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Champ Mastery Costs, Masterwork Chests, and Some Loot Buffs

RiotRiot Cactopus·2/22/2018, 6:51:17 PM·1 votes·142,320 views

Hey friends,

Cactoperson here again to reveal some tweaks we're making to loot and champ mastery.

We've got a bunch of changes to talk about, but before we do anything else I wanna point y'all to this Player Support page where we've just published full loot tables detailing all the numbers and special rules that explain how Hextech chests work. Expect similar transparency about any sort of paid loot boxes like this going forward.

Alright, onto the changes! In each case below, we've listed the feedback we heard from you, then explained the change.

  • You said... when you get one of the super-rare ultimate or mythic skin drops from loot, it doesn't feel great to have to disenchant tons of skins to unlock it.

  • So... Ultimate and Mythic skins will now drop as auto-redeeming permanents (no orange essence required to upgrade them). If you already own the skin, you'll be able to disenchant the permanent for orange essence. DJ Sona permanents, for example, will disenchant for 1625 OE. TARGET PATCH: 8.5

  • You said... it feels bad to get a low-value champ shard after working hard to earn a champ mastery chest (or after buying a Hextech chest).

  • So... now, when you get a champ shard out of a Hextech chest, it's guaranteed to be for a champion worth at least 4800BE. Note that this change only affects Hextech chests, not honor or leveling capsules. TARGET PATCH: 8.5

  • You said... it doesn't feel great when a box drops a super low-value ward skin.

  • So… when you get a ward skin from a Hextech chest, it'll now come with 150 bonus OE. TARGET PATCH: 8.5

  • You said... that some of you like buying Hextech chests but don't have much use for champ shards or BE.

  • So… new cosmetic-only "Masterwork" chests (165 RP each or 225 RP with a key) will be made available in the store. Details on these chests can be found with the other loot tables on our player support site. TARGET PATCH: 8.7

  • **You said... **now that blue essence can be used to purchase champs directly, Champ Mastery upgrades seem to cost a bit much by comparison.

  • **So… **the Champion Mastery 6 upgrade cost will be reduced by 800BE to 2450BE. Champion Mastery 7 will be reduced by 950BE to 2950BE. TARGET PATCH: 8.5

This is the third in a series of posts announcing changes to the leveling and rewards systems since preseason began. Check them out to see the other changes we've made in response to your feedback.

Post 1: Leveling and Rewards - Early Impressions and Adjustments In this first post, we made high-level climbing faster and revealed a bunch of numbers to prove that the new leveling system grants more rewards than the old IP-based system (even if you just disenchant everything).

Post 2: Leveling and Rewards - Improvements to Milestone Emotes, Capsules, & FWotD In this post, we announced changes to how milestone emotes work (making them free), tweaked leveling capsules to make them give out fewer low-value shards, and made the First of the Day timer more generous.

282 Comments

ZER0 22/22/2018, 6:56:05 PM120 votes

Great work guys <3 Feels amazing as a player to be listened to and I think these changes are great for both parties involved. Thank you!

Capek952/22/2018, 7:07:49 PM46 votes

wow those " You said" make this sound like a speech, and damn i was touched by the end of it. 10/10 rito

The Blue Rajah2/22/2018, 7:05:59 PM42 votes

I’m just going to link to this thread next time someone tries to claim “Riot never listens to feedback/they only care about money.”

cilrepylS2/22/2018, 7:14:42 PM11 votes

Wait, so if I have Hextech Annie atm but not enough essence, I can get it for free when it comes live?

Swarovsko2/22/2018, 7:21:33 PM9 votes

I know it sounds like a joke but I almost cried 1. because I'm listening to Old Money by Lana del Rey and 2. because with this "you said"-"so" trick it feels like you are my mother and you care about me. I love you.

https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/limitedgenerousbanteng

Toyota AE852/23/2018, 12:48:56 AM8 votes

So what happens if we already have a Ultimate skin shard in our inventory? Do we still need to craft it?

Hamu2/23/2018, 8:34:21 AM7 votes

Ultimate and Mythic skins will now drop as auto-redeeming permanents (no orange essence required to upgrade them). If you already own the skin, you'll be able to disenchant the permanent for orange essence. DJ Sona permanents, for example, will disenchant for 1625 OE

What happens if i already have an Ultimate or Mythic skinshard in my inventory? Would be a shame to let them sit there, right?

Khaleen The Pig2/24/2018, 5:07:58 PM6 votes

do I disenchant 16 skins to unlock my Spirit Guard Udyr or do I disenchant it to unlock half a skin? hmmmm

Takatsuki Yayoi2/22/2018, 7:19:31 PM6 votes

If you're sitting on an ultimate/mythic shard right now, will it be automatically upgraded once the change goes through? I know a few people sitting on ultimates including myself.

Star Guardian2/22/2018, 7:08:27 PM6 votes

Good changes, interesting to see all the drop rates.

Raw Berserker2/23/2018, 3:44:52 PM5 votes

Well I'm glad there are some improvements, there's a couple things niggling me here.

