Irelia wants top. Well fuck that shit.

*locks in Master Yi Top
*Irelia Rage Quit by 3 minutes
*Proceed to beat the shit out of enemy team with d/cs from Graves every now and then

I don't know how I got designated team tank, but that's what happened every fight and I would meditate troll through it all.

---------- Post automerged at 11:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:20 AM ----------

AP Hecarim can actually survive bullshit with 40% AOE spell vamp (WotA only) once W is activated is no joke. Using R would basically heal 250 HP per target with W up. Q would be 90 HP per target. W itself would heal to the limit too.

Not factoring in all the extra sustain from enemies firing off nukes everywhere.

Give him a Gunblade + WotA and maxed CDR = true fucking terror.

 

So here's what I don't get about LoL: It has a fucking tiny scale (one. freaking. unit. with less abilities than a lot of hero units in RTSes, even!), looks like toilet paper after a multicolored shit, and unless you literally spend hours reading guides you're going to suck complete dick, but millions of people play it.

Compare this to most RTSes, which have a much wider scale, occasionally look damn pretty, and can be picked up in the span of one fucked up 20 minute game. Outside of Starcraft, few people play 'em.

What makes LoL interesting and satisfying aside from the whole "LOLOL i troll u" shit? Is that all there is? In short, what's the appeal? What isn't done better by another game or genre of games?

(Note: I've only played a small amount. While I don't have any skill whatsoever and frankly dislike the game, I do acknowledge that it exists, and that using said skill can bring pleasure in and of itself. However, this is also true for knitting.)

 

It's an RPG PVP done with all the BS item investment/grinding inside 1 hour that emphasizes tactical superiority and teamwork over who has the most OP luck in gear finding.

 

Okay, I'm going to apologize in advance, because I'm honestly not trolling here, but I feel the need to break that down and look at each individual part.

Why is this inherently good? PVP tends to be done better by shit that doesn't rely on clunky RPG mechanics.

Usually with shit I actually enjoy, I want it to last longer...

I'd argue that for anyone that isn't a jungler, this isn't that big of a factor. I mean, most fights you have at most two effective options available to you.

Okay, THIS is true. LoL is THE most team focused game I have ever even seen. This is great when you have an organized team before the match starts-- which rarely happens.

Yeah, now the luck aspect is focused on your connection and assigned team, given that most games are pub games and you always get matched up with an idiot that just feeds the other team.

 

Because there is only one unit per match to focus on, you have a greater investment into your champion. The gameplay is simple to learn what with four special abilities, two summoner spells, and only one map. They might look like "toilet paper after a multicolored shit" but that is due to Riot's design goals where each champion is meant to look unique and identifiable during even the most hectic of team fights.

Because the basic mechanics are simple to pick up on, players can feel far more engaged when watching pro games. It's not like Starcraft where the APM gap is too far for you. You don't have to understand the sheer wealth of meta knowledge, but instead look at the basic action and get an idea of the play going on.

Players also tend to have difficulty balancing out Macro vs Micro in RTS. MOBA doesn't have that problem because they just shove you Micro.

You're also trying to compare just LoL to the entire RTS genre which is a total mistake. Right now the MOBA big names can be summed up as LoL and Dota. Demigods which tried to copy the popular formula ended up being an utter disaster. If you're focusing on the popularity of a single game, then your other point of comparison should be another game. Not an entire genre.

I could ask you why so many people play WoW when it's such a time-sunk and all people do is raid dungeons in an attempt to grind Purples. It's just a terrible argument.

Also there's nothing quite like struggling for a good forty minutes, trying to eke out a victory when the enemy makes a single mistake, you pounce on it mercilessly and shove forward for a win. That goes for just about every game, I'm well aware, but there's something unique about LoL when you do that.

It's probably the fact that not only you triumph over your enemies, but also your allies.

 

Going to do the same thing here. Still not trolling.

Once more, /why is this a good thing/? Also, personal experience tells me that people get way more invested into the outcome of an RTS game than a LoL match.

...And a shit ton of gear, at least a third of which is utterly useless and there just to fuck with new people.

There's ways to do this that don't require the game to be fuck ugly. Just because something is intentionally fuck ugly does not mean that it can not be criticized for looking fuck ugly.

Except the basic mechanics /aren't/ easy to pick up on, unless we have VASTLY different definitions of "basic", which leads to...

If we follow your definition of basic, you are a basic player, and you watch a pro match, a lot of shit in LoL pro matches is going to fly right over your head.

