Hey there, About Game Design returns.
As I mentioned in my previous article (posted quite a while back), I'm going to analyze a few of the key gameplay components and design philosophy Riot Games has built League of Legends around. Keep in mind none of this is confirmed by Riot, they are simply my own musings and analysis! It's up to you to evaluate whether the ideas presented here make sense. In any case, many of the principles I describe here are what League has done right - conventionally accepted game design strategies Riot has followed in its game.
Hopefully these design concepts resonate with you as evidence of what can make a great game. In a future article, I will give my opinions on what League can do better and needs to improve on.
One trait in common between all well-received games is that they have a single core mechanic or objective. It's important to clearly define your fundamental game mechanic and convey that to the player. League does this well - your objective is to destroy the enemy team's towers (and eventually their base) to achieve victory.
The core mechanic is simple and easy to understand. New players instantly know what to do, although they may not know how to do it; there are many different strategies and actions the player can take to achieve the goal of destroying the enemy base (depending on the champions chosen for each team, overall macro-strategy, etc.), and the novelty of approaching the objective in numerous ways keeps players interested.
And every champion brings something new to the table, something fresh - I'm not talking about each hero's gameplay, but rather his/her lore and backstory. Riot has created a wonderful universe with a massive cast of characters, each having a unique place. Each character has his/her own creative design and background; with 117 champions currently released, its extremely likely each player will find a hero they like thematically. Riot has done a great job exploring many fantasy character archetypes in their game, appealing to millions of players with varying tastes and preferences in the process. From a creative design perspective, League of Legends has done well. In LoL, the focus of the game is primarily on the gamplay, not the lore and backstory (for other games, the story is the foremost appeal); but Riot has used the game's story and champion lore to further their goal of creating an immersive gameplay experience.
League of Legends is an extremely popular game - so popular that's its become arguably the world's foremost esport. LoL is played professionally all around the globe; highly competitive teams within each region battle each other to be eligible to head to the world championship held each fall. It's important to recognize the balance between skill and chance Riot has defined in their game, now accepted internationally as an esport.
In fact, there are almost no game elements that rely on chance in League of Legends. Critical strike chance is probably the only truly RNG mechanic the game has, and even then it's designed to be pseudo-RNG (each successive hit that doesn't crit will increase your chance to crit on your next hit. Likewise, critting consecutively will slightly lower your chance to do so on your next attack). It wouldn't be too far fetched to compare League of Legends to chess - all the game 'pieces' are known in advance - nothing's going to jump out at you; the winner is purely decided through execution, teamplay, and strategy.
And that's what it takes for a game to be accepted competitively - skill has to be the deciding factor. This is an important design consideration in games - the balance between luck and skill. I don't want to go too deeply into this topic (there's tons of great articles out there already on the subject, and I've already discussed it a bit in some earlier posts), but to summarize briefly - luck can be very good design element to introduce. It keeps things fresh, keeps players guessing, and can create surprising and fun situations for the player (e.g. the airdrop crate killstreak in Call of Duty. You could get an AC-130 barrage, or a UAV >_>). Designing their game to be competitive, Riot made the decision to almost entirely eliminate random elements from League. Within the skill-driven gameplay however, Riot has allowed for numerous aspects of skill to influence the outcome.
There are essentially two types of skill in video games - strategic skill and "twitch" skill. Strategic skill is essentially high level macro and decision making ability - players who think deeply about in-game issues, theorycraft about the games they play, and enjoy analyzing the risks and tradeoffs of different choices gravitate towards games with a high degree of strategic skill. On the other hand, "twitch" skill is embodied by games like Rock Band and many first-person-shooters. It's all about precision, timing, and quick reactions to in-game events.
In League of Legends, both elements of skill are present in abundance. Thus, the game appeals to players from both ends of the spectrum! There's a great deal of strategic decision making to make in the game, whether it be in your team tactics, item builds, or even ability leveling order. Reaction time and precision are also extremely important elements when it comes to landing skillshots and avoiding dangerous abilities your opponents use. Highly cerebral players will enjoy the strategic elements while extremely mechanical gamers will love the thrill of landing that clutch spell. Some degree of competency is required in both areas to succeed, but players can focus on one of these areas to improve on - each player's champion choice may also reflect their preference towards one of these skill 'domains'.
