Will these ‘Intro Bots’ make League of Legends easier to understand?

By Dave Cook

League of Legends may appear to be a bit of a minefield to newcomers, and after realising that the MOBA’s current tutorial isn’t that great, developer Riot Games has discussed plans to make things easier to understand.

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Over on the League of Legends blog, Riot explained why it feels the game’s tutorial needs revamped.

“As a veteran player, it’s easy to forget all the things a brand-new player has to pick up,” Riot writes. “I’m sure we all remember some of the strange things we did when we first started playing – perhaps trying to smite champions or use abilities on turrets.

“We see new players of all sorts struggle with the same basics time and again, and even Beginner Co-Op vs AI matches often prove too much at once with too little direction for someone still learning how to move and cast.”

To aid these players, Riot Games has pledged to introduce Intro Bots. This new bot tier will be available in co-op versus AI play, and matches against them will include new systems geared towards teaching newcomers the basics before throwing them to the wolves.

Riot went on, “As it stands, Battle Training is undermined by jarring interruptions and nebulous goals, while Beginner bots often proves far too challenging for first-time Summoners.

“We want Intro Bots to be a place where new players can experience the fun of League while they learn, so we’ve taken some liberties in order to reduce potential frustration. By tuning damage dealt and bot behavior we can give new players more time to react to new and dangerous situations, and by reducing death timers we can make mistakes less punishing while still allowing failure as a learning experience. The end result should be more learning through experimenting, and hopefully, more fun.”

Riot expects the new Intro Bots to hit the League of Legends public beta environment soon.

There’s more over on the Riot blog, but it seems that the studio has been listening to the complaints of new players while observing how they play.

Do you think you’d give League of Legends a bigger chance with this new learning curve?

Via RPS.

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