5 reasons you should try League of Legends if you've never played a MOBA game before

Here’s an embarrassing thing for a game blog editor to admit: before a couple of weeks ago, I had never played a MOBA game. There were a lot of reasons for this: I used to be a tech blog editor and didn’t have time, there were too many other games I wanted to play anyway, and I didn’t really understand why I’d want to play a MOBA game over a straight-up RTS like Warcraft 3 or Starcraft 2. But the real reason is that I was scared.

To an outsider, the MOBA gaming world looks extremely complex. It doesn’t help that it’s full of incomprehensible acronyms and terms — what the hell is CS? ADC? What does “push top” mean? — and that MOBA gamers have a reputation for being both mean and unforgiving. From the outside looking in, my expectation was that in League of Legends I would spend most of my time being yelled at by more experienced players for screwing up their game.

My experience over the past couple of weeks hasn’t bourne that out, though. So if you’re interested but intimidated by the world of MOBA as it continues to dominate global gaming and esports, here are five reasons why you should take the plunge and dive in.

1. It’s not as hard to pick up as you think

Because League of Legends is so popular, there are tons of resources out there for new players. This begins in the game itself, which has a basic tutorial and co-op vs. AI bots game modes that allow you to learn the basics and experiment in a less high-pressure environment. At some point, of course, you’re going to want/need to dive into the PvP deep end, but even that isn’t as bad as you may be expecting because the game automatically matches you with other players at your in-game level, which usually means you’re playing with other newbies.

But if you really want to understand what you’re getting into, including the “meta” aspects of the game like which type of champion should play in which lane, there are tons of third-party resources available for that, too. I watched this video from IGN before my first match and found it to be pretty helpful in going through the basics in a real in-game scenario, but if this doesn’t do it for you, there are tons of other videos and sites out there to help you learn to play well.

2. You don’t need to know as much as you think

League of Legends (like any MOBA, really) is an absurdly deep game. Dozens of champions, tons of items, each with their own unique abilities and powers — it seems like too much to learn fast. And it is too much to learn, but as a beginner, you really don’t have to. To start with, you can just pick one or two of the easier characters and stick to them. Then you just have to learn a few basic things. For example, one of the champions I’ve played a lot is Garen, so with him all I really need to know is which of a few items are the best for him (the game recommends some automatically), which lane he should play in, and how his four major abilities work. So while the game is very complex, if you limit yourself to one or two roles and one or two characters at first, you can make things a lot simpler. Then, as you continue playing you’ll learn more about other characters, items, and abilities naturally as you run into them.

3. The community isn’t as toxic as you think

Admittedly, I’m still at a pretty low level, so League is still matching me up with other beginners. When I reach higher levels, I’m sure I’ll run into the game’s famously-unforgiving player base. But I have to say that in my first couple weeks of playing the game, almost everyone I’ve met in-game has been friendly, forgiving, and helpful. If I had known the game’s beginner community was this cool, I wouldn’t have been worried about being abused before I knew what I was supposed to be doing.

4. The monetization isn’t as greedy as you think

It’s no secret that I’m not a huge fan of freemium games; I like the concept but nine times out of ten the execution is off and the games end up being pay-to-win affairs or simply impossible to play at all without paying. League of Legends seems to have gotten it exactly right, though. There’s more than enough there to have fun with if you never want to pay a dime, and the things you have to pay real money for are superfluous things like character skins. (All the champions themselves can be purchased with IP, the in-game currency you earn for completing games, although some of them are priced pretty steeply). It’s the kind of free-to-play game that makes you want to buy in-game items, but not because you need to, just because the game is fun. Speaking of which…