Blue essence is awful - bring IP back.

I've been back a while. This account was banned for reasons I think are stupid, but whatever that's in the past. Was told to make a new account, so i went to what was my smurf. Getting Blue essence is an awful grind that has no business being this bad considering the old system was superior in every way. I'm getting really tired of gaming companies upping the grind and gamble of their game and then trying to justify it as a fun mechanic. Its NOT a fun mechanic, and will never be. If you want an example of what I'm talking about, remember season 6 when riot justified sending everybody back to bronze/silver because the painful as hell ranked grind was supposedly "fun and rewarding" when for most of us getting anywhere close to our rank was a frustrating series of grinds that spanned seasons? well its like that but with buying basic champions.

There is NO justification for making something as simple as obtaining a champion I want to play significantly harder when In the time i was gone Riot has included a zillion other money sinks into the game. I don't care about buying wards. If thats what you want, go ahead. It gives the player Choice Go ahead and figure out the prestige system gives a player choice. Emotes? Choice. Champ and ward skins? Choice. Chromas? Choice Let me tell you what takes away choice **ARTIFICIALLY BOTTLE-NECKING MY REWARDS FROM A GAME **

Now i can't just save up for a champion anymore because getting remotely close to 6300 BE takes what feels like 4x to 6x more grinding than it did, when so much of it is just a gamble after you grind levels. Occasionally you'll get a champion shard and that's dandy, but what are the odds of it being a shard I need? And for that matter? Why the HELL include shards to champions that cost 3150 or less in the lottery? that's a 38% of your chance to get better champions wasted on champions that don't cost a lot and thus don't justify even needing a champion shard and facing in the slow speed of needing to wait per level as opposed to after each game. And all possible explanations are actually more flaws with the system.

Masteries? Why should i need a champion shard for them? Mastery should be something gained through experience. in any other sport or game and even in pre 2016 league mastery would be something you just earn passively this is the case for the first 5 levels of mastery why are 6 and 7 any different? _Rentals? _Why can't i just rent them directly from the shop for a week? Why do i need shards for that? renting from the shop gives me more options, and more control as a player.

Oh and how about how much these champions cost in RP. Why does a 1350 BE champion cost almost 5 dollars of real life currency? So the grind has been upped , but the RP prices are still abhorrent for single champion purchases and you generally have to be lucky to get a worth-while bundle. So even if i decided to cave in and just spend money... the sales are so bad there's no point. AND ON TOP OF THIS - new rune pages STILL cost 6300 BE which takes forever to actually obtain.

Also, I absolutely love getting a zillion master Yi, or ashe shards. I love grinding through levels just to be rewarded with low BE payouts. That would have worked infinitely better if we just returned to the old system. Sure, for newer players it really helps, but I'm not a newer player and now i have to roll the dice to be able to afford the champions i used to play on this account. That, and whats wrong with just giving extra champion capsules to newer players while letting BE work like IP used to? Aside from Obviou$ $hort-term reason$ I don't see any benefit to this newer system. Even to Riot the company - makes them look sleazy to us gamers for rolling back a far more functional system in favor of this modern monstrosity.

Every single issue this game's store had before could have been fixed with some basic QoL updates. And it would have been great! Maybe would have made people want to play again if they actually felt rewarded per-game.

But the game is free, so stop complaining

The game was free before and it was far more balanced before, and it was far more fair before. And it actually felt like a free game before with optional paid content Nowadays we have a bunch of cool cinematics - but the game is really what matters, and what did we sacrifice? A balance team that doesn't even play the game and balances around Events and Worlds creating champions that are so overloaded they are either too strong or worthless with no in-between. An art team that is amazing. New lore is cool i guess, but i still loved the older one. A dumbing down of the game that resulted in every game being a stomp, and something as basic as grinding champions being made into a disgustingly apparent money-sink complete with lootboxes. And_ I should point out, _This game was at it's peak BEFORE all this nonsense was added to it - not after. So it's hurting the game. I think we need a back to basics approach Where the game and the player experience comes **first. **

Right now League of Legends is a burnt and smashed cake with a LOT of frosting and beautiful toppings to hide the messy insides. When I eat what I expect to be a well-balanced and delicious cake a cake with the right amount of fluff, a smidgen of butter maybe some chocolate and milky goodness I instead get a burnt, smashed cake that tastes a bit like rubber, and eggshell shards stuck in my teeth topped off with wayyyyy too much admittedly good frosting