League of Legends

About the Game

League of Legends is a Free-To-Play MOBA-type game available for PC. Published on 27 October 2009, the game of the american developer studio Riot Games has gained "a level of academic attention appropriate for its significance on both the eSports industry and the contemporary game culture." According to PC GAMER in a press release to the 10th anniversary in October 2019, League of legends reaches about 8 million player logins everyday and is therefore one of the most popular and relevant games throughout the gaming culture these days.

Core Game Mechanics

Summoner´s Rift

Standart Game on ‚Summoner´s Rift‘

In a standard game, which usually lasts between 15 minutes and one hour, two teams composed of 5 players clash on the battle arena called ‚summoner's rift‘, each of them controlling one of 148 currently available champions (January, 2019). The Rift is a square area with a diagonal riverbed dividing the pitch into two halves. Those separated sections are in control of each team: In the bottom left corner lies the base with the so called ‚spawn point‘ (starting point of the player´s champions) and the ‚Nexus‘ of the ‚blue‘ team. The upper right corner is the base location of the opposing team ‚red‘. As shown in the picture on the right, there are also the three lanes 'Top', 'Middle' and 'Bottom', which connect the team bases and by intersecting with the riverbed frame the four remaining zones: known as the jungle'.

Nexus, Turrets, Minions and Monsters

To win the game, the opponents ‚nexus‘ must be destroyed. Deep in the center of a base it is protected by two heavy turrets, which have to be demolished first. The way to get there along the lanes is fortified with further turrets, three of which reinforce the entrances to a base and two more are positioned on each lane, to control a certain area and provide visibility and protection for the player´s champions. Once the first minute mark has passed, the actual game begins with the spawning of ‚minions‘ and ‚monsters‘. These NPCs are mainly intended to generate gold for the players if killed by them. While monsters are placed in their fixed positions in the jungle and only engage in the game when being attacked, the minions spawn in waves of 30 seconds in the bases of both teams and march in groups along each lane towards each other to meet in the middle of the field. They attack enemy minions, turrets and champions in their way and, as the game progresses, slowly make their way towards the enemy nexus.

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Research-Relevant Topics of the Game

Playing the Meta - The Mategame of League of Legends

Using the typology created by Michael S. Debus in his elaboration of a metagame ontology and the work of the researcher Scott Donaldson: Mechanics and Metagame: a binary expertise in League of Legends (2015), in this chapter various aspects of the LoL-Metagame will be discussed.

For more information on this research approach, see: Metagaming

In the era of digital video game distribution services, such as Steam and Early Access Games, the industry has shifted increasingly from finished games as closed systems, to open ones that are been developed continuously even (or especially) after their release. League of Legends is no exception, rather a prime example: Developer Riot Games releases new patches every month to provide new game content (like new or remade champions, skills, skins or map changes), balance changes, bug fixes and other technical issues. As a result, the game can never be considered complete and has been developed steadily since its release. This has a great impact on the surrounding metagame, which constantly changes and transforms with the game itself. During this act of game transformation, different forms of the play are shaped over time and geographical and social domains. Debus points out for rule metagame case studies (but arguably for metagame case studies in generell) that it's important to "[...] explicitly state what timeframe and geographical location the research covers."

Metagame Environment: The surrounding Game Culture - Social and Added-Material Metagame

Picture Section of the Recommended Aatrox Rune-Build.

Picture Section of the Win-Rate Statistic of Aatrox

Keeping in mind that a large part of this culture is located in the asian hemisphere, this elaboration only covers data of the english speaking areas, however the league of legends culture has always been internationally connected. To start with the network of theorycraft, there are some types of websites and softwares to cover. One is the League of Legends meta board on reddit, as a forum created in 2011, were players engage with each other in order to exchange views and discuss the game, its mechanics and current metas in every imaginable form. Related to this there are softwares like discord, were communities can create servers for similar reasons. Donaldson underlines the fact, that this shows metagaming as an collaborative group activity, despite metagaming can be an individual subjective practice. Another type of external resource are youtube videos, or video content in generell. The So you want to main- playlist (2015-2018) of the youtube channel bricky serves as a good and popular example. In his video series the youtuber gives an entertaining but still informative overview about specific champions, their lore, strengths and weaknesses and how to play them, by sharing his own experience and referring to what can be called the champion meta it this time. When it comes to third party software and websites which gathers statistics and information about the game, among several other providers, a significant website is op.gg. The website provides for instance statistics about win/lose- and pick/ban- rates of and rune- or item-builds for champions on the different game roles (e.g. top-lane, support or jungle), statistics about every player account or the overall current leaderboard of the ranked play.

