I waited until the Snowdown event ended to write this so I could point out some of the glaring issues with the Snowdown Daily Missions, which I hope the design team keeps in mind for future missions and events.

WTFL;DR

Mission designers need to be more meticulous. Some descriptions were vague or required jumping through hoops. Optional bonuses often forced players into situations they didn't want to play, could be disabled by accident, and could encourage intentionally playing poorly or outright losing on purpose. The fact that there were more potential Nexus Tokens than necessary mitigated the problem, as did the full roster unlock, but they didn't fully address the downsides. Preventing players from acquiring exclusive items because their stats in unrelated game modes are too high or their teammates won't let them pick a champion is a bad path to follow.

---

Missions are great. Most players like having them, as they add another layer to the metagame (and honestly, everyone likes getting rewards). I know your mission authors are trying to come up with missions that encourage achievement hunting without also encouraging intentional bad play, but they haven't hit that sweet spot just yet.

There are two things that missions are sorely lacking: clarity (not just a buzzword) and player agency.

---

Clarity

When the Snowdown event launched, players were confused by the alternate mission reward. The format was not clear to many, evident by the Twitter, Boards, and Reddit posts. (Side note: Major thanks to Riot Mortdog for keeping us informed and clearing up confusion, since a lot of the information in his Tweets simply isn't available in-client or on the website.)

https://i.imgur.com/SklNAEf.png[] (image from EUNE boards post since the completed missions are gone from my client now that the event has ended)

The -OR- indicates reasonably well that either accomplishing the tasks above or below that line will complete the mission, but the "+" actually doesn't do a great job of explaining that the lower task will grant a bonus reward in addition to the top task's reward. Yes, a "+" is recognized as an addition operator, but it can also be seen as a bullet or typographical note to differentiate it from the upper task/reward. It could also be misconstrued as having to clear the upper task plus the lower task to get a bonus reward, which would actually disable the bonus reward if the upper task was cleared first.

Stating the task options in different colors, each with a different bullet, and stating the rewards in full for each option would likely reduce confusion with fairly little effort.

○ Win 2 PVP games [gray text] -OR- ● Win a game of Nexus Blitz [gold text]

◊ Rewards ○ 10 Snowdown Tokens [gray text] -OR- ● 10 Snowdown Tokens, 1 Nexus Token [gold text]

Alternately, change the + in the rewards to AND.

○ Win 2 PVP games [gray text] -OR- ● Win a game of Nexus Blitz [gold text]

◊ Rewards ○ 10 Snowdown Tokens [gray text] ● AND 1 Nexus Token [gold text]

Either of those seems less ambiguous to me. I get that you were trying to adhere to a concise display by treating the Nexus Token bonus as a modular add-on, but it just didn't convey the concept readily to everyone. Sometimes being too concise is a hindrance.

Another clarity problem lies with the missions that require players to use specific champions from a list or lore faction. These were inconsistently presented, with some missions explicitly listing the champions and other missions externally linking to your website's Universe pages. I know you're trying to encourage players to explore the lore sections of the website, but this was clunky. It would probably be more streamlined to link internally to the Champions Collection in the client, with a sorting category for lore regions. Or, since players might be checking the mission during champ select, just list the eligible champions like the non-lore champion missions do. Having to use external references for missions is sub-optimal.

Some missions, like the image above, specify PVP games. This should be all-or-nothing, since all of the Snowdown Daily (not FWotD) missions only applied to Matchmade PVP games. The mission to "Kill 2 Dragons as a team in the same game" did not explicitly state PVP, but did not count bot games. This breaks with precedent, as many missions in the past have been clearable via bot games as long as they were Matchmade Co-op vs. AI.

Possible solution: If a group of missions are all Matchmade PVP only, then label them all accordingly, instead of just emphasizing it on a few specific ones. By only labeling a few, the rest become ambiguous (especially due to precedent).

3rd Daily of Snowdown (Matchmade PVP) ○ Win 2 games [gray text] -OR- ● Win a game of Nexus Blitz [gold text]

◊ Rewards ○ 10 Snowdown Tokens [gray text] -OR- ● 10 Snowdown Tokens, 1 Nexus Token [gold text]

and

10th Daily of Snowdown (Matchmade PVP) ○ Kill 2 Dragons as a team in the same game [gray text] -OR- ● Play a game of Nexus Blitz and see the Scuttle Crab Racing event [gold text]

◊ Rewards ○ 10 Snowdown Tokens [gray text] -OR- ● 10 Snowdown Tokens, 1 Nexus Token [gold text]

This makes it clear that the missions will not apply to Co-op vs. AI or Custom games.

