun games, and MOBAs are the closest thing to true team sports in video games. That's what I like best about them.

as for last hitting, sounds like you are auto-attacking creep. Don't do that unless you are pushing the lane. Ideally you actually want to keep the creepwave near your towers to give yourself an extra attacker in a hero vs hero fight. You could also play support and avoid having to worry about that altogether.

Or as others have said pick a MOBA that doesn't have that as a mechanic.