I want to voice some concerns reasonably

Hey everyone, I'd like to talk a bit about my feelings towards the reveal of eternals and why I'm concerned about them and the direction they suggest the game might be taking. I'm going to look at this through the player experience and maybe try to give riot some feedback on what they might do or not do in the future. I am going to try to prevent the tone of this from being pessimistic-doomsday-esque or cold and impersonal. Warning: this post might meander a bit.

That said I'm a vet of this game (since 2013-ish) and I've been playing fairly consistently and more than ever in the past year. I log on most days and take a cursory look at the homepage and click on whatever takes my interest. The other day it was the /dev blog on eternals and I must say I'm not incredibly impressed. The sad truth is that I'm not as surprised as I'd like to be either.

For 850 RP you can choose to track certain stats, and there's an interesting thing on that straight off. You can't buy just 850 Riot points, you have to buy more, so if you just want one eternal it'll cost you 10$ because unless you're a really thrifty spender you'll likely use the remainder to impulse-buy something you didn't really want that much. So yes, anyway you can pay to track a certain stat and you get a cool looking graphic alongside it.

This might sound a little unfulfilling to you; it certainly does it me. This rather empty feeling is enhanced by the old stat-page which would track things like total kills and total damage (feel free to fact-check me on that because I honestly only vaguely remember) for free. I guarantee you that it isn't unreasonable for people to dislike the concept of having to buy something they used to get for free. I'm not sure if adding some slightly more specific stats and cool graphics are really going to convince many people at all.

Do eternals fill a niche for some people? I would be willing to believe it. I have no doubt there are some thresh mains who want you to know how many hooks they've successfully landed or zeds who wish to flaunt the sheer volume of flawless assassinations they've achieved, but a lot of people are more concerned on just having fun with the game. Having fun with the game doesn't involve stat-tracking for a lot of people. Having fun with a game often spurs people to stop playing some champs and start playing others. What I'm trying to get at here is that in most cases eternals are not worth the 10$ you have to pay to get them. The /dev blog argued that eternals wouldn't be special if everybody could get them but I don't understand how it could be any different from mastery points, which are fully accessible to all players provided you own the champion. Just because you're automatically keeping the stat of how many champs you've taken down during one of your paranoias shouldn't be relevant to you because you own an eternal for it, rather it should be because you played a ton of games on nocturne and you got goshdarn metric ton of them playing nocturne. That time investment is enough to make it special.

But ok, let's talk about how we got here and why it's a problem.

K/da Kaisa prestige edition was a cool cool thing; Arcade Caitlyn prestige edition was fine. Soulstealer Vayne spawned a ton of youtube hype; I have a feeling Hextech Malzahar made a bit less of a splash.

Would it be cooler to take a trip to the moon or the grand canyon? Why? If you ignore how uncomfortable actually getting there is I'd expect you probably would say the moon. If you look at both of them alongside each other objectively you might think that the grand canyon actually looks a lot more cool. The surface of the moon is kinda monotonous and boring, and would only novel to be on because only a few people ever have been.

I imagine I've over explained it so you probably see what I'm getting at here. Rarity is really important to make something feel special. We value legacy and high-rarity skins more because we perceive fewer people to have them, so those first few prestige skins were really exciting and fun to have. I bought the event passes to worlds 2018 and Arcade 2019 because they felt special to me, like a celebration or a holiday. Then all of the sudden a day or two after the Arcade 2019 pass expired Project 2019 and its pass were on sale and I was like "wait a minute!" If Christmas comes every day it starts to lose its luster. Every prestige skin you release, makes the skins more like plain gold chromas, particularly the closer together these releases are.

What I'm seeing is stuff that should be special over-saturating and depreciating itself in value. A super cool exclusive chroma skin would retain its feeling of value if it was one of the only ones, but if there are a ton of others that feeling ebbs and leaves people feeling like they wasted their time getting it.

So I'll admit I've been meandering a bit and you're probably asking how this relates to eternals. I see eternals as a step closer to the edge of a slippery slope. We started with exclusive content, and started making it less exclusive while maintaining the monetary/time costs required to acquire it. Making people feel like their efforts can be replaced by a pricetag is an effective way to start sloughing off your audience. So now we have this new thing that is centered around exclusivity. Eternals identify that players need to feel unique and wants to try and sell you that pure feeling.

