Before the millions of players, billions in revenue, and eSports tournaments with over 100 million spectators, League of Legends was just an idea. And even then it wasn’t very good.
NicoThePico has reached Challenger tier in 3 different roles and is here to teach you the most important aspects of LoL!
Gameplay
League of Legends is a real-time strategy game, and the gameplay is based on teamwork. You can communicate with teammates through a chat system, and you can use abilities to control the game’s environment and enemies.
The items you choose to build will massively impact your champion’s power. Learning to optimize your item choices is one of the most important steps in becoming a good League of Legends player.
Every champion is designed to have a specific window of strength. This is known as their power spike. Some champions are designed to get weaker early on, but others are designed to get stronger as the game goes on. This process is called scaling. A champion’s ability kit, stat ratios, and itemization all contribute to when they reach their power spike.
eSports
Before the millions of players and billions in revenue, before eSports tournaments with viewership exceeding 100 million, before Riot Games was a known entity and could even be called a game company, there was League of Legends. It was a little spin-off game from the Warcraft 3 mod DOTA, which had already established itself as one of the most popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA, games in existence.
League is a five-vs-five team-based multiplayer video game in a battle arena called Summoner’s Rift. Its teams are formed from the roster of champions that a player can summon, a collection of abilities and skills they can use to fight.
The game has national and continental leagues in North America, Europe, China, South Korea, Japan and Australia. It also holds a formal World Championship every year. Despite these major tournaments, League is a very accessible game with competitive and casual cultures coexisting well together. Join us as we dive into this fascinating game with former EU LCS Head Coach NicoThePico. He will show you perspectives on League of Legends that you probably never noticed or thought about.
Psychology
League of Legends is a highly competitive video game that requires a high level of mechanical skill. However, the key to victory is often psychological. In this class we will explore the psychology behind the game to understand why some players are better than others. We will also look at ways to nudge people in the right direction in their gameplay.
Psychologists have used the game to study how players build mental models – mental representations that help them make sense of complex systems. They have found that mental model structures differ between gamers with varying levels of experience. These differences have the potential to impact everything from workplace training to video-game design. Kahn et al. have developed a typology of motivational regulations in LoL and correlated their questionnaire with a range of gameplay metrics. Their results suggest that minor fluctuations in motivational regulation already shape the gaming experience toward more adverse or more positive outcomes.
Game Design
A key aspect of game design is establishing player goals. This is accomplished through a variety of means, including in-game rewards and in-game mechanics. For example, in League of Legends, players earn Riot Points that can be spent on a variety of items. These rewards provide a sense of progression and encourage players to continue playing the game.
Another example is the champions’ abilities, which often have dramatic synergies that can be leveraged to intimidate opponents. These synergies also highlight the champions’ strengths and weaknesses, which can help players determine what strategy to pursue in a match.
Ultimately, the popularity of League of Legends is a positive sign for games. It demonstrates that people are willing to engage with complexity and challenge in the name of self-improvement and intellectual accomplishment. It also proves that esports and gaming can be more than just a form of entertainment; they can be a way of life for many.롤대리
