League of Draven

I recently bought Draven with some of my IP in an effort to have a new carry that I could play in League of Legends. In the week or so that I've had him and have played him, I've discovered that I really enjoy his play style. The laning phase where you should try to catch his spinning blades gives me an interesting minigame to play on top of the normal lane phase. The other good thing about Draven, is that I've won a bunch of matches with him. I was definitely quite bad when I first picked him up, but I've gotten significantly better with him since. I'm sure there's still a ton of room to improve, but it's fun to have a new hero to play. For your viewing pleasure, here is video of my first game ever with Draven.

Feels Good Man

This game as Sona felt pretty good and made my day.

Dealing with Losing

I've lost a lot in League of Legends. In fact I currently have a losing record. I don't feel the need to disclose my win/loss record at this time, however, I will note that a couple weeks ago I had a winning record. Over the last approximately 2 weeks, I've probably lost 10 out of 15 League of Legends games I've attempted. Yesterday, I had a pretty punishing loss when I played a game as Amumu. I played well the entire game, I kept my team alive in clutch moments and I was everywhere I could reasonably be expected to be (in Bronze I at least). I bought a ton of wards, and I built items to support my team mates. Yet somehow, we still managed to lose in the end. There were a few times I could point at that changed how the game went.

The first point where we could have changed the outcome of the game was probably after we aced the enemy team. 3-4 of us were still up with about 30 seconds left for the other team to respawn. I ran down the middle lane to begin taking down their final tower and inhibitor, but the rest of my team ran back to base to buy items. Had my team members come with me to take out the turret, I bet we would have won because of the lane advantage the inhibitor would have given us.

The last point that we lost was when I went back to buy another giant belt before the final engagement. I told my team that I'd be a second and that they should wait for me. I even pinged for them to retreat in case they couldn't read my writing. Naturally, 3 of my team members ran in to die all alone without doing any real damage to the other team. That sealed our loss. I was sad. Luckily my next game turned out to be a win. Actually, it wasn't even close in my next game. I went something like 12/2/24... as Sona playing support... How do the skill levels of ranked games get so messed up in Bronze? I lost only 2 League points for my loss, but I gained only 6 points for the win. Why can't matchmaking give me a decent match up that will be a close game and help me advance?

As far as dealing with losses, I find that my best solution is to shrug it off, and move on to the next game. Even though losing because of someone else's stupid decision hurts, and it hurts even more when that person blames you for it, I find it best to be gracious and accept responsibility for your mistakes. I guarantee that anyone that loses a game, has not played that game perfectly. You might even lose the game outright through character selection. Let us all have fun while playing, support our team members, and remember that other humans (players) all deserve respect when you interact with them.

Sona Support Game

I've been playing some League of Legends over the past few months. Most of the games have been ranked. Last night, I played a game as Sona, and I got to support Varus in bottom lane. The game ended up being pretty fun for me, despite the times that my team members got mad at me for stealing kills according to them. It's times like this that I hate the "last hit" practice that is often used in games.

Why should one person get greater credit for a kill when clearly that event was a team effort? There are times where a kill might deserve special recognition, but I believe the vast majority of team kills should be recognized as being a kill generated by the team only. I do believe that Guild Wars does a pretty good job of recognizing true contributions to the team goals, though I need to pay more attention to describe what they do. Anyway, here is my Sona game from last night if you are interested:

League of Legends (Ranked)

I know I've talked a lot about how much I dislike League of Legends, and there are still a lot of things that I don't like about the game (and the developer). However, I decided to give the game a shot again after more than a year of not playing it (my last games were in December of 2011) in order to play with my brother who has continued playing occasionally. That means I missed the entirety of season 2 and whatever happened in season 2, including the changes to items and all of the new heroes (I refuse to call them champions any more; they're heroes).

The main thing I noticed about coming back to League of Legends is how toxic the community is. It's really ridiculous that I communicate openly with the team, describing what I don't understand and the things I need help in (items and matchups mostly), only to be flamed incessantly for being the worst <insert hero I'm playing> they've ever seen. Interestingly, after a good 5 games of being flamed, my next game I was complimented as being the best support (Sona) they'd ever seen. Now I don't know what Riot should (or could) do to attempt to solve the problem with the community, but I've never dealt with this kind of abuse in Dota 2. HoN seems to be similarly angry about things.

Anyway, I have played a number of ranked games in the last week or so, and right now my profile reports an Elo of 1151. I recognize this isn't a pro ranking or anything, but I believe that 1200 is roughly the 50% mark, so I'm only slightly below the average of all people who play the game, even after taking a year off. I should also mention that I had only played a single ranked game before last week, so the ban and picking procedure was brand new to me. I do have a real job, and a real social life on top of the games I play, so I probably won't be playing anywhere near as much as other gamers. However, at the present time, I plan to play and stream League of Legends ranked games at least a couple times a week as I get a chance. If I can convince some of my RL friends to play on a team, I might even attempt to coordinate a 5v5 team too.

