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League of Legends: Why Riot should be catering to noobs
Thu 30 Jan pm GMT / 10:33am EST / 7:33am PST
While player toxicity is a problem, F2P expert Ethan Levy writes that the first-time user experience is potentially a drag on the bottom line
I'm 28 minutes into my fourth ever match of League of Legends when it happens. Another player lets me know that I "is noob" and "suck ballz." Post game, the player antagonizes the chat room saying we are "so fricken bad" and the "worst team ever". That's when TwoBigButts comes to our defense, letting the abusive player know they were not so great either and that they should go back to Heroes of Newerth because "we don't need more toxic players."And I was terrible that round. I had 1 kill, 11 deaths and 8 assists in a 40-minute match ending in a miserable defeat. I was roughly five hours into learning League of Legends as a complete neophyte to MOBAs and I experienced the oft mentioned toxicity firsthand.I played six more matches and experienced one more act of toxicity. Despite 0 kills, 9 deaths and 13 assists in my ninth game I was not the target of the abusive behavior. One player on my team told another "go kill yourself." Other than playing against a player named TittyQueef, the toxicity experienced in my first time user experience (FTUE) was much lighter than I was expecting when I started this project.Immaturity and multiplayer gaming go hand in hand"Someone will call you a c**t," remarks my friend after I tell him my plan to jump feet first into League's PvP with the Summoner name BeckyLovesRaichu. I was talking to a fellow San Francisco developer who happened to be working on a MOBA game. To familiarize himself with the world of League he had just finished playing 20 hours of co-op PvE before jumping into a single PvP match. Based on his experience, his hypothesis was that with an obviously female handle and predictably poor play, I would not only be the target of toxicity but that it would take a misogynistic spin. That was my hypothesis too when I choose the name. I wanted to see if being obviously female would make a notoriously toxic game even worse."Although I did experience abuse from immature players and a general air of misogyny, it was nothing compared to the beating I took from the user experience itself"
I joined LoL with the intention of writing about toxicity and its probable impact on the bottom line. Riot knows it has a toxicity problem and is working hard to . I wanted to see firsthand what it is like to join the community. Although I did experience abuse from immature players and a general air of misogyny, it was nothing compared to the beating I took from the user experience itself.Joining a mature game and communityLoL is undoubtedly one of the most popular games in the world. Just this week it boasted daily
and a recent analyst report estimated the game brought in . It has been live for over 4 years and I have no doubt the game will still be popular 10 years from now. However, when running a juggernaut of a game on the level of LoL or WoW, one must anticipate and fix problems not just months but years before they fully manifest. After my experience joining LoL, I believe the maturity of the game and its overwhelming FTUE pose as big if not a bigger threat to long term health than toxic player behavior.As a new player and a hardcore gamer, my general feeling in my first 10 hours of LoL was confusion. With a , it is rare for me to give a game more than an hour of time if I am overwhelmed or not having fun, no matter its reputation. Had I not been playing for the purposes of research, I would have moved on to another game either at or before the match where I was informed of my predilection for placing male anatomy in my mouth. This confusion came from three main vectors. The first is the jargon inherent in joining a mature community. Where I was expecting other players to type furiously away at how horrible I was I mostly experienced silence. When players did talk it was simply to declare top, mid, bot or jung or to gg before exiting to find another match. I figured out soon enough what these terms meant but have no idea the strategy implied by each of these choices. Additionally, players on my team frequently began votes of surrender early into matches that felt wide open to me. I did not know why they wanted to give up so quickly. The second vector was being shown but not taught the game's deeper systems. 10 hours in and I have little to no idea how to make decisions about what items to buy. Runes and mastery are a mystery to me. For the first half of my play sessions I chose H as a turret-based support character I was able to play adequately and rack up my fair share of kills and assists. When the champions rolled over and I had 90 seconds to make a decision with very little information, I picked Trundle and was trounced for the remainder of my matches. I was overwhelmed by game systems I did not understand and time pressure to make choices.The third vector is inside the game itself. When I was playing poorly, it was not clear to me why I was playing poorly. I had no idea what other players were doing to level so fast, or why I was slaughtered so quickly while my opponents seemed to take no damage. I knew that I was bad at LoL, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do to play more effectively.
