Loot UI Suggestion

Hello! I had an idea I wanted to bring to Riot's attention regarding an interesting Marketing/QoL feature for the Loot page in the LoL client.

Basically, my issue is this: When I have an Epic or above (including Legacy) skin shard that I do not already own for a champion that I don't regularly play, I run into a dilemma where I'm not sure if I want to break it down for essence (since I don't play the champion almost ever) or if I want to activate it (because it's one of the more expensive and well-designed skins in the game). What would help with making this decision is being able to see if I do or do not already own a skin for that champion because, even if I don't play the champion often, on the off chance that I get them in an ARAM match or I decide they're a good niche pick or whatever the case may be, I might end up playing them and there's nothing worse than being the only one on the team without a skin because you're not playing one of your mains, so long-term I aim to have at least one skin activated on every champion thanks to the Hextech Crafting and Loot system.

So, my suggestion is as follows: Add a new UI element to the Loot screen for when you click a Skin Shard that tells you which other skins you already own for that champion, if any. This prevents users from having to navigate to their Collection, dig up the champ and their skins for that champ, then go back to Loot after coming to a decision. You could even go as far as to add an alert icon (like a little red exclamation point to the top right corner of the shard icon) when the user owns that champion but does not own any skins for them. This would drive up how often players would actually want to use the skin shards rather than just hoard essence, which drives your sales and playtime obviously as people would need to get more chests and keys to farm up the essence for those shards that they may otherwise have not even bothered activating.

Obviously this isn't a high-priority request, but I think if you brought this idea to your Marketing team, they would have a hay-day with the possibilities and the UI team would likely agree it isn't a difficult feature to implement since it uses systems that mostly already exist in the client's current structure (it already tells you if you own the champ or not and if you own that specific skin or not). It wouldn't have to be anything fancy, just a list of names of the skins you already own on that champion beside the activation options that appear when you click the shard, not full graphics or anything (so you don't have to worry about overhead or load time for players with slower rigs). It would also make things way easier on the user as a Quality of Life feature due to not having to bounce between multiple menus to make what effectively boils down to an impulse decision.

Impulse decisions for rewards like this need to be as convenient as possible as well from a marketing standpoint. Inconvenience, however slight, will push players away from wanting to impulsively activate those skin shards. The more convenient you make it, and the more you push the idea that "Hey, you could have your first skin on this champion and never be embarrassed about being a no-skin again!" the more sales you'll get for chests and keys and the more people will grind for S ranks and wins for those sweet Loot Boxes and Keys.

As a direct example (what initially gave me the idea to write you guys and girls this ticket), is as follows: I go into my Loot and I open up a chest and I get the Arcade Sona skin shard. I never play Sona really, but Arcade Sona is an Epic-tier shard and it has really pretty graphics and I love the Arcade line, so I'm contemplating activating it since I have a decent store of orange essence right now. However, if I already own another skin on Sona (because Arcade isn't my favorite of hers, it's just a good one), then I may not want to activate it in lieu of using the skin I already own if that skin is prettier than this one. Unfortunately, I can't remember if I own another skin or not, so I would have to navigate to Collection and then search up Sona skins to see which ones I own and then weigh my options again. However, the inconvenience of having to go to Collection and then search for my Sona skins, or worse having to go to the Store and then go to Skins and then check Show Owned and then search for Sona (etc), combined with the fact that I really don't play her often at all so I realistically don't care all that much if I have a good skin on her, means that I was going to just throw the idea in the trash and not bother activating the shard at all so I could just hoard essence. This means I'd have more orange essence and would be more easily able to get a skin I definitely absolutely want later if I pull it from a chest, which means I don't have to grind as hard later or buy keys and chests later when I get that really really good skin shard because I just already have the essence built up.

No sales, no skin activation, no feeling of reward despite getting what's supposed to be a low-chance, high-tier drop from the chest, all because of a slight to moderate inconvenience.

Conversely, if I could see right there that "The only Sona skin you own is Sweetheart Sona, which is Legacy but doesn't have nearly as pretty gameplay elements. This could be your first good skin on her! Better activate it now!" then I'd have not even had that whole thought process, I would have just been like "Hell yeah! Let's get it! Arcadey bloopy pew pew noises every time I cast an ability? Let's go!" and chewed up 1050 orange essence that I'd have to re-grind for later when I get a shard I really want to activate. On top of that, if I'm balancing the idea of a few different Epic or above skin shards (I've got the Legendary Star Guardian Ahri (another champ I don't play often) shard and an Epic IG Irelia (a champ I do play sometimes)), then I'd have to go to Collection multiple times to see what skins I do or don't already have for all of those Champions, and that can take several minutes. So I've had those shards sitting in my Loot tray for a month or so now with no intention of activating them right now.

So that's however many less clicks around the client's UI, which means less load times, less time spent in the menus, and therefore more time available for me to jump into a match with my brand new skin! Which also means that I'm spending more time in games with your better-designed skins, showing them off to every other player that I load in with, and I'm putting ideas in their heads for skins they might want to buy and start rocking.

So yeah, I hope you guys consider this idea seriously. I know it's quite a bit of a read, but I think your marketing team would go nuts over the possibilities and extra cash flow and gameplay time that would come from your users because of it. I also think that your techs and UI/UX designers would agree that this wouldn't be a particularly difficult feature to implement and optimize. And to top it all off, we players always love us some Quality of Life changes!

Thanks for reading! ~ TheRealStrider