This is true for StarCraft as well.

If we follow my definition of basic (You know what you need to not suck dick), then the game is not easy to pick up.

Pick one.

Fair enough, this is true.

No, it isn't. All other MOBA games are a pale shadow of LoL at this point. I'm using it to represent the entire genre, because for most intents and purposes it really /is/ the entire genre.

First off, I can make whatever comparison I damn well please as long as something useful comes from it, and I am actually learning reasons that make sense as to why people enjoy LoL. Secondly, I covered that just up above.

I don't understand this either. It's a good question, and if I knew any WoW-tards that weren't horrible people, I'd go ask them.

That's any high level play of any game ever. Furthermore, it was just stated that one of the advantages was that the matches were comparatively short, and yet you say that the entertainment comes from it being a long, drawn-out ordeal?

I think you're just saying that because you adore LoL, frankly. Not a criticism-- I'd make the same comment about a long BF2 match between clans.

 

So basically you're saying that our opinions suck because your opinions differ and you can't deal with this game. Okay.

 

Congratulations, you picked the only part of what I said that applied to your argument.

It's funny, because my original post on the subject was made within minutes of said game. I'm sorry if my rage leaked through, but not all of us can have your patience, it seems. Further, who the fuck do you think you are? Who died and gave you the authority to decide if I will or won't get on a team? Oh, that's right, nobody did, you're just being a self-righteous douche because you happen to be on a team that may or may not compete at the competitive level, but in all likelihood doesn't. But please, stay on your high horse, and look down on those of us who get angry at a game where teamwork is at a premium and you have to rely on your teammates quite a bit.

Clearly you should probably make things clearer when you reply. I'm going to say this one more time. Please use proper grammar in your posts. That includes capitalizing the word "I" and the beginning letter of the first word of a sentence. Also, commas are a great help when properly placed, or, better yet, just don't post at all.

 

Reread. I've utterly conceded two points, and have weak arguments for a handful of others. Furthermore, I fully understand that it's a matter of taste, but peoples' tastes tend to develop along certain lines for a reason.

's'far as I can tell, the reason people like LoL specifically rather than videogames in general (or, for that matter, RTSes, which I do hold that they are a subset of) comes from these sources:

-forced teamwork to an incredible degree
-fetishization of RPG mechanics *
-Not having to deal with micromanagement
-Less need to develop muscle memory in relation to the actions you want to take

*Given your contradictory statements that assumed that 1) RPG PVP > All other PVP and 2) The actual RPG mechanics of loot management suck, I'm not even sure about this one, Evan.

(EDIT: Though if I'm completely honest, I do think your opinions suck because they differ from mine, and you do the same for me. This is called being human. Doesn't mean I'm not going to try to understand where you're coming from.)

 

Because you don't have to worry about trying to multi-task between various portions of the map? Because with only one controllable character, you can focus your entire attention on that one champion instead of being forced to divide it?

Also, personal experience is a horrible judge. Example: I think chocolate is too sweet to eat, and think it's a terrible treat. My friends tell me my personal opinion is retarded and that I am a a terrible person. Whose opinion is correct? Who knows. It's all subjective.

Are you trying to tell me that newcomers to a new RTS game is supposed to immediately catch onto the intricacies of each unit? If players are allowed a learning curve for RTS, why can't they have it for MOBA?

What do you mean by "fuck ugly?" The graphics of the champions, the maps, etc...?

Riot's been working on recreating older models to make them more palatable for a while now. Old Champion splash art is being retooled entirely, champions with bad character models are being redone (ex. Gangplank for a finished model, Ashe and Soraka for WIP). You can criticize the design choice, but how can you criticize the company actively reworking older failures?

Please tell me what you mean by "basic."

Basic for me is what is included in the Tutorials of the game which teach you about the ultimate goal, destroying the Nexus, towers, brush, champions, and your skills both unique and summoner. Then there are the character roles of squishy mage, DPS, tank, support, etc... which are roles many people already should have learned from Pen and Paper RPG's or modern day RPG video games.

From there you progress into Co-Op vs AI games where you learn about Team Fights. Then you go to real games where you learn more advanced topics such as the true value of the jungle buffs, Dragon, Baron, last hits, wards, etc... in no particular order.

A player familiar with only the basics might not be able to understand the intricacies of duo bot lane synergy, counterjungling, etc... but they have enough of a foundation to watch and appreciate what is happening in the game.

