Among all the games I’ve ever played, League of Legends stands out as the most significant one for me and my friends. It was during the winter break of late 2009 when I was home from college. I was engrossed in playing games on my Xbox 360 when a couple of pals persuaded me to join this fresh new game. “Man, you simply must experience League of Legends,” they kept insisting. After a week of their persistent pleas, I gave in and installed it on my laptop.
Upon completion of the tutorial, I was taken aback as I had never encountered anything similar before. Navigating through the champions, I made the choice to unlock Nocturne. His appearance struck me as quite appealing, and my friends mentioned they required a jungler. How could I resist the opportunity to ambush enemies?
15 years feel like just yesterday! I remember it clearly, as if it were last month. My adventure with League has been quite an exciting ride, overall a positive one (ignoring the occasional toxic players). I was overjoyed when Microsoft announced support for Riot games such as League and Valorant. As a Game Pass subscriber, I instantly gained access to all the Champions I hadn’t acquired yet.
League of Legends update: What’s happened so far
A few days ago on Reddit, some players began voicing concerns as they discovered that the new Event Pass had been weakened in its capacity for players to obtain Blue Essence (BE). For those who may be unfamiliar, Blue Essence is a currency that gamers can earn and use to unlock champions, with each champion costing between 450 and 7800 BE.
For fresh Champions, the highest value is assigned as they decrease to 6300 Blue Essence (BE) within a week and remain there for some time. Frequently, these Champions rise to prominence in the meta and are desired by players for a substantial edge—an advantage that less experienced players might find challenging to attain, particularly if they wish to compete in ranked matches. I’ll delve deeper into this aspect at a later point.
Initially, players earned Champion Shards whenever they reached every fifth level within the Event Pass. These shards were associated with a particular champion and offered a substantial discount on that character. Additionally, they could be exchanged for Blue Essence. However, now both the Champion Shards and most of the Blue Essence bonuses are non-existent. Previous Event Passes can be found here.
In simpler terms, previously, winning once daily would net you 50 BE points. This allowed players to obtain starter Champions for a total of 450 BE over a nine-day period just by logging in, regardless of the event pass. Over the course of a year, this added up to approximately 18,250 BE points. Given an average price of 3150 per hero, that’s almost enough for six new characters!
Currently, finishing the Event Pass awards you with 4 Champion Capsules and 4750 Blue Essence (BE). Following this, players can earn BE via tasks known as repeatable missions, which have recently undergone a significant reduction in rewards. A Reddit user has estimated that acquiring a new Champion would require an astounding 882 hours of gameplay. This equates to more than 36 full days dedicated to playing just one Champion.
Based on the sign, here’s what it says: As there are only repeatable tasks left, you gain 1.5 experience points per minute. Earning 200 Blue Essence is given for every five levels achieved in the pass. It was mentioned that accumulating 2500 experience points requires 1666 minutes, which means you receive 200 Blue Essence every 28 hours, and it takes 882 hours to collect 6300 Blue Essence.
Where did that leave new players?
Get ready for some necessary number crunching.
To participate in competitive gameplay, gamers must achieve two requirements: attaining Level 30 and unlocking at least 20 champions. At the moment, a novice player can acquire these through regular play.
- 7 Champions and 6300 BE from early missions and rewards.
- They can then earn 4 Champion Capsules,
- which grant either one, two, or three Champion Shards at a rate of 40%, 50%, and 10%, respectively.
- These Champion Capsules can also grant 90 or 260 BE at a rate of 30% and 10%, respectively.
Players can acquire sufficient Champions for ranked play during the Event Pass by using the 4750 BE you mentioned earlier, along with the fact that 23 Champions are accessible for 450 BE each. The number of Champions they can buy ultimately depends on the luck of their Champion Capsule drops.
In essence, purchasing mid to high-ranked Champions will deplete your Blue Essence, leaving insufficient funds for less expensive Champions. Conversely, opting for cheaper Champions might mean missing out on the Champions often deemed superior by many players.
