[Suggestion to Riot] Adding incentives to League of Legends

Lately I've not been playing a lot of League. I feel my interest has kind of faded in favour of other games. This happens, right? No biggie. I found myself playing a lot of Smite. You know, the third-person MOBA featuring gods and mythical creatures. While Smite has its own identity (good and bad parts alike), and I wouldn't want League to become Smite 2, or vice versa, Smite does bring some entertaining things to the table. I find I kept playing Smite, at least partially because of certain things they included that League still doesn't have.

1. Champion Mastery rewards. Right now, champion mastery is pretty pointless. You level up their individual ranks, and...then what? You aren't really getting anything from it, aside from an icon on your loading screen (the icons are pretty vague as well, in my experience), and possibly an emote that...isn't really much, either.

Smite gives the option gain mastery points (more for wins than for losses) for each individual God, and to purchase a Golden skin (gold/blue or gold/red, depending on which team you're on) with either Gems or Favor (the Smite equivalent of RP and IP), after reaching rank 1 with a God. At rank 5, you can purchase a Legendary skin (gold/black). At max rank 10, you can purchase a Diamond skin (diamond/blue, diamond/red).

What if you add at least one Mastery skin for each champion, for example if you max their rank, that can be purchased with IP and RP both, similar to purchasing champions. Either a similarly themed recolor skin as in Smite, or a slightly more decorated version of the base skin, as in Heroes of the Storm.

This would give players a reward for repeatedly winning matches. Perhaps even add no champion mastery points if you lose or disconnect, to avoid exploitation. A goal to work towards, a reason to play, and the feeling you actually earned a new skin, which is infinitely more satisfying than just buying one. That said, champion mastery points should be available in all PvP queues, not just limited to Summoner's Rift. No points for playing custom or Co-Op vs AI games.

Smite also has the restriction that you cannot play Ranked matches unless you 1) are level 30, 2) have the required number of Gods owned, and 3) have at least 1 mastery rank with said owned Gods. I'm unsure if this last addition would be healthy for League ranked, since I don't really play ranked. Also in Smite ranked, you cannot play the newest God or God Rework in ranked, even if you have them mastered, until time has passed (usually until the next God is released, a month or so later).

2. Match Of The Day Smite offers these, shortly called MOTD, on a steady rotation. These are generally less serious edits of existing modes, meant for fun and non-serious games. I'm unsure how many there actually are, but I'm guessing around 20-50 or so. These vary from everyone playing the same god, to being at late game at the start of the match (max level, million gold, etc), to only having million gold at level 1, to reverse pick (enemy team gets gods you picked and vice versa), Assault feat only Healers (think ARAM with only Soraka, Sona, Alistar, etc), ADC party, infinite mana/80% CDR mode (basically mini URF), and so on.

While it would be some work to set this up, I think it would be a great idea. It keeps things new and fresh a tad more often than the Limited Time modes League offers once every blue moon. Everyone's screaming for URF to be brought back. What if you could URF every month or every two months for a day? Sure, you might not be able to play that day, but hey..that's how it goes. it'll come back in the rotation. As far as balancing goes, these modes really don't require much of it, since it's 1 day only each, and it'll use the existing maps and available items. Besides. these modes aren't meant to be balanced and serious. If you want that, play a Normal game. And if today's MOTD doesn't sound like fun, just check back tomorrow. I've skipped a dozen MOTD's in Smite because I didn't like 'em.

3. Reward skins Smite periodically offers reward skins for certain accomplishments. Currently, it offers a skin for referring 3 friends who level up to level 15. It offers a skin for playing 30 hours (co-op and PvP, not custom) with friends you have referrred (which stack, so play 10 hours with friend ninja and play 20 hours with friend rat and you'll have your 30 hours total). It offers a skin for winning 20 ranked matches (any division).

It offers skins for those who purchase the Fantasy pro league loading frame, equip it, and then win games in Normal and ranked PvP. You unlock Executioner skin for Nemesis at 1000 points, Void Wyrm skin for Kukulkan at 3000 points, and around the 7000-9000's you earn two more skins, namely Iron Crow for Hou Yi, and Dr. Vanus for Sylvanus). Other rewards include loading frame visual upgrades, announcer packs, random treasure chests for regular skins, gods, voice packs, boosters, player icons, and more.

It offers the ability to stream directly from the game client to Twitch.tv, and after streaming x amount of hours, you unlock the Twitchymir skin for Ymir. Sadly, the in-game streaming is broken, crashes, and does not record the amount of hours you stream. So unless you actually save everything on twitch.tv and show Hi-Rez (company behind Smite) the required hours, you won't get it.

