14 DAY TRIAL // League of Legends maker Riot Games plans to deliver a massive overhaul to the multiplayer online battle arena game's tutorial mode, in order to improve the game's steep learning curve and make it a bit more encouraging to newcomers.
Their game is the most popular in the genre, and arguably one of the best free-to-play video games in the world, with millions upon millions of players enjoying it every day, but it is also a notorious source of vitriol and disappointment, due to its competitive nature.
As such, Riot Games thinks they can do a better job at introducing new players to the intricate ways of League of Legends, and they intend to do so by significantly improving its tutorial, which the company says a "non-trivial" proportion of newcomers lose.
"We've observed some of those same players go on to become Gold-tier ranked players. So this isn't a problem with the players - it's a problem with how we teach them," the devs point out.
Consequently, Battle Training will be complemented by the introduction of Intro Bots, a brand-new tutorial mode that is designed to scale to the level of the player partaking in the MOBA experience. Intro Bots is a new game type, where players can join in cooperative action against the AI-controlled bots, created in order to provide a more forgiving playground for newcomers to get a grasp of League of Legends' systems in.
"We think we can do a much better job of exposing the intricacies that make up a game of League of Legends and letting new players more smoothly build up proficiency," the development team writes in the announcement.
According to them, the existing Battle Training mode is currently robbing new players of their fun, but repeatedly taking control away, restricting their actions, pestering them with pop-ups, and generally giving them a hard-enough time that they may be put off from getting further into the game.
However, the team acknowledges the game's inherent challenge, and aims for players to be able to focus on the basics in a more organic manners. As such, trinkets and support items will be unavailable, in order to not over-complicate things, and bot reaction times and damage are tweaked down a notch, in order to allow beginners to make mistakes without feeling punished for them.
"Trying to teach a brand new player all the skills of a level 30 Summoner risks overload and neglects foundational learnings. So in this mode we're focusing on the basics while we explore alternatives venues for teaching the advanced stuff," the developers explain.
In addition to this, a new feature titled "personal quests" provides newcomers with a steady stream of contextually triggered low-level goals to achieve, which also provide helpful insight into how MOBAs work.