Did they nerf Orange essence again? Or is it really that bad in general.

Resolution·Oct 2, 2018·64 votes·17,266 views

104 orange essence from one skin. 150 orange essence from another.

Even my legendary shard only disenchants into 364, even though it costs 1520. What's the point of buying chests if it takes 4-5 skin shard breakdowns to have enough essence for one of equal value?

Idk, it just seems lower and lower values everytime I check. I remember getting a lot better values before.

Edit:

{quoted}

I currently have 262 skins. This isn't a F2P complaint.

I'm asking what's the point of buying chests anymore, when it's no longer worth the $ compared to other in-store purchases.

If your going to gut the value of the chests because more F2P content will be released in the future, why not do that to the "Free S Rank Chests" and not the store bought ones? Currently your taxing people on content they'd get regardless if they spent real $ or not.

In the future, I'd love not to see store value increases just to pay for events. Sincerly, person who is already paying for an Event Pass...

43 Comments

Vhan8765Oct 2, 201862 votes

When Hextech Crafting was introduced, disenchant rates were 33%. When last preseason hit, Riot claimed they would be giving out more free loot and because of so decided to cut disenchant rates down to 20%.

Now, I have absolutely no clue where this 'more free loot' was supposed to be coming from, but now'a days it takes roughly 4/5 disenchanted skin shards to simply upgrade 1 permanent skin.

The system is overall a free rewards system, so you can't complain too much, but it's definitely a (super, mega) long term free rewards system. Feels kind of bad considering you're encouraged to have a smaller champion pool, meaning you likely won't be getting too many S' and chests on various champions.

Procellae GraviaOct 2, 201810 votes

I can reasonably complain in one way... I sympathize with my friends who had no means of knowing.

My friends purchased plenty of hextech chests for shards.

They left for the military and served, varying deployments and duties. No internet or even an e-mail from Riot about OE / BE changes. Nothing of the sort was ever an option to Riot and its plot.

Many friends came back, and the values of their purchased shards they paid for, and were saving for better days, were reduced.

Imagine going to the casino after dinner You can spend your hard earned dollars on whatever you please, free market capitalism at its finest You gamble on a few prize boxes and win, "your printed ticket for your winnings sir, gratz" You go to the hotel bed satisfied, then wake up the next day and the casino employee says it's worth 45% less The changes came from corporate and the casino floor didn't know until 2am last night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5QGkOGZubQ

Except it wasn't clear, and no correspondence from Riot EVER specifically mentioned OE was changing like BE. The US offices actually only heard about the OE changes 2 weeks before the client changes occurred and many Riot employees were under order to specifically avoid mentioning it. The only legit post was made at 4 and then 3 months before the changes. Legit.

I documented the entire ordeal for as many available perspectives with no personal bias to this story in a historical timeline at the Reddit post linked earlier.

TerozuOct 2, 20182 votes

Except this is untrue. Multiple articles specifically stated all essence types were being reduced.

Flawless FetusOct 3, 20181 votes

They did say OE was decreasing. Which is why u disenchanted all of mine prior to the change. Your post confuses me. You claim they never said oe was getting nerfed, but they did. Later it seems like you're even admitted that they did, both 3 and 4 months I'm advance?

KadexeOct 2, 20182 votes

Events these days have some pretty impressive loot, like the Ziggs skin shard and Orbs.

The Great DivideOct 2, 20181 votes

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/5vUJflhE-we-nerfed-orange-esssence-because-youd-be-getting-more-skin-shards

And of course, this was brought to the fore when those changes went through. And all we got was Riot Cactopus completely misrepresenting the poster's argument and then calling for everyone to yell at the poster based on his misrepresentation.

SaiannaOct 2, 20181 votes

The system is overall a **free **rewards system, so you can't complain too much, but it's definitely

Uh, I wouldn't go that route tbh

Vhan8765Oct 2, 20182 votes

I had to, otherwise the White Knights would witch hunt me; too much prior experience on the matter, we need to appease them by acknowledging Riot tried. Key word being "tried"; they tried to make a good free rewards system, they didn't though.

