Ruined King: A League of Legends Story begins with Sarah Fortune. She has recently slain an overbearing pirate that took over her city of Bilgewater. She has now regained command for her family’s sake but the trouble is not over yet as she has various pirate factions to deal with now. On top of that, a returning plague called the Black Mist is consuming the city.
This powerful mist is calling other heroes to appear in aid of Sarah. What or who is causing it? It’s time to check out this League of Legends spinoff to find out. Let’s begin with some tips on how to get the most out of Ruined King’s early hours.
8 Difficulty Settings
There are four difficulties in Ruined King: Story, Normal, Veteran, and Heroic. All four of these modes can be changed at any point in the options menu starting with the very first fight with Sarah Fortune. Normal and above present some decent challenges even for veteran RPG fans.
Story mode has a built-in win button. During battles, the game can be paused, and then that encounter can be skipped. There is no penalty for using the skip feature. All experience points, items, and gold will be rewarded normally. It’s a nice accessible option for those that need the boost.
7 How Saves Work
Players can save Ruined King manually whenever and wherever they want. There is also an auto-save feature that records movements generously. It’s still recommended to save as often as possible. It is impossible to know how tough the next normal enemy encounter will be or when a boss might appear.
Items, experience points, and all of that stuff will get saved every time be it auto-save or manual. What doesn’t save is wherever the player was standing last. Typically rebooting a save will have characters start back on the last exit they took. This is a small detail but one still worth remembering.
6 Fight Every Battle
For a turn-based RPG, there aren’t many opportunities to fight in Ruined King. All enemy placements in a dungeon are fixed. It’s rare to encounter enemies twice in the same area, unlike most RPGs. This can make it hard to grind.
Every level-up stage is precious. That’s why it is important to fight every enemy encountered. For bonus points, try to group battles. This will create a Multiwave that can boost rewards. Yasuo’s dungeon tornado-like attack is a great skill to use for grouping enemies together.
5 Don’t Forget About Battles Lanes
Players need to learn how to use lanes. These mirror the standard lanes from a MOBA like League of Legends. Implementing them in Ruined King was a clever way to harken back to its predecessor.
Any move characters make, from normal attacks to Illaoi’s healing spells and Braum’s defensive skills, can be placed on one of the three lanes. Wherever an attack is placed will determine its power and speed. This can make all the difference in getting the upper hand in an encounter so don’t brush the lanes off.
4 Scan Like There Is No Tomorrow
It’s important to thoroughly explore every area before moving toward the starred main objective. There are usually hidden chests with gold or loot just waiting for players. They can find these riches easier by hitting the scan button.
Make sure to use scan every few steps as items are always hiding. Take time in dungeons and towns and read the map. Get the most out of Ruined King starting with the area with Sarah Fortune.
3 Money Tips
The early shops in Ruined King don’t offer much. There may be armor pieces or weapons that increase stats a couple of notches but don’t waste money on minimal upgrades like that. Save that dough for vendors a couple of hours into the campaign who have wares that can increase stats greatly.
In general, unless players are struggling in battle, don’t buy equipment that often. Most of the good stuff can be found in dungeons anyway. Plus enchanting armor is a better way to increase stats in the long run. Buying items is also not that necessary.
2 Upgrading Abilities
Ruined King has one of the most unique and accessible upgrade features. As players level up, they will get points to put into skills and overall boons. The nice thing about these points is that spending them is never permanent.
Players can experiment and place points into one skill for a battle to test out the results. They can then try another upgrade path in the next encounter. There is no backpedaling cost to this either. Most RPGs that do allow players to respec their characters usually have some sort of gold cost. More RPGs should try customizable upgrade trees like Ruined King instead.
1 Fishing Is Fun, Easy, And Rewarding
It would not be an RPG if it didn’t have a fishing mini-game. The mechanics are relatively simple. Cast the line out and then match movement tracks to the fish when reeling it in. Caught specimens can be used for trade or cooking.
What's even better is the fact that treasure chests can be pulled up as well if players are lucky. Unless someone has a good rod, which may not happen until toward the end of the game, stick to casting as close to the shores or docks as possible. That means less of a chance of breaking the lines.
Ruined King: A League of Legends Story was released on November 16, 2021, and is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.