Since the last one mysteriously sunk out of the front page with over 300 upvotes... cough cough

wop·Apr 21, 2015·188 votes·5,513 views

Here's a post about Riot giving us seasonal refunds. The original post said asked for 3 per season. I personally would be fine with 1 per season. Others wanted refunds based on ho much RP you buy. Those are the main opinions I saw anyway. I'm reposting because I don't like the fact that something a lot of people obviously wanted was not really taken seriously. I know Riot doesn't comment on everything and doesn't have to, but damn. How is some random post with 3 upvotes "hotter" than one with almost 400 upvotes earned in like a day?

46 Comments

IzbizApr 21, 201525 votes

I'll repost my post...

You can do all the research you want, sometimes a skin just doesn't feel right and you won't know until you try it.

Therefore I'd like one custom game to be able to try the skin once. Once the game is over, there will be a pop-up screen asking if I would like to return af. Once declined, it's mine forever.

DefiantVitreousApr 22, 20151 votes

Asking for a 100% refund or a refund off of IP is just never going to happen. So let's ask for something more realistic.

Refunds can only occurs with RP purchases. All IP purchases are non-refundable and use the current 3 token rule. I really think that Riot would have more sales if they allowed a 50% RP refund to people to test out skins or champs for 1 non-ranked game within 24 hours after purchase. If you don't use that champ/skin in a non-ranked game within 24 hours after purchase then there are no refunds; however, after the 1 match a pop-up comes up that asks if you want a 50% refund. Once you say no, then it is yours. The other kicker is that once you say 'yes' to a refund you can never get a 50% refund on that same champ/skin again. So it's not like you can just alternate games with the same 2 champ/skins and get a refund.

In summation:

refund of RP only
allow a one-time 50% refund per champ/skin
must request a refund after playing a non-ranked game within 24 hours of purchase
can only be used once per champ/skin
allowing people a partial refund will create a larger pool of players that spend real money on the game

WheatloafApr 21, 20159 votes

The "Hot" page is based off recent views, not number of upvotes.

As to the actual topic of the post, this has come up periodically for the longest time, and I guess Rioters have gotten tired of saying the same thing every time it does. https://support.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/201751864-Content-Refund-FAQ This page has their refund policy on it, but not really the reason it's so rigid. The general reason, regardless of company, is that getting a return is undesirable for them (they have to reprocess the payment, and in case of material goods - which don't pertain to Riot's in-game content but still - they have to get the item back into condition to resell, or just toss it), but not being able to return anything ever is undesirable for the consumer. Thus, most, if not all, companies will make a one-time compromise with consumers, then proceed to put their foot down and never change the policy again.

This isn't really a bad thing, especially when you can preview content, whether that's by community videos or by a store-provided changing room. If Riot had the server space, I'd say to add something akin to a "changing room" for those people who can't get a good feel of skins without actually playing them, but at the moment, with all the other work they're currently undergoing with the servers in various regions (especially the plan to move NA to a more central location) that might be an unreasonable request.

I'm not from Riot, so I can't say they definitely won't turn around and hand out some more refund tokens, but this is why I look at it as unlikely to happen.

EDIT: If you sort Boards by "Best" instead of "Hot", two separate posts asking for additional refund tokens are on the front page right now.

rampaging poetApr 21, 201510 votes

Looking at the refund policy, you can only receive IP or RP for a refund. No actual currency changes hands, so the usual reasons companies would prefer not to accept refunds don't apply. They already have your money, so refunding you doesn't cost them anything. IP refunds literally cost them nothing because you never paid them to begin with.

That said, there still needs to be a limit on how often you can refund things so people don't spend $10 and get every $10 skin ever one skin at a time by refunding their skin and buying a new one before every game.

Bethor KookalianApr 22, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=rampaging poet,realm=NA,application-id=cIfEodbz,discussion-id=EVmWF3G1,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2015-04-21T23:16:30.543+0000)

They already have your money, so refunding you doesn't cost them anything. IP refunds literally cost them nothing because you never paid them to begin with.

This part isn't actually true. I'll grant you, it approximates truth reasonably if refund tokens don't refresh often, as suggested in the OP, but refund tokens do end up costing Riot, even IP refunds, in any case where the person would've purchased more RP otherwise(And since Riot can't simply give refund tokens to people who -won't- by more RP....).

rampaging poetApr 23, 20151 votes

But by the same token they earn money any time letting you get another refund causes you to buy more Riot Points - for example, refunding a 6300 IP champion you didn't like, buying another one, and liking them enough to buy a skin.