When I debriefed with friends who are years into playing, they let me know that item choices are incredibly important and that Trundle is a particularly hard character to play. If I wanted to get better I needed to read strategy guides and watch gameplay videos. I needed to learn to read my opponents' item choices and know how to counter them with my own choices. I needed to research the right runes and masteries for my champion and play style. All of this sounded like a lot of work in the name of having fun.For players who love LoL, this complexity is what makes it magical. For players new to the game and genre, this learning curve is so steep as to be nearly insurmountable. The cost of maturity and immaturityLoL is a monster of a game, and has many years of organic and paid growth ahead of it. The issues highlighted are likely eclipsed by the positive benefits of a game where many new players join alongside experienced friends who show them the ropes. When a game is pulling in an estimated $624 million a year, it is easy to overlook the jagged edges confronting those players who churn out of the game within the first few days. However, this challenging FTUE is the sort of problem that rears its head years down the line in quarterly earnings statements. It is inevitable that some day, parent company Tencent will start reporting a declining player base. The market does not care about the billions of dollars made in the past. It is a shortsighted beast that only asks "what have you done for me lately?"I spoke with a 15 years experienced marketing executive with a history in the F2P MMO space. This executive estimated that Riot is spending between $5 and $8 for each new player acquired through marketing. Compared to estimated average revenue per player of $10 - $15, this is a healthy arbitrage."A more accessible game that better retains new players combined with a massive marketing spend could allow a competitor to gain an appreciable market share in the crowded MOBA space"
But the deposits of players willing to install LoL is a finite resource. Over time this acquisition cost will only grow as the pool of players receptive to LoL advertising shrinks. Improving the FTUE for retention will boost revenue both by creating a larger veteran play base and by making advertising dollars more efficient. Both the British and US governments run "nudge units" inspired by the ideas of behavioral economist Richard Thaler and co-author Cass Sunstein in their book Nudge. The purpose of these behavioral insight teams are to run tests and experiments with the purpose of increasing tax revenues and social welfare. These projects a in a recent episode of the , Thaler revealed that "running one of these experiments paid all the expenses of the [UK] team of the first three years."A game that operates on the massive scale of League of Legends would benefit from a department tasked with improving the FTUE using the same methodology as the US and British governments to increase new player retention (if it does not already exist within the company). Clearly
that recent and impending patches seek to make the game easier for new players, Riot is hard at work to improve the game for noobs like me. Similar to the nudge units, one or two successful experiments can handily justify a substantial investment by raising retention rates. The steep learning curve of LoL creates an opportunity for competitors (albeit handsomely bankrolled ones) not to focus on converting Riot's existing and rabid fan base, but instead to buy up the market for new players. A more accessible game that better retains new players combined with a massive marketing spend could allow a competitor to gain an appreciable market share in the crowded MOBA space. So long as noobs like me face the dual pressures of game maturity and player immaturity, there is still room for competitors to make headway. So long as acquired players face a daunting FTUE, there is the opportunity for Riot to make improvements to League that are equally positive for players and balance sheets.Ethan Levy works as a monetization design consultant as FamousAspect specializing in free-to-play games. He is an 11 year veteran game designer and producer and has contributed to over 40 shipped games across every platform, for every audience. For more information, you can access articles, tools and templates on the
website or follow
on Twitter.
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Switch to mobile version|With Instructables you can share what you make with the world, and tap into an ever-growing community of creative experts.Intro: Anti-Rape GlovesThe idea for this intructable came about through the urge to protect my sister. She is a small, sweet, lovely woman and works in the bad part of ...
Step 1: Things you will need.Here are some tools you need for this project.From left to right.M5 Stainless screws 40mmM5 tap4.5mm Drill bit5.5mm Drill bitPermanet markerAutomatic centerpunch2 pieces of marine grade stainless 12mm ...
Step 2: Measure glovesHere you want to measure your gloves and where you want your plates to go. I kept in mind when the hand is closed, the small blades sit ...
