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United States23745 Posts
On January 08 2015 10:33 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 10:28 onlywonderboy wrote:
Well even though the systems aren't effecting me directly if a friend asked me which MOBA he should start playing I'm probably gonna say Dota 2. There are problems you can't just explain away because of veteran bias. Yes, that's what I thought too. I thought that I could not honestly suggest to someone to spend 200 hours just to barely get a glance of my world - a world of ranked solo queue. The reality is, pre level 30 can be fun too. I don't have any good data to back me here, but ARAMs constitutes a huge portion of low level games - these players play these games because they are fun in itself, without the need of runes, masteries, etc. If you play ranked solo queue 24/7 trying to hit Diamond, it's really hard to understand the perspective of people who are just playing for fun. What we think is important may not be what is important for everyone.
It's not just the leveling system. The fact that every champs is unlocked in Dota from the start just makes it way more appealing. See a champ and want to try him out? Go right ahead, he's unlocked. That single thing makes Dota more easily recommendable. And there's plenty of dumb random shit to have fun with in Dota too. I still like LoL a tremendous amount but I can't see how you defend these archaic systems that exist just to draw money out of the player base.
Edit: I even had a friend I tried to get into LoL but decline because his other friend was trying to get him into Dota and he liked the idea of all champs being free. Circumstantial obviously but this can't be an isolated incident.
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On January 08 2015 10:34 nafta wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 10:26 Sufficiency wrote:On January 08 2015 10:13 nafta wrote:
Thanks for showing me the way sufficiency.I never thought about how the real reason the leveling system exists is to not let high rated players just make new accounts to crush noobs.Not like they can just block ranked until you play 500 games or so.Oh wait.... Why else would you want a full level 30 account? Because it is completely useless?Like what is the point?Only thing it does is put new players at a bigger disadvantage for no reason at all.This isn't an mmo where you quest and shit.Also not forcing me to make a new account if I want to play with someone who I just introduced to the game would be nice. People are assholes they are going to make accounts to stomp noobs.What is the difference if they make a new one lvl 1 or a lvl 30 one my brain doesn't even.
Oh my bad. I thought you were trying to be sarcastic.
I think comparing LoL's leveling system to MMOs is very interesting.
In MMOs, as a max level veteran player you can easily "show the rope" to a new player by being massively overleveled in a newbie area. As such, a veteran player can help a new player around without worrying about PvE elements (since a max level character will one shot everything), show a new player all the different contents the game can offer (e.g. spells/abilities, environments, etc.), and speed up quests/progression for the new player by rushing him or providing him with currency.
You can't really do this in LoL. While you can play with a new player, due to matchmaking system and the PvP nature of the game, it's actually pretty difficult for a veteran player to show the rope. Yes, there are bot games - unfortunately bots are pretty easy they do not pose serious challenge for new players by themselves anyway (and this is made worse by the fact that the easy and intermediate bots essentially offer the same amount of EXP/IP).
I think this is a pretty big challenge for LoL. Peer-promotion is a very powerful marketing tool - especially in MMO games. This is definitely lacking in LoL. I do believe it's a very difficult problem to address.
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i don't understand the argument why it should be quicker for new players to be able to get stuff, it'll probably take the average guy 1k games to learn everything they need to know about the game and be ready for ranked.just because they hit level 30 doesn't mean that they are ready to play ranked. having a small character pool isn't a big deal cause most people buy the characters they enjoy and don't touch the rest. you can get by on 2-3 rune pages for every role even in ranked so those don't matter much.
i pretty firmly believe that runes are only used to get you through the first 10 minutes and that after that it doesn't matter much what runes you have.
also everyone here has already done the grind once and everyone who is remotely interested in playing the game can do the grind as well.
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On January 08 2015 10:33 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 10:28 onlywonderboy wrote:
Well even though the systems aren't effecting me directly if a friend asked me which MOBA he should start playing I'm probably gonna say Dota 2. There are problems you can't just explain away because of veteran bias. Yes, that's what I thought too. I thought that I could not honestly suggest to someone to spend 200 hours just to barely get a glance of my world - a world of ranked solo queue. The reality is, pre level 30 can be fun too. I don't have any good data to back me here, but ARAMs constitutes a huge portion of low level games - these players play these games because they are fun in itself, without the need of runes, masteries, etc. If you play ranked solo queue 24/7 trying to hit Diamond, it's really hard to understand the perspective of people who are just playing for fun. What we think is important may not be what is important for everyone.