SaiannaOct 2, 20181 votes

I kinda cringe whenever someone uses word free, as nothing's free, especially in F2P games. And in Riots case their whole messy system of Hextech v1.0 (pre IP rework) was annoying addition to chase after HOTS/OW, but Hextech v2.0 (BP) just broke the living shit out of progression and actually cripples the game. So I'd remove the "free skin" I get from Hextech v2.0 any day.

Anyways, Fortnite...and whole lootbox bullshit gaming shitstorm... really made me anoyed by this all.

EchostormxxOct 2, 20182 votes

{quoted}

When Hextech Crafting was introduced, disenchant rates were 33%. When last preseason hit, Riot claimed they would be giving out more free loot and because of so decided to cut disenchant rates down to 20%.

Now, I have absolutely no clue where this 'more free loot' was supposed to be coming from, but now'a days it takes roughly 4/5 disenchanted skin shards to simply upgrade 1 permanent skin.

The system is overall a free rewards system, so you can't complain too much, but it's definitely a (super, mega) long term free rewards system. Feels kind of bad considering you're encouraged to have a smaller champion pool, meaning you likely won't be getting too many S' and chests on various champions.

The thing is, Heroes of the Storm is a completely free to play game and has a far better rewards system. LoL rewards system is pretty much garbage. In HotS, they basically give you a free skin every time you level up or every other time, and you level up pretty quickly on that game. (To give you an idea, I've spent a quarter of the amount of time I've played League on HotS and am level 275). I sometimes even get up to 3 skins in 1 level up chest if I'm lucky.

LarrietOct 2, 20181 votes

The "more free loot" is Event crafting, no? It's not really transferable to OE except for "leftover" tokens you convert to keys/shards.

Leto GTOct 3, 20182 votes

By free loots, they probably meant shards of champions we already have. Currently I'm sitting on 70k be and hundreds of shards that im too lazy to disenchant. BE are so useless, I wish I could turn them into rp at last.

JST FF 15Oct 2, 201814 votes

Riot nerfed it because they're money hungry call girls. Same reason they over buff champions that're getting a new skin.

Procellae GraviaOct 2, 201811 votes

Used to be 33% Now, disenchant values are 20%

Quick breakfast based math for perspective:

1 dozen eggs (skin shard) 33% = 4 (how many eggs you used to get out of it to cook with) 20% = 2.4 (how many eggs you get to cook with now)

2.4 is 60% of 4 you lost 40% of 4 so -1.6 to bring it to the current diseggchant value

you lost 1.6 egg for every dozen because Riot sold to Tencent (greedy af Chinese tech giant).

In reality, you lost roughly 40 - 45% of your shards' original OE values compared to league's current values.

They also did NOT alert anyone of the true OE value gutting (see reddit link for Riot's sleazy correspondence / timeline / history / huge collection of community reaction)

TL;DR military friends leave 20+ shards in loot pre-deployment military friends came back "my shits worth half as much WTF"

I've written several EXTENSIVE posts and offered several formal and fun solutions... all lost to time, greed, indifference and indignity.
Even I don't want to re-read it. It contains every significant community response, quote, opinion, etc. from some of our oldest community and legitimately concerned members as well as all the math, etc. ... but it is brutally long and in-depth.

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/7fruyc/massive_list_of_varying_opinions_on_oe_be_shard/

"In Hollywood .. it's not important if it's of high quality, only if it makes money." -Mark Hamill

Skins were relatively 33% OE (pre nerf) of the price, then to 20% OE (nerf) resulting in the current values.

BUT... Remeber, this is an EXPONENTIAL disenchant value change since we're dealing with a fractional value of a fractional value...

They reduced OE a percentage of a percentage in a system-wide nerf.

Hexs FortuneOct 2, 20186 votes

Before the orange essence nerfs we'd have to buy event passes to get anything out of events.

Nowadays everyone usually gets 1-2 free boxes per event without spending money.

It was definitely a nerf for paying lootboxers, but Riot said the original orange essence gains were too good to last.