As a researcher delving into the realm of competitive gaming, I’ve found that champions like Malphite, Miss Fortune, Annie, and Garen, who are more budget-friendly, can indeed be played competitively. Yet, it’s essential to note that the game’s meta (metagame) plays a pivotal role in this context. Not every champion I mentioned is always deemed suitable for competitive play within the current meta. Having a diverse array of champions within the present meta provides players with a significant advantage, as they can adapt their strategies accordingly.
In the new rules where every team is prohibiting five Champions, inexperienced players might find that some Champions they wanted to play are now off-limits due to being banned.
Fans were (and still are) outraged
The gaming community has grown increasingly disgruntled over the past few days, frequently expressing concerns that recent changes could spell the end for League of Legends. While some may be overstating their case slightly, the players’ arguments hold merit.
I particularly appreciate the comment pointing out that Dota 2, a game often seen as League’s main rival, offers all its characters at the beginning without any restrictions, unlike Marvel Rivals. Remarkably, even newly introduced characters in Dota 2 are free upon release. It’s uncommon to find games adopting this approach in 2025, let alone reinforcing it with additional efforts.
Riot’s response
As an analyst, I’d rephrase the statement like this: “I acknowledge our initial missteps in this particular situation. The data we initially provided fell short for many of you, significantly deviating from what it should have been. To rectify this, we are planning to release corrections in patches 25.S1.2 and 25.S1.3.
If you examine the details, they presented an organized Blue Essence guide, explaining various ways users can accumulate Blue Essence. After the recent update, novice players are set to experience a 6.94% boost in their Blue Essence gains, while experienced players will notice a significant decrease. For instance, those who have invested over 200 hours saw their Blue Essence production plummet by approximately 71%, as stated by Riot.
200-hour gamers can anticipate a boost in their previous pace, with a rise of approximately 22.28%. Similarly, novice players might experience an enhancement of up to 18%. In other words, they’re enhancing progress for everyone, and acknowledging their mistake, to use a term that fits the context.
It strikes me as peculiar that they meticulously arranged these figures in their reply yet apparently failed to recognize they were the alterations they implemented. How could one be so off target? Was this a deliberate oversight, and this response is an attempt to conceal the fact that you’ve been caught red-handed?
Riot explained the underlying issues: “After the introduction of Passes, we received a lot of feedback and scrutiny from players, leading us to reevaluate our calculations. Upon closer inspection, we found out that we overlooked the impact of the First Win of the Day (FWotD) on Battle Experience (BE) income. This oversight affected both the direct XP boost from FWotD and the indirect access to Champion Capsules due to account leveling. Regarding account experience, the problem is essentially the same—we didn’t consider the loss of FWotD, which significantly slowed down the growth of accounts and ultimately limited access to Ranked play.
It seems like your explanation overlooked a fundamental method players have used for quite some time to gain Blue Essence – the bonus from the first victory of the day. This has been a standard practice for years, and it’s hard to believe you didn’t catch this. I’m finding it difficult to understand how such an essential aspect was left out. I’m tempted to question the accuracy or perhaps suggest there may be some oversight here.
The rage against the machine continues
From observing the League of Legends subreddit, it appears I’m not alone in my skepticism. Players are justifiably criticizing the update as questionable. In a post called “Blue Essence buffs are a trap,” the author highlights that all benefits have been pushed to the back end of the pass, and the initial attractive returns on Blue Essence are yet to materialize. Additionally, commenters mention some apparent errors and that the math doesn’t quite add up.
Neblinio notes, “It seems they made an error in their calculations (or are perhaps mocking us). The Base Experience (BE) value shown in their table for the old system is the lowest possible (disappointment). They appear to have overlooked another significant feature of the old system: a large portion of the BE we used to receive was given as champion shards, which granted a 40% discount on most/all champions.
Asiyt clarifies that although Riot incurs no cost for blue essence, players are yet to recover other items lost in the new system. He emphasizes that the changes made are merely the bare minimum expected from Riot, and they should not be commended for this action alone.
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2025-01-17 01:09