Thoughts On Wanting to Play League of Legends Again

I’ve been watching a lot of random stuff on Twitch lately and one of those things is League of Legends streams. I don’t know why, but I find them pretty interesting to listen to. The game has changed a lot since I last played, and there’s tons of new characters that I don’t recognize. It’s also interesting to see a variety of people playing a variety of champions.

The game does seem to have chilled out a bit though. Watching these matches, things seem less toxic. Maybe it’s because I’m watching higher level streamers, but the anger isn’t nearly as over the top as it used to be. Hardly anyone in-game actually says anything, and even then, most of the time, when they do speak, it’s inconsequential. Generally just a GG as the game ends or something. It’s actually quite weird to see, because League of Legends was always touted to be a super toxic game. And back when I played, it really was. It was so easy to get flamed, even in normal games. And the fun game modes, like ARAM, were not excluded from toxicity either. Riot Games though has somehow turned things around, and, while you do still get people who intentionally fuck up, it’s less common, and the in-game chat is filled only with pings.

That doesn’t stop streamers getting angry though. I’ve seen a couple get pissed off at their team mates. One in particular had died a lot and was complaining that his team didn’t go and do Baron even though he was there too and could have started Baron himself. It was quite funny watching the guy complain. Needless to say, he lost that match, and pretty badly too.

Part of me does want to try the game out again. There’s a lot more for me to do now, and they have new game modes occasionally as well. Coming soon is a 2v2v2v2 game mode where you take it in turns to fight each team, with no other objectives. ARAM is also still a game mode, although Twisted Treeline and Dominion died a long time ago. A lot more has changed in the game too. The dragons now affect the terrain on the map, there are lots of new items to buy, the recommended items are no longer garbage and actually account for different roles and characters and the game overall just looks a lot better. We have plenty of new characters to try, plenty of reworked characters and also new mechanics as well. That being said, my old-time favourite, Cho’Gath, is still without a visual update or anything.

Overall though, I probably won’t reinstall the game. It’s too competitive for me, and there’s no real way to chill out. And I can’t really go back to just playing Coop VS AI because even intermediate bots are simply too easy. I don’t see a middle ground. Plus, while things do seem somewhat chill at higher levels of gameplay, I’m pretty sure that toxicity is still rumbling about in lower levels. Lower levels where I’d probably end up.

On top of that, I don’t even know if my old account still exists. I haven’t accessed it in years. At the same time, I kinda don’t really want to make a new account, because there were champions and skins on my old account that I don’t really want to re-grind for.

Oh well. I can always just get my excitement from watching other people play. They take the pressure and stress so I don’t have to.