For those who have played the game, what are your thoughts?
I find it amazing that random streamers can get 20k viewers whereass the very best SC2 players get around 10k. I also know they moved to a free to play model hence the huge growth of players and it seems to be working very well for them as people genuinely like the game and are happy to buy stuff from the store.
Riot games (their developer) also sponsors huge amounts of money (they paid all the expenses for teams around the world for WCG) to promote it as an eSports which goes to show you how much they care for the game.
And its like DOTA duh! And thats basically all I know about the game.
So anyway what do you know about LoL and what are your thoughts on the game play? How many of you guys play actively?
Have always been curious to try it but I never liked DOTA so I never did.
To IT hardware experts: if i were to get a laptop, what would i need so i can play LoL in optimal settings assuming a mid-end budget? (Sheep post bait)
I saw that the other day and was quite suprised at the number of viewers those channels were getting, from like 1 stream alone it was managed to be a lot greater then the total number of SC stream's viewers.
LoL is a super fun game, it's like dota but simpler. I played it a whole bunch before I into SC2 and got pretty good at it. I still play it sometimes with friends although less seriously.
There's basically a tonne of features that makes the game a LOT more accessible than dota.
I'd play it if I were you, just to see how it is, a lot of people who I know disliked dota now play LoL a tonne.
Riot genuinely care about the community and listen to the feedback of the pro players. There's also a lot of content being outputted by Riot which makes the game feel refreshing every couple weeks. I think the casual aspect of the game combined with Riots fresh content (patches, videos, champions) brings a lot more players to the game.
It runs on low end systems really well so anything that could run SC2 can easily run LoL. (I got 30 frames constant on a system that wouldn't be playable late game in SC2)
I got into LoL (I think) 2-3 months ago because I'd never played an Action-RTS (is that what the genre is called? I searched Wikipedia and that's what it listed the game as) and a friend of mine asked me if we'd play together. So I got into it, I was intrigued because I'd seen it being played before by people like Destiny. I was hesitant at first because it looked childish and gimmicky.
Now I am currently level 21 (max is 30) and am enjoying it. I'm best with Master Yi (keke who I hear is OP) although I'm also active with Katarina. I've also tried out the champions Ashe, Kale, Nocturne for a non-significant period and a few more, but maybe only for a game of two.
Now I think I only enjoy the game because I don't play it very seriously as in I'm fairly active but I don't care too much about winning or losing. I also love playing with friends in a Skype call. But I doubt It's a game I'd ever get to serious with because it doesn't seem very balanced, a lot of characters seem weaker than others.
The community is horrific, so many childish people who do things like leave the game so you're at a natural disadvantage, complain all game long, bag out the team if they don't play optimally and such and it's a little depressing, this is on NA server btw.
But I'm not an expert on LoL balance and this is coming from a person who is very new to the Action-RTS game genre, so
TL;DR - enjoy playing the game casually and not seriously, but wouldn't play it seriously due to bad community, seemingly unbalanced nature and SC2 is boss.
**Edit**
If anyone plays on NA aswell add me, I'm "xCyniX"
Balance issues are pretty out of proportion, similar to SC2 (I think it's pretty balanced myself). The community is reallllly bad though, similar to every online community outside of sc2
LoL is very accessible, very fun and addicting. Overall very profitable business.
Their community is complete sh!t however compared to SC2, mainly because of the reasons above. SC2 costs a fair bit so mostly 18+ get to play or play seriously. LoL is completely free to play, meaning it attracts all types of people/kids/faggots.
Game is fairly balanced imo, but of course there're better and weaker characters in performing the same role. I'm still very surprised that the game manages to stay as balanced as it is atm.
I Find LoL really enjoyable...You could say it helps your micro with sc2 i suppose... especially elements like stutter stepping. The fact they have direct links to tournaments in the start up screen would contribute greatly to their viewer numbers imo. Probably one of the biggest differences is the community tho... although i have not reached level 30 to play ranked games yet. (lvl 24) you encounter extreme BM 95% of games u play. Noobs calling others noobs.