Unlimited refunds is probably too much because there would be less incentive to buy champions with RP if you could try them easily by saving up 6300 IP and repeatedly refunding to try every champion ever. However, the act of providing a refund does not inherently have a monetary cost, only an expected future gain or loss of business. Providing a few more refunds may well help their bottom line more than it hurts, especially if additional refund tokens are typically given out less often than the refund grace period on transactions.

Bethor KookalianApr 23, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=rampaging poet,realm=NA,application-id=cIfEodbz,discussion-id=EVmWF3G1,comment-id=0002000000000000,timestamp=2015-04-23T17:50:56.579+0000)

But by the same token they earn money any time letting you get another refund causes you to buy more Riot Points - for example, refunding a 6300 IP champion you didn't like, buying another one, and liking them enough to buy a skin.

Unlimited refunds is probably too much because there would be less incentive to buy champions with RP if you could try them easily by saving up 6300 IP and repeatedly refunding to try every champion ever. However, the act of providing a refund does not inherently have a monetary cost, only an expected future gain or loss of business. Providing a few more refunds may well help their bottom line more than it hurts, especially if additional refund tokens are typically given out less often than the refund grace period on transactions.

We've probably already surpassed the point where offering refunds generates more RP revenue, tbh.

Worst Mid EverApr 22, 20156 votes

i just want to refund bard

ShinjusukeApr 22, 20151 votes

Everyone wants to refund bard. Should've been designed as a jungler IMO.

JimmyTheTacoManApr 22, 20153 votes

I like bard ;-; Bard

ShinjusukeApr 22, 20152 votes

I like the concept behind Bard. It's his release state and execution I have an issue with.

Shoulda just made him a cool roaming meep-collecting jungle-focused champion.

Instead he's a lackluster support who nobody wants on their team.

DelphiniumApr 22, 20151 votes

I want to refund elise

Baron of BreadApr 21, 20155 votes

It sunk off the front because it stopped getting upvotes. I believe there is some algorithm of how many upvotes a page has for how long it has been around that determines if it is on the front page.

wopApr 21, 20151 votes

Yes, but it had grown by at least 10 every time I checked it the day it was there, and 10 upvotes is more than some of the other items had. but even so that wasn't the main point.

CindikleApr 22, 20154 votes

Personally don't care much either way.

But why are so many refunds needed?

Like most things you spend money on, you should be sure you actually want/need it.

All I really see this doing is people deciding "Oh I don't play that champion much anymore, lets refund for a different skin to play with". It allows people to avoid spending money.

Riot is a business after all. We're lucky with the 3 we get.

I also assume these refunds are done by hand, not automated at all. Making more of them only increases work load. To make it possible to be automatic(would have to happen first before replenishing refunds) they'd have to put work into that. I doubt we'll see much done with the client like that currently. My understanding is that they are working on a new one.

But overall I think it really comes down to the first question. Why are more really needed?

DrCyanideApr 22, 20152 votes

I'm pretty positive refunds are automatic.

Personal experience, I clicked the wrong skin to purchase and realized it right away. I didn't try using the wrong skin, I immediately hit the refund button, and it still counted towards my count. Personally, that feels a lot like trying to return unopened merchandize to a store and being charged a fee.

The other thing that I returned was Azir. Let's be honest, Azir was rushed out the door because he had his own featured game mode voice lines. His bugs plagued the game for several patches after his release. I don't think it's wrong for a customer to expect a working product.

Now I think I've been reasonable with my refunds, but I've only got one left. I'm not out to cheat the system, but I'd like a larger safety net for when these things happen in the future. For that reason, I would like to see some sort of way for your available refunds to increase over time.

CindikleApr 22, 20154 votes

I see now that they are automatic. Never used one, always thought you had to send a ticket in.

But it seems it only allows works for the past 10 buys. Not all will be available for refund.

Seems fair since the system is in place already.

I'd say grant 2 refunds a seasons. These refunds do not carry over. Refunds now cost 2, but are reduced to 1 if used within 24 hours.

Less punishing for mistakes while keeping it limited.

The Blue RajahApr 22, 20154 votes

Are you actually suggesting "Conspiracy theory riot pushed it off the boards to avoid talking about it"?

The thread is 8 days old now. All threads fall off the boards eventually, based on time. Upvotes just make it take longer, and that thread was on the front page for several days. It followed the exact same pattern of all other threads on these boards.

