League of Legends XXXIX: Harrowing in the Playground

[TechnOkami]

wat. d3 was hella casual, to the extent that large portions of the franchise's mechanics were over-simplified for d3's release.

True. *i must have mixed things up with a separate conversation, I'm sick, so sue me.*

However, how many of those casual players are still playing Diablo III? I can tell you now that it's a small number. It might have been geared to Blizz's casual player base, but their Execution of it was just outright atrocious and made for a game where the fanbase's expectations were note met; I mean, Deckard Cain was killed by a butterfly lady. Really?

[sonofzeal]

I don't think that competitive games are particularly worried about being attractive to non-competitive players, nor do I think that they should be.

......right, because casual gamers aren't throwing money at their gaming.

Courting more casual play helps LoL in three ways. First, casual players spend money too. They spend a heck of a lot of money. And casual players are far more common than the hyper-competitive e-sports gamers. By attracting more of them, Riot makes money, and LoL gets bigger. Win!

Second, it acts as a gateway drug. Many of those casual gamers occasionally get in the mood for competitive play too (I go back and forth personally). And if a game I'm currently playing casually offers a competitive mode, I'm more likely to try that out than to download some new game with unfamiliar mechanics and an unfamiliar interface to take up yet more space on my harddrive. Especially so when playing the alternate mode earns me xp/IP on my primary mode.

Third, it helps in the same way as training wheels. LoL is a complex game, with a whole host of sub-skills to learn even before you can comfortably stomp Beginner bots. Adding more casual modes of play - a Creep Score minigame for example - would help prospective competitive players make that jump up to full competitive play with more ease. Even the best have to start somewhere, and for those without MOBA experience, you have to admit LoL is pretty darn far from newbie friendly. Improving that via casual modes would help competitive gamers get into the game and then stay.

[ex cathedra]

Isn't the difference that Blizzard didn't (and doesn't) support popular game-modes, and instead primarily releases and balances around SC2 as competitive 1v1 esport, whereas Riot does support popular and/or casual and/or "less competitive" game-modes (ARAM, arranged 5's, Treeline, Dominion, Co-Op)?

The thing is, in that post Destiny describes players who don't 1v1 ladder as non-competitive. I still think players who engage in 3v3's or 2v2v2v2's do enjoy the cooperative aspect of the game modes but by no means are they not "competitive." They're still partaking in PvP, aren't they?

......right, because casual gamers aren't throwing money at their gaming.

Courting more casual play helps LoL in three ways. First, casual players spend money too. They spend a heck of a lot of money. And casual players are far more common than the hyper-competitive e-sports gamers. By attracting more of them, Riot makes money, and LoL gets bigger. Win!

emphasis mine

holy ****ing ****
that is not what i mean by competitive gamers. it feels like it looks like i'm pulling an acromos, but i'm pretty sure that competitive means what i think it means. it doesn't mean "hard-core." every facet of LoL*, from ARAMs and blind pick normals to 2600 solo queue and international e-sports invitationals, is a competitive experience. you don't have to care about esports to be competitive and you don't have to play ranked to be competitive. you don't have to be super serious about the game all of the time. you simply have to enjoy playing against other players. i'll ignore that your link is like three years old and refrain on going in-depth as to how the recent Zynga bubble-burst reflects on the "casual/social" gaming market as a whole, but i'm saying that Riot already caters to players who are neither "hyper-competitive" nor "e-sports gamers."

*except for co-ops, obv.

edit:

HEY GUYS I BEAT THE PATCH. NEW THREAD INCOMING. HAS ARRIVED.

[Godskook]

Starcraft 2 tried that. This happened. A game with aspirations of being an eSport cannot afford to NOT worry about the casual fanbase.

I agree. Thing is, directing your casual playerbase to play what's essentially a different game is not going to help. That's the conceptual equivalent of encouraging fans to play Cricket as a method of generating interest in Baseball. The 'really' casual players already understand so little about this game that allowing them to disconnect entirely from the pvp scene would make watching the Esports boring for them.

What does help is making the casual pvp experience enjoyable, and Riot has done *HUGE* things in that department, such as both the tribunal and honor system(has anyone else noticed how enjoyable matches have been lately? I mean, compared to what they were two years ago?). You can try to claim that Riot is ignoring its casual player, but that really doesn't hold any water when they've made big strides in one of the biggest issues the game had.