**OLD THREAD** League of Legends - F2P MOBA (like DOTA)

[kbirger]

**THIS THREAD HAS BEEN REPLACED WITH A NEW THREAD HERE: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2159490 PLEASE UPDATE YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS AS NEEDED**



I highly recommend this game. It has great teamplay and MMO Aspects.
You can choose from a variety of champions and ramp up XP to earn persistent bonuses to your account. Participate in great teamplay battles with your friends to destroy the opposition.

http://signup.leagueoflegends.com
(Yes, it's a referrer link. I put a lot of time into making this post so please follow my link. Thanks )
check out the website for more info. I was really impressed with this game, it's a candidate for Game of the Year and it's completely free, though you do have an option to pay to unlock some stuff faster, if that's your cup of tea. But I've found it to be a completely fulfilling experience without paying a dime. The game has a great community and will suck you in.

BTW- Don't be worried because it's free, the quality of the game is amazing.

Gameplay: Okay currently there are 2 maps available. There are promises for more game-types available, but ... yeah there's only 1 game type available. The gameplay is pretty simple, Each side has their own Nexus on opposite sides of the map, the objective is to * drum roll please* destroy the other team's nexus. In the most common played map ( and the only one you can play in non-practice games ) there are 3 lanes you can take to get to the nexus, with 3 enemy turrets along the way. You can obviously guess the turrets hinder your progress, and hit hella hard. Destroying these turrets grant you gold, an increasing amount depending on how deep into the lane you are. In-between the lanes ( called the Jungle ). There are monsters at designated locations ( all of which are marked on your minimap, though if an enemy kills the monsters there the indicator doesn't disappear on your map unlike if killed by you or a teammate ). Killing a normal group gives standard gold/xp. There are 4 significant monsters though. A Golem, Lizard, Dragon, and Baron Nashor. Of course these guys are tougher than the regular monsters, though the provide buffs, or in the dragons case over 100g for each person on the team. I'll stop boring with the details of the basics since you can always read up on the webpage now that I think about it. Just felt liek it would be something worth pointing out for people that have never played a DOTA-esque type game ( like I was ).

Champions: Every week, Riot makes a handful of champions available for free. There are no restrictions on who can be selected to be free so even the teir 3 champions will at one point be available for free. Also when new champions are released, I've played for about a month now, and I've seen two champions released ( Nidalee and just recently Poppy ), they are usually free for the first week. Normally at the end of the game you are awarded IP ( Influence Points ), just consider it one of the two types of currency ( the other being riot points which you have to pay for ), and you can buy champions with that. In terms of balance. In my opinion I do feel that there are some imbalances *cough* Twitch *cough*, but I guess that's to be expected with having so many champions in a game.

Maintenance: Oh how I hate thee. Maintenance is "scheduled" once a week. You see what I did there? Every week since I've been playing with the exception of yesterday, there has been extended maintenance cause of some bug that they found. Even though I said yesterday went through fine, yes we got to play, but it was taken down 3am the next day (today) due to a matchmaking bug that cause lower level summoners to play against higher level summoners in unfair advantages so it was taken down for 3 hours, and comes back up in 15m hence my boredom I guess. I think this is my biggest gripe, but I guess what can you do ;/

Summoner Abilities: In addition to the four skills/spells each character has, you can select two from a global set. These allow you to work with your teammates to create a well-balanced team, but they also allow you to customize heroes to fit your individual playing style.

Runes: You can also buy runes using IP or Riot Points, they pretty much give a small boost to whatever stat you get. LIke say +.6 % Crit Damage. Think World of Warcraft's Jewelcrafting Gems.

Masteries: Every time you level, you get a mastery point. You can spend mastery points on masteries (small passive bonuses) in three trees: offensive, defensive, and utility (general). Masteries include things like -1% ability cooldown, and other small bonuses. I thought they would make the game unfair for low level players, but they really don't. It just helps you customize your hero a bit.

The Community: This game has a great following and a wonderful community. There is a huge focus on teamplay, so people start to group up and form teams. Right now it's in pre-season, but when the season starts you will be able to make official teams and clans. People play while talking on vent (there's a free official vent server for the game), and they are generally very nice.



Screenshots:

More: http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/04/05/new-league-of-legends-screenshots-are-chilly/

 

[Malladine]

Gotta say, this is pretty accurate. Very slick presentation and mechanics.