---

Player Agency

On the surface, alternate mission criteria seem to give players options. As they are now, that's more of a token illusion of choice for a lot of people. Thankfully, Nexus Tokens required to earn all the bonus rewards were fewer than the amount available, so missing some didn't destroy players' chances of getting those bonuses. Still, players were forced to adhere to an alternate game mode for multiple games, sometimes requiring specific champion choices, or they risked Nexus Token denial.

Actual occurrence: One of the friends I frequently play with went on a family trip overseas during the event (which is completely expected since the event coincided with the December/January holiday season). When he returned home, he had multiple Snowdown events available with ticking timers, so we played some games to clear them. One of them was the 30th Daily of Snowdown. Main objective: Destroy 4 inhibitors. Nexus Token objective: Play Nexus Blitz and see Bardle Royale: Paranoia. He almost failed to get that Nexus Token, because Paranoia didn't come up until our 4th game. He had 3 inhibitors checked off, and our team was pushing for the inhib in the 4th game when we got lucky enough for a Paranoia event. While he was relieved, we both noted how easily we could've thrown that game if we were less scrupulous (don't worry, he definitely would have accepted the loss of a Nexus Token to avoid griefing our team).

I've personally declined invitations from frequent queuemates since they were playing Summoner's Rift/Howling Abyss games, because they would've caused me to lose out on Nexus Tokens. I did end up getting more than enough, but I had no way of knowing how many missions in advance I might've missed.

Bonus objectives requiring specific champion picks are also a bad idea in a game mode with up to 10 bans (unlocking the full roster helped mitigate the risk, but this didn't happen until almost 2 weeks into the event). Trolls could pick/ban the eligible champions to stall/block people's objective completion.

If you want us to have options at each mission tier, give us actual options. The VS events are examples of explicit choices, since choosing a faction completely disables one version of each mission. The recent missions are not so definite, since accidental mission completions are so easy.

Let us explicitly choose to enable/disable mission redemption so we don't end up denying ourselves rewards by prematurely completing a mission. Or give each mission a manual redemption button, which is only available once the minimum criteria are met. Clicking the button grants the standard mission reward. If a bonus criterion has been satisfied, the bonus reward is also granted. If the bonus requirement has not been met, the bonus reward is ignored.
Regardless of the bonus, the mission is disabled once a reward is claimed.

Another thing to note is that missions sometimes go active without the player seeing an alert. This is especially likely for those playing late night/early morning, which includes a lot of us on the weekends and during the holidays. A lot of players could wind up making significant progress on (or completely clearing) a mission's standard goal before realizing they needed to fulfill a specific requirement in Nexus Blitz, effectively removing the ability for the player to choose whether to pursue that bonus reward.

---

List of Daily Snowdown 2018 Missions

(information from the LoL Wiki due to in-client history being cleared, reformatted to match in-client display)

1st Daily of Snowdown Destroy 20 towers as a team -OR- + Play 2 games of Nexus Blitz as a Yordle champion ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration
• Vague champion requirement - the official site doesn't have a definitive list. The closest thing to a roster is the Bandle City page, but this neglects Yordles of other regional factions like Heimerdinger or Ziggs. Amumu's current lore also implies that he is a Yordle, but also states that it's an indefinite story (which means he usually doesn't count for Yordle-based missions).

Agency issues:

• Bonus objective could be disabled with just 2 Summoner's Rift games
• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion (additionally, this mission was before the December 18th full roster unlock)

2nd Daily of Snowdown Get 50 kills and/or assists -OR- + Get 10 kills and/or assists in Nexus Blitz as Nami, Neeko, Nautilus, Nasus, Nidalee, Nunu, or Nocturne ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Bonus objective could be disabled with just 1 ARAM
• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion (additionally, this mission was before the December 18th full roster unlock)

3rd Daily of Snowdown Win 2 PvP matchmade games -OR- + Win a game of Nexus Blitz ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity

Agency issues:

• Winning a single game in any non-Nexus Blitz mode first means the bonus objective is disabled if you don't lose in Nexus Blitz

