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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I'm surprised they ever had new players stay with how toxic that game's community is.
I tried it when it was still pretty newish, hopped onto the fucking tutorial servers where you're playing with real people on your team, but against bots and there's literally no stakes.
The level of vitriol I got for not immediately knowing the meta was enough to make me uninstall and just never bother with it again. I tried DOTA2 after and had the same experience, which turned me off to the entire genre.
LoL is some or the worst for sure. All gaming has gotten more toxic. I don't enjoy any multiplayer now, there are many reasons but one of the worst is just how terrible people are.
Early 2000s people weren't great, racist and homophobic jokes were rampant, but the saving grace was that for the most part it was ribbing. Bad taste, but everyone was there to have fun. Trolls sure, but it was so cool to hang out, meet someone from the other side of the world, and game with them all night.
Now it's just immediate griefing. Constant attack, if you miss one shot your entire team will come down on you. If you are only there to have fun and not make a career then why are you there
The issue is that the design of the MOBA genre inherently encourages players to be toxic
Definitely. It was also massively exacerbated by the fact that there was no voice chat, surrender mechanics were extremely frustrating, there was essentially no punishment for inting, etc.
You're not wrong that there is some baseline level of toxicity due to the genre, but I feel it was made infinitely worse by Riot's failures in implementation.
For instance, the ability to forfeit a match immediately when one of your teammates had never connected. They literally wouldn't even let you start a vote to forfeit until 15 minutes into the game, even if your whole team was afk. Even the other team was bored, but you all just had to go through the motions for 15-20+ minutes because of Riot's infinite wisdom. And if you went AFK in that match, you got automatically flagged and put in leaver queue. Fuck sake I'm getting triggered all over again just explaining it.
I think we had the same experience with mobas! I distinctly remember getting flamed in that first LoL tutorial match and not even understanding why. I'll now stay in my RPG safe space, thank you
It's not a game you go in alone. Usually you go in with a bunch of friends to play with people. And udualyl the toxocotybis beareable when it's 3 or 4 buddies vs 1 dumbass. Once you get some experience, you are not a newbie anymore.