That aside, I have no particular opinion on the topic. Most other online games I've played don't offer automatic no-questions-asked refunds at all. If we had more, that'd be kinda cool. If not, I can live with it. The only suggestion I have would be to have a pop-up warning the first time you use one to really hammer home how valuable they are.

wopApr 22, 20151 votes

It wasn't on the front page for several days. Soo....

NagirahApr 22, 20154 votes

The regrets of refunding ip costs of champions when i was a noob. The regrets!

JingerbeardmanApr 22, 20153 votes

dont remake threads because they fall off the hot topics tab. it is needless spam at that point...

ShinjusukeApr 22, 20154 votes

perhaps, but repeated instances of the same topic shows a maintained interest in said topic. "Needless spam" would be one guy making the same topic over and over and over as many times as he possibly can. Refreshing a page that falls off the front page due to an algorithm in order to show a persistent interest by the community hardly counts as "spam".

GavranApr 22, 20151 votes

I actually think this is basically spam, but also I'm pretty sure Riot mentioned talking about refunds back on the old forums (one of the shop guys. Not the main man hippo but the new guy, I think.)

It's spammy, but honestly they should really give an official word on this topic.

AMYS GRAVEApr 22, 20153 votes

I accidently refunded an IP purchase (vlad) through a misclick. having another refund every so often would be nice.

MarhsallLee67Apr 22, 20152 votes

IMO, even just having those 3 refunds reset each season would be fine rather than gaining additional ones.

VelasanApr 22, 20152 votes

I disagree. I mean it would be nice, except everyone would refund old skins for new skins.

They would lose thousands overnight because it would be like giving away rp to every player.

flumptydumpApr 22, 20152 votes

because as much as they like you to think, riot really doesnt care about what the community wants, they care about how much money they can siphon off of us

ShinjusukeApr 22, 20154 votes

Ignoring the boatloads of instances that prove that statement to be a blatant falsity, refunds still encourage purchases via the mindset of "if I don't like it I can refund it later", causing players to believe in an "RP pool" they possess that doesn't actually exist. Furthermore, Refunds-per-bought-RP encourages further purchases in a "quantity-over-quality" fashion.

GavranApr 22, 20151 votes

Ooh refunds per bought RP. I like that. You put enough thought into it to come up with some fair sounding numbers? It's probably safe to say I've only regretted 2 of my RP purchases (bought Malphite with RP by mistake, immediately refunded, bought Thresh bundle at launch, never actually managed to put together the "deep sea weirdos" team I imagined playing him in, and like Classic Thresh better without that context. Bought Galactic Renekton to duo with a Galactic Nasus buddy, realized we're both top laners, refunded. Kinda regret that refund though, I still like the skin.)

I don't buy tons of RP though. So something like 2/10 RP purchases for me were regretted.

ShinjusukeApr 23, 20151 votes

I'm sure many others have already had this idea, and thus presented fair numbers. Personally, while I don't know how much money people average, a refund per somewhere between 30-50$ worth of RP purchased seems fair enough.

Would likely be a similar cost system to how much Riot provides "bonus" RP when you buy it: Just scale that number up to match the price of skins. At 50$, Riot already provides you 700 free RP with your purchase, which means at the 50$ benchmark a refund token might be a realistic additon.

GavranApr 23, 20151 votes

Let's call an average RP purchase 975 rounded to 1k, which probably balances out between stuff like my Legendary Vlad or Thresh Bundle (whereas normally I'd buy him with IP) vs stuff like skins bought on sale, and that'd put my refund uses equal with your 1 per 50$ RP (I wouldn't do it with buying 50$ RP all at once though, I'd just base it on total RP). Throw in the couple to start with, and I think that sounds pretty fair. I'm just digging into this because Riot has shown they aren't particularly willing/ready to talk about giving out more free refunds, so a thread with an idea like this might be more appealing to them. Not that I'm going to make that thread or anything. >.>

Takeuchi 17Apr 22, 20152 votes

I agree with this, although thankfully I have a PBE account to try stuff out I know a lot of people dont so I would support something like this.

Skystrike7Apr 21, 20151 votes

Needed, plz.

Nunya BezwacksApr 22, 20151 votes

would cost to much money riot is to greedy to fix server problems

101100111000Apr 22, 20151 votes

1 IP-only refund every -insert cycle here-

DrCyanideApr 22, 20151 votes

I kinda feel jipped in the refund department.