Imo it's better to just reroll shards most of the time

Nanolathe11Oct 3, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hexs Fortune,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=zQwiKHdY,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2018-10-02T06:39:56.776+0000)

Before the orange essence nerfs we'd have to buy event passes to get anything out of events.

Nowadays everyone usually gets 1-2 free boxes per event without spending money.

It was definitely a nerf for paying lootboxers, but Riot said the original orange essence gains were too good to last.

Imo it's better to just reroll shards most of the time

rerolling skins is a terrible idea...ive actually rolled 3 skins and got one permanent that was one i rerolled lol. rerolling you have no control, you could get a crap skin for a crap champ you never play and since its perm you dont get the chance to disenchant it. also, theres no guarantee of the tier of skin you well get from a roll. its pretty silly to reroll 3 skins only to get a super cheap perm one in the end. speaking from experience.

ResolutionOct 2, 20185 votes

I wasn't calling them greedy. This is from someone who spends roughly $50 a month on the game. I have 262 skins last time I checked. This isn't a F2P complaint.

I'm now asking what's the point of buying chests anymore for random skins, when it's no longer worth the $ compared to other store purchases.

Why not just keep the nerf value of free chests and not store bought chests then?

XhaidenOct 2, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I wasn't calling them greedy. This is from someone who spends roughly $50 a month on the game. I have 262 skins last time I checked. This isn't a F2P complaint.

I'm now asking what's the point of buying chests anymore for random skins, when it's no longer worth the $ compared to other store purchases.

Why not just keep the nerf value of free chests and not store bought chests then?

This reminds me of my experience with Ultimate skins - shortly before they announced them to be free in the future.😩 I got the ultimate Pulsfire Ez and ultimate DJ Sona "as skin shards" - and to upgrade them into permanent - I needed 2950 OE for EACH! 😖

https://i.imgur.com/t1toSg0.jpg

As mentioned not so long ago...

"I got it "as a shard" from a Snowdown capsule (i think 🤔). Unfortunately, Snowdown capsules had a fixed drop of 50 OE - and since it used to require 3000 OE for a permanent upgrade - i had to disenchant more than a dozen skin shards that cost me around 4400 RP. 😕 So, yeah... i end-up paying more for it than the actual store price (3250 RP). 😒

Was almost the same with DJ Sona. But i got that from a PROJECT Capsule - and those used to give more OE - so i didn't have to waste so many skin shards for the upgrade. Then... two months later they announced the upcoming changes for patch 8.5 where all Ultimate skin drops would be Permanent. 😳 I felt SO CHEATED - as a paying customer! 🤬

Seriously, there's many of us who've shown our support for Riot and League of Legends - by investing lots of money in skins and events. And later we got screwed for it - by a patch like 8.5 where the same content is free. I mean, they could have introduced some compensation - for those of us who got them by disenchanting skin shards. Like - a capsule that drops 10 skins shards (even if you'd be insanely lucky to get 10 x 1350 RP skins shards - each would be worth 270 OE to disenchant / which is clearly not the case) - for every Ultimate skin we upgraded the old way. That would have been the fair approach (a sign of respect - for those of us who spent so much time and money in this game). And yet, that wasn't the case.... they just moved on and ignored us - proving that they didn't give a shit...😐"

Dope SoloOct 2, 20184 votes

Yes.

PowerSlave993Oct 2, 20184 votes

They are hungry for money, therefore they nerfed orange essences so that you must buy that skin you desire.

Also they have put tons of other stuff so that you get skins less and less. Like Emotes, champion shards, wards, summoner icons, all these things just to prevent you from getting so many skins.

10 fpsOct 2, 20184 votes

I don't see what the problem is. Riot is a company whose goal is to make money, not a charity.

PowerSlave993Oct 2, 20182 votes

They already have tons shit of money and are still begging for more. I guess greed is never enough. That's the bad side of every game company these days. Who the fuck gives about gameplay when we can produce more skins! yeah fuck that mentality.

10 fpsOct 2, 20185 votes

That doesn't even make any sense. Riot is not a charity. The goal of a company is to make profit.

Are you 12? You expect Riot to just start handing out free stuff because they have a lot of money? You do know that the balance team and the team that makes skins are two different teams right? You do know that Riot can do more than one thing at the same time?

