LOL? lol

Secondly, the purchase UI seems to have been designed to ensure that a new player can never understand it. I’m sure like all things it becomes clear over time but jeez, did a professional team really work on that thing?

Yes it's professionally designed, like all microtransaction games the shop is the most important feature and they're always designed to be confusing by forcing the user to jump through hoops and use multiple currencies to make it less obvious how much money you end up spending on the game if you're a "whale".

They don't want you to be able to have a direct association between how much money or time anything costs, that's why these games are so predatory and you should not be playing them, regardless of what you think of the actual game itself.

Well, I will say, for a "free" to play game League isn't that bad (especially not when compared to mobile games), or at least not last I played (3~4 years ago) but they still use the same methods.

Also as others have mentioned, the game's reputation in terms of it's community isn't exactly stellar. Being very "toxic".

But what I think is even worse than the language, which you at least can mute, is that the most popular streamer for the game "Tyler1" constantly rages, shouts, screams, destroys equipment and punches furniture etc.

Let's just say if your son starts doing those kinds of things then it's not (only) because they're going through a teenage phase it's probably also because of bad influences from the game and its community.

I have played lol for 10 years. Last week, due to some updates lol doesn't run on Linux at the moment, I switched to dota. I know exactly what you are talking about.

Is that game still the poster child for toxic gamers? Been years since I played but I would never let my kid play that game.

It's sad because it is pretty fun when you get into it and when you have people to play with. But it really only takes one person to ruin a match for nine other people by trolling/feeding/etc. I ended up quitting because it was just WAY too toxic.

The shit people used to say in that game... like nothing I've heard in any other game. Literally talking about

like that's somehow acceptable shit talking. Curious if it's gotten any better... it certainly couldn't have gotten any worse.

Alrighty it's been some years since I've played but a lot of the answers here don't get the full picture.

Everyone talking about toxicity isn't wrong, but that's more often at the high level/ranked levels of play. It can happen in random lobbies of course, but it's far less frequent. What I suggest here is cautiously eyeing the mute all chat. Sometimes it can be helpful to type messages, sometimes people say awful, awful things. From the former, sometimes you can learn. From the latter, it's pointless to even bother to try.

I would suggest keeping in game chat turned off.

Use online build guides - the meta of the game changes pretty consistently based on updates and nerfs to the characters. Your best bet for consistency is picking one character to learn - I suggest going by what feels most fun abilities wise.

Another thing here to keep in mind is there are roles in this game, top is often tanky, mid is often AP heavy, and bottom is often ADC and healer. (may have changed since I played).

Until about level 10 - tanks will be on their own a lot at the beginning, mostly just trying to survive being team-attacked (a gank) and planning with the team when to come in to help.

Mid keeps an eye on top and bottom lane, mostly keeping the other mid-laner occupied. Once in a while you go up top to 2v1 or down bottom to 3v1. Sometimes people come to you, but I wouldn't expect it.

Bottom has to be watchful for ganks, and you need to work with your healer to make sure you get minion kills. You two are pretty much on your own as the only paired teammates, however occasionally a teammate will come down to help push.

During all of this, the first 9 levels or so (may be less, again it's been a while) you will be placing vision items on the ground to avoid being ganked and setting up the items for your late game build. During this You'll want to avoid being killed and major risks. You'll just be following what the build guides say, but it can be helpful to learn what aspects of what you are affecting. In brief, there is magic damage (AP) and physical damage (AD). The ADC class mostly uses AD, but there are characters who can use either/both. The other surrounding stats matter in other ways, but those two are the main focus.

So for example, your ADC character picks items that increase their speed, attack speed, and damage. But now the enemy has an item that mitigates physical attack damage, so you can decide to buy an item that ignores a % of armor.

These items eventually are bought into bigger versions of it, so the item you start with sets you down a path, the other items you choose supplementing what you're missing.

Around level 10 the individual dynamic begins to fade and you begin to group together as a team. During team fights you'll want to stay together with your team, really the best thing overall is to be there when it happens. Around the next 5 levels and depending on the circumstances, your team may go find the monsters who give buffs - there's the dragon which gives the whole team money, and the baron which gives the whole team a buff. These you have to go a little out of the way for, but they can be very strong strategic choices. You can also witness the enemy team fighting these, and attempt to steal the kill for it, giving your team the benefits instead.

Finally, I would say get comfortable with one character of each role. You can't always be _____, sometimes people just pick first. Other than that, just do your best to have fun with your son. Don't worry about min/maxing if it isn't fun, don't worry about other teammates complaining if you are legitimately trying, and for the love of all things don't spend money on this game - it will only unlock characters you can unlock for free or give you visual aesthetic skins that don't actually affect anything. They don't need your support and you don't need their offerings.

There’s a subreddit and discord called Summoners school. Going to drop the discord link below as a lot of us are on lemmy to avoid Reddit.

Mobas are hard because of fundamentals people know and you don’t. Learning some of the basics is a huge step up. Tons of YouTube and guides on summoners school will help with that. Don’t worry though too much about picking the best champion. Below emerald ELO (probably even after that), knowing fundamentals and really knowing “your” champion is a bigger deal. Pick a role you like. Then pick a champion that appeals to you playstyle wise within that role.

Finally don’t let failure get you in a negative headspace. It’s really easy and happens often where you are playing against champions you’ve never dealt with before. If the opponent knows the matchup, odds are you get spanked. That’s okay. Review each death and just note what you could have done different and the next time you play that matchup it will go a lot better. League is a game of who has the most experience in a particular scenario.

Take your time. Push your limits and don’t be afraid to die. People get stuck with this “play safe” mentality and you end up in a lot of games where people miss opportunities because they don’t want to risk a death.

https://discord.gg/summonerschool

That's why I could never get into these games, even at the start as a WC3 map. So little time to actually assess what your choices are. You either need a dozen sessions to actually read everything or just someone to tell you what the good characters and items are.

I would choose a character and concentrate on learning him. There are builds online you can use to not get over whelmed at first by the shop.

I play an other MOBA but there is probably a lane that has two players for most of the match, you should concentrate on playing one of those two types of characters so you and your son can maximise play time together, most likely the tank would be the better choice (more forgiving, easier to learn, support character so your son gets to be the hero).

@TIN perhaps you can find someone making recommendations or stuff. I had a similar experience with Dota 😅

Some tips:

1. /deafen (every single game once you load in)
2. Do not lock screen onto your own hero. Play it like a RTS
3. Play Garen if you are top, Annie if you are mid, DO NOT PLAY JUNGLE
4. Items are confusing but using the default recommendation is fine for newbie.
5. Try practicing against bot to learn how the skill works

Play ARAM and with time you’ll learn the characters. The matches are shorter and you can’t choose the champs, so you’re forced to learn. In ARAM you can only play with champs that you bought and have, or that are in rotation (set of characters that are free to play, changes every week). Because of rotation, you’re more than likely to see the same champs over and over so it makes learning easier. With time you’ll get the hang of it. Have item builds open on second monitor so you can focus on what abilities do instead of figuring out what items to buy.