4th Daily of Snowdown Earn 30,000 gold -OR- + Play 2 games of Nexus Blitz as Shuriman champion ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration
• External link for champion requirement

Agency issues:

• Bonus objective could still be disabled with just 3 Summoner's Rift games or 2 ARAMs
• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion (additionally, this mission was before the December 18th full roster unlock)

5th Daily of Snowdown As a team take down Baron Nashor -OR- + Deal 20,000 damage to enemy champions in Nexus Blitz as Akali, Evelynn, Katarina, LeBlanc, or Shaco ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Playing a single game on Summoner's Rift could disable your bonus objective if any of your teammates killed Baron Nashor
• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion (additionally, this mission was before the December 18th full roster unlock)

6th Daily of Snowdown Use your summoner spells 50 times -OR- + Win a game of Nexus Blitz as Blitzcrank, Teemo, Veigar, Caitlyn, Nocturne, or Bard ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Frequent ARAM players could disable the bonus objective faster than on other game modes due to Mark/Dash's low cooldown and reset mechanic
• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion (additionally, this mission was before the December 18th full roster unlock)

7th Daily of Snowdown Kill 1,200 minions as a team -OR- + As a team win at least 2 events in the same game of Nexus Blitz ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Bonus objective could be disabled in 1-3 Summoner's Rift games depending on how well teammates farm minions
• Unlikely but still possible to lose bonus objective purely playing Nexus Blitz if teammates don't focus on events

8th Daily of Snowdown Feed 5 Poros on ARAM -OR- + Play 2 games of Nexus Blitz as Alistar, Cho'Gath, Galio, Malphite, Maokai, or Rammus ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion (additionally, this mission was before the December 18th full roster unlock)
• This mission is still more reasonable than most since it requires performing a completely optional action in 3-5 ARAM games to disable the bonus objective.

9th Daily of Snowdown Get 13 kills -OR- + Get 10 kills and/or assists in Nexus Blitz as an Ionian champion ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration
• External link for champion requirement

Agency issues:

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion (additionally, this mission was before the December 18th full roster unlock)
• Bonus objective could be disabled in a single non-Nexus Blitz game

10th Daily of Snowdown Kill 2 Dragons as a team in the same game -OR- + Play a game of Nexus Blitz and see the Scuttle Crab racing event ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Playing a single game on Summoner's Rift could disable your bonus objective if any of your teammates kill 2 dragons

11th Daily of Snowdown As a team take down Rift Herald in Summoner's Rift -OR- + As a team kill the Rift Herald in Nexus Blitz ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Playing a single game on Summoner's Rift could disable your bonus objective if any of your teammates kill the Rift Herald

12th Daily of Snowdown Earn 27,000 gold -OR- + Play 2 games of Nexus Blitz as Freljordian champion ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration
• External link for champion requirement

Agency issues:

• Bonus objective could still be disabled with just 3 Summoner's Rift games or 2 ARAMs
• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion (additionally, this mission was before the December 18th full roster unlock)

13th Daily of Snowdown Play 3 games in which you placed at least 2 Control Wards -OR- + Play 2 games of Nexus Blitz as Janna, Jarvan IV, Jax, Jayce, Jhin, or Jinx ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion
• Bonus objective could be disabled with 3 Summoner's Rift games (meming aside, warding is something that should be expected in every game, and trinkets don't suffice)

14th Daily of Snowdown Destroy 4 inhibitors -OR- + Get 10 kills and/or assists in Nexus Blitz as Nunu, Zilean, Gragas, Fiddlesticks, Veigar, or Braum ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion
• Bonus objective could be disabled with a single non-Nexus Blitz game if inhibitors regenerate

15th Daily of Snowdown Play 2 games where your team destroyed at least 4 towers -OR- + Win a game of Nexus Blitz as a Demacian champion ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration
• External link for champion requirement

Agency issues:

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion
• Bonus objective could be disabled by playing 2 games of any non-Nexus Blitz mode

16th Daily of Snowdown Play 3 games in which you placed at least 3 Control Wards -OR- + Place 3 wards in a game of Nexus Blitz ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion
• Bonus objective could be disabled with 3 Summoner's Rift games

17th Daily of Snowdown Play 3 games where you had at least 8 assists -OR- + Play a game of Nexus Blitz and see the Loot Teemo event ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Bonus objective relies on RNG
• Bonus objective could be disabled by playing 3 games in any game mode (including Nexus Blitz)

