Wednesday, August 1, 2012

League of Legends: 10 Suggestions for Improvement

League of Legends has come a long way over the years and won its way into many hearts as one of the top games of all time. As with everything, there is still a lot of room for growth. Here are ten things I'd personally love to see to improve the League of Legends experience in different areas, and not just in the game.


PvP.net Suggestions


1. Invisible Mode

I, for one, don't always want people to know I'm online or playing a game. Some people don't like being bothered at times, or don't like being spectated when they're trying out something new or are having an off-day. It's also upsetting at times when people trail you into Custom Games just because they see you creating one, or throw comments about how you don't play with them when you decide to play on your own or with other friends. Sometimes you just want to enjoy the game in peace and quiet, rather than feel like you're always being watched. 

2. Automatic spectating queueing and options

This could do wonders for social gatherings, gaming centers, or even for people who are bored. The best thing a company can do for their product is to have it always on people's minds. Even better would be to have people always engaged in it, either by playing or by spectating. Sometimes people just want to hunker down and watch a few matches, but this can become a more common occurrence if there was an option to automatically spectate games when the current one ends. This would create a sort of "spectate channel" where one game will play after the other, and allow people to essentially turn on LoL-TV to just watch one game after another. Great for gatherings, LAN centers, conventions, and lazy days.

To take it even further, the ability to select filters for the games you spectate would be amazing. For example, if I were interested in learning how to play Akali, I would want to spectate games that have Akali in them, so being able to filter my spectating to only games who have Akali would make it much easier.

3. Replays

This is an obvious one for obvious reasons. Many players love watching replays, especially if it’s of a great game. It also allows people to have a recording of their matches without having to independently record it themselves. This can lend itself to more fan videos of epic plays and hilarious moments. This should become an official feature, rather than players having to rely on using a third-party program to do so. 

Replays can be taken further by introducing a way to better share them with players, and possibly feature them. It’d be great to have an official place to submit replays where people can watch and rate them so people can browse submitted replays. Of course, with a public depot, you run the unfortunate side-effect that people who don’t want their games openly shared will likely find themselves in the depot somewhere due to other people putting them in.


In-Game Suggestions


4. A 5-second sell-back option for full price as long as you don't attack or use any abilities

Sometimes accidental double-purchases happen for players who have a little bit of lag, or who are trying to quickly purchase items. It's particularly easy to do if you're just double-clicking on items to purchase them but it doesn't register immediately. With a small window to resell your items, you can quickly fix those mistakes rather than run around with two Boots of Speed and losing out on a good 100g because you accidentally clicked too many times or you had a small lag spike.

5. Death Recap Timeline

Sometimes battles are chaotic and it's difficult to see what happens to you. It's easy for the particles to slip by or get lost in the torrent of abilities flying throughout the fight. You can get CCed for the duration of the whole fight and not know why you couldn't do anything because there was too much going on to see everything that hit you. With a Death Recap Timeline you can see when you were hit by which attacks and for how much damage. This can let you see how long you were CCed and how much each attack did with respect to the time just before you died.

Currently it just shows the top three damage sources from the top three contributing damage dealers. This makes it so you can't see all other factors that led to your death. Additionally, it currently sums up the damage from those damage sources. With the Death Recap Timeline, you can see exactly what happened to you, which can alleviate a lot of the confusion on how you die at times.

6. Spectator mode portrait panes to replace the current game ones.

Ever think about how nifty it is to see the cooldowns next to the player portraits in Spectator Mode? With accurate displays on cooldowns for summoner spells and ultimates, it'd be a lot easier for teams to quickly understand the situation they're in. Rather than having to always ask in chat for people's cooldown status, players can simply glance at the portraits. I cannot count how many times people assume someone is going to use Flash or Exhaust, only to be told after the gank failed that they didn't have it up.

7. Customizable recommended items, with 2-3 pages.

People have their favorite item builds for champions, especially ones they play often. It'd be for ease of use if people were able to customize the recommended items to their preference. The champions can still come with the default recommended items, but more experienced players can then modify them for quicker and easier purchasing. With multiple pages to toggle through, people can quickly switch pages for specific builds or to adapt to the match by having a few builds set for different scenarios.


Community / Behavior Suggestions


8. Community spotlights for people who make guides, help teach, and give to the community.

Summoner Showcase is great for creative works, and featured streamers are great for advertising positive role models to watch, but what about all of the people dedicating their time and efforts to helping players learn the game? A lot of great efforts have been put forth to help with educating players, such as the LoL University and Proving Grounds. Celebrating those who contribute so positively to the community would not only bring to light the positive side of the community, but also encourage more people to participate or contribute, and raise awareness of all of the wonderful programs and guides out there.

9. Rewarding good behavior and clean records

The Tribunal is a feature designed to punish and discourage negative behavior. While it makes a difference, many people are still ill-mannered and hostile. Unfortunately, such negativity does deter many people from playing, so more methods of encouraging better behavior would be better. I emphasize that it should be a positive incentive, rather than adding more negative disincentives.

Players would be much more likely to have a good attitude if there was an IP, or especially RP reward, for keeping a clean record -- for example, having fewer than 3 games every 50 games where both teams report them. Not only would people improve their behavior to try and achieve these rewards if they’re enticing enough, but they’d also want to keep playing more games to keep reaching those thresholds. To further incentivize consistent good behavior, there could be higher rewards the longer you keep a good record. An example would be 50 games for 1000 IP, 50 more games for 2500 IP, another 50 games for 240 RP, and then it cycles back to 1000 IP again.

10. A Fan Art section on their website where the Summoner Showcase features and honorable mentions are featured.

One of the main things that kept me going back to the World of Warcraft site is the Fan Art and Fan Comics section of their site. I loved viewing the fan created content. It surprises me that League of Legends has yet to create this for their site given how much amazing fan content people create. A lot of people love the art people create. You can tell just by how many views and responses some of the art threads receive. This would not only bring more people to the main site, but it’d also allow people to find a lot of the high quality fan art easier, and give people a goal to strive for. What better exposure for a fan artist than to be featured on an official page with hand-selected fan art?

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