To give you a taste of how bad I am, here's a ranked game where I played Malphite in the jungle because somehow both sides forgot to ban him.

League of Legends Dominion

I know I haven't been posting on here as much as I used to, but there have been a lot of big announcements in gaming lately. Today Riot released a video announcing a new game mode for League of Legends called Dominion, which seems a lot like a king of the hill kind of game. It should provide some interesting new gameplay experiences for people that enjoy League of Legends but were getting tired of the standard lane gameplay. Without further ado, here's the video from Riot's youtube channel.

LoL Tenacity

So I just heard that they're adding a new stat to League of Legends called "Tenacity" so that they could add a few more items that have the stat. For a list of the items and a discussion on the topic, see this post on the LoL forums. Tenacity is basically the stat that Mercury Treads had before, that reduces the duration of crowd control effects. I believe the way it works, is that each point of tenacity gives you 1% duration reduction of CC. The big catch is that tenacity doesn't stack and you only get the bonus from the single item you have with the highest value. At this point, only two values exist, 35 from merc treads, or 25 from everything else you can get, meaning you get 35% CC reduction from merc treads and 25% from any of the other items you can get. I think this change will give many more options to many of the champions in the game that were particularly vulnerable to CC since you no longer have to get merc treads to resist it.

Just for more complete information, here are the new and changed items related to tenacity:

Mercury's Treads (Rework)
Cost: 1200
+35 Tenacity, +25 Magic resist.
Enhanced movement speed 2

Cloak and Dagger :
Cost: 1450
+25 Tenacity
+20% attack speed
+20% critical chance

Moonflair Spellblade :
Cost: 1290
+50 Ability power
+ 25 Tenacity

Eleisa's Miracle :
+25 Health Regen per 5 sec
+20 Mana Regen per 5 sec
+25 Tenacity

It looks like there's a tenacity item here for almost everyone that could want one. Here's the patch notes video if you want to hear about the changes straight from Riot:

Should I return to LoL

I recently decided to take a break from League of Legends. This happened at the time I made my previous blog post about competitive gaming. I uninstalled the game because a particular interaction I had in the game got me quite upset, and I didn't like how I felt. Since then, I haven't missed the game very much, and I've gotten much more interest in my stream from playing Minecraft. However, I do still think the game has good things to it, and would like to play it again at some point. Recently I've been trying to think about the things that would need to happen for me to be able to handle playing again.

First, I think everyone would have to only focus on the good things during the actual gameplay. This focus would be much more positive and help everyone on the team to be friendlier and more supportive of each other. Second, after the game ends, I'd be willing to accept comments about how everyone who played could improve, but I don't believe most interactions with the enemy team would be useful. I find that almost all the time, conversations with the enemy team are just a stream of insults and destructive to the morale of everyone. However, even when bringing up areas for improvement, I think there should be a clear message that good things did come from that player, and that they could be just a little bit better with this change or that change.

The primary motivation for these changes is to keep myself motivated and prevent me from getting so angry again. I will admit that my anger wasn't fully justified, but I also had many stressful things coming up in my life that kept me from keeping as level a head as I normally try to maintain. I also think that these changes will make me a more enjoyable team mate, and a better person at life in general.

Sona wins games!

This is just an example of how Sona wins games.

Vs. AI is fun

I just wanted to show off how fun it is to play vs. AI in League of Legends with this picture. The character selection screen had no discussion.

What I think makes League of Legends good. Part 2

Last time I covered some of the design decisions that went into League of Legends and why I think those decisions were good ones. Today I continue my analysis with the following topics.

Learning Curve:

The first thing I noticed when I played League of Legends was how easy it was to get into the game. I was a new player to the genre, although I had played RTS games as well as games like Diablo 2, so the control scheme was familiar. The game got me right into the action after a short tutorial (which I will talk about next). I was surprised that I was able to just play the game without really having a clue what I was doing or what any of the terminology meant. For instance, there is a list of recommended items for each character which isn't terrible. If a new player just sticks to that list, they won't be at a huge disadvantage, to many of the other players with more experience.

Speaking of experience, League of Legends uses it as a representation of how much a player has played the game. That means that as you play more, they advance your experience level. With that level advancement come additional gameplay mechanics, such as more summoner spells, additional rune slots, and more masteries to pick from. A beginner has little to worry about besides picking his or her character, while the more experienced user can spend the time customizing his masteries and selecting a rune page to match. There is however a side effect of this system, and that is that more experienced players have a noticeable advantage by having these additional features unlocked.