 

[crownjules]

I've tried to drum up interest in here, but every LoL thread dies quickly. You usually get a few idiots that just drop in to say "LoL sucks, play HoN because it's got better graphics." Nevermind that the game isn't completely derivative because it's not a simple port over of an older game with new graphics.

The gameplay is fast and addictive, revolving around your heroes' abilities. And they've come out recently with some very cool character designs. For example, Nidalee has two entirely different sets of ability powers depending on if you're in human or cat from which allows for different combo exploration.

Had a really cool game the other night. We were losing in total kills but had knocked down more of their towers. We decided to do Baron and they obviously had a Sight/Vision ward because we instantly got hit by Gangplank's Cannonball (an AOE attack that he can use anywhere on the map). They followed in close behind expecting us to roll over and then gank the Baron buff. However, we survived, Baron died and we got the buff, and then we proceeded to ace them while only losing two. Their Nexus fell shortly after.

 

[kbirger]

Actually the graphics in LoL are better now, IMO. You're right, it's more original, and unlike HoN it's not full of assholes. Also, unlike hon, it's actually more or less balanced. And it's FREE!

The only thing hon has on this game is ingame voice chat, which people don't like to use (but ventrillo is better anyway, and they provide you a free server).

So I urge everyone to check this out. I got hooked!

 

[Chronoshock]

LoL is the way a F2P game should be setup. The cash shop is used to buy champion skins (purely cosmetic) and to unlock champions. Champions can also be unlocked through playing, and the tradeoff is reasonable.
One of the big challenges in designing a fair cash shop is deciding what's available in terms of CS only vs CS + ingame The other challenge is the balance of money needed vs time needed for things that can be purchased either way.
The cost to unlock a heroes ranges from 5-20 games while buying them is on the order of 2-10 dollars.
They regularly rotate out what heroes are available for free so players who choose not to buy anything get just as good of an experience.

 

[kbirger]

Yup. I hope this prompts some people to join. If you join with my ref link I will contact you ingame if you ever need help learning the basics or getting in with a good group.

 

[xCxStylex]

btw, if you want referrals, it's not that hard to get a level 10 account.

In addition to my main level 25, with about 115 - 85 that I've got in 3 weeks, I also have another account that's now level 11 to test and learn different characters with.

Just make 314143 smurf accounts until you get whatever reward it is that you want!

 

[kbirger]

I could do that, but I'm not so desperate as to cheat the system. 'sides, I still want to get my first account to lvl 30 first. and you don't get bonuses unless the account gets lvl 5. I don't feel like getting 10 accounts to lvl 5

 

[JD50]

This game is pretty cool. I've only played practice rounds so far, and it's enjoyable.

 

[kbirger]

My advice: find friends in the game as soon as you can. it will help you get better and enrich your gaming experience.

 

[bloodugly]

I signed up. Not really my style of game, but I'll give it a shot.

 

[matas]

signing up now, play tomorrow.

 

[kbirger]

You may all feel free to look me up - armedmonkey

 

[Chiropteran]

I love league of legends, although the last few days I have been playing battle forge instead. If you want another friend on LoL add me, account name: drakantus

PS nerf twitch please

 

[gorcorps]

I'll give 'er a go. Not sure how well it'll run on my PC, but I'm sure it can turn down enough to be playable.

 

[crownjules]

^^^^ This isn't a cutting edge graphics game. Unless you're running a dinosaur of a computer, you should be able to play it at reasonable graphics settings.

I love league of legends, although the last few days I have been playing battle forge instead. If you want another friend on LoL add me, account name: drakantus

PS nerf twitch please

They did technically with the last patch. Unfortunately, the problem with Twitch's ult stems from the range not the attack speed boost it gives him (which is what they nerfed down). He can attack players and towers safely from outside of their range. I should try him out next time he's on the free rotation.

 

[JD50]

Has anyone bought one of the bundles, or just a single champion?

 

[Piuc2020]

LoL is an interesting game, however, the fact that you get more powerful the more you play and you can actually buy heroes and stuff makes it far too MMO for me.

I don't want to get owned by someone who has played 200 hours, not only because they obviously know the game much better and are more skilled but because their champion has like a gazillion skills.

Heroes of Newerth is better in my opinion, just more balanced and based on skill, not on how much money or time you can spend on the game.

 

[crownjules]

LoL is an interesting game, however, the fact that you get more powerful the more you play and you can actually buy heroes and stuff makes it far too MMO for me.

