Material is adapted from my Spring 2015 course, Analytical Thinking in League of Legends.

 

 

League of Legends (LoL) pits two teams of five versus each other in an online battle arena. One team is declared the winner when it destroys the base of the other. With 67 million monthly players and a competitive scene that is now gaining recognition by traditional sports networks such as ESPN, LoL has begun to dominate the online gaming market. While an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I competed in the Collegiate StarLeague, the designated intercollegiate competitive League of Legends circuit (and an example of absolutely UI, but that's another story). In the summer of 2013, I authored a pair of strategy guides for characters in the game, sitting at 0.8 and 1.1 million views. 

Although my experience was most closely tied to analysis of the competitive scene and gameplay mechanics, one of my passions (and a significant portion of my course) was spent discussing the artistic design improvements within League of Legends as well as artistic patterns apparent in other games. Unlike other video games, League of Legends thrives off a large competitive environment, as well as a large viewer base - indeed, it is attempting to become the premiere eSport. Because of this, design elements must emphasize both player experience and viewer experience.

 

 

 

LoL is now in its fifth season, and has reduced busyness greatly during that time. Back in Season 1, it was difficult for spectators to follow in-game action due to excessively large champion particles that took up major portions of the screen. The issue with excessively large particles is that newer players cannot easily follow the competitive scene, and this barrier to entry will keep the viewer base from growing --- this symptom has been plaguing cricket for years. It will never see a large American following because the rule set of cricket can be somewhat counterintuitive, so there is no motivation to learn it!

 

By Season 2, champion particles had been largely improved. Furthermore, the map was simplified and given a brighter color scheme, improving overall visibility. Game statistics are more readily visible and the players themselves appear in a more professional setting. However, there are still concerns - for example, the character Anivia (played by TPA Toyz) has a wild movement animation due to her flapping wings, and some characters still have excess particles in their movements.

 

By Season 3, the viewer experience of LoL had started to reach its plateau. The fight in this clip is more involved than the clips from Seasons 1 and 2, but for a moderately experienced player it is vastly easier to follow. Champion movements are much more regular, players are shown individually, and all the viewer client elements exist exclusively along the edges of the screen. 

 

Finally, between Season 3 and Season 4, only minor cosmetic changes were made, with the game field simplified a final time to decrease the amount of distractions. During this cosmetic upgrade, other changes (as shown below) were made to lower the amount of colors used and instead focus on a crisper world. Specifically in the image below, you can see the removal of pebbles from the water and the switch from a trichromatic head on the monster shown to a more simplistic dichromatic design on the right.

 

League of Legends developed an aesthetic competitive advantage over Dawn of the Ancients (DotA) specifically in its character design, and the use of dichromatic themes to maintain character simplicity. Taric, for example, has a geometrically complex design but still only consists of a blue and gray color scheme (two conveniently paired colors, and a favorite among tech companies including Behance). However, heroes such as DotA's Alchemist (shown below) do not share this simplistic and clean design, which has negatively impacted the DotA competitive scene due to intermediate players' inability to follow the action that occurs during large skirmishes. 

 

A few of my favorite modern artists were either identifiable for their simplistic dichromatic designs (in the case of Rothko) or went through color-dominated periods due to depression (Picasso's blue period) or disillusionment (Goya's dark years). In all three cases, these years of work are treasured by art enthusiasts around the world because they have the ability to tell a story and are so aesthetically outstanding immediately upon viewing them. In a way, simplistic art functions similarly to shock art, where the viewer cannot look away because the piece of work stands out so aggressively. 

 

Although it is not to the same extent, the direction of League of Legends to avoid excess busyness and emphasize simplistic color schemes has vastly improved the viewer experience, and is a major factor to why 30 million people watched the World Championships last year. For more discussion on the importance of color contrast, check out my post on colorblindness.