A critique on Riot's mastery system

It's a cop out.

I tried to weigh it up as fairly as possible, I compared and contrasted it with HotS's hero leveling and that's my final verdict.

I'll start by explaining how Heroes of the Storm does it.

In HotS, the hero leveling system is tied to learning the game, but scales up to prestigious rewards for truly committing to a hero.

From levels 1-4, or when you first start learning a hero, you're limited in how you can play them, unlocking more playstyle customizations as you continue. Levels 1-4 are extremely fast, you can easily get to level 3 in a single victory, but if you're losing it takes a bit longer and so it should because you need more time to learn your hero. While this may seem an intrusive system, it works and rarely decides a game. [I should note in a future patch, once you reach level 30 (40 is max) in HotS all talent gating is removed regardless of your hero level because Blizzard understands you know the game enough by that point)

At level 5, you earn 500 gold (works the same as IP), so you're rewarded for learning to play a wide range of heroes.

At level 6, you unlock a summoner icon for that hero (as well as a colour variation for your mount)

At level 7 and 8, you unlock a different colour variation for your hero for free (remember Riot's old 520 RP recolours? Yeah, those but free and earned for committing to a hero) [Applies to all skins for that hero- 3 colour options each]

At level 9, you earn a master summoner icon (just a gold border around the icon you got at level 6, but it shows you've really committed to that hero) as well as another mount colour variation.

At level 10, you unlock the ability to purchase a "master skin" for that hero for 10,000 gold (approx. 6300 IP equivalent). This master skin features your hero in what could be their final form so to speak.

Currently in HotS level 10 is the max, but in a patch coming soon it will be raised to 20 with more unique rewards tied to it.

As you can see, Blizzard put thought into this system. They've made it fun and rewarding, as well as making it an integral part of learning the game.

Now, onto League's system...

I don't know where to begin. So maybe I'll start with how expecting Riot to produce a system like HotS has is unfair, because LoL is an established and aged game- to prepare 2 recolours for all skins + a master skin in 3 different colours is an absurdly difficult task and Riot's Ultimate skins already fit the purpose of Master skins.

But that doesn't mean they couldn't have done better.

Firstly: Why aren't champion summoner icons a thing? Surely this would have been the easiest way to please the community out of all the things you've added to this system. This is something people have been begging for since beta.

Secondly: League of Legends has the biggest gating mechanics in champion diversity out of any moba for new players. Champions are expensive, and you need runes and rune pages to even be remotely competitive with them. Why not have something like HotS has where IP boosts / rewards are provided for learning different heroes at a basic level to help lower this gating issue.

Thirdly: The reward system needs a serious overhaul. You don't get anything until level 4- at which point you get everything. There's no easing into it, nothing to promote "Hey just keep going a little longer at level 2 you get _!"

Fourthly: While a master skin and recolours is too much, surely you could have done much better with the custom emotes. Even something as small as recycling some particle effects (E.g. in Rengar's taunt when he slashes his knife it could leave the red trail his empowered Q has). Just flashing the badge above your head is... dull. Boring. Repetitive across all champions. It doesn't reflect anything about the character.

Finally: Loading screen badges and profile banners. Lol. I'm sorry, but these are the two aspects of the client that nobody bothers to look at or take note of. Remember: Summoner icons are everywhere and people take note of and see them.

I didn't mention the announcement thingy because Riot didn't elaborate on it or provide an example, I'm just going to assume it shows the same rank badge as your custom emotes around your kill call outs or something.

"We'll elaborate on it in the future"

This is Riot Games, if you hold any faith in these words just remember that they said the same thing about the honour system and "the spectator client is the first step into adding replays" or even "Limited edition skins will never return to the store". Riot doesn't hold anything to their word, they change it on a whim as it pleases them.

In short: This new system is a laudable mockery of HotS's system, has little to no thought put into it and reeks of "They did it so we have to".

(Cross posted from OCE)