PSA: don't buy Little Legends when TFT releases, this pricing model is scummy even by Riot standards

Naalith·Jun 24, 2019·327 votes·64,632 views

For those of you who are unaware, Riot has released the monetization model of the new Little Legends (your avatar for Teamfight Tactics games) and uhhh... suffice to say it's a big yikes. You can read these two pages to see for yourself.

https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2019/06/dev-little-legends-in-teamfight-tactics/ https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/teamfight-tactics/p7QvZW11-little-legends-series-egg-guide

For those who didn't see, people in the comments of the first post have been doing the math and it turns out that, because you have to randomly roll your Little Legends and don't get to buy them a la carte, you could theoretically spend up to 13,230 RP to get the fully leveled up version of a Legend you want. Obviously, this is scummy. Obviously. we don't want more shitty loot boxes in the game. Obviously, Riot is just trying to get people with gambling addictions to waste money on the game.

My personal favorite quote from the first article is as follows. Whoever wrote this shit should go get hired for EA because this is some high quality corporate garbage: "When designing Little Legends, we were inspired by some of the feelings we had while playing TFT, and we wanted the Little Legends system to capture those same feelings. For starters, we really enjoyed the moment when you can finally upgrade that one-star Tristana you started the game with to a three-star powerhouse. This is why we wanted you to be able to evolve your Little Legends—so you can watch your humble one-star Pengu Featherknight grow into a much cooler three-star one.

We also wanted to mimic that feeling of seeing the clutch tier-5 unit you need to win in the shop, and we hope you can feel some of that same joy when you get an unexpectedly rare drop from a Little Legends egg. Finally, we hope that your Little Legends collection feels unique and special to you, just like you’re able to construct a one-of-a-kind team comp in TFT."

Yes Riot, having a paid-only upgrade to your Little Legends in which you spend $100 to upgrade the single Legend you actually want to use feels exactly as good as pulling a clutch win. They are basically admitting that they love the randomness in the game mode (which is fine, it's a chill mode) and want you to feel that same level of satisfaction after spending hundreds of dollars on pixels trying to get what you want. Very cool, Rito Arts.

It's funny because they try to act like good guys a lot as well, citing the excitement of upgrading your critters etc. That would be exciting if you could actually upgrade them and obtain new Legends through gameplay, which you can't. They also cite that you have a 30% chance to get a duplicate legendary when you open a rare legendary Legend, essentially immediately boosting your little guy to level 2. Riot expects people to be so stupid that they don't realize you are only giving us a level 2 legendary so we spend a shit load on loot boxes to try and get the avatar to level 3 afterwards, even though there is a 5% chance of getting another legendary.

Riot, just quit being scummy. The prestige skins, the paid loading screen borders, the 3000 RP ruby chromas, the grindy events with laughable rewards compared to other games, etc. This game used to be pretty consumer friendly all things considered, instead of slowly inching towards fleecing people more without saying anything Riot is coming out and trying to spin you getting fucked out of money as a good thing. Come on, just let us buy the Legends a la carte and give a slow path to obtaining them for free to play players. This system could've been so cool if it was gameplay or achievement based, but you guys had to go ruin it.

132 Comments

I Like Things Jun 25, 201940 votes

Riot, just quit being scummy. The prestige skins, the paid loading screen borders, the 3000 RP ruby chromas, the grindy events with laughable rewards compared to other games, etc. This game used to be pretty consumer friendly all things considered, instead of slowly inching towards fleecing people more without saying anything Riot is coming out and trying to spin you getting fucked out of money as a good thing. Come on, just let us buy the Legends a la carte and give a slow path to obtaining them for free to play players. This system could've been so cool if it was gameplay or achievement based, but you guys had to go ruin it.

Welcome to the tencent business model & why I will forever despise / mock / ridicule both Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck for being stupid enough to sell to them.

I've played this game since 2010 and used to enjoy their monetary model a lot .. like https://i.imgur.com/jpLtcDF.png a lot.

Fast forward to now and my disposable income will forever go elsewhere as predatory marketing tactics are all tencent is known for, at least for those of us in the know. Sad. Shame on Marc and Brandon for being so short sighted.

#Great write up by the way, +1 from this space wanderer.

NaalithJun 25, 20194 votes

Wait, that page is still around? My friends and I tried to find how much money we spent a couple months ago and couldn't find it so we figured Riot took it down. Then again, we didn't look very hard lol.