In any case, I've gotten a lot of free skins from hextech crafting. I've just got Program Lissandra and although it will take a lot of time to unlock, I'm getting a $10 skin for FREE.

HibekiOct 2, 20183 votes

This is the type of mindest that leads to companies shafting you in monopolies hand over fist because "they dont owe you anything"

AmelieaOct 2, 20183 votes

Theres a simple explanation. Chests, first of all, should not and are not meant to be more profitable than buying the skins you want. They are only in the shop for the people who want to gamble, or for people who like to do opening videos of them.

Riot gives out more and more skins, for example I would guess that the recent Odyssey event distributed more skins than every other event before it.

Second, the disenchanting mechanic is to control droprates. With them, Riot can give you a much higher droprate for the higher value skins, without it being a catastrophal money loss for them. Imagine this: 10 chests With and without disenchanting mechanics.

10 With you open them and one of them has an ultimate DJ Sona skin. You feel awesome, but you can not unlock it right away. But you know you will get it guaranteed after a few more openings. This gives you something to work towards, even if it takes a few weeks or months playing.

10 Without you start opening the chests, but since the droprates had to be lowered since the value of the box has gone up, maybe you don't even get one valuable skin. You feel pretty shitty, have nothing to work towards, and probably will engage less with the system. While this makes it more exciting to finally get that good skin, its much more RNG dependant and some players will be very lucky, while some will not.

I personally can not wrap my head around it how Riot can give out so much free stuff and still have players call them greedy, and complain about systems that actually benefit them. Its crazy

Cheers

Hexs FortuneOct 2, 20182 votes

Its important to note we get orange essence off the rerolls as well. That counts for a lot, since we can span the rerolls and still gather up essence for that one shard we really favor.

Busty DemonessOct 3, 20182 votes

Short version: It's been this bad ever since the IP to BE conversion.

This is due to the nerfed dusting rate and failed promise of "you'll get more skin shards compared to before".

chide da junglerOct 3, 20182 votes

easy: don't spend money on this game.

why buy as skin for a champ when riot might just allow that champ to become non-viable?

xZabaksxOct 2, 20181 votes

Can't argue with free stuff

Noor SakataOct 2, 20181 votes

Funny thing is , you need 5 skins to open a skin , but that doesn't mean you need 5 chests to get 5 skins , I still get champion shards and emotes and wards , I got Warring Kigdom Vi in my loot for about 2 months However , Riot didn't lie about they buffed the more free loot , they actually did give us more free loot in event , they gave us the chance to buy 2 or 3 orbs with tokens in every event and with the chance of getting gems , and also orbs and gems from missions

However it's completely RNG and as someone like me who buy skins and would like to save as much money as possible , in all those events had the boarders for skins to buy with tokens , so if I wanna save some money , I have to ignore those orbs and get the boarders , so people like me aren't getting anything free from those , and in the missions in Odyessey we got a Gem from the missions , I bought the birdie pack , and guess what ? I got the shortest skin line in the game , Challenger Ahri and Nidalee , While I have the Ahri one , and those skins will only give less than 200 Orange essence

MEANWHILE my friend who never buys RP , in the Lunar event when he bought 3 orbs with tokens , HE GOT A GEM IN EVERY SINGLE ORB , 1 SKIN + 5 SKINS 3 TIMES WHICH IS 18 SKINS !!!!! " meanwhile I bought the Lux boarder " not only that , but But he also got a gem from the orb in the Odeyysey event ... and guess what ? 19 FU*@#!$ SKINS !!!! " meanwhile I bought the Yasuo boarder + Icon with the tokens " Alright , that's from the token , from the 2 augments mission gem he got 13 Project skins .. I'm out of words In my smurf account , got 2 cheap skins from the tokens , opened the gem from the mission and chose the Revel bag " because I don't trust my luck in the birdie bad since my rng sucks while Revel has a guaranteed Legendary skin " alright here we go , Mad Scintist Singed , 3 other cheap skins , and the legendary one was ?... ANNIE IN WONDERLAND ?

