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A Hypothesis on Why S Grades are Harder Than Ever

Woodakoodashooda·2/1/2020, 9:45:37 PM·1 votes·1,225 views

I am certain many of you have noticed that obtaining S grades is more difficult this season than in past seasons.

The thing is, every time you get an S- or higher for the first time on a champion per season, you earn a chest so long as you have not earned too many chests within a short span of time as you are limited and must wait for avilable chests to recharge.

An average of 4 chests is pretty much a guaranteed free skin as not all chests contain skin shards, but most do and 3 re-rolled into one is a random permanent skin you do not yet own.

It is free cosmetic content that you normally have to pay money to obtain.

Riot implemented the free loot system years ago in order to compete with other hot titles at the time that were offering the same incentives to players.

But because League was Riot's only profitable product at the time, they began losing profits shortly after implementing the loot system. And so, they nerfed it in order to maintain it while preserving their profits.

I think Riot did the same for earning S grades. They may have deliberately made it harder so as to drastically reduce the number of chests earned by players during each season.

12 Comments

Der Lindwurm2/1/2020, 9:52:38 PM3 votes

You're much more likely to get an S or S+ if the game lasted at least 35 minutes. If you play flawlessly and win in 15 minutes you might have an OP score of 10.0 for the game but still very unlikely you'll get higher than A ingame. If the game goes on close to an hour you have a pretty decent chance of getting S+ even if your team loses.

Shorter games on average will definitely result in fewer S grades.

TheCrazyBoy2/1/2020, 10:28:41 PM1 votes

It just feels broken... , not even having enought chests, i have honor lv 2 and get no key fragments because i have 6 keys , you get keys from events/prestige points etc... , and you have 0 options to gain extra chests... , pointless then...

I got from other sources keys ... , i play often and get no key fragments .. , i had more keys than chests... available , but since the season started got probably 1 key at 4 chests... ,which is totally not alright... ,

Also they give you "random" things in same path... , a skin , then another skin ,then a emote , then a ward+ orange esence , champion , emote... etc.. , they give you something from everything ,is just obvious that is not random ,most of times the chests push for low value content... , even skins you get are from 0 popularity , chances to gain a skin shard for a champion you play and like are closely to 0 , of 5 years i see this hextech system ,never got a jinx skin shard on 5-6 accounts and i open lot's of chests and event content etc... (mainly probably because i play her... ).

Some skin shards are much more often droping than others...

Dota 2 is much more random in items drop ,and i know that i played it , first week i played and give up to play league of legends , i got a totally new item for nothing ... , i mean not even was such a good player ( it was 13 euros legendary courier) , not even had to collect something to unlock it , just got it as drop.. , and was feeling exciting because other seen my drop too .. ,and was somehow always fun to play and gain random things for nothing ,than just facing to unlock things in this hextech menu... , just feels boring and really not give you a vibe at all .

I remember you had bad games playing dota 2 and receiving a drop was changing your mood . I can't feel like League knows to deliver that experience, expecially when they even take your content , if you break chat rules . Riot just maked skins feel like 0 uncommon .. , not even feel like you get rewarded with skins... ,expecially when you can't trade to take something you like..

FOR JUSTICE2/2/2020, 4:45:50 PM1 votes

It's based off the people around you playing the same champ and role.

The only possible way it gets harder to get an S is if everyone else on your champ is doing exceptionally better then you think you're playing.

ProphetOfDraven2/5/2020, 7:56:05 PM1 votes

I don't have a hard time getting S's at all. I can get them about 80% of the time on my main champions.