About the rate of key fragment drops

Spacesuit Spiff··2 votes·694 views

Make it creep back up after lots of games without getting one.

In theory HTC works really well: people might see 4 chests per month and go "well i should try to keep up with this on all my smurfs too" but then they realize that they need keys too and playing enough to get 4 keys a month on several accounts isn't too feasible. Thus people stick to their main and get the amount of stuff Riot wanted them to have.

In practise, the keys are even more time constrained than the chests, which totally defeats the purpose. You get the first 2 pretty quick and then the odds have dropped so low that you're probably not gonna finish a third before the reset. So the optimal way to free stuff is actually have a whole mess of accounts, play ~10 games on them per month, and easily open 2 chests per account per month. I have most of the stuff I want in this game, but for every person who actually does this theres more smurfs and more free content getting out.

Solution: key drop rates start slightly lower, decrease as usual, but slowly ramp up after many games of not getting a shard.

This way players who play 100 games a month will end up with more keys than players who play 10 games a month, encouraging players to stick to one account, and not getting a key for a whole week doesn't feel as bad.

(Yes, just buying 2 keys per month would solve the problem. This annoys me more because I'm an engineer and it's a dysfunctional systen)

10 Comments

R31W1NG1 votes

An S rank a week isn't difficult at all for the chests themselves. But the other restrictions in regards to the chests are reasonably significant. such that many players won't have an excess of chests. Especially if they play with a pre-made as riot is trying to kill of their solo player base. Additionally your proposed change would keep people from throwing RP at the problem, if it does arise, which is counter productive to the bottom-line. The chest system was implemented to ink out money from the fish instead of the whales. Sure it's neat for the non-paying base but really it's just the bait on the lure.

Faith Breaker1 votes

There has never been more incentive to smurf then there is now. Between half the time and xp to grind to lvl30, the new 400 RP lvl5 Replacement, and the free first time Purple Hextech Chest, I have more reason to smurf then I do to play on my main. Honestly, with the introduction of the HTC system, when I play 20 matches and earn no keys, because I have a zero percent chance to until the reset period of 30 days. I feel like "Why am I even playing? Why play if I have absolutely no chance to win something?"

To be honest it makes me wonder? Why was I playing before HTC? I don't remember. But now a days I play 3 or 4 matches, remember I have no chance to win a key no matter how good I do, and then go play another game. God I hope this HTC comes back to bite Riot in their fat lard ass

PDE5 Inhib1 votes

What 400RP replacement?

Faith Breaker1 votes

Instead of 400RP Riot is going to impliment a Hextech Chest as a reward, it will contain either Sherwood Forest Ashe or Sanguine Garen, and enough essence to unlock one of them. It's mentioned somewhere in the article where they discuss HTC going live.

PDE5 Inhib1 votes

Oh. I personally liked the 400RP better. With mine, I bought 3 keys to the chests (since they're pretty hard to get). Good thing I singed up before this went live lol.

Faith Breaker1 votes

I liked the 400 RP better too, it let you buy 1 skin, on sale, to a champ you either were really good with or really liked. You may only have 1 skin as a free player, aside from the garen/alistar/tristana ones, and you'd be proud of it. You might learn how to play a new champ because you bought a skin for them on sale for 400 or less RP. Imo the best way to spend the 400 RP, since keys are a technically renewable resource. You spent your on 3 keys, aka you bought stress relief with RP.

Was that worth it? Probably, that depends on you. However, next time you need Keys and fragments aren't dropping, will you be willing to buy and spend more RP? Please don't take the bait. It's not free if you're paying for it. You are better off buying RP and buying the skins you want then wasting RP on keys to open chests that MIGHT give you something useful.

PDE5 Inhib1 votes

aside from the garen/alistar/tristana ones

What is this non-sense you're talking about?

Was that worth it? Probably, that depends on you. However, next time you need Keys and fragments aren't dropping, will you be willing to buy and spend more RP?

It was worth it to me because now I have essence that I can use to buy a skin or champ that comes through which I like, like I did with Thresh. You are never sure about which skins will go on sale, and that 400RP is just sitting there looking at you lol.

No, I will not spend money on this game lol...especially on something so dumb. I like to gamble, but only for shits and giggles at the casino. This isn't that type of gambling. It would be much more intelligent to just buy a skin you want, rather than hoping you get it in a hextech (given the vast amount of items you could get).

Faith Breaker1 votes

Like League on Twitter, get Dreadknight Garen for free.

Like League on Youtube, get Unchained Alistar for free.

Like League on Facebook, get Riot Girl Tristana for free.

I got Bad Santa Veigar off my first Hextech Chest. And yes, I do understand what you mean. The "thrill" of it, I do get that part.

CoolMike1271 votes

A better solution to the problem is balance out the steep graph of key fragment drops, by increasing the difficulty to obtain the first few key fragments and lowering the ones later, as it currently is easy to obtain 3-4 quickly, but then grind multiple games to receive more.

Spacesuit Spiff1 votes

Thats basically what im getting at. Harder to get the first keys kills the smurf strat. Then a more reasonable drop rate finishes the job (but it being based on number of games played too stops people from ending up with tons of keys and no chests)

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