As I said before, I need to understand your idea of 'basic' before I can answer your question properly. With my idea of basic, a watcher has the bare minimum of knowledge to watch a game and appreciate the general idea.

Starcraft is a bit more difficult though because their metagame is generally more intricate and difficult to understand compared to LoL's general solo top, AP Mid, AD Carry Support Bot, Tanky Jungler team compositions.

That said, noobies to both games during streamed matches have the advantage of casters who will explain the match and some more of the deeper strategies. Starcraft is particularly good about this due to its deep E-Sports history and well established casters such as Day9 and Husky.

LoL casters tend to be a bit worse.

Thank you.

There are many hardcore DOTA and HoN fans who would disagree with you on that point. That said, I can see where you're coming from.

Chill out man. This is just an internet discussion. Nothing to get worked up about. I am glad to see you're learning why people enjoy this game though.

Good luck with that. Tell me if you ever get a good answer. I never got the appeal of MMO's myself. Felt like too much of a dedication for a hobby. With LoL you have a vague stat tracker sure, but you can just devote maybe an hour a day and come out happy. I've heard some horror stories about WoW that I'm not sure are true, but they've turned me off big MMOs. Vindictus is probably the only exception and even then I barely touch the thing.

Where did you get the idea that LoL matches being short was an advantage? I can see that Evan Tide mentioned an hour in his response to you which is something I would not consider short. Dominion matches commonly last around 15 minutes, which is relatively short yes, but with 5v5 you should try to budget around 45 minutes of free time to play. Dota has relatively shorter games around 25-35 minutes, but LoL takes some time to finish a match. I expect to find myself busy for three-quarters of an hour when I play 5v5. Just a page back Evan Tide mentioned an in-house match lasting 50 minutes.

No problem.

 

Fair enough. I'm spastic enough that downtime staring at one small block of stats and doing nothing, even if only for a beat or two, is long enough to throw me off.

True. But there's not exactly stats here.

Nope, but I'd argue that there's a much clearer division with RTSes as to who is a newb, who has basic proficiency, and who actually knows what they're doing.

Champions and maps, but...

Probably because I didn't know that? I haven't played in the better part of a year because I dislike the game.

Tutorials + How to correctly build a character in a way that isn't gimped (which is most of the possible ways you can build your character) + really understanding the value of the skills of at least a couple of champions + understanding everyone's general roles + getting jungling down + knowing all the little quirks of the map + understanding wards.

And that's just to start with. Basic for me is, "I am no longer left blank-faced and going what do. I fuck up, and frequently, but at least I always have an action to take, even if it's the wrong one."

And I'd more or less agree with this assessment, but I'd disagree that it's simple to reach this point. I honestly think you glossed over just how much you had to pick up in your own head simply because you enjoyed the experience.

This is quite true, though I'd argue that it's a lot easier to hit basic proficiency with Starcraft because quite frankly it sits at the dead fucking center of an expansive genre with a long history.

Yeah, this is true.

Fuck you, this is DLP, we're not polite here.

It /is/ a bit of a cop-out, especially given that LoL evolved from DotA, but I'd honestly say the issue of scale comes up here.

Evan brought up the point of it being a condensed RPG experience as a good thing. Furthermore, the "long" version of LoL would be WoW.

For someone who plays a lot of RPGs, an hour really isn't that long. We are hard nerd. >_>

 

Yeah you probably have a point here. I played DOTA for a bit when it first started so I wasn't lost when I started LoL. I picked up the basics of the game by around game 5 vs real people and learned about wards, last hits, etc... later.

But then again, I have terrible memories of trying to teach one of my friends the game and was ready to give up 10 minutes in. So yeah, what goes for me might not go for everyone.

Yeah, but I miss the days of old when I, a small lad, could finish his homework in an hour and play video games for hours at a stretch. Now I'm lucky to have 2 hours for it in a day. ;_;

Still, video games now have save points, quick saves, auto-saves, and so much more out the ass now it's not really a problem even if you only play for 30 minutes stretches.

 

Yeah that was pretty awesome, we all had fun. Well except me at the second game where all you fuckers would dive bomb me first every single time trying to be cute =P Lol at how many times my wards caught ChaosGuy and I had to run though.

You forgot to mention his Optimus Prime like static blasting full volume through the Skype channel, lol.

