Update: Refer-a-Friend now retired

Riot·Sep 4, 2015·7 votes·107,774 views

UPDATE: The Refer-a-Friend program is now shut down. We will be unable to provide support for issues with redeeming RAF rewards after October 5 2015, so please make sure to send in any support tickets before then. Thanks for participating over the years, and stay tuned for more ways to connect with your friends!

Refer-a-Friend, a system built to make it easy and rewarding to bring your friends into League originally launched in 2010. It was an old dog, so we updated Refer-a-Friend a few times over the years to make prize tiers more achievable and reduce botting. Since relaunching RAF we’ve been tracking how new and referring players play with the feature and the results show it’s not helping players find new people to game with. In fact, we experimented with turning RAF off in some regions, and there was no discernible change in social behaviors. League’s social systems should make it easier and more rewarding to hit the Rift with friends, but RAF just doesn’t meet that bar anymore. Because of that, we’re retiring the program in thirty days.

Recent features like Party IP, friend discovery and last month’s Team Up and Pool Party helped players play with friends and unlock cool rewards while doing it. We plan on forging ahead, concepting, building, and supporting social systems and features that do all the above.

In the meantime, RAF remains fully operational, so you can still earn up to 5000 IP, as well as Grey Warwick and Medieval Twitch by referring five friends before August 20. Once the program wraps, the two skins become limited edition, but may return as rewards for another social system somewhere down the line. High-volume referrers from legacy versions of RAF remain on our radar as well. We’re actively working with each individual to fulfill their rewards and won’t consider RAF genuinely wrapped until that work is complete.

RAF closes down on September 5. We’ll hang around the comments to clear anything up!

374 Comments

9LivesSep 5, 2015135 votes

Instead of closing it down because "no one used it" or because the other social events were more effective.. why not just give the system more exposure?

Those other social events are plastered everywhere on the launcher/news page etc. so of course people will know about it. The R.A.F system? It's just been collecting dust obviously because no one even bothers mentioning it. But you expect people, new or old, to use something that you don't even mention.

And well, I don't know about everyone else but I don't bring new people to the game because there's Party IP lol. It does it's job by getting people to play with their friends, but I think that's existing friends (Or maybe new friends because you both want the extra IP) and not actual new players.

RozzetaSep 5, 201592 votes

"No one used it" is a fancy way of saying "It was being abused a lot, so we had to put it down".

Truly An CatSep 5, 201531 votes

Agree here. One of my friends told me about how she mainly made smurf accounts to help satisfy her buddy's RAF requirement.

Aristocrat VayneSep 5, 201524 votes

At the same time, the games' gotten so big, you have to assume if anyone's a gamer, they have a League account.

lil spoopySep 7, 20153 votes

I have been only playing League for probably around two months now, and never have I heard anything about the R.A.F system involving skins and stuff..

Zimmerman69Sep 5, 201559 votes

Refer what friends? Amumu

frafdo121333Sep 5, 201512 votes

give this mummy a cookie item 2054

Hi im AKSep 5, 20157 votes

Braum item 2052 yummy thanks for the snack, the no friend loser almost got it lucky I was here

Stoner FoxSep 5, 20155 votes

KogMaw eats all the cookies.

Rew711Sep 5, 201542 votes

Ya know, its kind of sad its being closed down today. . . because today is my birthday of all things...

NLG MHHIRSep 5, 201587 votes

Happy Birthday

Jack ºSep 5, 201519 votes

^ditto summoner 30

FuzzyearsSep 5, 201517 votes

Happy birthday!

Supreme SmokeSep 5, 20157 votes

Happy Birthday, now give me a kissy.

TiggzSep 5, 20158 votes

FeelsBirthdayMan

ChoGathEatsWorldSep 5, 20158 votes

Happy Birthday!

The HuntedSep 5, 20159 votes

It's my bday too :D

ˉYEEZYˉSep 5, 20156 votes

why does shutting it down make you sad its a system that was abuse and was not working. ???

