Original Post — Direct link

Update:On the announcement on the Chinese server, they officially acknowledged this matter. You can confirm this through the following link:https://lol.qq.com/gicp/news/410/37056430.html#n13.The webpage is in Chinese. Use a webpage translator to view the update from January 10th.They remove champion capsules intentionally.

Riot employees replied.And i want to remind you guys that you can get 4 random Champion Shards for every 5 levels in old version battle pass instead of 200 BE now.

https://preview.redd.it/4vhpe1e1p6ce1.png?width=1026&format=png&auto=webp&s=4e175d95aee00cbb41eb3732c5eafcba76212adb

Right now, you can only get Blue Essence from the Battle Pass. And after you grind through the first 50 levels, you need to play for 882 hours to unlock a single extra champion! Is League of Legends deliberately trying to shut out all newcomers?

External link →

I am not part of the team that builds the metagame systems of League anymore, but I just did some quick maths since this post alarmed me.

There are 4 champion capsules on the pass
There is 4750 BE on the pass excluding repeating rewards
(Both of these are frontloaded on the pass and thus require less engagement than cosmetics in general)

There are 6 passes per year

That is 24 champion capsules × year
That is 28,500 BE × year

Not including new player missions and rewards

It doesn't feel to me like someone who is new to the game is going to have trouble acquiring both a set of randomized champions OR champions they have a particular affinity for and want to acquire for free.

Would also state that the folks who worked on the pass content design are pretty thoughtful, and if we saw challenges with new player earn rates there would be an adjustment.

But super appreciate the concern I am seeing here for the new player experience! I also care really deeply about it.

Originally posted by Nykai

28,500 BE amounts to round about 4 6300BE Champions. That awfully low for one year of playing.

Interested in how long you think it should take for a new player to earn champions. About how many games per champ do you expect?

Originally posted by IWillStudyTomorrow

Are you for real? 4 champions per year is terrible, you could buy more champions in the old IP system + runes. In fact I started playing in season 4 and I bought atleast 4 6300 champions (Yasuo, Jinx, Lucian, Kha'Zix) + at least 12 other champions since you needed 16 to start playing ranked (some of which were 3150 and 4800) + a full AD and AP rune page.

Most champions are not 6300. Average BE cost of a champion is 3000, so this represents ~6 you get to choose (if you don't disenchant permanents) and 24 you do not, which is 30 per year.

Originally posted by raphelmadeira

u/BarackProbama, as a new player, I don't know, but as someone who has already surpassed level 1550, I find it VERY annoying to still have to buy champions to enable skins. It seems like you guys want to scare players away at any cost!

  • Riot did away with the glorious capsules every 10 levels that gave 10 mythic essence and guaranteed shards of expensive champions; now it's only every 50 levels.
  • Riot changed the 1650 paid pass completely for the worse, instead of following the successful model that was Faker's 1950 pass.
  • Riot removed the mastery chests.
  • And now this change.

I have no idea what Riot's plans are for the future of the game, or what kind of direction this is, but I believe that 2025 will be the year I have to abandon the game before reaching level 1600. I am currently at level 1593 and I see no reason, rewards, or anything that encourages me to play for free. Meanwhile, we have several other games out there.

I also think you should be able to purchase/acquire skins for champions you don't own (with some obvious warnings in place), but there are technical limitations on that atm. We chose to address other things instead.

Sad to hear you are less motivated than before. Hope we can change your mind this year.

As I said above, no longer part of the team that is running seasons or the around-game, but find them to be a pretty rad crew and have a lot of faith in what they're working on.

Originally posted by Knowka

If you can’t get every champ in the game within a year of reasonable playtime, that’s f**king absurd (and you could argue even that is giving you guys way too much leeway, considering DOTA, Overwatch, Marvel Rivals, etc. give you all characters for free lol). I don’t even see an argument about it from a purely money-making perspective, considering people playing more different champs = more chances for a person to play a character they like, and thus want to buy skins for.

If this is your definition of “pretty thoughtful” you guys must not have many thoughts going on up there.

I don't think its reasonable personally to compare a MOBA to a hero shooter, given that they let you swap characters mid-match as a gameplay mechanic not to mention have a significantly smaller roster (37/42 respectively). Dota 2 is closest as another MOBA, with 124.