I Like Things Jun 25, 20192 votes

DarklawX is correct, the screencap I included was from back in 2014 when this website was still readily available through riots own API.

These days you have to request a ticket to get this information disclosed.

Taurean BlessingJun 25, 201923 votes

Honestly the whole "they need to make money SOMEHOW" argument for this just sounds like spineless bootlicking. There are much more constructive and honest ways to make that money to make this new game mode tick. This isn't one of them. It's just more of the same over priced exclusive nonsense that Riot, and most all corners of the industry, have been peddling because patronage, player trust, and loyalty aren't enough respectable incentive for big companies to just do business honestly. The iron hasn't even cooled and Riot is already hammering it into exploitative shape.

And just because you don't have to buy it doesn't mean you won't get screwed over if you want to buy it. People like skins and little flashy doodads for video games and shouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg for cosmetics. Cosmetics being optional honestly make the situation worse because when you decide to show your appreciation and excitement for the company to get something you want you're rewarded with.... stuff you dont want. And you spent over 100 bucks on it. I dont know about anyone here but that doesn't exactly sound like a fair shake.

KelgJun 25, 201922 votes

Riot has really gone down the drain... I miss old Riot, I used to unironically believe riot was one of the best game companies. They used to care about their playerbase. Now they just care about how many 100$ golden chromas they can make for Yasuo/Kaisa/Ahri/Lux/Etc, how many items they can cram into loot boxes, and how much they can milk people for in general.

MorbysJun 25, 201911 votes

This is what happens when greedy corporations get their hands on something that has the potential to make a ton of money. A lot of companies were amazing until they were swallowed up by larger companies or had upper management hire greedy people that instilled predatory practices into gaming.

This is why great companies are shells of their former glory. Blizzard, Bioware, and Riot to name a few. Its going to come to a head and theres gonna be another gaming crash b/c of it.

GayFluffyUnicornJun 25, 20193 votes

Bioware is the one that saddens me the most.

Fuck EA, tencent, Disney in regards to star wars in general.

But it's the fault of the consumer. Gaming community is just dumb as fuck. I stopped buying Fifa after 13 despite being a huge fan since i was like 10 because of their scam focus on Fifa ultimate team to squeeze out the 12yos and their parents.

I didnt get mass effect. No battlefront. I avoided Metro, i waited sooo long for it i'm a huge fan but getting insulted by the devs because people were upset about their Epic deal is a no go for me. Insulting the consumer no matter how dumb he is is not the way to go.

Even in my own circle of friends asking around sooner or later they buy their stuff anyways while i'm just shaking my head in disbelief.

IfnethJun 25, 201921 votes

Yeah, this is big yikes. Riot needs to just post the Little Legends for sale.

MorgManBasherJun 25, 201921 votes

Also, "surprise mechanics" lulz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSyUgTCIkA0

The Violent LimeJun 25, 201921 votes

When Riot said, "here's a really cool skin for that champ you love, it costs $10" is said, here's $10. Simple, effective transaction. I got to look cool, they got money, and the game stays live. All these God damn loot boxes are preventing me from spending money on the game because I don't know what I'm getting. If I go to McDonalds and ask for nuggets they don't give me a big mac and tell me to pay again if I want the nuggets. The only time chance comes into it is gambling, which this is and this should be regulated the same. If it was regulated better, companies would have less profits from it and would stop doing it.

NaalithJun 25, 201910 votes

What do you mean man? You don't like that instead of paying 390 for a chroma like with skins, you have to spend 490 for a LL chroma and also don't get to pick which one you get and also you have to get the same one three times to have the coolest version?

MorgManBasherJun 25, 201916 votes

Is there no way to get upgrades without paying cash? Like, does essence do anything or no? Either way I hate loot boxes, let me buy what I want for God's sake.

I only put up with the current loot boxes because I don't have to buy them to get what I want skins wise, they are just a side thing for me to get free items when I can.

NaalithJun 25, 20198 votes

Yeah there's currently no way through gameplay, and you can only acquire upgrades through rng loot boxes. It's pretty dang garbage, my friends and I downloaded pbe and are trying to get our Legend of choice and it doesn't look good at all.

lolipopevelynnJun 25, 201914 votes

im pretty sure they will release a way for you to level up the little legend of your choice ingame without RP, meaning you would only have to buy the 1 stars you want to level initially.

thats just my humble assumption tho. Riot tends to not be very smart.