18th Daily of Snowdown Win a PvP game with a vision score over 18 -OR- + Get 5 kills in Nexus Blitz as a Noxian champion ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade requirement declaration
• External link for champion requirement

Agency issues:

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion
• Bonus objective could be disabled even without warding

19th Daily of Snowdown Deal 30,000 damage to enemy champions -OR- + Get 5 kills in Nexus Blitz as Darius, Garen, Illaoi, Irelia, Renekton, Riven, or Yasuo ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion
• Bonus objective could be disabled in a single game of any mode (including Nexus Blitz)

20th Daily of Snowdown Play 2 PvP games -OR- + Play a game of Nexus Blitz ◊ 25 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• This one's fine as long as the player sees the mission is active. Either play Nexus Blitz once or don't.

21st Daily of Snowdown Get 35 assists -OR- + Play a game of Nexus Blitz and see the Arena event ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration
• Inconsistency between mission label and in-game event announcement (Arena vs. Prize Fight)

Agency issues:

• Bonus objective relies on RNG
• Bonus objective could be disabled quickly in any game mode (including Nexus Blitz)

22nd Daily of Snowdown Win 2 PvP games in under 32 minutes -OR- + Win a game of Nexus Blitz in under 16 minutes ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Bonus objective can be disabled in any game mode (including Nexus Blitz)

23rd Daily of Snowdown Win 3 games -OR- + Play 3 games of Nexus Blitz ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Winning a single game in any non-Nexus Blitz mode first means the bonus objective is disabled if you don't lose in Nexus Blitz

24th Daily of Snowdown Deal 500,000 damage -OR- + Play 2 games of Nexus Blitz as Kog'Maw, Kindred, Twitch, Tahm Kench, Thresh, or Ivern ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion
• Bonus objective can be disabled extremely quickly by some champions since it's not specifically damage to champions or structures

25th Daily of Snowdown Destroy 20 towers as a team -OR- + Get 5 kills in Nexus Blitz as a Void champion ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration
• External link for champion requirement

Agency issues

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion

26th Daily of Snowdown Heal 10,000 damage -OR- + Get 10 assists in Nexus Blitz as Janna, Lulu, Nami, Sona, or Soraka ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion
• Bonus objective could be disabled in a single game even by playing the correct champions in Nexus Blitz if teammates fail to secure kills

27th Daily of Snowdown Earn 30,000 gold -OR- + As a team win 2 events in the same of Nexus Blitz ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Bonus objective could be disabled in 2 or 3 games in any mode (including Nexus Blitz)

28th Daily of Snowdown Win 2 PvP matchmade games -OR- + Play 2 games of Nexus Blitz as Zac, Zed, Ziggs, Zilean, Zoe, or Zyra ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity

Agency issues:

• Ally picks and/or bans from either team in Nexus Blitz could prevent choosing an eligible champion
• Winning a single game in any non-Nexus Blitz mode first means the bonus objective is disabled if you don't lose in Nexus Blitz

29th Daily of Snowdown As a team take down 3 Dragons -OR- + Play 2 games of Nexus Blitz as a Bilgewater champion ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration
• External link for champion requirement

Agency issues:

• Playing a single game on Summoner's Rift could disable your bonus objective if any of your teammates kill 3 dragons

30th Daily of Snowdown Destroy 4 inhibitors -OR- + Play a game of Nexus Blitz and see the Bardle Royale: Paranoia event ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity
• Lack of Matchmade PVP requirement declaration

Agency issues:

• Bonus objective relies on RNG
• Bonus objective could be disabled by playing any game mode (including Nexus Blitz)

The Last Daily of Snowdown Win 3 PvP matchmade games -OR- + Play 3 games of Nexus Blitz ◊ 10 Snowdown tokens ◊ +1 Nexus token

Clarity issues:

• Reward ambiguity

Agency issues:

• Winning a single game in any non-Nexus Blitz mode first means the bonus objective is disabled if you don't lose in Nexus Blitz

Any mission where the bonus objective can be disabled circumstantially is an example of flawed design, and potentially incentivizes intentional throws to preserve the bonus objective. Many of these missions had the distasteful effect of forcing players to play Nexus Blitz before any other modes, simply to avoid losing bonus tokens. Yes, we realize you want a lot of activity in the game mode since you're testing it still, but having our choices made for us is unappealing.