The Success Behind the League of Legends System

If you're a PC gamer, chances are that you've heard of League of Legends. It's currently the most popular online game available. If you, by some slim chance, aren't aware of what League of Legends is, I invite you to read up on these ludicrous statistics to show you the magnitude of what you're missing.

Oh. My. God.

Having played for three years now, I am among those avid Summoners. Eager to increase my ranking, I play on, ready to show the world how awesome I am at videogames. At least, that's what I want to show the world. Undoubtedly, the majority of players are as equally unskilled as me, and will never achieve any sort of success in the gaming world. They know it, I know it, and yet we come back for more victories, more failures, and by the end of the day, we don't improve at all.

                

So what brings back 32 million, 12 million, and 3 million poor souls back every month, day, and moment respectively to League of Legends? How could anyone hope to replicate this success? Join me as I attempt to understand the success behind League of Legends.

1.       The game has a large amounts of content

LoL currently contains 115 champions, who each have their own spells, playstyles, itemizations, and counter champions to consider. It can be seen that there's a lot of information to absorb for just one of these units, let alone 115. So deep is this necessary understanding that, in all of my three years of playing this game and understanding everything that has to do with its metagame, I have only been able to master about 24 champions. Every champion is his/her own adventure, filled with the struggles necessary to fundamentally understand each and the satisfactions of using their mechanics to the maximum. There are also multiple maps that each demand changes in the playstyles of every champion.

But let's assume that a player isn't quite as interested in mastering every character as he is in actually obtaining them all. The cost of every champion in the game is about 450,000 influence points, LoL's in-game currency. The average game reaps someone about 65 IP, and the average daily bonus reaps the player 225 IP. So if someone were to complete 5 games a day, they would get an average of 485 IP a day. So someone who plays 5 games a day would have to continue for… 2.54 years in order to collect every champion so far. This is excluding the constant stream of new champions that each cost 6300 additional IP.

This is also excluding the game's rune system that allows players to boost their champion's stats from outside of the actual game. Runes require IP, and a full page of high-tier runes can easily cost someone 9,000 IP.

That is a lot of content right there. The sheer amount of things someone can strive to purchase and the never-ending quest to find someone's perfect champion ensures that the average Summoner will never run out of things to do in League of Legends.

It can take new players more than a couple of weeks to even identify each champion.

2.       The game features infinite replayability

I just discussed the sheer massiveness of what LoL has to offer, but let's do some more math.

The most popular game mode of LoL is competitive 5v5 in a map called Summoner's Rift. In the draft version of this game mode, no champions can be picked twice. As a result, there is a total of 2.705 x 10²⁰ different matchups that can be played. This excludes Summoner's Rift's normal mode, which allows teams to use the champions that their opponents have already chosen, and the three other available maps, and we can safely conclude that every possible matchup will never be played. Of course, every possible matchup includes unviable teams that no one in their right mind would want to be part of, but the point still stands: no game will ever be the same for any player. Essentially, no one can truly be prepared for any game that they begin. This uncertainty adds to a sense of apprehension before every game that is simply adrenaline-pumping.

This system makes sure that not only will the average player never run out of champions to purchase and master, but possible games to play either.

3.       Content is easy to add

Last bit of math, I promise: once the 116th champion is added, a total of 2.44 x 10¹⁸ new possible matchups will be added to the game.

Let's compare this to, say, Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition, which has 39 characters. If a 40th character were to be added there would be, well, 39 new matchups to consider. Why hasn't SSFIV picked up its slack? The answer is simple, SSFIV is a fighting game.

Every fighter requires modeling and painstakingly created animations. In addition, each fighter requires movement speeds and dashes, a dozen basic moves, special movies, and ultimate moves that require extremely careful balancing and tuning in order to make no fighter either too underpowered or too overpowered in any aspect. Every champion in LoL, by contrast, has only a couple of basic animations, a couple of base and scaling statistics, and only 4 moves, one of which is an ultimate. These statistics usually require simple number changes in order to balance.

Champions don't require creation as careful as that of fighters in SSFIV, and are thus far easier to produce and maintain. With the depth of every champion discussed in the beginning of point one, we can see that Riot has found a system by which it can introduce maximum depth through minimal effort.

I'm not necessarily a god, but boy do I feel like I'm on a roll!

4.       Play is always rewarded, and progress is constantly tracked

LoL provides two methods of tracking one's progress: IP (the game's currency used to buy champions and runes), and League Points. Although IP is not an indicator of one's skill, it rewards people for actually playing the game. This produces the mentality that the more games one participates in, the more he will get. Although basic, this is one of the most ingenious ideas behind League of Legends; that even if you lose a game in Summoner's Rift (definitely one of the most demoralizing feelings in all of gaming), you still have something to show for it. IP softens the blow when you lose, and amplifies the awesomeness of winning.

IP may add to the fun of LoL, but in comparison LP is crack. This is the most accurate representation of one's skill in the game, and is thus the object of every competitive player's ire. It's the means by which a Summoner can brag about their skill within a community of entitled jerks, and by which players can mock each other for their inferiority. As such every player wants a high ranking, but this is impossible since every time someone gains LP, another person loses it. Summoners, such as myself, become addicted to gaining LP and climbing through the game's ranks to earn the glory that comes with completing such a difficult task. Although few are truly skilled enough to do this, almost everyone feels as if though they belong in higher leagues. It is this misconception that keeps LoL's monstrous competitive scene alive and well; the league system is designed to keep players coming back in order to prove to the world that they are as good as they say they are.