NaalithJun 25, 201947 votes

That would be cool. Unfortunately they haven't said anything to that effect yet, so I'm trying to urge people to voice up so they can scale back the greed like they did with emotes. Honestly these would require way more work to be fine though, unlike emotes where they just reduced the cost by like 100 RP. We need a non loot box rng way to get these.

KaishaJun 25, 201913 votes

Why anyone would give RIOT even a single cent at this point is beyond me. But you know what they say about a fool and their money...

Romans VI XXIIIJun 25, 201913 votes

Yea my wife and I stopped spending money on LoLs about a yr and a half ago. And these loot boxes are just further giving us reason to continue as such.

SAILOR SATANAJun 25, 201912 votes

Oh nice, a whining post about COSMETIC stuff in a TRUE f2p game. Cause yeah: being able to play the game TOTALLY for free is clearly not enough, having the possibility to gain LOT of free skins etc is clearly not enough: Riot is still clearly greedy af, not like is the other way around, LOL.

PS " even by Riot standards", LOL. One of the fairest, best business model EVER, one of the very few TRUE f2p games but...fuck Riot, right?

HiredGûnJun 25, 201916 votes

bro, youre not seeing the big picture here. they are trying to suck as much money out of their player base as possible. sure the games free to play, but if you do want to buy some cosmetics for the game you shouldnt have to spend over 100 dollars to get the cosmetic you want to get. its OUR money and WE get to decide what we buy cause WE'RE the ones spending it. they shouldnt be able to dictate what we do and dont buy with OUR money. to get the things we want we have to gamble away our money now to MAYBE get something we like, its screwed up and unethical, and it really shows how little they think of their communities intelligence.

The LightningJun 25, 20192 votes

That's just it though: you don't need the skins to play. Champion skins, ward skins, summoner icons, and even these little legends, are all extra things. You don't need them to play, you just want them to look nice for 15-45 minutes at a time. They don't make you play any better and they don't really mean much to your opponent either. To make a real life anology, you won't become a better runner just because you are wearing a bright red Adidas track suit; you paid extra to look nicer while doing it. You can still run just as well naked as a bluejay.

Lo4dingJun 25, 201913 votes

Well Yes, but actualy No. This is somehow hot topic right now. This game holds PEGI 12 rating. This means you need to be at least 12 years old to play this game and such a game should not have any gambling mechanics. Period.

Yes it is true that all what they sell is just extra to game. You don't need it to play or get better at game. However there are tons of scenarios where lootboxes are evil and close to zero where they are good. If your kid plays the game and ask you to buy a cosmetic in game he loves. You SHOULD have way to buy it without spending your month income on it.

Another thing is that whole gaming business suffer because of these predatory micro-transaction. Do you know why a lot of games past two years are shit/game as a service/single game with MX/etc.. Its because producers know they can get away with it while making a tons of money. And what do you think that happens when producers says they wont support game without micro-transaction. Developers will need to add it to their game even if it make zero sense and take their lesson. Their next game will be build around these micro-transaction (MK11 cough cough).

They will slow your progress, decrease drops, lock content or wont add all content game would normally have only for sake of these micro-transaction in case of support chests with randomised items etc etc.

If you want to have good games in future free or paid and actually consumer friendly business models, you need to get some insight on this and "fight" against it.

HiredGûnJun 25, 201912 votes

yup scumbag rito at it again, gotta love how they enjoy trying to drain every bit of money possible from their player base. how you guys release this thinking we wont see through your BS is beyond me, you guys at rito games must really think were dumber than a sack of rocks huhXD

MustardTigerMKJun 25, 20194 votes

They made it this bad knowing most people would complain. They'll tweak it slightly to our favor making us "happy" even though it'll be tweaked to how they wanted it in the first place.

If you're living life not knowing nearly everything is set up to fleece you then you are a dumb dumb.

boricCentaur1Jun 25, 201911 votes

It's free to play WHO CARES god I hate people like you, lootboxes have been a thing FOR YEARS but now after they started putting them into paid games IT SOMEHOW NOT OK TO PUT THEN FREE GAMES ANYMORE and now people will say bs anti player or what ever. If it was not popular to say this and there was not big youtubers saying it people like you would say NOTHING.

Like this quote shows me all about you "the grindy events with laughable rewards compared to other games," What other games? Dota doesn't, heros doesn't, overwatch is about the same,battlerite doesn't, vainglory doesn't, so smite? Unlike you I play other games especially modas and I can easily say the amount of free stuff riot gives out is the 3nd most I have seen since most games don't do events.

