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The best worst game I've ever hated to love

This is the game review. Here you can find the music review of
League of Legends.

League of Legends League of Legends - a global phenomenon. A game that inspires millions of players and pays out prize money in similar dimensions to professional teams. A game that has been growing for 10 years and dominated the market for a while - until Fortnite came along. Although LoL LoL. The studio recently announced seven new games in the LoL. The studio recently announced seven new games in the League of Legends-universe. On the one hand, this means that the brand is still a money-printing machine today and generates enough profit to finance seven developments in parallel. On the other hand, it also shows that new areas and target groups are being tapped into.

Perhaps also because they need to be tapped into? Has the story of the MOBA been told, similar to that of the battle royale genre, which felt like it was plastered over every game in recent years, as sensible and nonsensical as it was, until players had to shout “stop” loudly to stem the tide? The original PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and the child-friendly adaptation Fortnite are still popular, and League of Legends and Dota 2 don't seem to have to worry about paying customers either. But don't people get tired of the same old thing at some point? It's not for nothing that these games try to evolve with every season, because standing still means boredom. But do you have to reinvent yourself every year, every season? Personally, I say no. But first things first.

The sweet beginning

The first time I came into contact with League of Legends was in the summer of 2011. A good friend told me about this free-to-play game at a LAN party that we should try out. It was called League of Legends. After an agonizing eternity of downloading, I played the tutorial under his watchful eye. The indirect mouse control was unfamiliar, the graphics a matter of taste. But the fact that you could play it together online made the whole thing interesting again. It was the time when joining a game online was always celebrated - at least for me. We played a few rounds together in the 'Top Lane'.

I didn't know any guides, my buddy was my only source of knowledge. I bought the items he suggested, but of course he wasn't a pro either. So, together with Lux and Morgana, we increasingly defeated the bots on the easy difficulty level, tried out different heroes and combinations; it was a time of discovery. And the pure fun of the game. You could talk to your teammates, you laughed together, it was simply casual joy. Of course, there's also a touch of nostalgia here. But I can still remember this initial phase so vividly because it was so special. Here, League of Legends was what it was supposed to be at its core: a game that was fun and brought people together.

But why do I know the exact start date of my LoL-career, nobody asks? Because that's when the champion “Skarner” came out. He was the 81st champion from the pool of heroes you could choose from. 81 different heroes, with different skills and synergies to learn. 81 - that's a lot. Today, League of Legends has 145, almost twice as many as when I started playing the game. No reason to complain, you might think. More content never hurts, especially when the whole thing is free?

Change … is good.

Kha’Zix, the Voidreaver

First of all, the heroes are all great - except for Yasuo, I hate Yasuo. Riot has demonstrably put a lot of work into the background stories, the balance and the different play styles. So far, they've always succeeded. The problem is that at some point it's just too much. Let's take a look at the phenomenon of open-world games: In recent years, more and more games are being released as open world. This may make sense for games that benefit from this expansiveness. A Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or a The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt would only be half as interesting if the game world did not invite exploration. These are role-playing games that benefit from the urge to explore. But if the huge game world is only there for the sake of being there, then something is going wrong.

Prominent example: Tom Clancys Ghost Recon Breakpoint has received a lot of criticism because it doesn't make use of the vastness of the world, exploration degenerates into rattling off question marks on the map and the whole thing doesn't add any value to the actual game. Well, you might think, it's a tactical shooter, not a role-playing game. But it's similar with the much-criticized Mass Effect: Andromeda. I abandoned it after about 20 hours, partly because of the huge and boring planetary surfaces. Of course, other factors also play a role, but I argue that the implementation of an additional game concept only really makes sense if it is also implemented into the existing game in a meaningful way.

What does that mean for League of Legends? Of course, it's good to have a lot of choice in theory. But with every new hero, the complexity, inaccessibility and, above all, imbalance increases. There are also new items, new combinations, new features such as loot boxes and additional game modes. The game is becoming even more bloated, but is moving away from its essence and not necessarily benefiting from the changes. But I don't want to fall into the “everything used to be better” trap. My point is that the sole purpose of these updates is to prevent stagnation and boredom. Because there's nothing worse than a player getting bored of a game, is there?

Play became serious

Let's jump back to my playing days in League, as it is affectionately known. In the meantime, the initial enthusiasm had turned into a love-hate relationship. Because it really was a relationship that I built up with this game and that every gamer probably knows. In the best case scenario, you keep a game in warm and fuzzy memories, maybe take it out again at Christmas and remember back then, wishing you could play it again like the first time. WoW Classic, in which millions of masochists fight their way through the tough grind to level 60, shows that many people feel this way. But if you hate a game, you throw it in the corner, banish it from your PC and never want to see it again. That was (unfortunately) never the case for me with League. The more I played it, and the more I played it with the people I was close to, the more serious I got about it. Basically, it was like a relationship that was slowly moving from carefree polygamy to planning for the future. Except that I didn't want to become a pro gamer and League didn't seem to be interested in sharing an apartment.

It was now 2014 and I had invested so much time in this game that I was bound to be good at it at some point. Changes, updates, new features. I gratefully accepted the alterations and got more and more into it. Gone were the evenings of careless trial and error, of relaxed gaming. I had played all the champions, understood the tactics, watched tutorials and lectured my friends and fellow players on what to do and when to do it. Of course I wanted to win every game, but that's why 'normal' games became irrelevant, meaningless and unexciting. The only thing that mattered were ranking games. I was good - at least that's what I told myself. And if things didn't go my way, it was the others' fault. Always. When I played with my friend in a lane, it was his mistakes that cost us the fight. Me, being considerate? Play more carefully? Why, the pros could do it too! My friends saw it differently and gradually turned their backs on League of Legends . Was it because of the increasingly toxic community? Was it the fixed meta? Or because playing was no longer synonymous with having fun?

