Education Narrative: Learning to play League of Legends (Final)

Learning to play League of Legends

"A Nexus and a Dream" - Andrew Giles

League of Legends is a online real time strategy role playing game. As the term "real time strategy" implies, strategies are created before and during a game and the players have to adapt during the matches.


In league of legends players from across the world compete together in a virtual world using avatars called champions that are all unique in their own way and play style. Playing this game is a constant learning process as you have to learn to work with people that you usually have never met before, learning team work and critical thinking. The players play on a map/stage called summoners rift in 5 vs 5 showdowns, the aim is to destroy the enemy nexus in their base to win the match.


I had always heard about league of legends from my friends for over a year, they would disappear for hours at a time to play the game, i initially had no interest in it because I was already engrossed in a MMORPG (Massive Multimedia Online Role Playing Game)called Maplestory. For months I continued with my daily life, but i would continuously see more and more people around me speaking about and playing League of Legends, and eventually i decided to give it a try to see what the fuss was all about.


Once i had downloaded the game and registered my own personal account on the website I loaded the game and awaited the beginning of a new adventure in the virtual world of gaming. Upon starting the game I went through a walk through and explanation of the game, you play as a summoner in the world of league of legends and you use avatars called champions in 5 v 5 and 3 v 3 games to fight against and with other summoners, when you win games you are rewarded with experience points which level up your summoner profile, leveling up to certain levels also give you access to summoner spells which are extra abilities you can use in game. you also receive influence points which can be used to purchase new champions to play with and runes which will be explained later on. One of the first things explained were the objectives of the game, the most frequently played map is called summoners rift where the tutorial takes place, the map is divided into two halves, one for each team, each team has a base where the nexus is and where the champions you play with spawn at the beginning of the game and where u re spawn after you die. The map has three lanes: Top, Middle and Bottom , each lane has two turrets which attack enemy champions and minions that come near them. within the base of each team there are also five turrets, three inhibitors and the nexus, you are to work with your team to destroy the enemies towers, inhibitors and the nexus for the win.


In my first games i was only allowed to play against (bot) champions, which are characters pre-programmed to be played against. As the game started the explanations showed me the main keys on the keyboard which you use to cast your spells and activate your skills, these keys are: Q,W,E,R,D,F. You also have the option of changing the keys to whatever you prefer. It also demonstrated how to use the mouse to move around on the map, where u right click the spot where you want your champion to move to, and you left click when targeting monsters or champions with your skills and spells.


After playing a few bot games i got to the level where the game allowed me to do PvP (player versus player) matches. At this point my friends began to explain bit more in depth the mechanics of playing the game. I was taught that there are 5 roles when playing, these roles are: The top laner: usually a Tank/Bruiser, Jungler, The mid laner/APC (ability power carry), and the dual bot lane: Support and Ranged AD Carry (Attack Damage). I had to try all roles to learn which one best suited me and to learn how to counter them when playing against the enemy team, i preferred playing the top and mid lanes, mainly because they are solo lanes and I didn't really need to rely on my team mates much in lane, while when playing support or ADC you depend on each other completely early game, which can be very frustrating when one or both are incompetent.


I continued to play for nearly a month until I got to around level 20, the max level for your summoner profile is 30. With the level of skill players between level 1 and 20 matches were usually very close when it came to wins and losses because we were all around the same level. By this time i had around 50 wins under my belt and my confidence was growing as I won more and more matches, that is until one day in a 5 man pre-made team of my friends and I, we ended up facing off against one of the top League of Legends Professional teams in North America, TSM, at the time I had no idea who they were other than that my friends told me they were pro's. After a quick 30 minutes we were destroyed and TSM won. This made me realize how little skill in the game I really had.


Eager to improve further, I continued playing daily, aiming for level 30 where i could face more experienced players regularly. On my way to level 30 I came to learn that this game also had many toxic/rude and offensive players which I had to learn to deal with, I resorted to muting them from chat in the game so I didn't have to deal with the negative attitudes and it has worked ever since.


My journey from level 1 to level 30 took me nearly 4 months, which was a month ago roughly, upon reaching level 30 I learned about the ranking system where all level 30's were ranked from Bronze, which is the lowest rank, to challenger which is the highest, and withing each rank their are tiers 1-5 which further rate their skills compared to others in the game. Even though I am at level 30 I have yet to play any ranked games, i'm still learning a lot about the game and I still only own a small amount of champions to play with, a mere 24 champions out of the 116 champions available. I will continue to learn and practice since with this game you always learn something new about it. Hopefully one day I will become good enough to play with the professionals.

My advice to anyone who is interested in learning to play league of legends, be open to advice from more experienced players, and try to have fun, after all it is still just a game.