So did give us free loot but locked it for some people to boarders and it completely depends on RNG

KrullyOct 2, 20181 votes

jokes on them, i got enough for high noon lucian yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee hawwwwwwww

PaffWasTakenOct 2, 20181 votes

Nowadays, it is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar more economic to just reroll skin shards and the like into permanent acquisitions

HungryAngry2SPPOct 2, 20181 votes

Yes, but then you get some random ~~shit~~ stuff u dont want

Arcane Blue BoiOct 2, 20181 votes

Riot drunk: Lets give players free skins

2 days later with Sober Riot: Shit we fucked up, why are we giving people free stuff?!?!?! Take that back!!

ResolutionOct 2, 20181 votes

Yes, I understand Riot is a company that needs to make money... especially with them reporting their worst revenue in 4 years. Why do they keep taking a big loss on Esports as well? (Dunno how Kha sold) - shouldn't they spend less on the event to something they can manage?

I'm questioning the taxation of paid content when the solution was just adjusting the free route.

I am actually very thankful for the free stuff I get, just don't want to get less value out of the store as a trade-off.

Nanolathe11Oct 3, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Yes, I understand Riot is a company that needs to make money... especially with them reporting their worst revenue in 4 years. Why do they keep taking a big loss on Esports as well? (Dunno how Kha sold) - shouldn't they spend less on the event to something they can manage?

I'm questioning the taxation of paid content when the solution was just adjusting the free route.

I am actually very thankful for the free stuff I get, just don't want to get less value out of the store as a trade-off.

what business model are you looking at where the solution to low revenues is to charge your existing customers more? sounds like a good way to fail to me

FleirynOct 2, 20181 votes

Been making those kind of posts few times, all ignored yeah, "More free loot, hah"

OznapOct 2, 20181 votes

As a person that use to spend RP on skins, I have had no interest in purchasing any more RP since you can get skins for free. No point as a person who is going to play the game enough to get chests and keys for free. There been skins I wanted pretty badly but no real impulse to buy them knowing they could be potentially free.

I don't like the orange nerf but can't blame them as the system prob made some people stop purchasing Rp.

Step Sis LuxOct 2, 20181 votes

if i remember correctly, they said we gonna be able to drop 2 skin shards from one chest XD

GlaricionOct 3, 20181 votes

Unless you are trying to be a competitionist, lootboxes are virtually never worth it.

Lootboxes operate on the model of a cheap in to get you to repeatedly spend money on things you do not want in an ill-conceived pursuit of obtaining what you do want. It is almost always a bad value proposition, which is why they are usually the only option or have some sort of exclusive draw to them.

250RP for a chest + key, weigh that with the chances of getting the champion/cosmetic you desire, likely its expected value is going to be much lower than just buying that skin you actually want. It is like spending 100USD on a CCG to fail to get the cards you want when you could of just bought the singles for 30USD.

relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKZJdaiJF84

Spacesuit SpiffOct 3, 20181 votes

Mathematically, the OE nerf means it's never worth to buy chests when you can just buy skins directly. Its good for people who just slowly collect OE from free stuff, but probably isn't what was intended.

xxx6Wizard9xxxOct 3, 20181 votes

Well they lost seme revenue due to their inteligent balance team. So they have to grab cash from other sources like nerfing orange essence or overbuffing certain champions for a skin sale

ResolutionOct 3, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Well they lost seme revenue due to their inteligent balance team. So they have to grab cash from other sources like nerfing orange essence or overbuffing certain champions for a skin sale

They apparently just "Nerfed" the token gains from the Event Pass without even informing the players. Completely bait and switched players after "Claim Your tokens, buy a pass!".

You know what? As pro-riot as I was earlier, knowing they're still trying to shaft me on every real $ purchase "Because they had their worst revenue in 4 years" really makes me not want to throw them a dollar ever again.

Riot, please start being decent human beings again :). I dunno if Tencent is forcing you to monetize players more... but you're slowly becoming more and more like EA. Barely anyone respects you as a developer anymore to the point you're a meme (Joke) to most.

I'd love to see you slowly care more about retaining your player base.