LoL has always been free to play. The game play is a simpler form of dota with a focus on using skills more activily and no denying so farming you lane/jungle as much as possible. The Rune page factor has a massive impact on the game and so does things like only a handfew of activatable items means the games is very easy to pick up and play. I only generally play with friends when they are playing it and im around. They have recently quit it though. As for PCs to run you dnt need anything special for it. The grapgics are cartoon like on purpose.
Overall its a fun game though and is a lot easier than sc2 if you want to work on your mouse control i can think of worse ways than to play a bit of LoL
unless you're playing with a bunch of mates the game gets super boring for me... find it kinda dumb that i can't play all the champions but i guess they've got to make money some how.
super easy to learn as well, so its a good game to mix things up i guess xD
random streamers get 20k? I dunno about that. Maybe an event or something (it might look like a random stream, with such unprofessional casting and production)
I play a bit of LoL every now and then, when I am not in the right mindset for SC2 (on a loss streak) or just when I want to quickly play a couple of games with a mate (we play CS and LoL together, he's not really into SC2 enough that we can enjoy playing together)
And yeah, can't stand the community. I couldn't care less if people don't gg in SC2, but if they ever started saying bg like you get in every single LoL match ever I would cry
I personally have a few issues with the game/environment.
1. The community for LOL is absolutely Terrible.
Every game there seems to be always one person Either BMing like crazy which then causes others to BM.
I find the community to just be full of it. It so hard to get into a game when at the end you have most people say GG without one person Attacking another player.
2. Balance.
I personally believe There are some clear balance issues within the game that i think need to be addressed. Before Some champion Compositions Clearly Out play others. So this means without knowing what the other team is picking you have a coinflip chance of picking the correct team composition to beat the other.
However Before you can start doing ranked games, (Where people actually work on team composition) everyone just chose a champ that they like to play. (usually leading to a bad team comp/Players getting mad and BMing) <--- *Hoping that makes sense*
Ratio's I find abit out to . Numerous times i have played a Magic user champion *Annie* And built her attack damage. Works Pretty much just as good as any other Attack damage range champion. ITS INSANE! she is a magic user. It is clear that magic users shouldn't be able to build that way and still perform well! It all comes down to ratio's.
With (what i believe) the clear balance issues I think riot should stop focusing on releasing new champions every 2 weeks and focus on balance out some of the issues first.
Now i know that the new champion release is one of the big ways for riot to make money, but i think the future of the game really comes down to getting it balanced, and also the community.* something else that needs to be worked on*
3. Stableness and crises control.
I wont be the first on to say it but Riot servers have some real issues.
At least twice a week you see messages comping up saying They are having issues with ISP's and Server crashes or some sort of crap like that. These are issues that severely affect the game play experience.
I have had these issues many times and i know plenty of others that have had them to.
* Again i know it comes down to it been a free game*
Now since i have been ranting on about SOME of the issues with league of legends. I am going to throw a massive curve ball and take it the other way now.
League of legends is a brillant idea. Simplified DOTA.
Back in the WC3 days when you tried to join a DOTA server they would typically ask you a question. Most of the time it was something stupid like how much does an item cost or what is the abilities for a certain character. For anyone who was wanting to start out this was a nightmare. (i had been in that situation plenty of times)
League of legends simplifies the game down to the basic form! Easy to understand and super easy to get started with.
The champions are good however it is so clear that some of the are just complete copies from other MOBA/DOTA games.
Other then that League of legends is just a good game you can chill with. You don't have to play the game to seriously. typically when i play i have a movie on one screen LOL on one and chats on another. It is just a easy chill game.
Computer Specs Wise
Super easy to run.
If need be you can run it on a 512 mb graphics card. on medium graphics no lag. ( But you just don't get 512mb anymore)
Onboard graphics can run the game however when it comes to the big team fights you do lag when on lowest settings. As there is a lot going on most of the time.
Processor: Super simple. Duel core can Easily support the game.
RAM : I pretty sure you could run the game smoothly on 2gb-4gb ddr2/3
Basically you can run the game on anything however small little school notebooks i think may struggle with the game .
I look almost everyday to twitch.tv streamed games, and everyday the games with the highest number of viewers is SC2. It's like a 10k+ everyday, while the 2nd position game is at 3000. When there is a big competition there is like 20k+ viewers.