The first one I accidentally clicked purchase on the wrong skin. I knew as soon as the transaction completed I messed up, and without using said skin went to return it. Guess Riot doesn't do free refunds for unopened merchandize.

The second time I bought a champion that shouldn't have been released for another several months. Azir was buggy as all let out. Granted, I could have just held onto him and waited for things to get better, but I still feel like the whole situation around his release was horrible...

ShaabanglyyApr 22, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=MT Skjar,realm=NA,application-id=cIfEodbz,discussion-id=EVmWF3G1,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-04-21T19:57:38.059+0000)

Here's a post about Riot giving us seasonal refunds. The original post said asked for 3 per season. I personally would be fine with 1 per season. Others wanted refunds based on ho much RP you buy. Those are the main opinions I saw anyway. I'm reposting because I don't like the fact that something a lot of people obviously wanted was not really taken seriously. I know Riot doesn't comment on everything and doesn't have to, but damn. How is some random post with 3 upvotes "hotter" than one with almost 400 upvotes earned in like a day?

300 people does not constitute a large enough portion of the LoL community to warrant this change. There are VERY few companies in the world that will let you buy something, USE it, and return it just because you didn't like it.

CyberTootieApr 22, 20151 votes

{quoted}

There are VERY few companies in the world that will let you buy something, USE it, and return it just because you didn't like it.

Yes, there are very few great companies who have so much faith in their products that they'd let you do something like this; companies like SVS (http://www.svsound.com), who I'd highly recommend.

EvTheVegApr 22, 20151 votes

id say at least 85% of players would want refunds, so obviously its going to get a nice amount of upvotes. But I think 3 refunds for your account is fine. 3 refunds doesnt sound like a lot, but 3 refunds that are refreshed every year, for every player...Riot will lose A LOT of money. Although its our game.. its their business and the money we spend is going towards making the game better (for the most part).. three refunds is plenty.... If you keep playing the game eventually you're going to get all the champs... and you should know what a skin looks like before you spend money on it. If you need more than 3 refunds you're obviously not learning from your mistakes when purchasing things you clearly aren't sure if you like or not.

OrdersApr 22, 20151 votes

I think you should get refunds depending on how much RP you spent. Say, for every 100 dollars of RP bought you get one refund token. That way, people can't just use their tokens to refund old skins for new ones without sacrificing anything.

Bane of IgnorancApr 22, 20151 votes

Let rior make money! I could see, maybe, letting you swap for another, cheaper skin if you regret your purchase. That makes the buy less risky, so the increase in sales matches the cost of the extra service.

TenSlashTenApr 22, 20151 votes

idk what i'd refund

oh actually I do I'd probably refund the double/triple skin chars from people buying me mystery gifts.

Dont need 3 nidalee skins 2 shaco skins 4 alistar skins (black, matador. inferonal, and that one unchained from facebook awhile ago...) Just seems like a waste. -shrug-

SammystormApr 22, 20151 votes

Why should riot implement this? Hardly any companies give you refund for content purchased.

JevelFaithfulApr 22, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=MT Skjar,realm=NA,application-id=cIfEodbz,discussion-id=EVmWF3G1,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-04-21T19:57:38.059+0000)

How is some random post with 3 upvotes "hotter" than one with almost 400 upvotes earned in like a day?

From the title of the post, it sunk because it was not as active as newer posts. Which is very possible (I haven't seen the original thread for a week I think). The threads go newest first, not most upvote first. Otherwise there was a 1.4k one in the old GD that would deserve to be transfered.

CyberTootieApr 22, 20151 votes

To me, it seems Riot just uses the token refund system as a sort of fallback so they can just brush off many issues.

Way back when Pentakill Karthus came out in August of 2011, there was a bug where new releases were being improperly labeled on the home screen as being "on sale". Back then I fairly frequently bought skins, but only if they were on sale, so, unaware of the bug, I bought it. Somehow shortly thereafter I discovered that the skin just came out and wasn't on sale (I think there was a forum thread about it where they acknowledged the bug), so I petitioned Riot via support ticket for "[a refund of] the sale price difference in RP or [for] the transaction to be voided." After initially responding with a copy-and-paste response that didn't apply, they offered me a "one-time exception" and a refund of up to 3 purchases that occurred within 30 days. I conveyed my displeasure of "los[ing] my supposed 'one-time exception' for a legitimate dispute". But I went along with it, and apparently I missed out on a follow-up for more information, so the refund never happened.

So basically all they'd do now for something like this would effectively be "use a refund token", brush their hands and walk away.