In my opinion, the strongest game design element a developer can include in a game is that of giving the player choices. Game designers should facilitate and encourage players to make choices; player decision making leads to excellent and robust gameplay. Whether it be in Runes, Masteries, and of course, choosing what champion to play, players have many avenues to make unique and meaningful decisions both in and outside of the actual match.
The final topic I want to discuss isn't exactly a game design element, but it's something which is fundamentally critical to game design all the same - iteration and revision of game mechanics. League of Legends is well known for its game balance patches; but even these patches themselves go through multiple stages of revision and testing before they are pushed onto the live servers. Each champion, during its development, has numerous evaluations and tests done on its creative design as well as gameplay patterns. These tests are conducted in-house and through public beta playtesting. And even after release, the iteration doesn't stop! Community feedback and in-game statistics are analyzed by the designers to further refine the gameplay.
Game design cannot be done in a vacuum; it would be folly to implement things from concept to completion without testing the idea and getting feedback on it at regular and frequent intervals. You can't truly know how a game element works until you playtest it - any number of factors can make the idea come out worse in-game than it sounded in your head.
Riot is fantastic when it comes to practicing the principle of iterative design. Their final releases may take more time than other companies, but the end result is almost always quite polished and clean (and even more so in recent months).
So that's about it for this article, I hope you got something out of it. These are just a few of the game design principles used well in League of Legends, there's tons of other awesome stuff going on (like with social/community interaction, art, etc.). I just wanted to touch on a couple for now, I may revisit this topic again in the future. For my next article, however, we'll switch things up a bit by discussing some of the gameplay in League of Legends which I think could be improved >_>. No game is perfect! (iteration, remember?) It'll be more technical - I'll talk about some specifics within the game - so check back soon.
That's all for now. Leave your comments on this post or a suggestion below, I appreciate any and all feedback! Peace,
Kannan
As I mentioned in my previous article (posted quite a while back), I'm going to analyze a few of the key gameplay components and design philosophy Riot Games has built League of Legends around. Keep in mind none of this is confirmed by Riot, they are simply my own musings and analysis! It's up to you to evaluate whether the ideas presented here make sense. In any case, many of the principles I describe here are what League has done right - conventionally accepted game design strategies Riot has followed in its game.
One trait in common between all well-received games is that they have a single core mechanic or objective. It's important to clearly define your fundamental game mechanic and convey that to the player. League does this well - your objective is to destroy the enemy team's towers (and eventually their base) to achieve victory.
The core mechanic is simple and easy to understand. New players instantly know what to do, although they may not know how to do it; there are many different strategies and actions the player can take to achieve the goal of destroying the enemy base (depending on the champions chosen for each team, overall macro-strategy, etc.), and the novelty of approaching the objective in numerous ways keeps players interested.
And every champion brings something new to the table, something fresh - I'm not talking about each hero's gameplay, but rather his/her lore and backstory. Riot has created a wonderful universe with a massive cast of characters, each having a unique place. Each character has his/her own creative design and background; with 117 champions currently released, its extremely likely each player will find a hero they like thematically. Riot has done a great job exploring many fantasy character archetypes in their game, appealing to millions of players with varying tastes and preferences in the process. From a creative design perspective, League of Legends has done well. In LoL, the focus of the game is primarily on the gamplay, not the lore and backstory (for other games, the story is the foremost appeal); but Riot has used the game's story and champion lore to further their goal of creating an immersive gameplay experience.
 |
| Yasuo, the Unforgiven. Awesome, badass samurai struggling to restore his honor? Yes please. |
League of Legends is an extremely popular game - so popular that's its become arguably the world's foremost esport. LoL is played professionally all around the globe; highly competitive teams within each region battle each other to be eligible to head to the world championship held each fall. It's important to recognize the balance between skill and chance Riot has defined in their game, now accepted internationally as an esport.
In fact, there are almost no game elements that rely on chance in League of Legends. Critical strike chance is probably the only truly RNG mechanic the game has, and even then it's designed to be pseudo-RNG (each successive hit that doesn't crit will increase your chance to crit on your next hit. Likewise, critting consecutively will slightly lower your chance to do so on your next attack). It wouldn't be too far fetched to compare League of Legends to chess - all the game 'pieces' are known in advance - nothing's going to jump out at you; the winner is purely decided through execution, teamplay, and strategy.