The day LoL had 20k+ viewers was because there were a huge competition going on. When there is no competition going on, there are like 1000 to 2000 viewers.
Then you have to keep in mind that most of the streamers in europe don't use twitch.tv/owned.tv. For example the french casters Pomf et Thud stream SC2 competitions and get like 1 million views on their stream but they use dailymotion.
League of legends compared to dota feels like riding a bike instead of a car.
I remember playing Dota all the time in Wc3 days. Found it quite addicting when I started and then later on I decided to quit since it was such a waste of time.
I never thought I would ever play a MOBA type game again until a friend introduced me to LoL. Found the game frustrating at times since it was more noob friendly than original dota. The game is pretty good for relaxing, no need to figure out strategy unlike starcraft.
However the community is horrible, feels like I am talking to 10 year olds with emotional problems so I usually just ignore whats going on in the pro-scene and what people are talking about in LoL.
Game 100x easier than starcraft 2:P ok I'm exagerating but you get my drift.. I'm like lvl 22 summoner, out of 30.. Whenever I play in a team with friends/brothers I lose ^_^ because the MMR just goes crazy skyrocket , match-make with a team of lvl 30 summoners with prepared heroes and full prepared runes /masteries whereas I play like a casual ****** with half-fucked runes and masteries however I win about 65% of games where I solo match-make with people online!
Well honestly people don't just play the game just because its F2P.. That's one of the reason because it just gives it a easier 'start-up' to the game!
Most importantly the gameplay itself is not difficult to grasp if you've played any sort of games like dota , HoN or games like that. I'm not saying the game is easy to master, its actually not that easy.
How this game set itself apart from starcraft 2 is that at the higher level of play, other than having good decision-making, LoL doesn't require 100apm +++ whereas SC 2 does.
In LoL, in my personal experience, decision-making and team-fight engagments play a larger role than anything else.
Another reason why more people enjoy LoL is that when you play it competitively ( I mean it competitively as in how most people perceive it in my own country , singapore ), you're not forced to blame yourself and improve yourself and better yourself. More often than not, this gives rise to a certain amount of stress level that a lot find unenjoyable or really uncomfortable. In LoL, if you lose, you can blame team-mates, blame your hero, blame luck and a lot of other things. Most importantly, there 101 reasons why you're not the only one at fault and most, not all, continue to lie to themself that they're playing it competitively and not better themselves.
I mean, after all, the spirit of competition and being competitive is about bettering yourself and becoming a better player, m I right?
In starcraft 2, a lot of people don't enjoy playing it is because when you try to play it competitively, unless you solely believe 100% that you are losing only to balance issues, you are forced to put all the blame of mistakes on yourself. That, coupled with stress of improving constantly, is not something most of us can put up with.
Ok, actually that is just my perception because I don't have a good impression of most of the people who tell me they play games competitively in singapore. Its always about how good they are and doing triple/quad-kill while their teammates are always making the mistakes and throwing the game away! Oh and these same people tell me they're insanely good at starcraft 2 too and tell me they win like 4 out of every 5 games they play.. But they're in bronze/silver league ^_^ go figure..
Oh but I must say, LoL is much better of a community than dota because dota does not have a platform to record W/L, community is very fragmented without MMR matchmaking and auto matchmaking to link the whole community together, no real sites/forums to help link everyone! So kudos to LoL for being better than dota
Honestly, if you're a high level SC2 player I believe that HoN or DotA/DotA2 are more rewarding games. LoL is ridiculously dumbed down, most of the spells don't take much skill to use and farming/hero kills/deaths have less impact on the game than HoN/DotA. Simply put, it's more noob friendly which is why it's so popular.
Having said that, it's still a fun game to play. However, I would only recommend playing with friends. As several people have mentioned, I find it extremely frustrating to play with random people.
Last edited by foxmeep; Tue, 21st-Feb-2012 at 11:16 AM.
I havent really played LoL mainly because I didnt like dota at all, seemed quite 1 dimensional and boring.
I dont understand how people watch professional dota, atleast from some of the stuff I watched. Whats more I dont really like team play games in general(cs is an exception though),
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