Day 1 - The Grind Begins
I
got off the plane from Hong Kong and arrived home at nearly 4am. Slightly
jet lagged but with my mission in mind I knew that every hour helps and counts. I
hopped onto my laptop when I got in and started updating League.
[ Updating League the 1st day of the challenge, fresh off my flight from Hong Kong ]
I started thinking logically on my flight home about the best way to hit level 30. How could I plan and approach this challenge to achieve the goal by using my gaming roots to help and any other areas which may be beneficial? One of the books I love is, Tim Ferris’s 4Hour work week (highly recommended!). Basically, to master a skill quickly we can use the 80:20 rule. What can produce 80% of the results with
20% of the effort. In simple terms, how could I realistically get to
level 30 within the limited amount of time I had (without buying a Smurf account… that would definitely
make this a lot easier but diminish the point of the challenge!). So, I
planned to play the game 7.30pm-12.00am in the evenings, and maybe even later
during work nights, getting in a solid 5 games per night. A 7 Day XP Boost along with a 50 Games Win XP boost were purchased.
The idea is to use Ashe, a champion I was familiar with from before and to take on the role of ADC in the bottom lane.
The idea is to use Ashe, a champion I was familiar with from before and to take on the role of ADC in the bottom lane.
[ Updating League the 1st day of the challenge, fresh off my flight from Hong Kong ]
One
thing which I noticed happens often with the league client is that the updates are around
1gb in size. My 3g/4g internet in Kuwait is not the best so I tried to install these updates over night ready for the next day.
My first
impressions were great; dashboard and login pages look very well crafted. After several failed login attempts I noticed that validation
messages did not specify if my password or username were incorrect and instead gave more of a generic message rather than something intuitive to
explain the forgotten password process. I did notice that there is no 2-way verification process which is not necessarily the best way to get gaming quick, but is better in terms of security.
[ Early stage training - Co-Op vs. Bots ]
I started slow, going into bot
training intro/beginner mode. The tutorial guide has been constructed well. Keyboard
shortcuts could have been explained better by highlighting whilst in beginner
mode to show what key should be selected. Keyboard shortcuts are different
to what I am used to as I am a “WASDA” warrior - anyone in the FPS
Gaming field will hopefully know what I mean by that.
I ended up playing around 5 Co-op vs. Bots games at the intro difficulty to get a feel for the game.
Usability Takeaways
Login/Loading Screen
- Validation message improvements can be made on login screen
- After failed log-in attempts, the ability to navigate to "forgot password", or “you used this password X days ago”
- 2-way verification process for new users (would recommend for security)
Training Mode
- Keyboard shortcuts in training mode, sometimes hard to know which items should be picked without hover.
- Sound when joining the game was super loud. Unless you know what the “cog” is there was no pre-empt “change your settings or sound now” whilst in training mode. I believe there could have been the option of doing a tutorial guide on selecting resolution or optimising resolution for your laptop. “Is your sound okay? Yes / No”. Ways to help aid the user change their settings in a simple user friendly way.
Boosting packs
- Some areas aren’t as intuitive to select. Viewing a description of what they do for an example. This area could be looked into. This came across as more of an advanced user section which I only found out about from friends on discord & by reading tutorial guides.