League of Legends and Game Design

What is League of Legends?

For the non-initiated, League of Legends is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (Moba) the proprietary game from the vastly successful start-up Riot Games. The game was released during the final quarter of 2009, with expectations that it would survive a year at most in the competitive PC game market. Just like the explosion of Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMO’s) of yesteryear, there have been dozens of Moba’s that have entered and/or left the market since 2009. Despite the expectations that the game wouldn’t survive in the market, League of Legends defied the odds and became one of the most popular and successful games to date. One of the keys to this success, is from the design of the game itself. Which we will get to in a bit, but first I bet you are wondering…

What is the gameplay like for League of Legends?

While League of Legends game-play is very complex, the basic game-play for League of Legends is rather simple. Each player controls a “champion” which is a character with a particular set of abilities, themes, attributes/roles, and strengths/weaknesses. While a further explanation of attributes/roles can be found here the possible roles for each champion are as follows: marksman, assassin, tank, mage, support, and fighter. League of Legends is a team game, and is usually played 5 vs 5. This puts an emphasis on combining different champion roles together in order to employ a particular strategy, this is called team composition or “team comp”. Champions get stronger by killing AI controlled units called “creeps” and champions. Killing creeps or champions give gold, which can be used to purchase items in the game, and experience which enables you to level up abilities. Once champions get strong enough, not only are they able to brutally massacre the other team’s player controlled champions, they are also able to destroy the other teams defenses which usually come in the form of turrets. Then once the enemy team’s defenses are down, the assaulting team can destroy the enemy teams nexus to win the game!

Why proper game design is important for League Of Legends’ ongoing success.

There are many things one can appreciate from the design of League of Legends, one design feature is the diversity of the characters. Each character looks and feels distinct and unique, evoking within the player a particular feeling. The distinctiveness of how each character plays contributes to the longevity of the game in a big way.

Another key design feature is the constant ebb and flow of viable strategies. With constant game-play tweaking happening frequently, the best strategy is never the best for long. This is why it is important for websites and bloggers to aide in the discovery of what the best and worst strategies are. This helps promote community growth, which in turn contributes to League of Legends ongoing success.

Exploring Game Elements of League of Legends

Resource gathering stage

In Monopoly the major resources are Properties, and Cash.

Resource gathering stages are very important for a successful game. An example from a classic game would be in Monopoly where players have to decide weather they should buy a particular property or not. During the first few trips around the game board, players have to decide weather they should buy that particular property or not. Each property increases in cost the more the player progresses around the game board. The cheapest property is 60$ and the most expensive is $400, with the more expensive property yielding higher rewards. This gives players a decision and the players that buy the key pieces usually are able to start using these resources (bought properties) to eventually incur an advantage, which is collecting property rent whenever another player lands on a space you own.

In League of Legends, the resource gathering is ongoing. Most champions gain gold by “farming”, slaying opposing champions, or destroy enemy structures. Farming is when you kill minions to acquire gold and experience. Minions offer small amounts of golds and experience, but since minions are abundant and easy to kill, the reward for slaying them adds up quickly. A champion kills are much harder to get, but reward a much larger sum of gold to the assailant. Another way teams can acquire quick gold is by destroying a turret. Which rewards the team with global gold.

Turing gathered resources into an advantage

Using monopoly as another example, when you start collecting rent from other players you can start using the extra income to further your lead. This is the stage in the game where you start forming an advantage. Once you get to this stage faster than your opponents you can surmount an almost irreversible advantage, especially If you are able to acquire all properties of one particular color. Players have to buy properties on 3 specific squares of the same color in order to get a larger reward when another player lands on the square and you collect the rent from them. is to give other players time to interact and prevent a player from getting too far ahead.

In League Of Legends. there are multiple ways to turn the gathered resources into an advantage. When champions get enough gold, they can purchase really strong items to make them stronger. If a champion has an item advantage over an enemy champion they will be more likely be able to win a confrontation with the opposing champion. One way for your team to get sure advantage is by destroying the enemy’s turrets first and preventing your enemy from doing the same to you. Destroying turrets not only allows your team to push further into your opponents base, it also gives each member of your team gold. Teams can use this gold to destroy even more turrets or to concentrate the gold into winning team fights to enable your team to eventually win the game.