Orange essence was essentially gutted value-wise and your justification for it by having us get more skin shards feels like it won't come to fruition in such a way that the value of skin shards is retained from before the 'rework'. Having ultimate and mythic shards unlock straight away is nice, but chances are those aren't gonna be in my chest, instead I'll get epic and legendaries at best which will probably never see the light of day seeing as how extraordinarily hard it is to get key fragments and how lacking in skin shards event missions are (other than the Lunar Revel missions recently, which had their own problem with the chromas).

Next thing is on the support page for hextech crafting, it says if you leave a match you can't get a chest. Does this include leaving temporarily? I've had multiple occasions where there was an issue that I could only fix by relaunching the game. Does that mean I'll be penalised for that, even if I do well enough in that game to get an S rank because I had to fix something in the only way possible?

Lastly, would the extra orange essence given with wards ever happen for emotes too? I'll be honest, getting an emote feels about the same as getting a ward to me, and about 90% of people I've asked feel the same way, but at least you can disenchant wards whereas you have no choice with emotes.

I'm only bringing these things up because clearly you care about both the system and player base, otherwise you wouldn't have made any changes at all really.

Unrefõrmed2/24/2018, 12:13:57 AM5 votes

As much as this gives off "good guy rito" vibes, I'm certain they came to the conclusion that this would only increase box purchases and thus profit

They wouldn't have even touched the issue if it had been internally concluded that making hextech boxes "feel better" would decrease profits at all

Thanan2/22/2018, 11:30:51 PM5 votes

Hey Cactopus, I currently have a dj sona shard that ive been working on unlocking for quite awhile. Since it is already in my inventory, will it unlock automatically? Will I need to do something to get it without spending my OE?

JackFej2/22/2018, 10:58:18 PM4 votes

If you already own ultimate or mythic skin shard before the update, will you still be able to upgrade for free?

ShinigamiOtaku2/22/2018, 11:33:17 PM4 votes

what about the ultimate skin shards ive been sitting on forever cuz it seems it will take years to gather the OE? will those also be free or will i still sit on them

PopcornBunni2/23/2018, 6:51:27 AM4 votes

If I have an ultimate or mythic skin shard already, will it be able to unlock as a permanent in 8.5?

WilsonMagna2/25/2018, 7:19:18 AM4 votes

I appreciate the reduction in cost of upgrading masteries but it is still a ridiculous amount. Comparing BE upgrade cost to using shards (90-1280BE) using BE directly is exorbitant. Something along the lines of 500-1000BE to upgrade to mastery 6 and 1000-1500 to mastery 7 seems far more reasonable otherwise I'll just stick to only upgrading if I roll shards for champions I want to upgrade.

Isterya2/25/2018, 7:36:43 AM3 votes

Really glad for all these changes, but like many other people i feel kinda left behind because other ppl who will get an ultimate will have it automatically activated and i will have to disenchant my ultimate shard because it keeps the same huge price :|

OneLastMan2/23/2018, 5:39:29 PM3 votes

So I have DJ Sona ready to be upgraded. But would it automatically be redeemed in the new patch?

FailedQ3/9/2018, 12:33:14 AM3 votes

And I thought I was lucky to get Elementalist Lux... one day before the patch went live :(

Mr Beardman2/24/2018, 9:10:43 AM3 votes

Sorry, but while I like the idea around most of these changes the fact that the change to the ultimate and mythical skins isn't retroactive is rather bs. I got rid of a pulsefire ez shard because it would cost too many shards to get, and tbh I don't like playing ez anyway. But literally 2 weeks ago I get a shard for spirit guard udyr (a champ I love to play) but sit with the same dilemma. It costs a fortune of oe to unlock it, and you barely get enough oe on disenchant to do anything with. It will not hurt you guys at riot one bit to make the change to ultimate and mythical shards retroactive since we either got the shard for free through playing or spent money on chests to get it. I mean this is legit like the old man on the Geico commercial with the dollar on the fishing hook saying "ooh, you almost had it; you gotta be quicker than that!"

ENRAG3DCHICKEN2/24/2018, 7:42:30 AM3 votes

Skin sales must be off ... generosity buffs needed to placate the masses

Handmade Sausage2/28/2018, 10:31:39 AM3 votes

  1. You said...... "generosity" buff So..... :D:D:D::D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D XDDD :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

  2. You said........hextech chest - 50 % skin shard. 25 % champion shard. 10 % emote. 11.5 % ward. You can't open three chests in a row without dropping at least one skin shard. This raises the effective drop rate of skin shards to roughly 57 percent. So.....1st opened chest - skin of the lowest orange essence value. chests number 2, 3 , 4, 5, 6 - champion shards

I know those are marketing tricks so u can get more $$$, but still, at least be 3 % more honest with us.

Δ Ř Δ M2/26/2018, 9:06:40 AM1 votes

So what happens if you already have a ultimate skin shard in the loot inventory? Does it automatically unlock?