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Lets talk about the Limited skins.

Draygo Korvan·10/18/2013, 6:02:21 AM·5 votes·549 views

I feel like Riot is missing the boat on this one. Not by much. Their heart IS in the right place on this. Getting skins to more people is a good thing. Its good for the game and good for the community.

With that said, their handling of this LE skin issue has been terrible. Absolutely terrible. Not only did they succeed in setting up an "us vs them" scenario, they did not open any constructive discussion with the people who had LE skins as to what they felt was fair compensation. All they did was state that this is what they felt was fair compensation with no discussion on the matter.

But, I have a solution that can work. Riot is on the right track. People want exclusivity sometimes, and that is OK. A Veblen good is desired by people because of its exclusivity. (look it up if you don't understand the concept).

First, take a page from CCG's. First Edition vs Second Edition. First Edition cards are usually LIMITED. There is only a certain amount of them printed. The Second Edition cards are the same card, same effects, do the same things, and have the same art. But they are usually on an 'unlimited' run. The same theory can be applied to League of Legends skins.

Champion skins are given the following:

Limited Package:

A white ribbon in the top left that displays only when the limited skin is used - like honor ribbons
The skin is named LE skinname in the loading screen
A summoner icon which is the cropped image of the skin's champions face taken directly from the art.
{more ideas here?}
Champion skin

Regular Package:
Champion skin

Why this works:

It keeps the uniqueness and rarity of the champion skin without watermarking the loading image with something people may not like. - a ribbon in the corner does not obscure or alter the original art.

Riot MAY release more limited skins in the future, with the understanding that that skin once the 'limited' run is over will only be available with the regular package Riot may charge additional RP for the Limited version of the skin.

As for the rest: This is a work in progress, I may change this post to reflect feedback from this thread.

I had an alternate idea to 'foil' all limited champion skins. I do feel though it would distort the original art too much for my own liking. If enough LE owners like the foil idea maybe it deserves a look.

I think this is fair compensation. And it gives a template going forward that riot can use for new champion skins. They can go sell a Veblen good while letting everyone that wants to use these skins.

2 Comments

Wizz Kalista10/24/2013, 10:35:09 PM1 votes

Sorry, don't check these forums much... I like the idea of more differentiation. The crummy loading screen overlay they do now just doesn't cut it imo.

I wrote another post on the old forums about maintaining rarity and keeping riot's original promise of NOT SELLING the limiteds while still getting them out there to the people who deserve them. Using them as an award for playing a certain champion consistently (100+ games or some suitable benchmark) or just as a christmas present let everyone pick one limited skin for their most played champ (that has a limited skin). This would still keep the supply limited but allow people to get skins for their favorite champions. The idea was more fleshed out in my forum post but you get the idea hopefully.

Anyways, I like what you were thinking with adding more exclusivity to the "first run" limiteds so it doesn't look like such a slap in the face to original owners.