An Update on Hextech Chests
In the dev update released today, Riot Meddler & Pabro confirmed that Hextech Chests will NOT be returning despite the backlash from players.
"When we initially added them, we wanted to offer additional reward for time spent using something we knew many of you really cared about earning: skins. Over time, though, free chests unintentionally became the primary way to unlock skins and an increasing number of players ended up with substantial skin collections for free. This meant that purchasing skins directly didn't make sense anymore to a lot of players, because they were happy just waiting to get something eventually. That did lead to a great player experience, but it was not sustainable for League in the long term."
This is just insane to me. "Not sustainable"? Hextech chests have been in the game since March 2016 - you'd think Riot would've flagged this sooner, rather than taking almost 9 years to figure out it wasn't sustainable.
They're acting as if it's now a ridiculous concept that players are earning free skins for spending hundreds of hours playing their game. "They were happy just waiting to get something eventually" - you mean they were just playing the game normally as a free-to-play player and not buying skins? Skin shards are completely random, and there are over 1700 skins in the game, so the chances that you actually get the skin you want, or a skin for a champion you play, might not even be that high. Like I definitely wasn't planning on buying Mad Hatter Shaco but that's what I got by rerolling skin shards so it's not like they were losing out on that purchase?
It's just crazy that they admit that it was a great player experience that they have now taken away. Just like the Amazon Prime loot capsules (update: it was actually Amazon who chose not to renew this promotion from March 2024), the League Partner Program skin and chroma giveaways, and the free event pass tokens that you could spend on an event orb, skin border or chroma. Riot didn't mention this aspect, but I suppose with the new Battle Pass, most skins will not be getting an icon, border, and event chroma now. For example, Mythmaker Jhin received an icon and border, possibly because it was a legendary, but Nami and Jarvan IV did not. In the past, all skins in the event skinline would've gotten one.
Not to mention that this vastly reduces the availability of Mythic Essence, as there was a small chance to get it from chests. Now it's only possible to obtain it through their gacha system, meaning all the content in the recently revamped Mythic Shop is even more difficult to get. I thought this was strange because I thought Riot wanted to introduce the gacha system because mythic and prestige skins were becoming more common, so the gacha system would be for ultra-exclusive content. But then they've just made it harder for the average player to obtain mythic/prestige skins, and also the standard tiers of skins.
I could go on and talk about how legendaries have fallen off in quality, possibly to make the more expensive skins seem better in comparison, how the Battle Pass skins are mostly not even 1350 RP skin quality, and how exalted skins are just ultimate skins for ten times the price, and how Sett's exalted skin doesn't fulfil any kind of unique champion fantasy. But I'm too frustrated right now lol
TL;DR - Riot Games' monetisation sucks and they're causing a worse player experience for the average player
