Last week I was introduced to League of Legends. Much to my surprise (because I'm not really the type of person who likes PvP and playing with random strangers normally) I'm actually quite enjoying it.
For anyone who doesn't know the game, it goes a little something like this: there are two teams of five, and the objective of the game is to destroy everything that the other team holds dear. Towers, inhibitors, their big glowy crystal in their base... and them too, if they get close enough and don't run away in time. It's based on Defence of the Ancients from Warcraft III, which I have to take Wikipedia's word on because I've never played it. And there are Champions to play. Oh, there are many Champions.
LoL (yes, that's its short form) is free-to-play, and every week provides you with 10 free Champions out of its pool of 111. Of course, those 10 change each week, so if you've become particularly attached to one particular Champion then you can buy them to use whenever, which is where the micro-transactions come in. Either you buy points to buy the Champions (and special skins that change their appearance) or you earn your points the hard way by playing and winning matches. Currently I'm doing the latter; slowly grinding my way to a Caitlyn of my very own.
In the meantime though, while I'm doing that, I've found myself playing Soraka in matches. It seems that no matter what game I play (with the exception of WoW, where the first time I tried a healer the rest of the dungeon group said I was terrible and I slunk back to my Warlock in shame) I end up gravitating to a healer/support role. Don't get me wrong, I like shooting people, blowing shit up and generally DPSing like a mofo, but... There's something about support roles that just appeals to my OCD nature.
And it does appeal. I can't stand it when green bars aren't at full, and will my heals to recharge faster, faster. If someone dies on my team I wince and feel guilty that I wasn't there to save them (LoL being a game where you can generally only heal one, maybe two people at a time). If the person I'm supporting dies, I'm just about ready to commit seppuku. Interrupting a heal to run away from oncoming death is something many people have had to beat into me, and I still haven't managed it. I am the OCD healer... and yet despite the anxiety, I actually quite enjoy it.
My friend who introduced me to LoL was watching me play earlier today, and commented that I was doing a lot better than he'd expected me to considering I'd only been playing a week. I was mildly confused by this, as as far as I can see the tactics are pretty simple - try not to die, run away a lot, heal a lot if you're support or shoot minions a lot otherwise. (Okay, I've still got a small problem with the running away sometimes, desperately trying to stay in range of someone to heal them one more time and suddenly finding the whole of the enemy team giving me a group hug of death.) So maybe I've got some potential in the game. But not right now, as I'm only level 8 and still faceplant if someone breathes too hard on me.
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