No, Rito is very much so making this EA-esque change. Why?
BECAUSE ITS PROVEN EFFECTIVE AND PROFITABLE.
EA's profit margins went through the roof- not only can they make billions on a great IP just from game and DLC purchases, but they can continue to rake in hundreds of millions additional per year on loot boxes, etc, etc. It is a money thing, and to deny that is absolutely foolish.
Riot made the progression system almost exactly like Star War BFII's loot crate based progression: they made it randomized, duplicates, limited rewards worth a damn, etc, etc. I acknowledge that Riot went through and said "on average players will be roughly the same as they were before the change (except players who play more than 7 games a day, then they lose)", but this means that in order for there to be an "average" there has to be a top end and a bottom end, meaning that 49% of players are getting "on average" MORE rewards than you, and 49% of players are getting LESS rewards than you. That and why would you implement diminishing returns on rewards? Should you be rewarding people who play a lot instead of penalizing them?
That and with the only real way to get champion efficiently if you're leveling is to randomly get 1 of 135 champion shards (that's if you get a champion shard at all), and then you have to get Blue Essence in order to un-lock said champion shard (that's if you get BE in your champion level up containers)... it's two opposites. Unless you're already level 30, you're going to be either short champion shards or you're going to be short Blue Essence. Neither one feels good.
And to all of those people saying "you can just deconstruct shards you don't want"... really? Think about it, you grind 3 levels in one day, you get three champion shards... and you're expected to just deconstruct your hard work because they're either** A.) Shards you don't want or B.)** Duplicates. Nothing about that says "good player experience", especially when you compare it to the IP system you can visibly see your amount of points going up, and you know exactly how much you need to get that next champion. With the shard system you have to click into the loot tab and then find the shard and mouse over it to see how much more essence you need... but it is ultimately fruitless unless you are willing to deconstruct potential future champions.
There isn't some** greater feeling of accomplishment with the sacrifice of these shards**, in fact it feels worse to put so much effort into getting the shards and having to destroy them to get so few rewards.
The point is that there are MANY games that use a RNG loot system, and ultimately everyone agrees that RNG is overall a poor mechanic for rewards, especially if there are duplicates and tons of potential rewards that are more often than not anything but what you want. If Riot wanted to fix the situation they should impliment a system in which the players can choose the types of rewards they are searching for:
E.G.: Players can search for champion shards based on type. Meaning that in their rewards tab they can select "Marksman", "Tank", "Mage", etc, etc and they will get a small amount of BE per chest as well as one champion shard for a champion from that pool. NO DUPLICATES. That way if you like to play ADCs you can select the "Marksman" tab and every level you can get a champion shard for an ADC you don't own. Then you can also select "Blue Essence" as a reward, with a low chance of getting a champion shard of any type instead of BE. I will be posting this in a different thread as well, but you get the idea.
Riot, or Tenecent, has caught the money-flu and is adopting practices that make the grind feel way worse, even if it's statistically similar to the old influence point system. My main thing is that all of these mechanics have been added over time with no real need or reason because the IP system functioned as intended: players played the game, were rewarded with IP, and then could spend that IP on runes, rune pages, or champions. There was a definite feeling of progression as you filled out a rune page, added a new rune page, or slowly but surely checked off that ever shrinking list of champions you didn't own. With this there isn't that feeling, and if anything it's tedious to constantly have to tab over to open the loot...
