Boards›[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous

Lifetime RP rewards discussion and its implications

Sweetie Brella·9/19/2014, 6:37:30 PM·1 votes·611 views

In case you didn't know, the topic of the lifetime RP rewards was recently brought up on reddit, and a response was given here. Despite there being a number of problems with both these actions and their reasoning, that was all we got on the matter. I'd like to summarise some of the main rebuttals here along with some problems of my own and try to bring the people responsible for this infuriating decision to account.

Okay first off, what right do the free players have to complain about something like this? Just because an opinion is popular, it doesn't by any means make it correct. I understand that free players are still players and the game benefits from having them play, but essentially I believe they're getting more than they put in by playing the game for nothing. How is it their complaints about people who keep the game running for free be rewarded be remotely pertinent? To quote some people on the original thread, it's like trying to get opinions on a party from the people who weren't invited, or complaining about not winning a competition you didn't even enter. If you really want to benefit from something like RP rewards, you could, I don't know, spend some money on the game, maybe?

Second up, this is just like the glorious second EUW conditions we had earlier in the year. They definitely promised compensation for all the problems we had, and after a whole day of server downtime and several more days without ranked, they pull the same half-assed, BS reasoning that it "wouldn't help". At this point, I'm half expecting them to wait to the end of the year and say the SR update is called off because its "too hard". How can you possibly expect to build trust with such underhanded tactics? If I rioter says something is going to happen, don't pull back out the moment we call you out on it. It just makes us feel stupid for ever trusting you. You can confuse something like this with contract law and stuff like you, but in the end we remember what you promise, and when you don't deliver.

Now let's have a little look at the concept that these rewards would be "unfair". Besides the F2P thing I've already mentioned, there's still a number of problems with this. I could just say "life isn't fair" and call it a day, but I would like to elaborate. First of all, there are plenty of other things in the game that could be seen as "unfair" by the same reasoning. The two main ones would have to be the Victorious skins and the event hand outs. Both of these are inherently unfair based on the limited number available and how difficult it can be to get them. Only a limited portion of players can be gold ranked or higher, and not everyone has the time or the connections necessary to slog through the games to get that promo. The event codes an unbalanced based on the fact that they're based in a physical location which can cost hundreds, if not thousands to reach, or less than a hundred if you live in the same city. How is that fair?

Also, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how your current initiatives are supposed to be more fair. IP boosts and icons that can be bought without spending are inherently biased in favour of the less dedicated players. I'll bet you that of the top spenders on the game, 90+% of them have more IP than they possibly know what to do with (which is an entire problem of its own), and therefore they can't possibly reap any benefit of your "fair" schemes to show appreciation to players. How you can get something so horribly backwards is beyond me.

Yes, I would consider myself one of the top spenders of the game and it's difficult to argue something like this without sound incredibly self-entitled, but I am just so sick of Riot promising cool stuff in return for what we've done or put up with only to pull it away under pretences that don't even stand up to the most simple of scrutiny. I am not letting them have the "last word" on this until I see their reasons for what they are. Because right now it just seems like a pack of lies to trick us to spending more money on the game.

Thanks for reading all this, it was a lot to get off my chest, I hope someone can answer my claims, because this is seriously affecting my decision to spend any more money on the game.

5 Comments

Lumus Avatar9/19/2014, 7:28:57 PM1 votes

I respect your position. I also agree with some points while I disagree with others. I would to state that it is my opinion that in the case of F2P games, players are encouraged to spend money on in-game content to help support the creative team and fund the flow of new content. Spending money to help the creative team means you (as a money-spending player) are helping to improve the product for all users. Not just for you or just for other money-spending players. As a reward for helping to fund improvements to a product that everyone can enjoy, you are given exclusive access to in-game content. In this case, this content is Skins, or Champs if you don't like saving up IP.

I am a little confused by your calling out of the offers of IP-purchasable Summoner Icons. Many Summoner Icons are available in the game that are unlocked simply through play time, or wins, or other money-dissociated actions. So I am not sure why you're bothered by IP-Purchasable Icons.

To your point of not coming through on promises, I can get behind you. If a person says they will deliver content and then they don't it reduces trust in them. But they only suffer the loss of trust when people stop using the product or spending money on it. So until one actually stops using the product, calling them out on untrustworthiness comes across as hot air. A liar can keep lying until he has no one left to lie to. If everyone complains about the lies, but sticks around anyway, then his lies have not hurt his position.

Now, hopefully, the SR update does not fall through. That would hurt Riot's position, I think. But I have seen no indication this is likely to occur. If I've learned one thing in my time here, it's that Riot is bad at communicating. Just because we haven't heard anything about the SR update does not mean anything has changed about the project for better or worse.

I have not been part of the discussion about RP rewards for time spent on the product so I don't know what was said by whom and I cannot, then, speak to that argument. I have spent money on RP, however it would not bother me if players who have spent no money got free RP as a reward for continuing to use the product. Remember that every player, even you, started with 400 RP which you did not pay for. On top of that, all players, paying or not, have the ability to gain more RP through the refer-a-friend initiative. So to say only paying players are entitled to free RP is far from the truth.

To end on my original thought, those of us that pay are doing so to help fund improvements to a product. These improvements are for every user of the product to enjoy, Paying player and F2P player alike. Let us not get hung up on negligible lifetime RP rewards. The play time of a non-paying player is not less valuable than that of a paying player. We are all customers and end users of a product. We are under no obligation to pay for the service. Those that do pay benefit all users.

Lumus Avatar9/19/2014, 8:09:07 PM1 votes

I feel you, brother. I should look at the article and find out what was said so I can better form an opinion of this current issue. I know how frustrating it is trying to stay true to the game when they're not even taking the time to explain why things are less than great lately.

Why don't they make a News post for all the players to see that says "Hey, we know connections suck lately. We're doing all we can to fight off hackers, deal with ISPs and Net Neutrality, while at the same time trying to organize the LCS and create new content. It's a lot to do! Thank you for sticking with us through these rough times and thank you for your support to getting us all back to a better place."

A simple note to keep us in the loop and let us know that they're even hearing the complaints and not just ignoring them (as so many have taken thinking) would really help to diffuse the situation.

Lumus Avatar9/19/2014, 9:17:18 PM1 votes

I like your final analogy, I have been getting the sense of that lately. I think things are just really bad right now when it comes to responsiveness and tangible improvements because of the big LCS push with the DDoS attacks tacked on. It is my opinion that the situation will rapidly improve once LCS is over and done with. They're just focused on other things at the moment. It's not an excuse, or a good excuse, even. But it serves as a possible explanation and brings with it hope that things will get better soon.