Senior Riot devs say the League of Legends playerbase is getting older, with fewer newbies jumping in: 'Candidly, it's not the same situation it was 10 years ago'

nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksmod to Games@sh.itjust.works – 97 points –
Senior Riot devs say the League of Legends playerbase is getting older, with fewer newbies jumping in: 'Candidly, it's not the same situation it was 10 years ago'
pcgamer.com
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I have multiple thousand hours on DotA but I feel like the problems here might be the same. These games have bloated themselves to the extent that it becomes impossible for a new player to be able to pick up the game because it is near impossible to create and maintain an in game tutorial. With hundreds of heroes/champions it's like a thousand different mechanical interactions and expecting new users to be willing to put up to that is asking for too much.

I remember trying out the beginner mode on DotA a few years ago. Good idea in theory, but in practice I made a single mistake and was blamed for the loss of the entire game. They probably weren't wrong that I tipped the balance towards the enemy side, but it would've been nice to get some pointers or guidance instead of just "GG Harpy". Made me not want to touch the game again.

That's a bit of an unsolvable problem at this stage as well because when not enough new people pick up the game, they can't be matched with new players. Naturally, you end up getting matched with other low skill players who are, in a good number of cases, in that skill bracket because of this behaviour.