Regarding arams pre-30, I can't be sure about actually low ranked players as I was already in smurf island at the time, but when I tried to level my smurf using arams it often took ten minutes for the queue to pop.
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On January 08 2015 10:46 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 10:34 nafta wrote:On January 08 2015 10:26 Sufficiency wrote:On January 08 2015 10:13 nafta wrote:
Thanks for showing me the way sufficiency.I never thought about how the real reason the leveling system exists is to not let high rated players just make new accounts to crush noobs.Not like they can just block ranked until you play 500 games or so.Oh wait.... Why else would you want a full level 30 account? Because it is completely useless?Like what is the point?Only thing it does is put new players at a bigger disadvantage for no reason at all.This isn't an mmo where you quest and shit.Also not forcing me to make a new account if I want to play with someone who I just introduced to the game would be nice. People are assholes they are going to make accounts to stomp noobs.What is the difference if they make a new one lvl 1 or a lvl 30 one my brain doesn't even. Oh my bad. I thought you were trying to be sarcastic. I think comparing LoL's leveling system to MMOs is very interesting. In MMOs, as a max level veteran player you can easily "show the rope" to a new player by being massively overleveled in a newbie area. As such, a veteran player can help a new player around without worrying about PvE elements (since a max level character will one shot everything), show a new player all the different contents the game can offer (e.g. spells/abilities, environments, etc.), and speed up quests/progression for the new player by rushing him or providing him with currency. You can't really do this in LoL. While you can play with a new player, due to matchmaking system and the PvP nature of the game, it's actually pretty difficult for a veteran player to show the rope. Yes, there are bot games - unfortunately bots are pretty easy they do not pose serious challenge for new players by themselves anyway (and this is made worse by the fact that the easy and intermediate bots essentially offer the same amount of EXP/IP).I think this is a pretty big challenge for LoL. Peer-promotion is a very powerful marketing tool - especially in MMO games. This is definitely lacking in LoL. I do believe it's a very difficult problem to address.
Beginner and Intermediate bots only give the same amount of rewards levels 1 to 9, where they give 100%. Intermediate bots continue to give 100% until level 20. From then on they give 90% until level 30.
Literally the only thing holding people back from leveling against bots is the time cap/day on the mode.
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On January 08 2015 10:52 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 10:46 Sufficiency wrote:On January 08 2015 10:34 nafta wrote:On January 08 2015 10:26 Sufficiency wrote:On January 08 2015 10:13 nafta wrote:
Thanks for showing me the way sufficiency.I never thought about how the real reason the leveling system exists is to not let high rated players just make new accounts to crush noobs.Not like they can just block ranked until you play 500 games or so.Oh wait.... Why else would you want a full level 30 account? Because it is completely useless?Like what is the point?Only thing it does is put new players at a bigger disadvantage for no reason at all.This isn't an mmo where you quest and shit.Also not forcing me to make a new account if I want to play with someone who I just introduced to the game would be nice. People are assholes they are going to make accounts to stomp noobs.What is the difference if they make a new one lvl 1 or a lvl 30 one my brain doesn't even. Oh my bad. I thought you were trying to be sarcastic. I think comparing LoL's leveling system to MMOs is very interesting. In MMOs, as a max level veteran player you can easily "show the rope" to a new player by being massively overleveled in a newbie area. As such, a veteran player can help a new player around without worrying about PvE elements (since a max level character will one shot everything), show a new player all the different contents the game can offer (e.g. spells/abilities, environments, etc.), and speed up quests/progression for the new player by rushing him or providing him with currency. You can't really do this in LoL. While you can play with a new player, due to matchmaking system and the PvP nature of the game, it's actually pretty difficult for a veteran player to show the rope. Yes, there are bot games - unfortunately bots are pretty easy they do not pose serious challenge for new players by themselves anyway (and this is made worse by the fact that the easy and intermediate bots essentially offer the same amount of EXP/IP).I think this is a pretty big challenge for LoL. Peer-promotion is a very powerful marketing tool - especially in MMO games. This is definitely lacking in LoL. I do believe it's a very difficult problem to address. Beginner and Intermediate bots only give the same amount of rewards levels 1 to 9, where they give 100%. Intermediate bots continue to give 100% until level 20. From then on they give 90% until level 30. Literally the only thing holding people back from leveling against bots is the time cap/day on the mode.