Match Making:

The way League of Legends gets around the experience advantage is by using their matchmaking system. When a new player decides to play a game, the system attempts to match that player with other new players, thereby keeping the overall balance of runes and masteries even between the teams. Even when a new player queues with a more experienced friend, the matchmaking system does its best to find players that will keep the teams balanced. The result is a game that is generally more evenly matched and enjoyable for everyone involved.

Tutorials:

Even before a player begins their first game in League of Legends, the client suggests that the player go through a short tutorial. This tutorial is well designed and teaches the player some of the basics of the game on a simple map with only one lane and scripted events that walk the player through the required steps to win a match. A voice guides the player and provides positive reinforcement that is very welcoming, and encouraging. After the tutorial, the player is offered a choice to play a practice game against some bots. This practice game provides quests and optional advice that teaches the new player a lot of the terminology that is regularly used in the game. The result is a player that is at least partly familiar with the things he or she will hear from other players in normal games.

Map Design:

I'm going to focus on Summoner's Rift, the standard 5v5 map that I spend most of my time on in League of Legends, for this discussion, but I believe the general design applies to all of the maps that Riot has made for their game. In warcraft 3 one of the main resources that players would collect is lumber. This meant that trees were easy to add to the map as obstacles for DotA, and that it was easy to add ways for those trees to be destroyed for gameplay purposes. The main downside of this is that the map ends up with a lot of small features that allow a short cut to happen that aren't readily apparent to the new player. League of Legends takes the approach of making the impassable terrain immediately discernable to even an inexperienced player. There are still some "short cuts" that cater to the players looking for a bit more of depth in game play, but the spell that gives all characters the ability to jump over certain spots in the terrain isn't available until level 12, after the player has time to complete quite a few games.

Persistant Rewards:

All most of the hero-based games like League of Legends are role playing games (RPGs), and involve the development of skills and abilities for the hero. League of Legends has an extra level of character progression that extends beyond the progression of an individual battle. The summoner is the term for the persistant character who summons the champions to battle each time, and has the ability to prepare two spells for use in assisting the hero with his or her combat against the enemy. The summoner is the one that gains experience and levels. The summoner is able to unlock new champions and skins permanently. The summoner gathers runes into run pages that heros can use to improve their fighting abilities.

The idea of RPG-like persistant character progression is not unique to League of Legends and has been a good reason why games such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft have a tendency to really draw in their customers to keep playing. In all honesty, it could be seen as a negative feature for a game to use this technique to draw in players for more and more time as they accumulate the various rewards available to them in the game. I think there is still a good amount of enjoyment that a player can get from the sense of accomplishment that these little checkpoints provide.

What I think makes League of Legends good. Part 1

Currently, League of Legends (LoL) is one of the games I play the most. It is a game in a category of games that they call MOBA and I like to call Hero Arena (HA) games. Basically, each game of this type has a set of heros (or champions) that are placed on teams. Each hero has some abilities that can typically be improved as a match progresses and the objective can be a few different things. The most popular objective, and the one used in LoL, is the destruction of the enemy base after the progressive destruction of a series of defensive structures. In a standard 5 vs. 5 game of LoL, there are 3 "lanes" each with 3 turrets defending an inhibitor (a building that prevents the enemy from spawning "super minions") and then 2 more turrets defending the main base building (called a nexus). Periodically, minions are spawned that follow a set path down the lanes towards the enemy base and it is the job of the heros (controlled by players) to influence the battle of the minions to cause the destruction of the enemy defensive structures.

There are a few things that attract me to the game including the accessibility of the game, the transparency of the developer, the colorful, stylized graphics, and the enjoyable voice acting. Today I want to write about the things I like about League of Legends in terms of game design, and particularly what is good about their decisions and how they generally make the game easier to get into for the new player. I'm going to do my best to focus on the decisions they made in designing League of Legends, and try my best to avoid talking too much about other games competing with League of Legends in the same genre. To some extent this is unavoidable because they are all based on DotA and some of the decisions are in direct contrast to the decisions their competitors have made.

Denying:

While on the subject of differences from the competition it is important to bring up the concept of denying. To discuss what it means to deny, we must first look at DotA, a game built on the Warcraft 3 engine. (Disclaimer: I have barely played any games of DotA because I didn't find it fun so I could be way off in my description here). In Warcraft 3, a Real-time Strategy Game, the player controls a group of units at a time and gives those units commands. Warcraft 3 made heavy use of heros in its basic gameplay and they functioned similarly to heros in LoL, except that the player also had the control of standard army units, and worker units. All units could be given the command to attack specific targets. As a convenience for when your own units or buildings got in the way, it was possible to order your units to destroy your own allied units. There was rarely a benefit to this practice, but it was allowed for the rare circumstances when pathing wouldn't work, or when you needed food that was being used by a weak unit to train a more powerful unit.

