No one can doubt that one of the most popular video games in the world is League of Legends, the Riot Games MOBA that began its journey more than 12 years ago and since then it has not stopped improving and considerably expanding the entire universe that surrounds it. That has left us with new characters, game modes and has even received its own animated series.
Perhaps some of you who are reading these lines will know exactly how to play or you are one of those who have been playing for years. In my case it will not be because I have not been encouraged to do it since its inception, since I have friends who have been giving it a hard time for at least a decade and they continue to play almost daily there today, but I saw it as too complicated . It didn’t catch my attention.
However, my mind changed a couple of years ago. At that moment I thought, “why not?“, so I downloaded it, played it and since then it has become by far the title to which I have been able to dedicate the most hours since 2020. However, the hours I’ve spent on Summoner’s Rift, the main game mode of League of LegendsI can count them on the fingers of one hand and I have plenty. But everything has its explanation.
Confinement, the great incentive to play LoL
When the coronavirus spread everywhere we had no choice but to confine ourselves to our homes during the spring-summer of 2020, having to find a way to entertain ourselves without going outside. Personally, at first I didn’t notice a big difference in my situation, since my position as an editor at iGamesNews allows me to work quietly from home, although of course, the pandemic caused me to not be able to see friends and family.
The first few weeks became somewhat bearable, but with the passage of time the people close to us were greatly missed. Faced with a scenario like this, I started looking with my friends some videogame where several of us could get together to hang outuntil it came to light League of Legends, which to me seemed really crazy and I had the feeling that after a couple of games I wasn’t going to like it or I was going to get tired of it quickly. And indeed, it was so.
I was very clear that, unless we were a group of five people, the maximum capacity that a game admits to play in the same group, I was not going to give it a chance, because it would only be necessary for a foreign person to come and mess with me for being a package Simply due to lack of knowledge. More than anything because, unfortunately, in general, the LoL community cannot claim to be especially friendly.
So to this day I don’t remember if the first or second game we played on Summoner’s Rift we won or lost, but that doesn’t matter. The point is that the experience was not very satisfactory. That thing of having to divide into the streets of the map and that each one had a specific task, did not end up calling my attention, because as soon as one failed with his work, bad business.
I may be very much in favor of cooperative titles and helping each other to victory, that I have played World of Warcraft for 15 years for something, but I I was looking for something that did not depend so much on oneself being able to celebrate or not the result. Luckily, the game itself offered me the solution on a plate.
blessed ARAM
It was then that, one step away from uninstalling the MOBA from my computer forever and never touching it with a stick again, my friends told me that there was another way that I might like it better. That’s when I was introduced to the ARAM, las siglas de All Random All Midwhich comes to mean “all random all middle“.
I trusted them and to this day I couldn’t agree more that it was a success. More than anything because here the objective is simpler and it does not penalize in such a brutal way that someone messes it upso at least I didn’t feel so bad if I didn’t do well because I had my friends who could pull the chestnuts out of the fire if things got a bit messy.
But let’s go into details for those who do not know what the thing is, since the mechanics of ARAM are very simple. The ten players, five for each side, start from their respective bases that they have to defend at all costs, because to win you have to knock down the opponents’ bases. Of course, to reach the opposite base it is necessary to cross a bridge in a straight line guarded by some of the most lethal towers.
map of ARAM
All this leaves us with some games in which, although strategy and good coordination are rewarded, are more focused on direct action, because encounters between the different champions do not stop taking place. This is due to the fact that the stage is much smaller and the only lane in which everyone travels is narrower, which is why you do not stop bumping into opponents to continue forward.
That’s why in the end he ended up convincing me, because if they killed me a few times I had my companions by my side to fight side by side, not like in Summoner’s Rift where, depending on the line chosen, I felt lonely and tremendously worried about not doing it right so that the opponents wouldn’t get too much of an advantage. Still, for a few weeks I stuck to my guns about the fact that I refused to play if we weren’t a minimum of four people.
With perseverance (and a lot of patience) the effort paid off
As more weeks and the first months passed, my love for ARAM did not stop growing by leaps and bounds, reaching a point where, today, League of Legends has undoubtedly become the video game to which I have dedicated the most hours since the pandemic thanks to this game mode. There may well have been thousands that I have spent in front of the screen crossing that same bridge that has made me rejoice, suffer, laugh and send the LoL to take winds on more than one occasion.
Over time I lost my fear of playing alone without my friends, because when we played with other people I found that they didn’t get too violent over chat compared to Summoner’s Rift, so that encouraged me to try my luck without the help from anyone else and it certainly wasn’t bad at all. Naturally I don’t consider myself an expert in the game, far from it.hence sometimes I had my failures and my messes and it continues to happen today.
In spite of everything, I made an effort and based on dedicating hours or looking at character guides I learned to dominate a few champions with whom I have obtained the perfect score, an S+, on more than one occasion. The only downside to this mode that I can see is that the hero you get to play is randomly selected, unless you trade him for another that someone on the team has, which leaves you no choice but to learn to play with everyonebut you do not reach a point of specializing in one in particular.
Be that as it may, when I feel like disconnecting, I never miss my daily departure to League of Legends, although in the end some more always end up falling. And without a doubt in this case the saying “never say of this water I will not drink“, because I thought that this game was not going to be for me and in the end the opposite has ended up happening, despite the fact that it is ARAM that I play and not Summoner’s Rift. Anyway, I do not rule out trying it one day. I’ll let you know in the next few weeks.
