[Revisited]We need more clarity for their reward system (Free-to-Play System)
Original Post before the Update
Now that the patch is out and we see what we got, I wanted to revisit what I thought about the changes.
As of now, the current Battle Pass includes the following free Rewards:
- Champion Capsules (3x)
- Mystery Icon (3x 250 RP)
- Mystery Emote (2x 350 RP)
- Mystery Epic Skin or Lower (1350 RP or lower)
- Blue Essence (4750)
- Blue Essence Reward Loop (200)
- Event Emote (2x 350 RP)
- Event Icon (2x 250 RP)
- Event Skin (Common value 975 RP)
- Event Title
All values combined, a minimum value of 4.600 RP is gained for F2P players in terms of free loot. (base value of RP ca. 115 per 1€, meaning this is worth 40€)
The previous system had included event orbs for the pass, with similar rewards for emotes and icons in less amount and often missions also included a free hextech chest with a key. The Mastery Reward system used to give out 52 free chests per year (2 years ago by now) and the last one allowed (with 3 split resets) was 93.
If we put the value of chests in perspective: 125 RP shop price for 1 Hextech Chest equals 6.500 RP 2 years ago or 11.625 RP for the last system. This value does not include the previous pass system.
If we add the value of the orbs (2 obtainable for free per pass) which I would only calculate for the random skin shard that could be of any value, a minimum of 1950 RP value would be gained per pass from Orbs alone.
If we put time perspective per pass and the accessible rewards for free-to-play, the RP value of rewards has about halved with the new system. Completely irrelevant if that is even the loot people want, this is per calculations not the promised improvement for free-to-play players.
A hidden nerf to these changes aside from cutting the total value by half is the cut to our freedom of choice as well. With the Hextech Chests, we already had some form of gambling for the value of skin we could get. Even Ultimate and Mythic skins could be gained by a minuscule chance. We had a wide variety of shards we could choose from which to disenchant and which to transform into a skin, but we could choose. The number of total skins you could have gotten by this system before was about (a 50% chance of skin shard drop per Hextech Chest, at least half of it needs to be disenchanted to transform 25% of skin shards on average) 11-12 skins, just as Riot themselves calculated. What they failed to mention was that we could choose from a range of about 46 available skin shards, of any kind of value.
The new system removes this entirely, one of the 2 free skins is a set pass-related skin for a specific champion and the other one can not exceed the value of Epic quality. And you are stuck with both rewards, no rerolls, if you do not play the champion at all or dislike the skin you got. You have no chance of choosing, you have no agency in this anymore.
Another hidden nerf to this change is the "rewarding" itself. As of now, the honour system still rewards you with key fragments but without any other reward system to add Chests into your inventory, those lose any incentive to get. The Hextech Chest reward from Mastery was also an incentive to play well. If you have no reward from Mastery Milestones, the threshold to just go afk farming, int or grief when the game isn't going too well is far lower, this is just another Motivator gone to be a good player.
I criticized the careful wording around Hextech chests in their 2025 dev update.
"Hextech Chests will still be available and will be the lowest cost way to obtain skin shards."
This is the only other reference on how to obtain Hextech chests and skin shards, buying them.
"You’ll be able to get skin shards through purchasing or obtaining Hextech Chests and Event Loot moving forward."
If they specify that there is a second option besides purchasing, naming it "obtaining" but not reference it anywhere else in the update nor do they show it anywhere in the new system, I want to carefully say that we may get still Hextech chests as a reward from non-pass related missions. As nothing more is said about this, we have no idea if they improve the value of those rewards to make up for the 50% loss of value with the new pass.
As the update stands now, the reward system has about reduced the value of rewards by 50% for casual and F2P players. As I do not use the paid system or have not and will not contribute to the new Gacha system, these also have been heavily criticized by those who seem to regularly use them and even refer to themselves as the so-called "whales".
The communication about these changes is still bad and the developers don't seem to respond to any of the criticism through Reddit, blog posts or their update videos. The argument of how these changes are an upgrade to the system was vague from the beginning and the realised implementation has been calculated to be a loss for the player on any side.
TL: DR
The RP value of total rewards with the new pass system is about a 50% Nerf compared to the previous instalments and the removal of free chest drops makes the honour system dysfunctional, giving no incentive for players to be nice or good in-game anymore.