Like people like you need to stop overreacting and come down.

NyahrJun 25, 201910 votes

Logged in specifically to upvote this. We have to make it known that as a community, gamers are SICK of scummy microtransactions and business practices. "It's now P2W" in games that take 1000 hours to get the reward without paying. "It's rewarding to grind and unlock" for cosmetic grinds like this. It's disgusting, and they need to be called out on it.

FOR JUSTICEJun 25, 20198 votes

are little legends way overpriced? absolutely. these are even more expensive then the first loot based prestiege skins

HOWEVER, we do need to actually remember the fact that riot is a company; and as such, needs a way to sustain itself when they do risky things like this. it absolutely sucks, but its a necessary evil, as in order to dump any amount of resources into any new project, they need to justify it to their stock holders.

these terribly overpriced legends are the way of showing said stockholders that they can turn up some form of profit.

hopefully though down the line they make it like the prestige skins at the very absolute least, where you can still earn them without spending hundreds of dollars for RNG bullcrap.

hhaavviikkJun 25, 201918 votes

[{quoted}](name=FOR JUSTICE,realm=NA,application-id=RaE1aOE7,discussion-id=cXnTKtKe,comment-id=000c,timestamp=2019-06-25T03:35:15.887+0000)

are little legends way overpriced? absolutely. these are even more expensive then the first loot based prestiege skins

HOWEVER, we do need to actually remember the fact that riot is a company; and as such, needs a way to sustain itself when they do risky things like this. it absolutely sucks, but its a necessary evil, as in order to dump any amount of resources into any new project, they need to justify it to their stock holders.

these terribly overpriced legends are the way of showing said stockholders that they can turn up some form of profit.

hopefully though down the line they make it like the prestige skins at the very absolute least, where you can still earn them without spending hundreds of dollars for RNG bullcrap.

I see these arguments for AAA games as well, frankly if you can't afford to stay in business without using gambling mechanics and manipulating your players then you shouldn't be in business.

I already can't get BE in this game because after the stupid IP rework gaining currency was limited to opening the bloody gamble boxes and now they're making it even worse in the new game mode, just great

FOR JUSTICEJun 25, 20192 votes

AAA titles only give you a limited number of loot boxes or none at all. and even then, they have vastly more games they could focus on.

BE is used to get in-game content, the exact same as ip, but affect the game directly and are obtainable just by playing. the "new game mode" is using them purely for a cosmetic feature, so to use that as an argument is like comparing apples to oranges.

again, not defending this pricing in any way, shape, or form, because again this is greedy as hell, but expect a free to play game to have some form of micro-transaction, no matter how minor. because thats literally the main reason for any company to make video games, for the prospect of money or general well being.

under no circumstance has any company made a game just cause.

EvidenceJun 25, 20191 votes

[deleted]

FOR JUSTICEJun 25, 20194 votes

we do deserve better, hence why thats exactly why i said its an extremely shitty business model. thats literally my very first sentence.

the entire gist of my post is that if the game is to remain f2p, expect some sort of microtransaction mechanic. its nothing new that f2p games use this, just this one especially is atrocious.

and i dont really gives two shits about downvotes, all it means is people just dont like what they see in my post, which is just the truth. but regardless of upvotes or downvotes, it will never change the facts:

this form of business is rage inducing, because it is constricting and abusing whatever they can from the playerbase
all f2p games use some form of microtransactions to make money, only other way would be ads.
under no circumstances, in any way, shape, form, if, ands, or buts, are you required to buy anything in this game to win, or even play. you cant buy skill. everything including even creating your account, is entirely of your own volition.

if you really want to stick it to riot, then simply dont bother buying it. cutting at their pockets is the main way to get a company to listen.

MagicFlyingLlamaJun 25, 20198 votes

level of satisfaction

Pride and Accomplishment!

KarfussJun 25, 20198 votes

Riot is owned by Tencent.

League to them, is just another Chinese battle arena clone, a quick cash-in, that by some miracle blew up.

Summoner RokutaaJun 25, 20197 votes

Signal boosted this by posting it to the TFT reddit. I really hope something changes in this system.

ReiizmJun 25, 20197 votes

We are so lucky LoL was conceived before the rise of lootboxes. If LoL was released today we would undoubtedly have to hextech craft the most coveted skins. (I mean, we kind of already do). I still find it criminal that you can't just buy the skin you want in Overwatch.

