Key Fragment Drop Rates are Far Too Low - Please Read!

EDIT: BEFORE YOU READ, PLEASE DON'T THINK THAT I'M BASHING RIOT FOR GIVING OUT FREE STUFF. IF YOU READ BELOW, I OUTLINE WHY IT'S IN RIOT'S BEST INTERESTS TO MAKE THE SYSTEM WORK WELL! As many of you may have already discovered, the hextech crafting system is incredibly skewed towards chests. After the first two or three fragments in a given month, it is near impossible to get any fragments. Several of my friends have claimed getting fifty wins after the first four fragments without obtaining a single key fragment. Now, I know this may sound very ungrateful of me as I know this is all free stuff. However, Riot CHOSE to implement this system for several reasons. Primarily, it adds a Counterstrike-esque microtransaction mechanic to the game which increases their profit by huge amounts due; did you see all those popular league youtubers drop two hundred to two thousand dollars in a single sitting just to make vids of themselves swearing when they get Teemo from a box for the seventh time and finally rolling on the ground in joy when they get Hextech Annie? The secondary effect of this system is a huge raise in player morale. Everyone is always bashing "rito" for some reason or another, and so to alleviate this anti-ritoism, they decided to give us free stuff. Which works in theory––however, this intention is, in fact, working against them, because of the incredibly skewed fragment drop rates. The frustration associated with a system that seems to be working against us is building and causing even more anger than before. If you choose to do something, you had better make it work.

I will now outline the main mechanics of the crafting system, just in case: 1: You get chests for obtaining an S+, S, or S- rank in a Summoner's Rift normal or ranked game. 2: If you are in a premade party with someone who gets an S+, S, or S-, you also get a chest 3: You start with four potential chests. You are given a refill every week, and you can store up to four at a time. 4: To unlock a chest, you need keys. It takes three key fragments to make a key. 5: Key fragments have a chance of dropping upon a win. 6: Your chance of getting a fragment increases with the number of people in your party 7: Your chance of getting a fragment decreases exponentially with the number of fragments you have already earned this month. 8: This "smooth" curve is somewhat logical, and resets every month. 9: You can only get one chest per champion per season.

Now that we know the general rules, we can begin to draw conclusions. As an example, we can now take a somewhat average player; one is silver/bronze and is limited to six to twelve games a week due to school/work. This person plays primarily for fun and will rarely play solo queue because he/she enjoys playing with friends, rather than just mindlessly grinding solo queue with the sole intention of winning. We'll assume––most likely generously––that he/she wins half of his/her games. We also assume that the time of this hypothetical occasion is a week after the release of hextech crafting, and due to mlg friends, this individual already has all five of the chests he/she could have unlocked at this time. This person has also obtained three key fragments and unlocked their first chest [it was a yorick champion shard]. From here on out, we will assume that due to those selfsame mlg friends, he/she unlocks a chest every week. This is not difficult to imagine because there are, on average, ten (games) times three (players)= thirty (chances at an S+, S, or S-). Assuming that there is a chance, on average, of getting an S, S+, or S- every twelve chances, with such a wide champion pool that the champion per season caveat is irrelevant, this person will be getting, on average, four chests a month. Keys, on the other hand, will tend to drop for this person only up to six times a month. Do you see the problem here? Many people say that the chest-key continuum will begin to even out quickly over the course of the season because we started with four chests. However, this is a fallacy because not only did you start with more chests than keys, you also earn chests much faster than keys. This, in fact, applies to most people. The only people such a fallacy would apply to would be a small portion of the League community that only plays solo queue, focuses solely on winning––rather than personal performance––in ranked, and mains only one champion or one small set of champions. For the great majority of us, who fall somewhere in between these two extremes, the continuum will never balance out until Riot fixes things. Remember, we are not being greedy. Riot CHOSE to put this mechanic in place, as I outlined above. If they want to have something that raises morale and hence purchases, it is in their best interest to do it well.

Here are three ways that Riot could fix the system: 1: Instead of having a "smooth" curve that resets every month, they could implement an undecaying, say, thirty-three percent chance of earning a key fragment upon a win and also put in a cap that caps it at sixteen keys per month. 2: They could have it so that you can purchase keys or fragments with IP. 3: They could reduce the amount of key fragments it takes to forge a key.

TL;DR(sorry guys)––Riot needs to change the mechanic at least slightly to balance the key-chest continuum as even in the long run people will be earning more chests than keys Creds to Krypp420: "If an admin sees this post please read carefully. Key fragments are an incentive to play the game and to ensure the player has motivation to win. Apparently, key fragments have become an issue, and not just for some. The fact that people are earning chests (3 key fragments) every time they earn an S-Rank or better, and people are only earning 1 key fragment every random win (which seems like <5% of the wins will drop a key). There is a flaw in the algorithm used to produce key fragments or there is an issue with the staff at riot. There is absolutely 0 reason for this. With all the intelligent people working at riot there should be at least 1 person to notice this issue (considering its been an issue plastered all over the boards) who can actually do something about it (talk to someone who can fix it or do it themselves). Its apparent that the Riot staff is either negligent to their customers concerns or oblivious on how to ensure the customers satisfaction (i think we all know which one is true). Please have the decency to make people who actually enjoy this game to continue to do so. Considering that majority of the people who play League of Legends have bought something from the store it would be considerate to show us that our money is not only going to our own satisfaction but also the satisfaction of the LoL community.

Thank You"