Before we begin breaking down League of Legends to find out what is fun about it, I think we should define “fun” first. I often use words like “satisfying” or “enjoyable” to describe fun, so let’s explore that a bit.
- Satisfying is defined as “making you feel pleased by providing what you need or want”; [1]
- Enjoyable is defined as “an enjoyable event or experience gives you pleasure”; [2]
- Fun is defined as “pleasure, enjoyment, or entertainment”. [3]
So if satisfy makes one feel pleased and enjoyable gives pleasure and fun is feeling pleasure, then we can conclude that both satisfying and enjoyable are sources of fun. From here on out, one can assume that when these words are used throughout this text, they signify that whatever they are describing are sources of fun.
There is an important distinction to be made between fun and the source of fun. A source of fun doesn’t necessitate (at least in my mind) the feeling of fun, but rather allows that feeling to be born, nurtured, and nourished.
Let’s take making mistakes as an example. One could say mistakes are a source of fun. However in the moment, when one makes a mistake one might not be feeling fun, but rather frustration at the making of the mistake. Later, when one corrects their mistake or has another chance at the same situation, and they do not make the mistake, one could feel fun. But that fun would never be felt if the mistake was not made previously, since then the action performed was just another action, with no merit (when it comes to fun).
Now that we have sufficiently broken down the concept of fun (for the purposes of this writing), we can move on to the main topic.
Breaking the game (down)
Because of my history with fighting games and RTS games the very first thing that comes to mind as enjoyable is skirmishing. Fighting one (or several) players in a battle of mechanical skill is in my eyes the purest expression of mechanical skill there is to find in the game. That is not to say other parts aren’t good expressions of skill, rather that skirmishing involves the most mechanical skill.
In many ways skirmishes remind me a lot of fighting games. There is this constant back-and-forth between you and your opponent, testing each other’s wits and reactions to ultimately find an opening to capitalise on. Playing around their cooldowns, dodging skill-shots etc.
So can I therefore conclude that I enjoy expressing my skill? Yes, but also no. Take CSing as an example: last hitting every minion (under tower) or keeping CS/min high is by no means an easy feat, and requires skill. Yet that still feels a lot less enjoyable to me than expressing my skill through skirmishing.
So what is the difference between these two? And which difference makes it so one is more enjoyable to me than the other?
Perhaps it is player involvement. Note that I chose the word “involvement” purposefully here, both skirmishes and CSing have a player component to it. Skirmishes cannot exist without another player to skirmish against and your opponent is (should be) actively trying to prevent you from getting those perfect CS numbers.
I would argue that skirmishing has a lot more player involvement than CSing does. Often to prevent your opponent from CSing, only your very presence is enough. While during a skirmish one must use every available tool at their disposal to come out victorious. There are usually a lot more player actions required during a skirmish than when CSing; the involvement of the players is greater. If we break it down fully to its cleanest concept then one could argue that skirmishing is a player versus player interaction, where CSing is a player versus game interaction. The actions you are taking while CSing is focused on the minions, whereas the actions you are taking while skirmishing is focused on another player.
So clearly there is some importance in the way skill is expressed for it to contribute greatly to my enjoyment. But this is not a satisfying answer the question “why is League of Legends fun?”. There are many ways and many different moments in a match where skill can be expressed in great amounts. What about actual tangible game mechanics?
Well, something that comes to mind is itemisation. I think my history with aRPGs certainly plays a factor to my enjoyment of this mechanic. Especially the theorycrafting part of it entices me greatly. Diving into the numbers and figuring out which item is good when and why one item might be better than than another in any given situation is satisfying to me. Even more so when I experiment and find out I was right, or even if I find out I was wrong.
But I have noticed in the past that, while I enjoy experimenting with different builds and items, there seems to be a stigma around not building items that “the better players build”.
Because this is such a competitive game, it often makes me second guess myself or even doubt my ideas before I ever even get to try them. Sometimes this stigma (especially when playing with friends who “know better”) prevents me from experimenting at all. Which certainly diminishes my enjoyment of the itemisation system.
One thing that extends from this is the ability and level system. Deciding which ability to put your points into at which point of the game, or adapting it depending on the champion(s) you are playing against is also incredibly satisfying to me.
Perhaps from all this, I can conclude that I enjoy using the game’s mechanics to adapt to my situation in any given game. I think it is important to note that the part about “using the game’s mechanics” is vital to this enjoyment. If I look at post-laning phase where people often leave their lane and take waves outside their assigned lane or even take jungle camps, adapting to a teammate going into my lane or a teammate going into the “wrong” lane isn’t nearly as satisfying. In fact I’d say it’s more of a point of frustration to me.
I think if I had to break it down, I would say that adapting to my teammates is more of a point of frustration to me than it is fun.
So do I not like the team aspect of the game?
I believe there is certainly a point to be made that the team aspect often diminishes my enjoyment of the game. However, there are still moments (even though they are often few and far between) where teammates’ actions align with my own and something beautiful happens: synergy.
Synergy is like the northern lights, it rarely shows itself, but when it does it is one of the most beautiful things to experience. Two completely different players, who barely communicate with each other somehow coming together and performing a feat (almost) perfectly in sync is without a doubt, one of the most satisfying parts about this game. But just like the northern lights, its satisfaction is mostly generated from its rarity. If the northern lights showed up every night, it would quickly grow into a mundane thing; its beauty would be taken for granted.
From all this, I think I can conclude a few things: (a) I enjoy expressing my skill against players, (b) I enjoy adapting to situations using the game’s mechanics and (c) I enjoy it when players actively work together.
The puzzle of League
Of course, one can’t talk about fun in a competitive game without talking about improvement. While I touched on this topic in a different piece of writing I will discuss it quickly here again, because improvement in League of Legends has many different factors to it.
While I greatly enjoy improving my mechanical skill, it is not the main point about improvement in League that entices me so. In fact I would say it is the solving of the “puzzle”.
To me League of Legends is a nebulous puzzle that wants to be solved. The ultimate answer is revealed to you from the beginning of the game: destroy the enemy Nexus. The difficulty of solving this puzzle comes, of course, from figuring out how to achieve that answer. Because there are so many different little things happening in any given game; there are so many variables that contribute to figuring out a way to find that answer, to solve the puzzle, it is incredibly satisfying to search for that answer. Finding the answer is satisfying for sure, but the search is where the true enjoyment is found.
It is this very puzzle, that makes making mistakes in League of Legends such a beautiful experience. Every mistake I make, I go through what I call the “stages of mistake-fully searching”:
- Frustration: I am frustrated that I made a mistake.
- Acceptance: I accept the fact I made the mistake, and move on with the game.
- Reflection: I try to understand why I made the mistake and why it was a mistake in the first place.
- Satisfaction: I figure out why it was a mistake and am one step further along my search for the “answer”.
- Longing: I wish to go back in the game and apply my newfound knowledge to uncover new mistakes to make.
It is this part of the experience of playing League of Legends that I both love and hate so much. Love because it is a beautiful and satisfactory experience to go through, and hate because it oftentimes feels so frustrating, especially when I get stuck on the third stage for a while.
It is just like life, the ups and downs, the frustration and the satisfaction, the winning and the losing. Each one making the other feel so much more extreme. It is this part that makes League of Legends so fun to play, so oddly addicting.