I've seen comparisons to the IP system. So some more maths: In 2014, a causal F2P player earned a champion about every 6 weeks based on the rate of IP earned and the average IP cost of champions. This nets out to ~9 per year. For Reference: There were ~120 champions in League at that time. I think this is much faster than that.

I do think our champion acquisition system could use some love, but not strictly on the basis of how fast players can get champs. I think it could be better at helping you identify champions you should love and get them into your hands faster than today.

Originally posted by StickyMoistSomething

I’ve heard that with the removal of capsules on level up, all the old new player related content has also been removed. Do you know if that’s the case?

Nope, I do not know anything about that. It doesn't _sound_ correct to me.

Originally posted by somewhatlikeawhisper

I'm going to try and engage in good faith and do the math for you for BOTH sides rather than just what we're getting now.

Old Battle Passes (Free track)

300 tokens per completed free pass.

1 Champion Shard costs 50 tokens. 300/50=6 

Champion shards 960 minimum BE. 

960x5=4,800.

6 passes a year, 4,800x6=28,800 BE lost.

First Win Of The Day

For this calculation we'll be doing that you play a single coop vs AI game per day for it and ONLY it. We're ignoring the potential exp you would have gained from said game.

400 Exp and 50 BE per 24 hours.

50BEx365days=18250 BE

400expx365days=146,000exp

Average level is 3171exp. 

146000/3171=46.0422 levels. We'll keep it at 46 to be simple.

1 level = 1 capsule 

46 capsules

For simplicity sake we'll say 4 of those capsules are Glorious ones due to getting 1 every 10 levels and say you start at 1 every time we calculate this.

New Free Pass

4950BE per pass

6 passes a year

4950x6 = 29700 BE

4 capsules per pass

6 passes a year

4x6 = 24 capsules a year

So First Win of the Day vs New Free Pass

46 Capsules (4 of which are Glorious) vs 24 Capsules

18,250 BE vs 29,700 BE

Old Free Pass vs New Free Pass

0 Capsules vs 24 Capsules

28,800 BE Minimum vs 29,700 BE

First Win of the Day + Old Free Pass vs New Free Pass

46 Capsules (4 of which are Glorious) vs 24 Capsules

47,050 BE Minimum vs 29,700 BE

This is without calculating any experience gained from playing the games to complete said passes, or for fun, or with experience boosts, or anything related to actually gaining capsules from leveling up.

You can't tell me that you think this is a good trade off.

Appreciate you doing the math!

Some considerations: - many players do not play every day, which means that max values are different from median or average values - the expected value of FWOTD is less, since it required a win, so you generally need to halve it (if you mix in a guaranteed Co-Op win game you can multiply this vs the rate at which people play those versus standard matchmade), contrast this with the daily mission that only asks to play a game at all (you can get the expected value of that by looking at average BE value of a pass level and then multiplying it by 150/500 for the win bonus. If you rate a champ capsule as being worth 3000 BE, which is the average cost of a champion you get a pretty large number) — will do below - the first 50 levels still grant capsules iirc, so you need to add more of that into the calc

It’s lower max BE for a hyper engager but much more BE on average based on standard play patterns

BE Capsule avg value = 3000 x 4 = 12000 BE on pass = 4750 Levels per pass = 50 Average BE per pass level = 12000 + 4750 / 50 = 335 First game bonus = 150 BXP Level cost = 500 BXP First win BE value = (150/500) * 335 = 100.5

When we do our math, we generally fit to play patterns as well as the maximum/minimum/median.

Downsides of current approach: - less drip (can imagine that incremental progress is value) - lower max possible for highest engagers

Upsides of approach: - higher median/average yield for players - lower engagement costs than previous system - stronger centralization of rewards (sans early summoner levels) - you don’t choose between BE and other rewards, you get both

As I said above, not on the team, but if new players don’t get enough BE I expect the pass values would change.

Originally posted by arcanition

Doesn't your "quick maths" therefore assume every League player, including every single person that starts playing, will purchase every battle pass, every 2 months?

Do you really think that's true?

None of this requires a purchase of any kind

Originally posted by BestSmnAU

You can't value a capsue at 3000 Blue essence when the capsule only decreases the cost of said 3000BE champion slyghtly, hence it is NOT worth the full 3000BE.

Agreed, that's a miscalculation. We're actually increasing pass BE values.

Link for details