Team Fortress 2, DotA 2, Black Ops 2; massively popular competitive games such as these provide ways for players to show how much time they have put into mastering the game, through hats, costumes, and levels. None of them, however, provide ways to show how skilled each competitor is at playing the game. The chance for people to prove their skill quantitatively is part of the reason why LoL is so much more popular than anything else on the market.

5.       The developers take their game seriously

I have put in a solid month of playtime into Team Fortress 2. It's fun, faced paced, rewards methodical thinking, and has an awesome community.

The only problem is that the game is broken.

By this I mean that the balance of the game is far from perfect: the existence of the Engineer nullifies that of the Scout in any aggression-based objective mode (such as Payload). Snipers, as fun as they are to play, lack the necessary damage output to make them truly viable. The Medic's healing output is simply too extreme; the list goes on. Of all professional TF2 games I've ever seen, I've only ever witnessed use of the Medic, Soldier, Scout, Demoman, and the Heavy and Spy on occasion. The game's many unlockable weapons (which expertly utilize point 3 of this post) are hardly ever balanced; they are usually underpowered (ex. the Medic's Quick-Fix), overpowered (ex. the Soldier's Equalizer), or too gimmicky to see in viable play (ex. the Spy's Dead Ringer).

What I witnessed as time went on was that Valve was slowly turning its popular game into a purely fun affair through its ridiculous balancing. While the game being fun is certainly a good thing, I did not appreciate the fact that only a few loadouts and classes provided optimal play.

It's for this reason that I eventually stopped playing TF2 at the height of the almighty hat craze; when Valve officially focused on providing accessories for its players, rather than making the game fair.

The opposite is true for LoL and Riot Games. Sure, Riot does present its players with the option of changing their characters' appearances, but it is far from the company's main investment. With polished balance has come a remarkable competitive scene and players whose lives are dedicated to dominating the Summoner's Rift. LoL, and not TF2, is blessed with this kind of community because Riot is shooting its game for the stars. In order to make the game fun for everyone playing, Riot has paid heavy attention into balancing every champion. Everyone, therefore, has a fair chance of winning each match, which shifts one's focus from simply having fun, to besting his opponents with the fair chance that he's been given. The fact that one can lose out on winning additional IP, and lose LP entirely, as discussed in point 4, only makes winning a greater concern. 

Sure, TF2 is fun, but LoL is serious.

They may be funny, but hats such as these destroy the theme of Team Fortress 2

6.       The game is easy to watch

                

Twitch.tv, the main video platform for videogames, has been graced with a boost of popularity recently. It's not hard to guess why: right now, 58,470 people are watching LoL. So many people aren't just watching LoL because it's fun to play, but because it's also easy to watch. Everything that a viewer could wish to see is presented on the screen. In fact, a simple screenshot is often enough to determine which team is winning and which is losing. The game's UI also takes up minimal space on the screen, allowing for casters to utilize colorful UI overlays and live video feeds of themselves playing.

               

With this game's competitive nature, Summoners will want whatever advice and tips that they can bring with them to win matches. This is one main reason for why players watch LoL on Twitch: they want to win games as soon as they get back home from work.

                

The casters themselves are also entertaining characters. People who understand the game also like to watch it played because they want to get a laugh out of funny players. SivHD is one such famous personality that comes to mind.

                

LoL's insane e-sports scene is a testament to just how easy and fun the game is to watch.

SivHD up to his no-good antics

7.       The game features tons of customization and choices

As stated earlier, there are 115 playable champions currently. Each of these champions ingeniously fulfills certain niches, both thematic and qualitative. Ziggs, for example, is an insane demolitionist that primarily deals AoE damage. Xerath is an ethereal being of infinite power that specializes in long-range harass. Ezreal is a cocky adventurer who uses ranged spells and autoattacks in tandem. Most recently, Lucien is a vengeful evil-slayer that excels in gunning down his opponents with Max Payne-esque corridor shooting. The list goes on, and every player is bound to have a champion that fits just their bill.

                

In addition, runes and masteries let Summoners slightly alter the numbers of their chosen champions to further fit the Summoner's chosen playstyle.

                

LoL has choices for everyone, allowing for maximum player accessibility and retention.

Rengar is a hunter who used his ferocity, weapons, and stealth to quickly burst down foes.

    8.       The game is free

LoL is the very epitome of free-to-play: nothing that could affect gameplay is ever limited to customers that pay. Instead, Riot Points, bought with real cash, can be used to purchase skins for champions. Free players can still level up to level 30, purchase every champion and rune, and vie for power in the game's ranked mode. Since LoL is free, customer accessibility and retention are once again maximized.

    9.       The game is fun 

What would everything else be if the game were boring? The satisfaction of killing an enemy for first blood, winning a game, or ascending a league in ranked mode, is almost unrivaled by any other game.

                

I have never spent such an extended period of time playing one game. Usually, games get stale and boring by three years' time, but not LoL. I never, to my detriment, feel as if though I'm wasting my time while playing. Hopefully, the success of this incredible game can one day be replicated to take the world by storm.

League of Legends used to be just this small.