Hextech Chests - Impact on player experience and Honor Level.

Hello everyone, how are you today?

I was thinking of making this thread for a while now, but wasn't sure how to properly put it, so here it is.

We all know that you can get "free" Hextech chests by playing the game, one chest per champion per season, refreshing at a rate of one per week, which doesn't sound bad at all, usually getting 30+ free chests always sounds nice....until we look at the requirement to get the chest and how that impacts the experience of some players and the honor level.

To get a chest, we, or another player from a premade party gets S-, S or S+ rank, and only once per champion.

So, how does that influence player experience for a start?

Simple, some players, like me, some of my friends and many others don't like to play every champion, or even too many for that matter. We enjoy playing a selected group of champions which are fun to us, and thus, after we easily get chests on the champions we like, we are left with the rest, on which we cannot get chests as easily, unless of course we ask a friend to play his main and get an S. But that leads to other problems, and as an example, I'll use a game from quite a like a month ago, my team, made of only silvers, with both me and my friend playing a champion for a chest, against a premade of 5 players, 4 bronze players and a Diamond, with the Diamond playing his main champ, Vayne. I use the Blitz app, so it shown that all 5 are in the same party, and that the 4 bronze players play new champions. It's safe to say that we lost, as noone from our team could keep up with the Vayne.

Yes, I know that blind pick is made to have fun and such, but imbalanced games like that one can occur more or less often due to players asking help for chests, and being stomped by someone doing his best to win on his main champ while half your team is trying new champs isn't something fun, but there comes in play another aspect that makes the experience of getting chests bad: toxicity. We all know how toxic this community can be, and we all were in games where we go 0-4 when trying new champs and get flamed, threatened with reports and all that. Such an experience is made even worse when you play a champion that's in your collection for the sole purpose of getting a chest on it.

Now, I do understand that there are players who enjoy playing a multitude of champions, some players don't like to see more than 15% on their profile at "recently played champions", but there also are players who like to see the 75-100% as they enjoy playing certain champs, that's what makes the game fun for them, and also, not everyone has time to play 10 games a day, some of us play only 2-3 games due to having jobs or other things in real life, so for the players who don't enjoy playing every single champion in the game, having days in a row where you don't have fun playing can be frustrating, if you want that chest, of course. Say player A can only play 2 games a day and is an Irelia one trick, he got his chest on Irelia, and also on champions that he liked playing along her. Now, he's left with playing, say jungle, he picks Warwick, as he's simple, gets beaten by the enemy, flamed by his team and the game is lost, he didn't get an S, so no chest. He then plays the 2nd game of the day, loses it as well due to not being able to put as much pressure or losing early in the jungle. That's 1 day where he "wasted time", instead of having fun, he tried to get a chest, as perhaps he has a cool shard he wants to unlock, or maybe he just doesn't have the money to buy skins every month, he ended up flamed, maybe even reported by some players for "inting", etc. Repeat that process 2-3 more days, if not more, and we all can agree that his experience is not a good one, and when the chest cooldown resets, "it's that time of the week again".

Now, how does this all tie in with the honor level? Reports. Players who do not like playing too many champions but want the chests, will get reported by not performing as their team wants them to do, even if they say "1st time on Warwick", they will still get reported. Reports slow down the progress of the honor level. I still get keys every 2-3 days when I ignore chests and play ranked, where I play MY champions, but from the start of the season, when I played only champions I enjoyed, I am still honor level 3, 0 checkpoints. Got there in less than a month, haven't leveled every since, yet as long as I ignore chests, I get keys very often, so that leaves players like me with 2 options: play for chests and ignore honor level OR play for honor level and ignore chests.

There is a lot that can be done to make things easier for everyone, and make the chests feel like an actual reward for every player, not just for those who like playing everything, and he are my ideas:

Grant access to all chests at the start of the season instead of them being on a 7 day cooldown. By doing this, we can unlock all the chests at the start of the season, having the bad games then, after which, we all are left playing for keys, honor, every player having fun in her or her own way, by playing just that one champ or playing all. This way, the player experience will get better, for example, A gets all his chests in the 1st month or two, then plays the rest of the season spamming Irelia in ranked, doing what makes the game fun for him.

Remove the limit of 1 chest per champion and the ally getting S giving a chest. By doing this, we remove the need to play new champions every time you have a chest available, but also the need to "get carried by someone". We can play one champion and get all chests on that one champion, or play all and get a chest on each like now. This way, honor level isn't impacted by reports when trying to get chests on new champions, as you are already good at your champion, so chests actually become a reward for mastering your champion, while also being able to get honor, while players who enjoy playing everything, well, nothing changes for them.

Lower the grade requirement from S-, S or S+ to A or A+. no A-. By doing this we still require the player to put in the effort and not just "play a game with a champ", but we also allow them to make mistakes. Getting an S isn't easy, and sometimes we make mistakes, and it is extremely annoying when you did your best, but made a mistake, face checked a bush when you shouldn't had, used a wrong skill, etc, and see that A+ at the end. A+ isn't enough to get the chest. Making it more forgiving can encourage players to try more champs for chests without the fear of being reported as they need to play it almost perfectly to get the S.

Would like to know what you guys think on this issue, and before closing, I would like to address two things:

"But how will you find new champions to enjoy if you aren't forced to try new ones?" For me at least, if a champion looks interesting, I will try it, but also if I get a nice skin shard. Akali (old) is currently my most played champion, I never considered playing her until I got her Blood Moon skin from a chest, Nocturne, Rek'Sai, Pyke, Vi and others are champions I played, and some enjoyed, because I got a skin for them from a chest. Getting a skin for them made me interested in trying the champion instead of being forced to play them. And I am sure others feel the same way.

"But chests are free, why are you complaining that you can't easily get free stuff?" Yes, we do get the chest "for free", but for many players, the negative experience and "chore" to get the chest, as it isn't that easy to get an S on a new champion, and if you also don't enjoy playing the champion but are forced to if you want the chest, it makes the chest feel anything but free. (especially when you 6 champion shards out of 7 chests from them).

As said, I would like to know what you think on the matter, if the chest system needs improvements, what improvements you think it needs, or if you think it's perfect as it is.

As always, have fun on the rift.

[sg-kiko]