Thomas EdisonSep 5, 201519 votes

"Its a system that was abuse"

Dragonlord FrostSep 5, 201517 votes

How dare he leave out one letter

ÄhriSep 5, 20154 votes

@RubicksKid That's not a comma.

Aura301Sep 6, 20154 votes

And an apostrophe.

RiotRiot Sysnet Sep 5, 201574 votes

Happy Birthday!

iqarchnetSep 6, 201522 votes

What a great community :'') item 3070

ArcadeusSep 6, 201525 votes

We got you the best gift of all! Disappointment.....

BarkBorkHeckBorkSep 6, 201530 votes

the same thing every year Amumu

RiotRiot Lango LeerSep 6, 201543 votes

Happy bday dude! If you're NA, Friend me! Let's grab a game together if you like.

Faith BreakerSep 6, 20155 votes

You're a Stephen King fan I see

miniZerglingSep 7, 20153 votes

A game with a Rioter? Wow. What's next free RP? Tell me where do I sign up? My birthday's comin' up in a few months. Could I perhaps sign a preemptive petition? That'd be great. Either way happy birthday @Rew711

Tentacle LoveSep 5, 201523 votes

I referred plenty of friends, but getting them to level ten was obnoxious. Leveling your summoner account is miserably slow.

If you want more people to play the game, don't make the initial experience so shitty.

WolfmanSep 5, 201518 votes

well, when they get to lvl 30 they get to do ranked.... and I don't think anyone wants someone on thier team if they don't have the runes/experience to back it up. I mean in normals it's fine but ranked is a bit different.

Tentacle LoveSep 6, 201512 votes

The runes should have their cost refactored anyway, but that's kinda just secondary to the problem.

If someone tries to do ranked before they're good and ready, you know they're going to be stomped - and that'll happen whether it took them a year or 3 to get there.

Practicing against bots won't prepare you for ranked. Practicing against new players who hae no runes won't prepare you for ranked. Practicing against players who don't give a damn won't prepare you for ranked.

The only way to practice for ranked is to do ranked.

THE SNEED MANSep 7, 20151 votes

i disagree surely of course you are right about practicing against unskilled players is not going to do anything because eventually you will get good enough to outplay and win against them every time but u can get better by looking up the basics and maybe a little advanced material for your favorite role a guide or two for your favorite heroes and learn basic last hitting and mechanics and then just play from there u start to get a grasp of what your character should be doing how to itemize them when to do what with them and how to play them in general eventually they will learn how important objectives are and then they just have to farm runes and hop into ranked if they practiced the right things enough then they should make it to at least silver skipping over the second most frusturating rank bronze (im looking at you diamond fuck you) and then they can climb elo and eventually start playing against players better than them giving them a challenge and from there they just need to ask see learn or read what they are doing better than them and what more they can do with their champions of choice and finally they will end up in their deserved role and maybe even start climbing elo slowly and maybe even make it to challenger someday but basically without that rambling im saying that you are mostly right but practicing mechanics comes before practicing matchups

iGanjaSep 7, 20156 votes

It's called a period, dude. jeez

Soraka OnlySep 5, 201529 votes

There is a huge learning curve in this game. Even when people reach level 30, most of the time, they still don't know what they're doing.

XalvianSep 6, 201522 votes

That's not completely due to the learning curve, its due to the game relying on the community (for the most part) to teach new players beyond the basics, and many people are simply never told anything to help, and taking the time to search youtubes and forums for help is too tedious for a game you just started. I think there should be more in-depth tutorial modes, (last hitting im looking at you) which would GREATLY enrich new players' experiences. I personally would have never gotten level 5 if I didn't have someone introduce me to the game and take the time to help me learn more than the basics.