In Dota, a map was set up just like I described for League of Legends. The default behavior built in to Warcraft 3 was used for hero experience and gold, and that is that the hero that lands the killing blow on a unit gets gold for that kill, and every unit that dies in range of the hero grants some amount of experience to the hero, increasing its level and power. Gold is a powerful resource because it is what is required to purchase items for your hero that greatly increase his or her effectiveness in battle. It was quickly discovered that a player could attack the minions on his own side when they were almost dead to prevent the enemy heros from being able to get the gold from those kills. Additionally, gold is granted for killing towers, and once again, you could kill your own tower to prevent the enemy from getting gold for the kill.

Riot Games (the makers of LoL) decided that denying should not be a part of League of Legends. First they say that killing your own units just feels weird, and I have to agree with them on that. Second, I think that it is non-intuitive to a new player that he should kill his own units. As a new player coming to the game, you see the two waring factions locked in battle and so in order to help your team gain an advantage you kill your own troops? That's just silly. Riot made the decision to not allow the player to kill his own units, and instead increase the importance of harassing early in the game.

Harassing:

Early in the game, heros tend to distribute themselves to a couple of different lanes to gather gold from the enemy minions (as well as some from the neutral minions in the jungle, but I'll get to the jungle another time). In DotA, resources for using abilities were relatively scares, especially early in the game. In contrast, League of Legends is designed with slightly higher base resources, and a regeneration of resources that is high enough to be useful. Mana still can run out, but players are encouraged to attempt to deal damage to weaken their enemies to the point that they can either force them to retreat to heal, or maybe even kill their enemies, forcing them to wait a short time to respawn. The higher focus on harassing makes the game feel more like a battle and less like a game to see who can kill minions better than their enemy.

Punishment vs. Rewards:

This is perhaps the most important thing that I think Riot has done in their design of LoL. The entire design of the game seems to be of the mentality that players should be rewarded for playing the game and punishment should be kept to a minimum. One prime example can be seen in the way League of Legends deals with killed heros. When a hero kills another hero, the killing hero gains a good amount of gold and any assisting heros on the same team gain a smaller amount of gold as a reward for doing something good. The hero that has died is taken out of the fight for a short time, but has no equipment, experience or gold taken from him. Other games punish players for death much more harshly, by removing the things they have obtained. Harsh punishments can be depressing to a player, and even more so to a player that is new and has to deal with deaths perhaps a little more frequently than the more experienced players.

Free to Play:

League of Legends is a "free" game. That means that the game is free for anyone to download, install and play as much as they want, with one catch. That is that it is supported by micro-transactions. Each week, Riot sets 10 of the heros in the game to be free for anyone to use. This set of 10 heros changes from week to week. Each hero can be unlocked by playing the game for a certain amount of time, or by paying a small fee to the company to buy permanent access to a particular hero. Also, alternate looks for heros can be unlocked by similar small payments of approximately $4-$14. I'll probably talk more about this topic in a future post, but the important part for my current discussion is that it is easy for people to play the game since there is no cost upfront, which means that you can play with friends whenever you want. For me, gaming is much more fun when it becomes a social experience.

This post is getting kind of long so I'm going to stop here for now. Topics for next time: Persistant Rewards, Tutorials, Map Design and Learning Curve.

First Stream

I figured it would be nice to show some results of my first attempt at streaming. I just uploaded the video of the game we won in League of Legends to youtube, so here it is:

Setting Up Game Streaming

For a while I've wanted to figure out how to stream the games I play so that other people could watch if they wanted. I know I enjoy watching other people play games from time to time, so I thought it could be fun to have other people watch me. I've tried to get stuff set up for streaming before, but the sound didn't work right, or the video would end up choppy, or something would just go wrong. But yesterday, I was successful.

The key for me was a program called XSplit. I've watched a lot of other people stream League of Legends on own3d.tv and so I decided to make a channel there. They suggest using XSplit so I downloaded it and installed it. After setting up XSplit, I clicked broadcast to my own3d channel, and nothing showed up. It seemed like I was broadcasting, but even my friends couldn't see anything on my channel for some reason. The only time video would show up is when I'd turn off the broadcast. A brief amount of video would get through right at the end of the broadcast. I still haven't figured out why XSplit didn't work for me with own3d (I might need to open ports or something).

So I decided to try out my ustream.tv account that I'd already set up in my previous attempt at streaming since XSplit has an option to use a ustream account. Magically, it just worked. I did spend some time playing around with the settings in XSplit to get the sound to work right, but I was able to broadcast 2 hours of minecraft just fine. Then I decided to play a couple games of League of Legends, and they also worked just fine. One thing I'd noticed other streamers using to get LoL to work in windowed fullscreen mode, was a program to shift the window slightly. This thread on the LoL forums tells you where to get the program and how to set it up.

I also tried streaming a Starcraft 2 game, but the stream was kinda choppy, probably because I had the graphics a little too high. In the end, I'm glad to have streaming set up on my computer and I hope my experience with setting it up can help other people in the future