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Leveling and Rewards - Improvements to Milestone Emotes, Capsules, & FWotD

RiotRiot Cactopus··1 votes·198,991 views

Hey gang! Last week, we talked about how we're tuning the new leveling system to give out more overall rewards compared to the old IP-based system. Today we're announcing a few new adjustments we're making in reaction to player feedback.

##TL;DR for the post:

  • Milestone emotes are now free and we're refunding anyone who already used BE to unlock them.
  • Leveling capsules will now give out more raw blue essence and fewer low-value shards.
  • To make the "First Win of the Day" more generous, we're making it reset 20 hours after you earn it (instead of 22 hours).

Let's get into the good stuff.

##LEVELING MILESTONE REWARDS

First up, let's talk about milestone rewards. Throughout the new leveling system, there are a number of emotes you can earn access to by reaching certain "milestone" levels. Currently, it costs a certain amount of blue essence (from 2,500 BE to 20,000 BE) to actually unlock the emotes once you reach their required level.

Originally, these milestone rewards were designed with veteran players in mind—the idea was that high-leveled players will probably have too much BE on their hands anyways, so we might as well give them something cool to use it on. Thus the upgrade costs.

However, we've gotten feedback from some players that these upgrade costs can feel bad if you haven't yet unlocked all the champs you want. For that reason, we're going to make ALL leveling emotes free, and we'll be refunding anyone who already paid blue essence to upgrade their emotes. If you’ve already reached a milestone and haven’t upgraded the emote yet, the upgrade price of the emote shards in your inventory will be reduced to 1 BE.

We're still gonna find more ways to serve veteran players who have an excess of BE, but we'll probably use tools like the recurring Blue Essence Emporium for that purpose.

While we're here, let's talk about the milestone rewards in more detail. Along with the champ shards you get at each level, there are also a variety of special milestone rewards (including gemstones) peppered all throughout the leveling system.

Check out this gorgeous chart which was definitely not copy-pasted from a Google doc:

https://i.imgur.com/biZ6koB.png[/img]

In addition to the special rewards listed above, each of the milestone levels also grant a "glorious champion capsule" with an average BE value of 2120. These show up every 10 levels, as well. The only things more glorious than our capsules are our charts.

This change is going live sometime today. Refunds for folks who already paid for upgrades will likely take between one and two weeks extra.

##BLUE ESSENCE IN LEVELING CAPSULES

Next up, let's talk about leveling capsules. We're currently seeing some players complaining about getting too many of the same type of shards.

This is actually a pretty easy problem to solve. We're going to retune the system so that it never drops more than a couple 260 RP champion shards at once when you level up. Instead, you'll now receive some combination of shards along with a batch of BE. This change won't affect the overall amount of BE you get from each drop, but we think it'll make each drop feel a little better. These adjustments are also going live sometime today.

##MAKING "FIRST WIN OF THE DAY" EASIER

Finally, we're making the FWotD's timer a little easier to get. Currently it resets 22 hours after you complete the FWotD mission, but—starting sometime during patch 7.23—it’ll reset after 20 hours. Now, even if it takes you a few games to get a win on any given day, you'll still be able to grab it quickly the next day.

We've heard a lot of requests to just make FWotD fully consistent by making it reset at a specific time early in the morning. We're not ready to make that change right now, but we're thinking about doing it in a future patch.

Alright, so that's it for this week's update! We'll return at some point in the coming weeks to talk about any other adjustments to the leveling and rewards. Hit us up in the comments below and we'll answer any questions you've got.

246 Comments

Scuttle53 votes

UHHH please don't make them 1 BE to unlock. 10 BE would make more sense since EVERYTHING in the store is in multiples of 10 now and it would fuck up people with an even number of BE [sg-janna]

RiotRiot Cactopus57 votes

Oh... lol. Yeah that would be annoying. Lemme pass on this feedback.

Gobice3 votes

Is there a chance you can somehow get rid of some of your BE? I really want to have an even number :D

Scuttle3 votes

mssg support, that's how I got rid of my 1 extra BE

Gobice3 votes

ok, thanks

zenithlight29 votes

.... but what about people who have an uneven amount of BE and need to spend increments of 1 BE to get to an even number?

THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN

FoxMikeLima5 votes

This is my life... kill me.

NocturnalSheild29 votes

Sounds good to me.

The Yetii Rider29 votes

I appreciate that you're willing to listen to feedback, but I hope you guys haven't let these people beat you up too badly on the forums. I know you're doing your best to balance player feedback with your bottom line and I would hate to see cutbacks in other aspects of the company (God forbid anyone loses their job) because of how this system changes your revenue.

Thank you for all the hard work you do for this game. Really.

RiotRiot Cactopus16 votes

We luv y'all :D

Forerdow23 votes

But what about the mastery level? You need 3200~ BE to upgrade it, it's ridiculously expensive

RiotRiot Cactopus46 votes

Dear boards gods please let me answer this one honestly without incurring too many downvotes

Yo, the team was def expecting this question. Even though it's technically the same price as before (we just scaled up the cost when we multiplied all your other BE by 6.5 for the new season), it feels like it costs more because now BE is useful for unlocking champs more directly. The short answer is that we don’t currently have plans to change the price because the team wants to be careful about removing too many things that BE is used for unlocking.

I can share a little more on the thinking around it: The reason Mastery 6 & 7 have always cost BE to upgrade is mostly because we needed to give players a use for BE back in the old system. Now that we’ve connected the loot system with the normal rewards system, we’re having to think longterm about what should and shouldn’t cost BE.

Mostly BE is useful for unlocking champs, but we want it to be useful for everybody—including people who don't want to use it on champs. The new leveling system gives vets gemstones and unique emotes alongside the other stuff, and the Blue Essence Emporium is working out pretty well too. There’s more we’ll have to do on that front, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out over time.

Jahseh Extension20 votes

It's not really a problem that it has a cost, the problem imo is that now that blue essence can be used for other things as well, having the same value makes it feel kinda more expensive since it's not the only thing you'll be spending the essence on. Is there any chance that the ammount of BE needed will be reduced at least?

EROTIC RAID BOSS6 votes

they were effectively an IP sink before too though. you'd buy random champ shards and disenchant until you had enough to unlock the mastery. so its a change that's really just in peoples heads

Zenthon Prime10 votes

Just in peoples' heads or not, it feels fucking awful. TBH I always hated the idea of Mastery 6 and 7 costing BE at all and this just made it worse.

Guttler5 votes

The hate on the upgrade costs is really unfounded. I think it's just people see the bigger number and cry about it. I used to have to buy mystery champion shards with IP and break them to get BE to unlock 6s &7s.

If you had to buy 2 tokens you spent 3400 IP to get the amount of BE you needed. If you got unlucky and got a cheap shard and needed 3 tokens, you were spending 5100 IP. It's actually cheaper to buy an upgrade now. You can also skip the BE cost by saving a champion shard for any champs your planning on leveling up.

Zetsü11 votes

Except those of us who play a TON one or two days a week make 1000 BE where we used to make 3000 IP.

JMoormann4 votes

To add onto this, shards (which you currently get a lot more of) can still be used as well. I'm sitting on mastery tokens for something like 20 champs, so when I get a Ryze shard, instead of disenchanting it for 90 BE I can just use it for a mastery which would usually cost me several thousands of BE, which feels pretty nice.

Wild Leafeon6 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Cactopus,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=BQed8FWz,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2017-11-22T19:38:38.511+0000)

Dear boards gods please let me answer this one honestly without incurring too many downvotes

Yo, the team was def expecting this question. Even though it's technically the same price as before (we just scaled up the cost when we multiplied all your other BE by 6.5 for the new season), it feels like it costs more because now BE is useful for unlocking champs more directly. The short answer is that we don’t currently have plans to change the price because the team wants to be careful about removing too many things that BE is used for unlocking.

I can share a little more on the thinking around it: The reason Mastery 6 & 7 have always cost BE to upgrade is mostly because we needed to give players a use for BE back in the old system. Now that we’ve connected the loot system with the normal rewards system, we’re having to think longterm about what should and shouldn’t cost BE.

Mostly BE is useful for unlocking champs, but we want it to be useful for everybody—including people who don't want to use it on champs. The new leveling system gives vets gemstones and unique emotes alongside the other stuff, and the Blue Essence Emporium is working out pretty well too. There’s more we’ll have to do on that front, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out over time.