And that's what it takes for a game to be accepted competitively - skill has to be the deciding factor. This is an important design consideration in games - the balance between luck and skill. I don't want to go too deeply into this topic (there's tons of great articles out there already on the subject, and I've already discussed it a bit in some earlier posts), but to summarize briefly - luck can be very good design element to introduce. It keeps things fresh, keeps players guessing, and can create surprising and fun situations for the player (e.g. the airdrop crate killstreak in Call of Duty. You could get an AC-130 barrage, or a UAV >_>). Designing their game to be competitive, Riot made the decision to almost entirely eliminate random elements from League. Within the skill-driven gameplay however, Riot has allowed for numerous aspects of skill to influence the outcome.
There are essentially two types of skill in video games - strategic skill and "twitch" skill. Strategic skill is essentially high level macro and decision making ability - players who think deeply about in-game issues, theorycraft about the games they play, and enjoy analyzing the risks and tradeoffs of different choices gravitate towards games with a high degree of strategic skill. On the other hand, "twitch" skill is embodied by games like Rock Band and many first-person-shooters. It's all about precision, timing, and quick reactions to in-game events.
 |
| Rock Band, a great example of 'twitch' skill gaming. Timing and rhythm are key! |
In League of Legends, both elements of skill are present in abundance. Thus, the game appeals to players from both ends of the spectrum! There's a great deal of strategic decision making to make in the game, whether it be in your team tactics, item builds, or even ability leveling order. Reaction time and precision are also extremely important elements when it comes to landing skillshots and avoiding dangerous abilities your opponents use. Highly cerebral players will enjoy the strategic elements while extremely mechanical gamers will love the thrill of landing that clutch spell. Some degree of competency is required in both areas to succeed, but players can focus on one of these areas to improve on - each player's champion choice may also reflect their preference towards one of these skill 'domains'.
In my opinion, the strongest game design element a developer can include in a game is that of giving the player choices. Game designers should facilitate and encourage players to make choices; player decision making leads to excellent and robust gameplay. Whether it be in Runes, Masteries, and of course, choosing what champion to play, players have many avenues to make unique and meaningful decisions both in and outside of the actual match.
The final topic I want to discuss isn't exactly a game design element, but it's something which is fundamentally critical to game design all the same - iteration and revision of game mechanics. League of Legends is well known for its game balance patches; but even these patches themselves go through multiple stages of revision and testing before they are pushed onto the live servers. Each champion, during its development, has numerous evaluations and tests done on its creative design as well as gameplay patterns. These tests are conducted in-house and through public beta playtesting. And even after release, the iteration doesn't stop! Community feedback and in-game statistics are analyzed by the designers to further refine the gameplay.
Game design cannot be done in a vacuum; it would be folly to implement things from concept to completion without testing the idea and getting feedback on it at regular and frequent intervals. You can't truly know how a game element works until you playtest it - any number of factors can make the idea come out worse in-game than it sounded in your head.
Riot is fantastic when it comes to practicing the principle of iterative design. Their final releases may take more time than other companies, but the end result is almost always quite polished and clean (and even more so in recent months).
So that's about it for this article, I hope you got something out of it. These are just a few of the game design principles used well in League of Legends, there's tons of other awesome stuff going on (like with social/community interaction, art, etc.). I just wanted to touch on a couple for now, I may revisit this topic again in the future. For my next article, however, we'll switch things up a bit by discussing some of the gameplay in League of Legends which I think could be improved >_>. No game is perfect! (iteration, remember?) It'll be more technical - I'll talk about some specifics within the game - so check back soon.
That's all for now. Leave your comments on this post or a suggestion below, I appreciate any and all feedback! Peace,
Kannan
The demand and interest for game designing has been increasing in the present day because of the innovation of the computers, laptop and ipads.
ReplyDeleteI know the League of Legends is an extremely popular game - so popular that's its become arguably the world's foremost esport. LoL is played professionally all around the globe; highly competitive teams within each region battle each other to be eligible to head to the world championship held each fall.Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteGame Design
Game designing institutes with degree and diploma courses have increased in number to meet the requirement of the students around!
ReplyDelete