Anth895Sep 6, 20153 votes

It's almost like you are asking for some kind of practice mode with a ton of customizable settings. I am sure Riot will get around to that soon. :C

Subz0Sep 6, 20154 votes

This would have helped me (and probably still can) so much when I first started playing League. I actually made a suggestion like this in their new games modes or something like that forum. I'm not saying I'm good now; but looking back at my starting point I feel like I've grown considerably. I feel like that rate would have been accelerated at least twice as much with some sort objective based practice sessions ( i.e. last hitting, jungle path clearing, proper ganking routes etc.). I know a lot of people like to just jump right in and start playing against other players in order to get better. However, there other players out in the community who would rather get a good grasp of the basics before feeling confident enough to play in normals, let alone try rank matches. I feel a game mode catering to this concept would help raise the floor and ease the introduction into League.

leaguewutSep 5, 20157 votes

Part of why it is so terrible is because of how many smurfs there are. MMR is a good system, but Riot should officially acknowledge the smurf system and designate a "tied" system to let accounts be linked, their contacts shared, and their mmr tied together, or at least factored in as 30% of the other account's mmr (mmr could be tied to the champ pool, so some compromise could be necessary).

UdyrOnWheelsSep 5, 201516 votes

Rest in Pepperonis 'Refer-a-Friend' You will be missed. Just as much as the skins that no one got. May you rest knowing that Not many knew exactly what you did. item 3070

BloodLord KittySep 5, 20158 votes

Can you pls make both skins (grey Warwick and Medievel Twitch) unavailable at all time? I feel like they are special and i dont want to see new players playing using them "because they were in the shop and we like them". All of us who managed to get both by either creating new accounts in other region (i got one account level 10 in South american while i was taking spanish class) or by simply showing someone the game. Thank you if you do.

BônesSep 5, 201516 votes

They aren't going to put them in the shop. He said that they might make it a reward for some other social program. I'm with you on not putting it in the shop because up til now players had to put a lot of effort into getting the skins. But I don't agree with making it totally unavailable as long as effort is needed to get it. That's selfish.

TuffrootSep 5, 20156 votes

I had 4 completed referrals during the life of the program. I still have one person leveling, but clearly that time has passed. Referred a lot more players than that over the years I've been playing, however, I didn't go through the official program because of how clunky it used to be and how unobtainable the rewards seemed in the older versions of the system. Got Grey Warwick and now I might never get Medieval Twitch.

Still I kind of wish Riot would either construct another means of gaining these as a reward or just put them up in the store while giving those who "earned" them a special border or icon or something. Most players I know with these skins didn't get them through legitimate means. Skins were bought via old skin shops, players leveled multiple accounts themselves, or bots did the work for them. I don't see a lot of prestige in using these which is a shame for everybody that did things the correct way.

Truth be told I'm not a big fan of locking away any content. I wish Riot would make every skin or summoner icon available in some way or another at all times. Probably in the minority on that one, but I just don't like "limited edition" much of anything.

WolfmanSep 5, 20153 votes

Riot has stated that they want to make these skins available in the same spirit as the original program. Something that comes from being social and stuff. I'm sorry you didn't get both. Until they lowered the requirement, I didn't have either.

RozzetaSep 5, 201514 votes

Did you by any chance admitted to openly abuse the system in order to get rewards?

Hello I am BirdSep 5, 201512 votes

Riot said themselves "Smurfing is okay for RAF rewards, as long as it is you actually putting in the effort and not a bot"

That may not be the exact quote, and I don't have a link, but still, I remember them saying something like that.

SurelyThisCantBeSep 5, 20153 votes

ITS ONLY BEEN 29 days ffs me and my friends got 4 accounts up but the 5th is at level 9 dammit :/ , usually when they say it ends on September 5th it will end at midnight on september 5th not in the morning weird way to run it

TuffrootSep 5, 201510 votes

Riot tends to do this with their scheduling. When they say something ends on a certain day it means 12:01AM that day and not 11:59PM.

Makes me wonder if everybody at Riot (or at least in the scheduling department) turned in their school papers before end of the day Thursday because, if they waited until class time Friday, those papers would be considered late and thrown out.

I guess what I'm really getting at is Riot needs to find somebody in the office that can communicate times and dates the way every other person in the world does.