A Legitimate Problem with Blue Essence
Hello fellow League of Legends players who have stumbled upon my thread! I am Decredulous, but you can call me Brandon if you wish to address me by my real name. I am here to address a problem that has been addressed before, but this time I wish to put my own perspective on the situation as to shed light on how the problem of blue essence acquisition will negatively effect new players and may even dissuade them from playing the game.
To begin with my own position, I created this account with the intention of learning and succeeding with a champion unfamiliar to me, Brand. It has been an entertaining experience and I have grown to love playing on this account more than my other. That being said, the unfortunate currency situation on this new account hasn't been enjoyable to say the least, and I believe this may negatively effect new players trying to get into the game. In total, I have only ever purchased a collection of the "cheaper" champions in order to meet the requirement to play ranked (as well as the notable mention of Braum from a mystery chest that I got a while ago with RP), as well as purchasing Brand of course.
Now I am level 43, and have been steadily saving my blue essence since Brand's purchase. I would like to start playing adc on this account but only have the 3 cheap adc's (sivir, ashe, and tristina). My wish is to save up blue essence to purchase another, but the two that I want unfortunately cost quite a bit (namely Draven and Jinx, who cost 4800 and 6300). I cross my fingers with every champion capsule, but I haven't gotten a single ADC shard from the 14 capsules I've obtained. I currently have 15 unused champion shards that I don't dare convert to blue essence since their future acquisition without the shard would be near impossible. Other than that, I estimate that I have used between 6-10 unusable shards as converts to blue essence.
So let's say a new player wants to be like me and try maining support. They hypothetically buy 2-4 (or 1-3, if expensive) supports, rank up quite a bit, and then get bored and wish to try a different role. Doing so might be discouraging due to the blue essence shortage unless they get lucky with a champion shard to halve the cost. This might cause them to play the game less frequently, thus never realizing their potential to become one of those people who buy every single skin and have spent upwards of 1,000$ or more on this game (we all know that guy haha). This would be a major setback for Riot financially. The only way the current blue essence system helps Riot is if new accounts buy new champions out of pure frustration. Should the profit be equal, then the only thing that has changed is that players are buying champions of out frustration instead of buying skins out of love. Should the profit be less, then I have no clue why they continue with this system. Should the profit be more, then Riot has sacrificed player experience for profit incentive.
Some of you might inquire as to why one should complain since this is a free game after all. Well my answer to you is, I probably shouldn't complain, but I have played before on a system where new champion acquisition was frequent and rewarding, thus I now abhor the tediousness and unsatisfying progress that I am making on this account. It simply leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And if I am one to feel this way, I'm sure there are other's out there with a silent voice who feel the same.
