League of Legends has been around for a while, and its player base has aged along with the game. The development team has noticed that predominantly long-time players are playing the game, and the number of new players has significantly decreased.
League of Legends has been in existence since 2009 and has steadily gained significant popularity over the years. Its prime time began in 2014, making it a major competitor to Minecraft.
While the hype around the game remains strong, the largest portion of the player base consists of long-time players who have been playing for years. The arrival of new players has reportedly decreased.
Therefore, the team has devised some changes to make the game more appealing to new players and to provide long-time players with additional motivation to continue playing the game.
League of Legends: What Riot Has Planned For Newcomers
Do you remember your first hours in League of Legends? It was super tough to get into, and as soon as you played against regular players, motivation just plummeted. But the more games you played with your mates, the more you warmed up to the game.
However, in the past, the main issue was mostly about getting the hang of the game. Nowadays, there's a much bigger problem: Many players create a smurf account, which further fuels discouragement to keep playing the game when you're new. Riot is already working on identifying and addressing smurfs. However, according to the developers, this alone may not necessarily encourage many new players to try the game.
Candidly, it's not the same situation it was 10 years ago, where you're in middle school or high school and [League] is the game everyone's talking about, that everyone's playingThere's a lot of other games that we're competing with now.
Nowadays, there are many competitors that offer a much easier entry into their games, which makes them much more appealing to new players, like Fortnite or Roblox. Therefore, Riot plans to create an easier entry to help newcomers grasp the complex gameplay mechanics more quickly.
Riot BarackProbama on improving the new and returning player experience pic.twitter.com/OwWD9LMDsc
— Spideraxe (@Spideraxe30) June 14, 2024
Many long-time players, as well as those who have recently started the game, agree on one thing for sure: The tutorial and the intro desperately need to be revamped!
What Long-Time Players Can Expect
Not only newcomers can look forward to an update, but also current players. In analyzing the existing player base, they've noticed that players have aged alongside the game and now have different preferences.
Now for some of our audience—especially those that now have jobs or kids or whatever—we're seeing some more shift towards 'Hey, I want to be competitive some of the time and I want other experiences as well.'
Therefore, the developers aim to provide a change of pace for these types of players from the longer and more intense matches in Summoner's Rift. They plan to introduce some new game modes, and hopefully, we might even see some of our beloved modes from the past. Riot, please bring back the Star Guardian mode!
So, we can expect Riot to make some changes in the near future that won't necessarily affect Summoner's Rift and the core gameplay but will offer a nice variety and make it easier for new players to get into the game.
What do you think of the changes, and what kind of alternative would appeal to you the most? Let us know in the comments!