Yes I am aware of the penalty, hence "essentially". For many players I am not sure if they can even tell there is an EXP penalty acting against them.
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On January 08 2015 10:34 nafta wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 10:26 Sufficiency wrote:On January 08 2015 10:13 nafta wrote:
Thanks for showing me the way sufficiency.I never thought about how the real reason the leveling system exists is to not let high rated players just make new accounts to crush noobs.Not like they can just block ranked until you play 500 games or so.Oh wait.... Why else would you want a full level 30 account? Because it is completely useless?Like what is the point?Only thing it does is put new players at a bigger disadvantage for no reason at all.This isn't an mmo where you quest and shit.Also not forcing me to make a new account if I want to play with someone who I just introduced to the game would be nice. People are assholes they are going to make accounts to stomp noobs.What is the difference if they make a new one lvl 1 or a lvl 30 one my brain doesn't even.
That is true. But for the most part people want fresh 30 accounts so that they can restart the ranked/normal mmr and smash noobs.
Functionally there isn't a good way to have both new players and both veteran players start the ladder in the same place. It works just fine if you only enter the ladder once (you use a different distribution assumption rather than a normal assumption so that properly represent the skill of the larger casual base) but breaks down as soon as you have people entering the ladder over and over again (regardless of your distribution assumption).
I am not sure blizzard has as much of this problem since they can tie the game to your blizzard account and so banned people might not come back(or they go to toxic island). In a game where you can jump back in to a fresh account so easily (with no real good way to limit it) however that doesn't work.
So we have two solutions. Hard limits on number of accounts per person enforced "somehow". Or large buy in to new accounts. I suppose you could sell fresh 30 accounts but how much would you have to charge in order to make it powerful enough that only legitimate new players who don't want to wait would buy in? And why would a legitimate new player want to do that instead of just buying boosts to accelerate the process?
While the leveling system is probably a bit too slow its not like its the end of the world
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The levelling system is fine for new players, but unless you buy double XP boosts, it's unbearably slow for making a smurf. I got to level 12, then just gave up and bought an account.
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what legitimate reason is there for individuals to have a smurf? excluding region transfers i do not think that people should have them. why should riot make it easier for people to acquire them when it just creates problems for the game?
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United States47024 Posts
On January 08 2015 10:44 onlywonderboy wrote:
It's not just the leveling system. The fact that every champs is unlocked in Dota from the start just makes it way more appealing. See a champ and want to try him out? Go right ahead, he's unlocked. That single thing makes Dota more easily recommendable. And there's plenty of dumb random shit to have fun with in Dota too. I still like LoL a tremendous amount but I can't see how you defend these archaic systems that exist just to draw money out of the player base.
Edit: I even had a friend I tried to get into LoL but decline because his other friend was trying to get him into Dota and he liked the idea of all champs being free. Circumstantial obviously but this can't be an isolated incident.
The thing here is that there's a ton of reasonable ways to address this problem without full-on making everything accessible right away. There are definitely different temporary-access mechanisms that can be explored that provide some alternative to just waiting for a free week if you want to try a champion before committing 6300 IP to buying them.
With the size of the current champion pool, free week becomes less and less reasonable a means for someone to try a champ they're considering. When it was a 40-50 champion pool, waiting for a free week to try a specific champion was not that bad--but now the champion pool is 3 times that size. If you miss a free week for some champion, it's a LONG fucking time before they come around again.
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well for starters they could unlock all heroes in aram, it would give you a chance to explore heroes that way as well as prevent aram specific accounts
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On January 08 2015 11:19 Frolossus wrote:
what legitimate reason is there for individuals to have a smurf? excluding region transfers i do not think that people should have them. why should riot make it easier for people to acquire them when it just creates problems for the game?
The most legitimate reason I see is queue times. When you're masters+ you're getting some rather long queue times.
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On January 08 2015 11:45 RaphaelSanzio wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 11:19 Frolossus wrote:
what legitimate reason is there for individuals to have a smurf? excluding region transfers i do not think that people should have them. why should riot make it easier for people to acquire them when it just creates problems for the game? The most legitimate reason I see is queue times. When you're masters+ you're getting some rather long queue times.