The reason this feels bad I think has more to do with the concept of why are we spending in game currency to show that we achieved higher skill with a champion? It feels bad when character progression has a cost for something we already earned. I am sitting on a bunch of champs to upgrade since the announcement of the store.

Zetsü12 votes

I never had an issue with having enough money to upgrade champions when I could just buy mystery shards as soon as I had enough IP. My playrate in league has not changed, yet this is what my loot looks like since preseason started.

https://i.imgur.com/uCGhwtG.png

Yamian9 votes

The problem I have with this that shards are our only source of BE. Now the situation: I have Annie shard which I can use to get mastery or disenchant it for 90 BE I also have a Jhin shard which I can use to get mastery (if I own him) or disenchant it for 1260 BE or even get a 2520 BE discount for the champion (if I dont own him).

In the first case my mastery cost me 90 BE, in the second one it was 1260.

So maybe scale the mastery price with the champion price?

Glory ln Death18 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Cactopus,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=BQed8FWz,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-11-22T18:54:43.810+0000)

The only things more glorious than our capsules are our charts.

False. Are you calling Mecha Zero Sion a liar when he says, "THERE ARE NONE MORE RIGHTEOUS OR MORE GLORIOUS THAN ME!" when he purchases Righteous Glory?

Your charts can have second place.

RiotRiot Cactopus20 votes

You make formidable points, GLORY LN DEATH. You win this round.

We're gonna have to work on our chart game.

Breakstar12 votes

If you're trying to figure out something **glorious **to work on, I've got this feeling that Mecha Zero Sion would look good in black. You feel me?

Nefas11 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Cactopus,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=BQed8FWz,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-11-22T18:54:43.810+0000)

##BLUE ESSENCE IN LEVELING CAPSULES

Next up, let's talk about leveling capsules. We're currently seeing some players complaining about getting too many of the same type of shards.

This is actually a pretty easy problem to solve. We're going to retune the system so that it never drops more than a couple 260 RP champion shards at once when you level up. Instead, you'll now receive some combination of shards along with a batch of BE. This change won't affect the overall amount of BE you get from each drop, but we think it'll make each drop feel a little better. These adjustments are also going live sometime today.

Thank goodness it felt like you were throwing fist fulls of pennies at us - yeah they are worth something but it was really annoying

SoulGuider10 votes

This is nice and all that you're dedicating so much to BE but what about orange essence? Ever since the update getting any kind of skin threw hextech crafting feels like not even worth looking at. I do realize you need to make profit hence the reason why the downgrade, but don't you think it was a bit too far? Even 1850 rp skin shards won't give much anymore.

RiotRiot Cactopus4 votes

Here’s a really in-depth response on this I posted on the boards.

TL;DR: We made some changes that’ll make the nerf not hurt as bad. But the nerf is in part about making sure we aren’t taking another big revenue hit right at the same time we’re making runes free. To be fully transparent, we’re not trying to make OE even out to the same amounts it was at before.

Quepha10 votes

I think it’s worth pointing out again that this is a dramatic reduction in the value of hextech chests that are purchased with RP which were already of dubious value.

A reduction in value there should be associated with a reduction in RP cost.

Ahristoćratic5 votes

Yeah I totally get all this but there's one issue. The faq didn't say that orange essence was getting changed. In fact I think it explicitly said we only need to disenchanted champ shards. I'm pretty sure it said that we needn't do that for skin shards. Or just heavily implied that it was champ shards only.

I'm sure because in a thread elsewhere someone was saying disenchant your skin shards changes are coming (someone on another site not a rioters) and I went to check and came away sure we didn't need to.

The changes are fine but the way they happened feel like a shafting. All I'd request would be if you can make shards gained prior to the change retain their original value..... That's at least something. I know I had a few high value ones that I explicitly didn't disenchant because I was sure from the pre season faq that I didn't have to.

Again completely under stand why the change. Just the way it was done was poorly communicated compared to the rest.

Varissar3 votes

Isn't curious how one of the most important pieces of information was "poorly communicated compared to the rest"?