Step 3: Marking out steel.Once you have your measurement in my case 50mm (2inch) you will need to mark that from each end. I am marking out one plate and will drill ...
Step 4: Automatic centerpunch.An automatic centerpunch has a spring and a release that activates when a certain amount of pressure is applied to it. This motion fires a hardened steel pin ...
Step 5: Drilling the steelNow it's time to drill. If you don't have a drill press, placing a piece of timber underneath your steel will help when your drill drops through. I ...
Step 6: Tapping the first plateMetal taps are used to create a thread in a piece of steel. They have a hardened piece of tool steel with a thread that has scollops cut ...
Step 7: Drilling the second plateNext is drilling your second plate. Simply drill your 4.5mm holes out to 5.5mm. Use cutting lubricant, it should be easy cutting with a new bit. I deburred ...
Step 8: Cutting the platesYou now have two plates. One has a hole that the bolt can freely go through and the other is threaded.Bolt these together and cut them off at ...
Step 9: Cleaning up the plates.Now it's time to spend a while with the sander cleaning up the edges and making everything look nice. Sand away and be creative.
Step 10: Cut the boltsIf your local supply shop did not have the bolts in the right size like mine, then you will have to cut them. I cut mine about 12mm ...
Step 11: Grinding your bladesI thought about the design of the blades quite a bit, taking in mind when something as awful as rape happens your average person is not thinking straight. ...
Step 12: Finishing the bladesFor finishing the blades I clamped the screws into a set of vice grips and rounded the tops and made sure the front part of the claw shape ...
Step 13: Finishing platesNow it's time to pull apart the plates and deburr all edges, including all edges that touch the glove. You don't want the steel to cut the leather.Sit ...
Step 14: Fitting the platesI put the plates on the gloves and decided where they were to sit. Remember to place those blades in between fingers. Make a mark through one of ...
Step 15: FinishNow you can see what they look like.Although the bolt heads weren't rounded, I had a few women try these on and they didn't complain about the hex ...The idea for this intructable came about through the urge to protect my sister. She is a small, sweet, lovely woman and works in the bad part of town. I often worry about her as she travels home by herself in the early hours of the morning. I have regularly thought of ideas of things that she could have on her to protect her, however there are many problems with self-defence items because of obvious reasons. I did some research on anti-rape devices and there are many but a lot are after the fact items. I wanted to prevent, not cure. No woman wants to say &well it happened but at least they got hurt.&
I want women to say &Well he tried&
Or even better, in a perfect world, &That does not happen ever&.
My design criteria had to be:Something that was able to be carried that you didn't have to think about or be on the alertSomething that was preventative rather then after-the-assault effectiveSomething that is hard to be used by the attacker against the victimSomething that was convenient and compact that women would wear.I wanted to see how women fought in fights. I have seen women fight in martial arts but they are trained. So where do you find raw fights? Jerry springer? Nooo, YouTube. I watched heaps of women fighting in all sorts of situations and noticed a few things. Women tend to slap and go for the face, they grapple, pull and push as opposed to direct punching or kicking people. So the idea was born. Introducing the anti-rape gloves.P.s. These might not always stop a rape from happening, but they will leave evidence on the attacker and can cause some serious injury.
They WILL hurt the attacker or even be fatal!! If you are going to make these, I take no responsibility for what you do to anyone with them. Nice little disclaimer :)Step 1: Things you will need.Here are some tools you need for this project.From left to right.M5 Stainless screws 40mmM5 tap4.5mm Drill bit5.5mm Drill bitPermanet markerAutomatic centerpunch2 pieces of marine grade stainless 12mm wide (half inch) 120mm long (about 5 inch) 2mm Thick (5/64 inch)(Marine grade is important because it resists rust from sweat and will last the distance.)Vernier CalipersAlso you will needAngle gringerBelt sander or filesDremel toolA set of gloves. I chose these women's cycling gloves because they were made well and have lots of padding, are tight-fitting and hard to take on and off and have a velcro strap as opposed to button-on, making them hug tight to the hand.About This Instructable 514Bio:
My Name is Nick and I love making things!! Learning about everything is something I like to do.
I have been a carpenter here in ...
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