Has this turned into reddit where everyone is a challenger player?
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On January 08 2015 11:45 RaphaelSanzio wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 11:19 Frolossus wrote:
what legitimate reason is there for individuals to have a smurf? excluding region transfers i do not think that people should have them. why should riot make it easier for people to acquire them when it just creates problems for the game? The most legitimate reason I see is queue times. When you're masters+ you're getting some rather long queue times.
Removing masters+ players from masters+ queues (via smurfs) doesn't really address the issue of masters+ queues having insufficient numbers of players to queue together. I think Frolossus would qualify this as "creates problems for the game".
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Why are we assuming a large majority of new accounts created are for smurfs anyway? That seems flimsy at best.
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On January 08 2015 12:00 red_ wrote:
Why are we assuming a large majority of new accounts created are for smurfs anyway? That seems flimsy at best.
No that's not what the original discussion was about. The original discussion was about being able to "buy" blank level 30 accounts from Riot for smurfing purposes. This then led to some discussion on making leveling easier.
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On January 08 2015 12:03 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 12:00 red_ wrote:
Why are we assuming a large majority of new accounts created are for smurfs anyway? That seems flimsy at best. No that's not what the original discussion was about. The original discussion was about being able to "buy" blank level 30 accounts from Riot for smurfing purposes. This then led to some discussion on making leveling easier.
No no no no no sufficiency it was totally because players wanted their friends who just started playing to be able to buy level 30 accounts to play with their main accounts. Because that would happen all the time and wouldn't backfire at all.
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The whole rune problem is a completely BS IMO, this issue is fueled by the exact same kind of thinking as players who cry "hacker!" at any one who couldn't possibly be better than themselves.
Runes are not a significant factor in who wins the lower level games that this issue applies to. The real root of this problem is new players who become frustrated with losing use runes as a scapegoat for their inability to carry a game.
The only way I can see the issue being resolved is if how runes were somehow made less "obvious" in how they currently work. An example of this process being applied would the LP system that was basically introduced to hide how bad players actually are from themselves.
I will not deny runes have enormous impact on the game, but only at a level of play that far exceeds the category of people who are currently complaining about it, and more to that point once you are at the level of skill to be able to abuse the strength of runes, you are also capable of mitigating their effect as well.
The rune issue is just your typical scapegoat for whiny players, who have stagnated in skill; a non-issue.
On January 08 2015 10:49 Frolossus wrote:
i pretty firmly believe that runes are only used to get you through the first 10 minutes and that after that it doesn't matter much what runes you have.
To be fair the first 10 minutes of the game are among the most important of the entire game, but I think I share your general view of this.
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On January 08 2015 11:41 Slusher wrote:
well for starters they could unlock all heroes in aram, it would give you a chance to explore heroes that way as well as prevent aram specific accounts
This idea makes so much sense I'm not sure I'm even making sense of it. Whenever I see this idea, it makes me swoon.
Seriously such a simple thing to make the game mode so much better, and a way to showcase all the champs, without losing out on money.
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On January 08 2015 12:07 Goumindong wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2015 12:03 Sufficiency wrote:On January 08 2015 12:00 red_ wrote:
Why are we assuming a large majority of new accounts created are for smurfs anyway? That seems flimsy at best. No that's not what the original discussion was about. The original discussion was about being able to "buy" blank level 30 accounts from Riot for smurfing purposes. This then led to some discussion on making leveling easier. No no no no no sufficiency it was totally because players wanted their friends who just started playing to be able to buy level 30 accounts to play with their main accounts. Because that would happen all the time and wouldn't backfire at all.
There are two problems with this. First, this goes back to the point I was trying to make about "veteran bias". For a veteran who likely enjoys playing ranked games, a good champion roster and full set of runes is extremely important. But for an average player it's actually not that important. So to generate the awkwardness you are describing your friend needs to be a non-average player.
Secondly, it's subject to a variety of different kinds of abuses, as you have pointed out on an earlier post. It's really hard to tell if an account is played by a different player or not. It's very possible that the new account is played by the same player as a smurf - to crush noobs in ranked solo queue.
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EPT