During this year's summer event, it grants an additional skin (Star Slayer for Anhur) for purchasing all 7 Summer items (includes several skins, a ward skin, a lobby pedestal, etc). During season 1 last year (aka The Odyssey), several additional skins were also given out in the same manner, such as Infernal Agni, and the much sought after Archon Thanatos.

Currently League only offers two hard-to-obtain skins for referring 3 and 5 friends who all reach level 10. I, personally, have never seen them being used by anyone, despite still being available. League also offers a special skin every season for players who reached Gold rank or better. It's... something... but I would love something more.

Right now you can also purchase Fantasy points in stacks of 500 for 300 Gems ($4 or $5 or so), for players who would rather not grind, or who joined the FP hunt late. When it started, however, you had to win so many games, and guess the winners of each pro match (dates, times and teams listed on the client and on the loading frame), to earn 15 FP per win, and 20 for a correct guess. I worked really hard to gain 3000 FP to get that Kukulkan skin. It was a lot of work, but I earned it. I feel really happy that I did. Same with the Solid Hornet Ah Muzen Cab skin, for which you need to win 20 ranked matches. I had never played ranked in Smite prior to that. It was a very stressful and frustrating ordeal. My promos went relatively easy, but after that I was seeded into Silver 2, and my teams couldn't win anything anymore. But finally I descended into a division that matched my skill level (Silver 5, Bronze 1), and I managed to gain enough wins to earn the skin. I'm very proud of that achievement. I worked my butt off to earn it. It was also the last ranked game I'll ever play, unless there's another reward for it that's doable for me.

Since I'm both not interested in playing League ranked, and also not at the skill level required to reach Gold division, I will never obtain a Gold season reward skin. I doubt I will ever be able to refer 5 friends to League who'll actually keep playing long enough to gain the skins. I would love some additional rewards for doing certain things in League, ones that do not require Gold ranked play. It feels a bit like only ranked players deserve rewards. I don't agree with that. Besides, anyone can buy a skin. Earning it is harder, but better.

4. More Maps Now this is a less important one than the previous points I raised, and also the one requiring the most work. Still, I think it would improve the overall experience of League. League currently has 4 maps. These maps are sometimes changed a bit, visually, for a Limited Time mode or something. Nice, definitely (even though I haven't gotten to experience much aside from Doombots SR, Poro King ARAM, and the upcoming Bilgewater ARAM). But in all, these are skins. The maps and modes are still exactly the same.

Smite currently features 5 maps. Conquest (main mode, like SR), Joust (3vs3, one lane + side lanes with camps), Siege (4vs4, two lanes + jungle + siege monsters to defeat/summon), Assault (one lane, no jungle, random Gods, like ARAM), and Arena (no towers/inhibs/nexus, 6 small camps, one large teamfight, points system ala Dominion). Assault and Arena being the most casual modes, whereas the others are more for serious gameplay.

What if League adds 1, 2, or 3 new maps, all with a different look, feel, strategy, and setup. A map akin to Siege or Arena sounds fun to me. Could even go wild and make a map especially for 6vs6 gameplay. SR would still be the primary mode, the one used for serious and ranked games, both. The extra maps would give players more variety, and thus more to enjoy, and less to get bored with.

5. Login rewards Very minor thing, but it's nice to log into Smite once a day to gather a small amount of favor (IP), and after 5 days of that, it rewards me with 15 gems and 35 gems on the 6th and 7th day, equal to 50 gems at the end of the week. Since purchasing gems starts at 400 gems, and most skins/gods cost at least 100 gems, it's no "get cool stuff quick" method, but it does help a little, and that's always nice. Chances are you'll stick around to play a match after you get a rewards, or browse the store to see what you're gonna spend your 50 extra gems on. Probably the least important thing on this list.

So..there you have it. A list of incentives. If League had at least one of these, I would feel like I'm playing for a reason, rather than simply "because I want to and enjoy to". A bit of extra motivation really keeps me coming back. And perhaps it could motivate other players who have grown bored with League (yes, it does happen) to pick it up again. League's wonderful and I still love it to bits, yet... it does get kind of boring when there's nothing really new to enjoy. League definitely has the upper hand when it comes to player amount, balance, general player skill, diversity, and champion pool, but at the same time has a few elements that can make the game rather stale and kind of boring at times. For example, not regularly seeing at least half of the entire champion pool during any given time, a new champion once every 3 or so months, and a Limited Time mode even less frequently.

Hopefully Riot will read and at least consider these ideas, though I understand not all are possible or doable options. Blanc out.