Meanwhile, the game drove me on and on. A new champion? Oh, I'll have to learn that now. A new item? Which building order do I need then? Ability X does less damage? Well, I'll get used to it. At its best, it was a captivating experience that constantly challenged you. At its worst, it was an addiction and a waste of time. No, I don't want to start a debate about whether video games are a waste of time in general and whether you shouldn't spend those hours reading a book, going on a trip or curing cancer. But it was a waste of time for me, and I could only rarely derive pure joy from the game. League of Legends had become a drug for me, rewarding me with the little endorphins I got from winning and spurring me on even more with each defeat. There were days when I won two games and lost five. Who' fault was it? “Sure, it was the others. But now I've spent the whole day playing for nothing, I'm even further down the ladder than if I hadn't played”. Not playing was not an option, of course. I knew that I was good and would win again. That's why I set myself a goal: I wanted to get into the Platinum League. At the time, platinum was the top 10-15% of a region and the third highest rank.

“The Climb” - a glorified act of personal surrender

In each new season, your rank from the previous season is displayed as a frame around your character portrait when you start the game. This is basically the only way to stand out from other players. In 2018, League of Legends itself presented the climb through the ranks as an exciting, even heroic event. In truth, as in most games, this process is a constant up-and-down of victory and defeat. One year in my student days, I fought my way to the top, because that's where I belonged. The further I got, the more motivated I became. Then one day there were the promotional matches for my promotion, and I've rarely been as excited in my life as I was in those matches. I didn't make it 2 times, even fell back to Gold II, but then I made it: Platinum V. That was 2014, I had made it. So what was the next logical step? Diamond V of course, the top 5-10%. It started all over again. Together with a similarly ambitious friend, I pushed through. During my “climb”, I noticed that it was more and more often the other team members who were calling the shots and leading their team to victory... and less and less often me. And so it went on for another year, and I actually managed it this time too. Diamond V. I had played through League of Legends . Because I realized that it wouldn't be enough for more. But I had shown everyone, my friends and myself. But what?

The third part of the tragedy

It could have ended there, my story with League. But now that I no longer 'had' to play Rankeds, I could play Normals again - with my friends, just like back then. Unfortunately, the game and I were no longer the same as at the beginning. The mechanics of the game had become too complex, my ego too big. LoL brought out the worst in me. More than once I risked a friendship over a tantrum because I equated the skill of my colleagues with that of Platinum and Diamond players. One momentous day, I punched a hole (or a dent, but hole sounds more dramatic) in my desk out of frustration. Dramatic enough to quit League . I didn't hate the game, I hated myself. It was a lesson in humility for me.

I banned the MOBA from my PC and went through a kind of withdrawal. Although my fingers still itch sometimes nowadays, today's LoL is not the same as back then. Of course, the game is still fun, and for newcomers it may be good that you can no longer play Master Yi AP, while Skarner's Ultimate can use the teleport or items like Deahtfire's Grasp have been removed. Many changes make sense, others are a matter of taste. But it's like the equation with the ship: until when is a ship still the same ship if you gradually replace its planks? It looks the same, but is it the same? In essence, yes, but not in its manifestations. So am I standing bitterly in front of almost 5 years of LoL? Do I want to discourage people from trying the game? Of course not.

Because I undeniably had a lot of fun with League of Legends, otherwise I probably wouldn't have played it for so long. In addition to what it taught me about myself, there are other aspects that I can emphasize positively. Firstly, the wonderful lore: Runeterra has blossomed into a fantasy world that can tell exciting stories even without the game. This must be particularly highlighted when you consider that it is an adaptation of a mod. Well, an adaptation of Warcraft III, which has a gigantic background story, not least thanks to World of Warcraft . But let's be honest, after all these years there is still no satisfactory lore for Counter-Strike ! Joking aside, the second major point follows on directly from this: the cinematics. Hardly any other game has used so many different art styles in its videos, from animation to cartoon. And the fans are also hard-working and deliver great content... even though this is probably the case with most game communities. My last point is my hobbyhorse, the soundtrack. I'll cover it in detail in the corresponding article, but if you want to listen to it, you can do so on Soundcloud. As far as I know, the complete OST is uploaded there. It's worth it!

Now what?

Now that I've written this almost therapeutic article about my eventful LoL-past, it remains to be seen whether I can confirm the statement I made at the beginning. Using League of Legends as an example, I would say yes. Of course, my personal relationship has colored this picture, but in terms of content, I maintain that there is not necessarily a need for further change every year. We see it in the example of FIFA and Call of Duty. Every year, the new releases are published like a prayer wheel. Does the quality improve? Graphically perhaps, but not necessarily in terms of gameplay. Conversely, gamers who have had their fill of the predecessor buy it year after year. Why? Because it's new, and new is synonymous with better.

When I look back, I see a lot of old games that I had a lot more fun with than today's games. Clearly nostalgia, I was young, etc. pp. Recently, for example, I wanted to catch up on the 2004 predecessor in preparation for the new Vampires: The Masquerade – Bloodines 2 , and unfortunately had to stop because it was just too old-fashioned, too bulky. But I'm currently playing Overwatch. That came out in 2016. There are new heroes there too and some of the old ones have been reworked. But at its core, it feels the same as when I first played it. And it's still just as much fun. Maybe that's just my opinion, but there are certainly good examples that prove the opposite. And of course every case is different. I would just like to point out that change at any cost is not the same as progress. And that friendship is more important than a lost game.