Third Party Applications – Modifications, Hacks & Cheating

A stance of Riot says: "No software should interfere directly with the in-game player experience, from when you press “Play” to the end-of-game screen." Modding is a pupular practice in the context of digital games, which connects to the added material metagame. For League of Legends, as a competitive e-sport game, it is more problematic than to other games (e.g. Minecraft). What is meant in this official stance of Riot is that competitive play is designed to ensure that every player starts with the same basic conditions and while their are mods, that surely doesn't intercept with that concept and free to use, others does: "We don’t like applications that provide measurable player advantage. We’d like to set fair expectations by calling out some features that definitely aren’t okay." One specific website for League Of Legends Modifications is, for instance https://lol-mod.com. Compared to the number of players of league of Legends, however, the number of users of such modifications is very low.

Worlds Championship & Championship series - The League of Legends E-Sport Scene

As a closer to season one in 2011, Riot Games organized the first Worlds Championship of League of Legends. While there were other competitive tournaments even in this early years, the Worlds Championship set the start for the history making e-sport story league of legends has written. Starting in 2012, Riot Games in corporation with third parties, also launches the League of Legends Championship Series, firstly limited to North America, but till 2020 expanded to Europa, Korea, China and other nations and regions. Also more regional leagues has been launched over the years and created huge connected structure of international competitive league systems. A great sports culture has emerged over nearly a decade (status 2020), and continues to transform itself as what some would call a game around the game – with processes of commercialization, sponsorship, journalism and many other cultural implications.

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The toxic Community & the Summoners Code – Strategy Metagame

The League of Legends community is known for its toxicity. Reasons for this are much discussed on the community platforms. As in other competitive games, LoL has an in-game chat function that enables players to communicate with teammates and supports the ping system that provides the possibility to place symbols on the map to share certain information about players own or enemy actions.The game also has an All-Chat feature to communicate with the opponents. Not only used for team coordination, a lot of trashtalk and verbal harassment takes place within this chat function. This can be linked to what happens during the game, other than the game itself, from Garfield's definition and is localized within Debus ontology as a strategy metagame. Psychological demoralization of the opponent is possible, but each player can manually switch off the All-Chat, as well as the in-game chat with team players. Fascinating is that insults and harassment of the own team players seems to be the case more often, when it comes to players that are not playing as the pleased to do, depending on how the game should be played (rule metagame). Riot Games developed the Summoner's Code in cooperation with the community to face this problematic in combination with a reporting system. This can be argued as another metagame process.

The various Forms of Rule Metagames

From a competitive perspective, the metagame is the best approach to win a game, depending on the current conditions of its mechanics and their players understanding and actual utilization. In Debus ontology this refers to the rule metagame. This rule metagame appears in various forms and magnitudes. Terms like

Rule Metagame of less skillful Players

Forms of rule metagames. Splitt push meta, jungle meta & double top lane meta, Break or counter the meta; Meta of less skillful players

If, for the moment, we accept the connectedness of theorycraft and metagames, another factor for the shifts in theorycrafting are local metagames [13, p. 3] (and therefore theorycrafts). These are metagames that evolve within specific geographical or social domains. Commonly known are, for example, the differences between the Asian metagames and their North American or European counterparts. Similarly, we might distinguish between high level metagames and casual metagames. These local metagames potentially influence each other, as players seek advantages in their strategies that are beyond their own domain. (3)  

Picking occurs in a specific order, with one team starting to ban a certain hero (excluding it from being picked). (6) Following this there are turns of picks and bans. This system, combined with the suggestions of the metagame, result in a game-like situation of picks and counterpicks, as both teams are pursuing the goal of picking a (according to the current rule metagame) superior team. (6)

Gathering data from professional players, casters, and fora is only a representation of the metagame as developed by the elite. This would neglect the existence of different rule metagames for less skillful players. (7)

-> Beispiel Master Yi, der im professionellen Lol kaum gespielt wird, da er mit hohem mechanischem Skill leicht gekontert werden kann. Gleichzeitig ist er sehr beliebt bei schwächeren Spielern, da er, sofern er nicht früh genug aufgehalten wird, nicht mehr zu stoppen ist.

Related Research Approaches

Competitive Gaming

Metagaming