Dipping my Toe back into League of Legends

Daily Ramble 137: Dipping my Toe back into League of Legends

The other day both the PC and PS4 SMITE servers were down for maintenance and I was itching for some MOBA action after having played some FFXIV and Civ VI. So I dared to fire up League for the first time in months. Speaking of which, I was planning on putting together a post to cover the games I played last year but I’ve been too busy lately – maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, I patched up League and tried to see how things were in that world again…and hmmm…things have changed.

I still don’t know all the details or how each change impacts my play style, but I went ahead and threw down a few games and here are some thoughts.

Game Speed

Coming from the first person world of SMITE, League seems slow. I’ve grown used to the wasd movement keys or the PS4 controller to get around but it was a quick mental readjustment to go back to the mouse click movement. Sure, I still see myself outta position a bit more as I drag my mouse around, but it’s not as bad as that first game.

New Runes

Oh man! The biggest change I can see comes in the form of new Runes. Riot pretty much got rid of the previous rune system and threw together a new type of Rune categorization. They basically seem to have the “runes” broken down into 5 main types of gameplay called paths…Domination, Inspiration, Precision, Sorcery, and Resolve. But you get a primary and secondary path and from those paths you chose 4 and 2 of the new “runes”. So you can pick a Sorcery main path with a Resolve secondary and you’d get what I’ve decided on for my support champs. I figure Morgana works well with this set up…at least as far as I can tell right now.

Beyond the primary path, you also get a Keystone rune that gives you more umph and can further define your style.

It all works pretty well from what I can tell and there are default combinations that cover the standard mage, tank, support, and ADC styles.

We’ll see how things work but apparently they’ve gotten rid of Masteries. So between the runes, pages, and other stuff that I paid for, I’m wondering what you get standard and what you get for \[$. And did I get compensation for the $\] that I paid for runes and rune pages, etc.?

Other New Stuff

Some of the other stuff that’s changed are 2 new champions since I’ve been gone. Zoe and Ornn. I’ve seen them in game but haven’t bothered to look at their abilities yet since I’m just getting back up to speed with a few champs that I knew how to play relatively well…Morgana, Zyra, and Lux.

I figure with these 3 champs I can get back into the game and then see if it’ll be worth it to expand out my base of champions.

Honor

The other thing I saw mentioned is an Honor initiative. Apparently Honor is being tracked in a similar fashion to rank. I certainly hope this helps reduce the toxicity in the game which is the primary reason I left for months. I have to do more research on how Honor is gained and lost and how it works with matchmaking, but I have hope.

And so far in the few games I’ve played, I have seen little toxicity, even though I’m still learning how to adjust to the game again. I sure hope things have gotten better in the months I’ve been gone.