I don't want to get owned by someone who has played 200 hours, not only because they obviously know the game much better and are more skilled but because their champion has like a gazillion skills.

Heroes of Newerth is better in my opinion, just more balanced and based on skill, not on how much money or time you can spend on the game.

Just to explain this in full for everyone, you earn influence points (IP) through playing games. You get more for winning than losing, but there are bonus rewards for if you lose but held out the defense for a long time, winning a quick match, and you get a big bonus on your first win of each day.

IP is used to buy two things from the Riot Store - heroes and runes. Heroes can also be bought via Riot Points (RP) which are purchased with cash. Runes can only be purchased with IP - the OP is wrong about them being purchaseable with RPs. You don't gain any advantage purchasing extra heroes other than having a greater selection to choose from at the start of a game. Runes are different because they do alter a hero's stats. However, it is very easy to fill up your rune pages with Tier 2 runes as you play. Only Tier 3 runes are super expensive and the percentage difference between T3 and T2 is small and will only matter in the most competitive of games.

 

[Chronoshock]

The whole "spending a ton of time and money makes you uber" argument is a cop out. If you bothered to play, you'd notice that it makes a small difference. I am level 1 with 0 masteries and 0 runes and I played w/ my friends who were level 20-30 against other level 20-30 players. I had 9 kills 4 deaths 12 assists. I did fine. Skill is a much larger portion of gameplay and any items earned through time (you cannot get runes through riot points) will only steer your character to certain builds. It's hardly imbalancing.

 

[xCxStylex]

I started playing 3 weeks and 3 days ago, and after 4 days of playing, I paid $44.99 for both character packs. Is there anything you want to know about paying RP or IRL$$?

Given how often I play, I somehow regret paying that much, since most characters don't cost that many IP (in-game points) to unlock. However, it was a lot easier to find which heros I really like.

The other crap runes that came in the collectors edition and the "goth annie skin" I couldn't give much of a crap about.


BTW, I play Blitzcrank, Twitch, and Teemo the most. The first two are legendary (6300 IP), but there are a lot of top tier or tier 2 (in my opinion) characters for cheap, including

Sivir - 450 IP
Ashe - 450 IP
Master Yi - 450 IP

and a ton of great characters that only cost 1350

Kayle - 450 IP is one of the best support heros with an ultimate that when used right, will determine the outcome of competitive game play.

Twitch carry vs Twitch carry + Kayle ult. Made for two of the most epic games I've ever played.

Has anyone bought one of the bundles, or just a single champion?

 

[xCxStylex]

I agree with this. Spending the money does not make you uber or give you much of an advantage, if any. The only thing it does is allow you to spend more on your runes as opposed to unlocking more characters, and that is a marginal, marginal, and utterly inconsequential difference.


Spending time somewhat does, but according to Riot's version of their ELO / Match Making system, the HIGHER the level of player, the higher their ELO gets bumped up. This is so that players with access to more Masteries (WoW talent points), Runes (gems, sockets, whatever), face other higher level players.

Because I play alternate accounts with friends (they suck and I don't want to screw up my ELO when I play really fun, competitive, pug games) and to test new characters with, I don't see skewed games too often except for off peak hours. You don't normally see level 30s (as bad as they may be) grouped with level 10s.

The whole "spending a ton of time and money makes you uber" argument is a cop out. If you bothered to play, you'd notice that it makes a small difference. I am level 1 with 0 masteries and 0 runes and I played w/ my friends who were level 20-30 against other level 20-30 players. I had 9 kills 4 deaths 12 assists. I did fine. Skill is a much larger portion of gameplay and any items earned through time (you cannot get runes through riot points) will only steer your character to certain builds. It's hardly imbalancing.

 

[JD50]

Do you guys usually go with the recommended gear when gearing up?

 

[Magusigne]

JD50- It's a pretty good scheme unless your a power tweaker.

My name is Magusigne in game. Friend me up!

I play Lich

 

[xCxStylex]

Recommended gear is definitely hit or miss. Some are essential to any build, some are completely retarded. (e.g. Katarina does NOT need mana regen)

If you end up playing a lot, you'll see items that are commonly used for specific characters. Just like in dota, commonly used ones are probably commonly used for a reason (they're good or work well with a character), but another aspect that I really like about league of legends is that it's very possible to build characters in different ways.

Physical damage vs Ability Power, going for "physical dmg items" on classes inteded to be mages makes LoL a lot more interesting and mixes things up.

Do you guys usually go with the recommended gear when gearing up?