EleshakaiJun 26, 20197 votes

I'm normally pretty okay with Riot's monetization methods... but I can't defend this.

NelsieLisnenJun 25, 20196 votes

Riot will never quit being scum as long as there are people who defend them. I made a post the other day about how the grind system for BE is designed to coerce you to spend even more money on the game and how it's toxic and draggy. I got all kinds of riot white knights and bootlickers spamming shit like "poor Rito has a right to make moneyzzz", "you just want everything to be freeee, reeeeeee". Honestly, the extent to which people are brainwashed is scary.

Power CosmicJun 26, 20196 votes

The community needs more people, like you, who actually think about others well being. A lot of people fail to understand that some folks do not have the capacity to say no to schemes such as this.

WoodchuckJun 26, 20195 votes

item 2319 item 2319

MegaHuffJun 25, 20194 votes

I stopped spending money on Rito years ago, when I realized how awfully they'll handle a person's account, and I don't want to invest money into something that somebody else is just going to take away. I originally bought the pass thing when prestige Kai'Sa was a thing, because I have a ton of free time and play a lot of games so considering that, the price vs. the rewards I could get felt worth it. Then they kind of made the prestige skins even worse with prestige points.

I already felt bad buying the passes because I know it encourages Rito, but now I feel like with how they handle their game, among other things people have said in this post, I don't even feel like it's worth buying the passes anymore, let alone playing the game.

So disgusted with the state of things here that even the forums disgust me. Not many good times to be had really anywhere under this company.

Iron RubricJun 26, 20194 votes

Greedo games wants to be like papa EA with their own surprise mechanics

ΗuaweiJun 26, 20194 votes

"Let's be as greedy as possible and test people's limit to see how much more money we can make" is today's modus operandi for companies.

Come up with some outrageous s*** that will make you tons of money and just scale back if you get too much negative flack.

Pater GascoigneJun 25, 20193 votes

We like to call this "surprise mechanics" /s Oof, that's very scummy from Riot to be honest

Modl Ryden lJun 25, 20192 votes

Riot's gonna get some moderate sized youtube channel to promote TFT by giving him or her 20x hextech chests, enough RP to buy all the little legends, AND a little legends emerald chroma giveaway.

Our voice in how RP should be spent or handled has very little affect on the boards compared to the bought out youtubers that will promote anything for free RP.

Really, if you want Riot to listen to this kind of stuff, you'd have to get one of the Youtubers to side with us and have them express our opinions on this kind of stuff.

Original SinJun 25, 20192 votes

why would anyone buy something so damn pointless

AIIanJun 26, 20192 votes

{quoted} My personal favorite quote from the first article is as follows. Whoever wrote this shit should go get hired for EA because this is some high quality corporate garbage:

Why did I read all of that in Jim Sterling's 'Corporate' voice ?

allupinyobaseJun 26, 20192 votes

all ur doing is paying for a skin they don't give u any advantage/disadvantage on having them? just don't buy them its like when we had too pay for skins with rp?

NaalithJun 26, 20198 votes

It's not like paying for a skin with rp, if you want a specific avatar you have to gamble over $100 to get it if you're unlucky. Plus they're overpriced as hell, 490 for a chroma vs 390 for champion chromas which you can select a la carte. The "legendary" Little Legends are literally just chromas of their other variants and don't do anything crazy like real legendary skins but they'll set you back an insane amount.

Just because something is "cosmetic only" doesn't mean it's not scummy. This mode has 0 progression or equivalent to collecting champions but Riot has the audacity to ask for hundreds of dollars just to get a skin you want. If you could buy them directly with no casino bullshit I wouldn't have made this post.

T1DECALLERJun 27, 20192 votes

i want to add in that this is very true from my personal experience. Today when tft came out i was excited and i had rp saved up for this event. i spent a lot (idk if you call this a lot but its 9k rp and i consider this a tremendous amount since im not rich) of rp on the eggs and i got 1 3 star and a few good little legends. compared to the amount i spent this was NOT EVEN WORTH at all and i didnt even get a good 3 star. I still gotta be happy its not a damn hauntling but its srsly not worth. If you really want a little legend then i recommend buying 1 or 2 eggs but otherwise don't spend any money on them.

Don't hate on me for spending money on little legends*[sg-ahri-3]*