Trust me guys, exclusivity can keep you invested for a while, but if you want to keep playing you have to keep enjoying the game itself, no amount of skins or microtransactions can fix that for you. Don't believe me? Well, look at physical sports.

DISCLAIMER: I SIMPLY HAPPEN TO PLAY SOME PHYSICAL SPORTS AND DO NOT SEE IT AS ANY MORE VALUABLE THAN ANY OTHER WAY TO SATE ONE'S COMPETITIVE INSTINCT. I FURTHERMORE DO NOT RESPECT ANYBODY MORE OR LESS FOR TAKING PART OR NOT TAKING PART IN THEM.

That said, when people play basketball for a long time they play it because they enjoy playing it. They generally make it a goal to continually improve their game through skill, tactics, and/or athleticism. People might get cool clothes, socks, shoes, a jersey, an arm sleeve, etc. and show off their swag but that's hardly ever the focus of anybody's attention. Rather its what you do on the court/field/pitch/etc. whatever your sport.

Look at chess. Freaking chess man! Does anybody remember last time chess had a balance update? The game stands the test of time through gameplay and players stand the test of time through their ability to play the game. Also would you believe! Most chess players prefer to use some variation on the basic skin for 100% of their games. Incredible! I bet you most chess players have never thought about how much better their experience would be if they got exclusive content.

DISCLAIMER 2: IF YOU THINK CHESS IS DUMB AND BORING DON'T WORRY WE'RE STILL COOL.

Back to eternals: Eternals are another way of trying to promise players exclusivity which only keeps investment for so long. I'm talking to you now Riot because I think you should really know what your players want. They want gameplay primarily. Swag is cool and nice and skins make gameplay feel good. Selling skins for RP only makes total sense to me, I'm not saying a bit of unique exclusivity isn't good. But if you begin to make it the focus of the game that's where players start to feel alienated. The player should never feel isolated because they haven't bought content, they should buy content because they're already invested in the game through gameplay.

For further clarification here's what we like and keeps us invested in the game. This is a good way to go about things: New skins, gameplay changes that change the meta, new game modes, new champs/items, events like clash if it ever works

Here's things that can be good but become problematic and loose their meaning when done in excess: Event passes, exclusive aesthetic content

Here's stuff myself and the playerbase really don't want to see: paywalls over anything gameplay related, manipulative microtransactions, lootboxes

*On a side note, riot's approach to lootboxes is a more ethical take than pretty much anything else I've seen, but given everything I've seen in gaming news about them I have to give them a black mark on principle.

SO, are eternals a huge problem thats ruining the game and the sky is falling game is doomed so on and so forth...?

No, but as a sign of things to come they're not encouraging. They seem like a lazy substitute for content which I think is objectively a pretty unfair thing to say. I have no doubt a lot of people worked hard on the code to track this stuff, the art design on the eternals and probably things I haven't even thought of; but, even given that work, I do not believe it is up to the league of legends standard to make this premium content.

Triple A games out there are a total mess right now. A large amount of game companies see their audience as nothing but cash cows. It is completely reasonable for a corporation/company to make money off of customers, obviously, but should ideally also go hand in hand with the corporation/company delivering on a satisfying product for the consumer. Riot while you are far from perfect you are still definitely one of the better ones out there, and I believe you respect your customers. I'm sure its easy to look at your peers, see them heartlessly raking in cash and want to be more like them. I'd hold off however. I wouldn't put your hand in the cookie jar of evil because with legislation on the way eventually it looks like mom's about to slam it shut.

If you want to sell content, sell content, but sell good content. Eternals could be a good idea to add to this game but they should either be free or less pathetic and better thought out because right now these stats are pathetic. Personally I believe free is the answer for this because if only some people are tracking stats whats the point of comparing them.

Finally you do actually have a choice. You don't need to make any more types of premium content. Keep the game fresh through free means and people will keep buying skins, other cosmetics, Esports tickets, and the like.

Now for anybody who's hung on and read this far I'm leaving a poll for this too 'cause I'm not going to assume I've accurately depicted the feelings in the playerbase. And in case you're wondering I'm not buying any eternals

Thanks for reading.