There is something that hasn't changed that should with this game.

Mean

 

they're not affiliated?

apologies then

 

Not anymore. Sony sold off SOE last year. They're Daybreak Games now. They always were different from the PS branch anyway.

 

Just wanted to drop some thoughts here since there were a few posts about playerbase retention and changes not having the anticipated effect.

I think by far the greatest issue for a new player is overcoming the encyclopedia of effects, abilities, buffs and debuffs to even begin to play pvp matches.

DoG did some work to simplify these, but it is still overwhelming. There are two primary factors contributing to this barrier new players will face: 1) Every champion is customizable. 2) many different modifiers share the same icon and their explanations are nested with more modifiers.

So, you cannot simply memorize a champion and be done with it. You can't say "ok it's that guy, I've seen him before, he does this and that and now I can play around him and go on to read the other champs". You have to click on him, see which path of customization he took, and read up on the new abilities you aren't familiar with.

Then you are faced with seemingly endless abilities. The problem here is that they are nested within themselves like Russian dolls. You can't just see an icon, say "ah okay there's that totally unique symbol, I know exactly what it does". You have to hover over it, read something along the lines of "if X happens to Y, while Z, Q, and W, target Y gains A, B, and C. A: the first D each turn, prevent F. B: For every Z surrounding X, gain Q. C: All W's in play have G. D: Y and Z are no longer P. G: X is no longer affected by B, if X or more B's are in play."

By the time the player finishes reading this his turn has finished.

I think the solutions are simple enough. First off, have the number of the rank of the ability directly on the icon. Regeneration 3? The regeneration icon with the number 3 on it. Second, display other icons in the descriptions of an ability instead of just text. This would at least give the mind some pattern to pick up on, because words become abstractions when they only point to other words defined by even otherer words.

Third, an organization of the abilities/modifiers displayed by their type. Racial, global, combat, passive, etc etc. Instead of just a row of X Q Z J Y B C, for instance, you could have B C | J | Q | X Y Z. Once again, pattern recognition to help the new player begin to know where he is looking, why he is looking, and what he is looking at.

Maybe I will post a new thread with some ideas but I feel implementations like these are essential to keep new players from being overwhelmed and especially on console where a simple interface is required.

 

You did forget one though. "Nerfed every single rune in the game with the revamp!"

We love ya Sokobro, just lose that sledge-nerf hammer and get a smaller one!

 

And give the fresh-faced little blighters a deck of their own, pronto. The idea about ranks showed on the ability icon, though visibility could be a problem, is a good one.

@DrakeArron brought it up in a bug forums thread (though it's certainly been talked about plenty) but a serious database of both runes and rules would help a lot. Something like The Gatherer would be a dream, admittedly.

 

One/two/three little stars on the bottom of the ability icon? Not really on the icon itself, thus not obscuring?

 

Little stars would work great; a system immediately recognizable from many other games.

A couple ideas so far for organizing the ability icons:

1) simply organize them by type with a colored border around the icons in the exact same way Runes are organized in the rune dock. Does the ability interact with champions? Red border. Spells? Blue border. Relics? Green border. Equipment? Purple border.

So now a new player can say "okay I'm going to cast a spell, let me quickly check his champs to make sure. Oh what's this blue bordered ability- spellswallower? Hmm I don't want that".

2) arrange icons by shapes Other than square. So circles are global, triangles are interactive, squares are passive, etc etc. this can also be combined with colored borders for a very quick-glance way of checking the important ability interactions before making a play. Most importantly, it will help people memorize and internalize exactly what an icon does.

 

2 would look horribly garish. 1 might work.