Senior Riot devs say the League of Legends playerbase is getting older, with fewer newbies jumping in: 'Candidly, it's not the same situation it was 10 years ago'
Senior Riot devs say the League of Legends playerbase is getting older, with fewer newbies jumping in: 'Candidly, it's not the same situation it was 10 years ago'
It's a common problem in long running live service games: how do you onboard new players into something this complex?
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How do you even keep returning players? I used to enjoy checking out League every once in a while, but it seemed like it wasn't possible to keep up with all the changes that way. Every time I went back to it, I felt like I was learning how champions and items worked from scratch, because they kept changing. Eventually after every champ I liked to play had been reworked (some of them more than once) I just gave up.
It's funny, I stopped playing just before the first ever rework. Before that, it was all balance changes. Little numbers tweaks here and there. Now everytime I talk to someone who still plays league it's like literally everything has changed. Who benefits from that kind of development cycle?
Whales.
In my day, Riot got their whale milk by selling skins. How does reworking the game's mechanics help attract whales?
It's not for the whales, it's for the long time players like myself who like the game to stay fresh. Big changes give me new opportunities to theory craft and try new things, so I play more when there are big changes VS when things are stale and getting boring. Might be part of the reason people have a hard time learning the game though
In my day, they added new things by introducing new items, champs, game modes, and maps. Why do they need to upend the entire game to "keep things fresh"? Doesn't that just ruin the experience for people who like a certain thing how it is?
I mean, that's all they really do these days too. I've been playing since season 2 and there are definitely ups and downs across the history of the game. These days they've slowed down on new champs, like 2 a year or so. They've maybe gone a little trigger happy with item changes, but it doesn't bother me or my friend group too much. Like I said, gives us more opportunity to theory craft and less time for boring stale metas to set in. Game modes got boring for a while, but they're doing better these past couple years (Arena 2v2s is one of the best modes they've ever released)
As far as ruining it for people who like it how it is, I don't know anyone who fits that, but it's definitely possible people are getting alienated by changes. But I think it's okay alienating that small minority to keep the game alive and fresh for the vast majority
I have a feeling you didn't play regularly. I understand your frustration, but if you do play regularly, all these changes are welcome because they keep the game fresh.
Definitely a double edged sword: if you play frequently enough, the game always feels incrementally better. If you don't play frequently enough, you feel lost. Not great for riot to lose players for that reason
That's fair. I imagine if you are playing every day for a long period of time, the game would get stale if it never changed.
Certainly not by trying to install kernel level malware into a fucking game.
Uninstalled that shit faster than anything and am clean since.