I have yet to see a Rioter talk regarding the communication of the OE change. They can talk about the reasons of the nerf, or the ideas behind it, yet they never talk about the most important thing: WHY THE F----K WAS IT SO POORLY COMMUNICATED COMPARED WITH ALL THE OTHER CHANGES?. Even in the patch notes of the pre-season AREN'T INCLUDED THOSE NERFS

Now, @Riot Cactopus, care to elaborate on the matter or in the very least, to confirm you are looking into the issue?

SKP23en8 votes

Okay, first: a congratulation is in order. I know finding a balance between the use and the granting of the in-game income is not easy, but this system is finally reaching acceptable parameters.

I like that the milestone emotes are free. Having an unlocking cost was nasty and not in harmony with the concept of "reward" for reaching a level. I haven't hit my level 40 yet but I would like to do a suggestion: can the Glorious capsules of 2120 BE have a guaranteed 6300 champion shard? That's 1260BE, and it gives a higher chance of having a discount in the newer champions. It would add to the feeling of reaching a new stage on the game.

Personally I like having more champion shards than raw BE, if they have the same value. There is more of a chance to upgrade the masteries of those low-cost champions like that. But I do find obnoxious opening a capsule and finding 2 Singed shards and one Ryze shard, so is not that bad of a change.

And about the First win I like that now it starts more early. I still would rather to have it reset at the early morning (4 am or so) so it doesn't limit me to always play at the last hour of the day if I couldn't play at the morning for one day. (That or either lose the bonus).

Anyways. Good changes, Riot. Showing EA how lootboxes are done, I see. Though they aren't in a perfect state yet, so don't get to sleep yet.

RiotRiot Cactopus7 votes

I haven't hit my level 40 yet but I would like to do a suggestion: can the Glorious capsules of 2120 BE have a guaranteed 6300 champion shard?

I got good news. They're already guaranteed to contain a 6300 BE champ shard, along with other stuff. :)

And about the First win I like that now it starts more early. I still would rather to have it reset at the early morning (4 am or so) so it doesn't limit me to always play at the last hour of the day if I couldn't play at the morning for one day. (That or either lose the bonus).

There's some trade offs that would come with this. One reason we're hesitant to make it tied to a specific time is that timezone differences make that wonky, potentially. And on low-population servers, it might even manipulate login behavior (people planning their game time around the FWotD, which we don't really want). Making it reset to 20 hours after you first get it means it adapts to your personal play schedule, which will probably work for most people. We'll keep an eye on it either way. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Mysticman898 votes

So regarding mastery levels...

It seems to me that with the surplus of champ shards leveling produces now, that the sensible thing for most players looking to bump their mastery is to use a champ shard now instead of paying BE, and just wait until such a shard falls into their lap. No real benefit to mastery levels after all, so they can wait.

The problem is, not all champs shards are equal in that regard, which feels pretty bad. If someone happens to main a cheap champ, say annie, using a champ shard to get their mastery 6/7 essentially costs them a mere 90 BE. On the other hand, someone who happens to main an expensive champ such as xayah is giving up 1260 BE in order to upgrade their mastery, 14 times as much, despite it being basically the same achievement. Still cheaper than paying BE directly, but the price disparity feels wrong (not to mention someone is much more likely to get an annie shard than a xayah one, since they can get multiple cheap shards in one level up, but only one expensive).

What I propose is having generic mastery 6/7 level up tokens sprinkled into the loot system that would work for any champion. They could drop in place of 450 champs and disenchant for 90 BE, so the BE value of such a drop is still the same to someone not interested in leveling their mastery, but now people would have an option to leveling their mastery without feeling like they're being punished for their champ choice.

Winterkill7 votes

I'm wondering why you even touched orange essence disenchant numbers if we:

  1. Hardly get any skin shards anymore.
  2. Skins we want cost too much orange essence and there is really no way to farm for it unless you buy it.
  3. Players who spend hard-earned money on chests will probably get something they don't want, but don't have the option to reroll skins anymore and the values of disenchant are very low.

