"WE NEED MORE KEYS" - A response and suggestion
http://i.imgur.com/PxbAkVR.png
Hello,
A recent message from Riot concerning key fragment drops basically says that many players aren't completely satisfied with the key drop system. According to what many players seem to be saying, the players feel they aren't getting enough key drops.
It is my opinion that the primary part of the problem is not actually the rate at which players can get keys, but rather the randomness factor - the frustration of being mostly clueless as to whether this round will grant you a key or not.
For anyone who doesn't know: A brief explanation of the key fragment system (as per what Riot has explained)
1.) Only wins can drop fragments. 2.) Fragment drops are random. 3.) Being in a party slightly increases drop chance. 4.) Drop chance is altered based on a per-player window of time, which seems to be four weeks. The drop rate is much higher at the start of this period, and the drop rate decreases as you acquire more keys within that period. At the end of this period, the drop rate resets back to full. The purpose of this is to allow players who don't play super often to still get a decent amount of fragments. If they didn't do this (and, let's say, there was just a flat 25% drop rate for fragments), then, people who play A LOT would be allowed to get way too many of them.
However, it's frustrating to have the drop rate and random chance factor totally hidden from you. So here's my suggestion:
Adjust the key system slightly (will explain shortly), and illustrate to the player on their profile page, their progress of getting the next key fragment. The drop rate system could be simplified as follows:
In the given per-player window of time (let's say it's still four weeks), a fragment is dropped upon X number of victories, where X increases by 1 after every fragment drop, and where X starts at 1. This means that on the first victory of the per-player window, a key frag drop is guaranteed. After that, it takes two wins for another drop. After that, it takes three wins. After that, four wins, etc. After the window of time (four weeks) is up, this resets, and it's back to only requiring 1 win for a drop.
If this ends up making the drop rate ultimately SLOWER than the current drop rate, then simply adjust the increment appropriately. Maybe something like: 1 win, 1 win, 2 wins, 2 wins, 3 wins, 3 wins, etc.
Regardless, with a system like this, it would be very easy to illustrate to the player exactly what their position is in getting the next key. They could check it on their profile, just like they're able to see how many ARAM re-rolls they have, and how many Hextech chests are available.