Honestly, I mess with it because I can get in there with a few bros and rape some people. 75% of the time however, it's rage inducing. As for the art look of it... I agree with alot of your point. It's hard as shit for me to follow what's going on in a team fight. Everything's jumbled together, the health bars and names get in the way, you look away for a second and you're dead, the camera angle mixed with the UI leads to just shit for viewing angle, you can't play with the camera locked unless you want to just roll over and die, the nonstop clicking because the pathing sucks balls, etc.

It makes it that much more amusing when you rape the 5 people standing balls to balls with your other 4 people, lol.

Probably more like 75% of the items are useless. Of the remaining 25%, half of those are only useful because they're recipe items for the other half. I build the same shit on similar types each game almost, it doesn't vary much at all. Biggest difference is AP, support, AP items imho.

 

I recently started playing. It would do me good to play a few games with people who do something other than curse and blame everyone for everything. The game is ok, but I'd rather play with people I know rather than strangers. Maybe some of you could help me out sometime.

So, which server is everyone playing in?

 

North America.

 

Well I play mostly on East Europe, but yeah America...

 

This is true of every game. It doesn't matter if you suck complete dick because the people you will play against suck as many dicks as you do. If you do spend hours reading guides, you get better. It is in no way a necessity or a requirement to enjoy the game, because everyone sucks.
The people who don't 'suck' are platinum, which is .02% of the population playing ranked, which is only a portion of the total player base. And of that .02%, only a small portion is paid to play. For everyone else, it doesn't matter if you suck dick.

And multicolored shit toiletpaper? The graphics are perfectly fine and make the game accessible. I'd rather run LoL on high on my shit laptop then struggle to get 15FPS on some pretty game because I don't want to pay for a gaming laptop or have to get a desktop.

I am 100% certain you can't pick up Starcraft in a twenty minute game. You would be hardpressed to even learn all the units of your own race.

"Lolol i troll u shit" is hardly as widespread as people make it out to be. People focus on their negative experiences because they aren't going to make forum posts detailing their perfectly average games.

And LoL is pretty much unique to its genre. DOTA2 hasn't been fully released and HoN was a carboncopy of dota with updated graphics and a 15$ price tag. LoL, however, did its best to limit the learning curve and get rid of "antifun" mechanics. It's one of the easiest games to learn and get into. It's also free, which is a huge enticement for players.

On top of that, everyone gets free DLC every 3 weeks.

Not that I understand why this is even a discussion. If you don't like it, don't play.


On the subject of normal games: I take them seriously. Last time I checked, my normal elo was ~2200, but this was back when you could check your log files a year or two ago.

What is the difference between normal and ranked? None except for epeen. End of season rewards are great, but they don't require any extended effort or dedication in ranked. I remember a faggot named Wartornpanda raging at me for getting 1521 for gold and getting all the rewards he worked so hard for (at 1620). My beautiful (hideous) Jarvan skin took me all of 12 games to get. This season, I can probably get it in 5 because I haven't done my placement matches yet. Ranked brings more rage, more trolling, more idiots, and more importance placed on the outcome of the match because it will show up in your profile for the world to see afterwards. If you are a 1400 player and after 500 games you do reach the threshold for gold, too fucking bad, because you have to keep playing or it will decay back down anyway.

In normals you can play whatever characters you want or play draft mode just like ranked, you get people who are more relaxed about the game and will jump down your throat less, you can surrender without having to worry about seeing some stupid number loss afterward, and you don't get people who troll you. People don't take it as seriously as ranked, but that actually gives you more people who do their best and less people who actively set out to ruin games after you say something they don't like or they don't get the character they want.

Meh, I didn't mean to get on a soapbox but I was up all night writing a history term paper and now I'm too tired to sleep. Just wanted to say that I do take normals seriously, but not seriously enough to rage at people for building/playing poorly. I rage at people raging though. I know I recently played a game with someone (I think DLP) who invited me along with some of his friends. I went 20/4/7 on blitz in a game that had 28 total kills, and we still lost. And not a rage was given that day. We just brushed it off, queued up again, and won. If the game is causing you to rage often, you should stop playing it, because you are kind of missing the point.

 

I should probably clarify that the majority of us play on the North America server, but there's a pretty decent population that plays on the Europe servers. It's really a matter of preference, both for the metagame that each server has, as well as a matter of location. You can live in North America and play on the European servers, for example, but expect your ping to be in the mid-high 100s, if not higher.

It also depends on the sort of people you want to play with. Playing on North American servers, you'll always chance playing with Brazilians and/or people who blame everyone but themselves, constantly cuss out other players, etc.

 

Also, usernames, so i can add you.

 

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