Are you guys that greedy and desperate for money that you had to go and change how orange essence is obtained and the values disenchanted? Any person with common sense can see that yeah . . . . you are a business but what you are doing is almost a scam. Why would I buy a hextech chest to get mediocre orange essence? You have not talked about orange essence at all and it seems to be all about BP. I can care less about BP at this point because as someone who likes the thrill and to sometimes buy hextech chests, I feel like I am being scammed and there is absolutely no sense in doing anything with hextech crafting anymore. I mass well just buy the skins I want directly and just be done with it.

I understand you are a business but what you are doing is scamming players out of content and making their money feel worthless when orange essence is completely worthless now. What's the point in having hextech crafting anymore? I get mediocre values on skins I don't want and cannot use that orange essence towards skins I do want.

Please elaborate, Cactopus.

Risk of Fate6 votes

[deleted]

Ashen Rider9 votes

Minecraft has a first win of the day bonus?

Jesus is Savior6 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Cactopus,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=BQed8FWz,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-11-22T18:54:43.810+0000)

##MAKING "FIRST WIN OF THE DAY" EASIER

Have you considered doing a "charges" system similar to mastery chests and ARAM rerolls? eg: letting us store up 2 or 3 (or 4) "first wins of the day" if we haven't been playing and/or winning for a couple days.

Pros:

  • This would even out the BE gain between the "plays a game or 2 every day" people and the "plays a whole ton of games only on weekends" group.

Cons:

  • The "plays a couple games on weekdays and a ton of games on weekends" group might switch to only playing on weekends.

Feedback on this? Would it end up hurting your bottom line (meaning you can't do it cuz you make less $$$)?

Ellundor5 votes

What about making the Essence Emporium permanent? This could be a way for vet to spend their BE all the time instead of having to keep it and spend it all in one go which kinda feels bad when you have lots of BE and can't use it.

RiotRiot Cactopus6 votes

We're still figuring out the exact plans but right no we're thinking we'll bring it back on a regular basis. Honestly it's just a net positive for veteran players so there's no reason for it to be a one-time thing.

GigglesO6 votes

If its for the vets then why is the random champion for 3950 blocked?

Charlie Loves U4 votes

im confused. so in the new level up capsules are the numbers going slightly up? or are we just getting the same number and now part of it is raw BE and part of it is shards.

if so I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I really just wanted there to be a semi higher frequency of expensive champ shards. right now I think I've gotten two 3150 champs out of like 20 levels between all my accounts and only two champs worth 4800 or above.

I think that's my main issue with the system as it is right now.

so if the new changes mean chances for better champ shards going UP then I'm cool with that. I don't even need the raw BE there. Just want there to be a variety of champ shards.

RiotRiot Cactopus4 votes

The change we announced here means you're getting the same overall numbers (940 BE average drop, 810 BE minimum drop, with chances for newest champs at the high end). But instead of a lot of little low value shards you'll get more raw BE. It doesn't affect your chance of getting high value shards.

We're thinking about ways to boost the odds of getting high-value shards. Nothing to announce but it's something we're definitely keeping an eye on. Obviously everybody wants more high-value shards haha

Mysticman894 votes

Out of curiosity, is it possible to get the absolute newest champs in shard form while their BE price is still 7800?

Guessing not, but maybe loot just treats them as a standard 6300 champ so they can drop and disenchant for 1260, rather than being worth 1560 and hence out of reach for standard level capsules.

spekftp4 votes

Thank you Riot for taking our feedback into consideration. I've always admired your commitment to the community.

Verineon4 votes

Hell yeah Riot! That's what I like to see :D

I was actually smiling and having some happiness reading this post.

You actually took a lot of our complaints and suggestions into account.

Thank you so much! :D

Salson3 votes

Waaaait, just how many of those Emotes are already done?

All in all nice changes. Thanks Rito.

RiotRiot Cactopus12 votes

TBH not all of them are totally ready to go lol. If some of these speeddemons hit level 200 too early we may have to delay their rewards a bit. Working around the clock to make sure it's all ready though. And even if we do fall a little behind for a few folks we'll make it right ASAP.

iahim981 votes

What's the highest level right now? I heard someone is 90 or so, but you guys have the exact numbers, also will you guys make a highest level list (like in mmo's)?

RiotRiot Cactopus5 votes

This dank community member has you covered: https://lolnames.gg/en/highscores/

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