[2023] Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin

Hey everyone, we know many of you aren't happy with Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin. I want to clarify up front that we aren't going to change the skin or its rollout plan, but I want to explain why and provide information on why this is something we’re doing at all.

We want to offer a range of products for everyone, starting at the low end of free or a few dollars, scaling to more premium content for more. Right now, Prestige skins are the highest end of that spectrum. However, we’ve been getting feedback that they don't fully satisfy those of you who want something more rare.

This feedback makes sense. When we originally released Prestige, we got feedback that lots of players were excited for Prestige skins, not just the folks wanting rare or exclusive content. So, we made them easier to get by doing things like adding the end of year Prestige shop, putting Prestige Points in event pass milestone missions, and adding the Prestige Point cashout bundle to events. When we switched to Mythic Essence, we also started bringing older Prestige skins back into the shop rotation. I suppose ‘easier’ isn’t the right term, given that earning a Prestige skin is still difficult, so more accessible might be the better term.

Alongside these accessibility changes, we also increased the quality of Prestige skins because many of you felt they weren't worth the investment, the difference here is that the investment to obtain these skins is higher for the average player than compared to players with the means to collect them all. We still feel that this was the right call, but has solidified them as content that’s really painful to miss out on if it’s your main. We’re happy with Prestige's evolution, but these changes have shifted it away from being focused specifically on those of you looking for the rarest and most exclusive things.

Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin is an exploration to fill this “rarity” ask, and how we act on the feedback we've been hearing will bear that in mind. This is why we're not changing anything before Jhin launches: Players who are asking for this kind of thing are an incredibly small percent of League players, so in-game decisions give us a clearer read on whether something does or doesn't land with them specifically (as opposed to purely social media feedback, which is an important data point but doesn't always give us the full picture). We approached the design of the skin as a mythic variant of a skin that is already available to players (Dark Cosmic) and time limited in loot, so that those who want it can have other ways to acquire it later down the road. We think these rules still allow the skin to appeal to players looking for rare content, without making it inaccessible to everyone else.

There are two other things I do want to be clear about. First, one of our core values on League is, has always been, and always will be that we will not sell power regardless of how we experiment with meeting the desires of different players. How much you spend in League will not give you an advantage over those who don’t spend at all.

Second, the experiments with content like Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin aren't taking away resources we put toward creating content for everyone else: Prestiges as mentioned above but also regular skins, Legendaries, chromas, or resources away from gameplay development - quite the opposite, they help us fund more gameplay work.

I know this is a heated topic, and one that’s not particularly easy to talk about but I hope this post is helpful in explaining what we’re trying to achieve. I will stick around to answer questions. We will also share how this exploration performed and the learnings around it in a future dev update video, so stay tuned for that.

-Riot Brightmoon

Hey everyone, we know many of you aren't happy with Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin. I want to clarify up front that we aren't going to change the skin or its rollout plan, but I want to explain why and provide information on why this is something we’re doing at all.

We want to offer a range of products for everyone, starting at the low end of free or a few dollars, scaling to more premium content for more. Right now, Prestige skins are the highest end of that spectrum. However, we’ve been getting feedback that they don't fully satisfy those of you who want something more rare.

This feedback makes sense. When we originally released Prestige, we got feedback that lots of players were excited for Prestige skins, not just the folks wanting rare or exclusive content. So, we made them easier to get by doing things like adding the end of year Prestige shop, putting Prestige Points in event pass milestone missions, and adding the Prestige Point cashout bundle to events. When we switched to Mythic Essence, we also started bringing older Prestige skins back into the shop rotation. I suppose ‘easier’ isn’t the right term, given that earning a Prestige skin is still difficult, so more accessible might be the better term.

Alongside these accessibility changes, we also increased the quality of Prestige skins because many of you felt they weren't worth the investment, the difference here is that the investment to obtain these skins is higher for the average player than compared to players with the means to collect them all. We still feel that this was the right call, but has solidified them as content that’s really painful to miss out on if it’s your main. We’re happy with Prestige's evolution, but these changes have shifted it away from being focused specifically on those of you looking for the rarest and most exclusive things.

Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin is an exploration to fill this “rarity” ask, and how we act on the feedback we've been hearing will bear that in mind. This is why we're not changing anything before Jhin launches: Players who are asking for this kind of thing are an incredibly small percent of League players, so in-game decisions give us a clearer read on whether something does or doesn't land with them specifically (as opposed to purely social media feedback, which is an important data point but doesn't always give us the full picture). We approached the design of the skin as a mythic variant of a skin that is already available to players (Dark Cosmic) and time limited in loot, so that those who want it can have other ways to acquire it later down the road. We think these rules still allow the skin to appeal to players looking for rare content, without making it inaccessible to everyone else.

There are two other things I do want to be clear about. First, one of our core values on League is, has always been, and always will be that we will not sell power regardless of how we experiment with meeting the desires of different players. How much you spend in League will not give you an advantage over those who don’t spend at all.

Second, the experiments with content like Dark Cosmic Erasure Jhin aren't taking away resources we put toward creating content for everyone else: Prestiges as mentioned above but also regular skins, Legendaries, chromas, or resources away from gameplay development - quite the opposite, they help us fund more gameplay work.

I know this is a heated topic, and one that’s not particularly easy to talk about but I hope this post is helpful in explaining what we’re trying to achieve. I will stick around to answer questions. We will also share how this exploration performed and the learnings around it in a future dev update video, so stay tuned for that.

-Riot Brightmoon