A reason why I think League of Legends has been growing in popularity is that the MOBA genre (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) which is what most people categorize this game, is a relatively new genre to a lot of people. Before League of Legends the only known MOBA games where DOTA, a mod from Warcraft III, and another game Heros of Newerth. With very few popular titles for this genre, this opens up the market to a whole new game.
Goals and Objectives:
The winning condition for each match is to destroy the enemy Nexus, the opponent's main base. To get to the enemy Nexus, there are other structures that must be destroyed such as a set of 3 towers in each lane was well as another structure in the base called the inhibitor. Additionally there are 2 more towers defending the Nexus itself from enemy attacks.
Nexus (Green/Orange) - Main building, once destroyed that team loses.
Inhibitor ( Light Blue/Red) - When destroyed, a more powerful wave of minions (A.I controlled monsters that fight for the team) are summoned to help fight.
Towers (Dark Blue/ Purple) - Basic structures which act as turrets to hit enemies who come near it.
Secondary Objectives:
There are also many minor objectives that help the players win the game. These objectives either give the players additional gold to spend or special buffs for their champion. To obtain the gold or buffs for your team, the player must secure the kill on these neutral monster located around the map. These objectives really help with the flow of the game and creates interesting game play because these objectives can become a double edge sword. The reason being is that there is always a risk that the enemy will steal these objectives. The higher the reward for the objective, the more pressure the enemy team will force on you. This is where either the losing team has a chance to come back into the game to win, or the winning team to push their advantage even further.
These are some of the objectives, listen from high risk/reward to low risk/reward
Baron Nashor - A purple buff that gives everyone on your team increase physical/magical damage as well as high health and mana regeneration
Dragon - Gives a lot of gold for your whole team
Ancient Golem/Elder Lizard - A blue/red buff that is given to the one player that kills the monster.
Roles/Champions
League of Legends has over 100 champions that have different play styles but fall into a generalized categories. Some champions fit into multiple categories because they can play fulfill multiple roles. With many roles and champions, teams can find multiple team compositions.
Tanks: Champions with high defensive capabilities that try to absorb as much of the damage as possible from the enemy team.
Mages: Deal high magic damage to the enemy team
Marksmen: Ranged Champions that deal high physical damage to the enemy team
Support: Either heal or provide other support such as using a lot of crowd control abilities (stuns, slow effects, etc) to protect their Marksmen and Mages.
Bruisers: Fighters who are slightly less durable than tanks but have enough damage to fight. They are usually good duelists.
Assasins: Champions with high mobility and high damage use to instantly kill priority targets such as the enemy marksman or mage.
Gold/Money:
Gold is the number one resource in League of Legends. With gold it allows the player to further develop their character by purchasing items for them. Items give the player stats such has armour, physical damage, health, etc. But why is gold and items so important for the game? It is because if player A has an item over player B, they have additional stats which gives player A an advantage in the game. Players who obtain these advantages earlier than the their opposition will have a much easier time fighting them.
There are many ways in League of Legends to obtain gold for you and your team. The most basic way is to kill the enemy minions that slowly come out of your enemy's base. Other methods involve killing neutral monsters such as the dragon or Baron Nashor.
Ways to obtain Gold:
Enemy Minions - These give the player the least amount of gold individually but are the most reliable source of income since there is many of them and every wave of minions spawn every 30 seconds
Enemy Players - Killing an enemy will give you gold as well. If the enemy player is on a death spree, the gold they give will be less. It can even drop lower than killing regular minions. Players on a kill spree will give out bonus gold to their killer.
Objectives - All objectives will give out gold when killed/destroyed. These all include Dragon, Baron Nasher, Towers and inhibitors.
Conflict:
Fighting is a large part of the game. The map is divided into 3 lanes and the players are also divided up so in the early game, fights are usually small skirmishes usually with 2-4 players out of the total 10 players in the game. As the game progress and players start to get more items, they begin to group up and are ready to fight. But what is the point in fighting? Taking objectives such as a tower is slow if you try your own, but with the rest of your team it much faster. But the enemy team won't just let you take it for free, they will also try to stop you with their team. Which ever team wins a fight they can secure objectives for the team. Eventually these fights will will be the determining factor whether a player wins or loses the game.
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