Shouldnt Riot make champions free?

[Deleted]

They can leave champ cost as is. But something thats been bothering me is the whole rune cost. Tried to make my brother who's played original dota and dota2 come over for some 5v5 league play.
His responce was "grind 30 levels and buy all those runes + unluck champions just to be able to play ranked, no thanks". And its hard to argue against that so instead we jumped over to dota2 and started playing 1 hour later.

Cool. Have fun

[Yvaelle]

It definitely shouldn't be free.

Also - while Steam is an incredibly powerful engine for pushing new games - don't lose track of just how big League of Legends is.

According to the DOTA 2 site, it has 6.5 million players. Compare that to LoL's 70 million worldwide. Free games aren't often advertised directly on Steam - but even if it were - doubling their existing playerbase would be an impressive feat: and it still wouldn't hold a candle to LoL's gargantuan playerbase.

I think both games are doing what is right for them. DOTA2 is trying to focus on becoming "the" MOBA eSport - and LoL is trying to focus on being "the" people's game: they are aiming for different niches. Just because LoL currently occupies DOTA2's desired market-space doesn't mean they are in direct competition

[Dtloweca]

I'd like it if the champs were free or they let you choose an additional few champs to unlock for free. Choosing between increasing performance through runes or buying a new champ because I've grown bored of the one or two free champs I actually do enjoy was irritating and more or less drove me away and into dota.

[stomination]

Current Dota 2 champs are free. We dont know what any new ones will or will not cost.

[jcf190]

It definitely shouldn't be free.

Also - while Steam is an incredibly powerful engine for pushing new games - don't lose track of just how big League of Legends is.

According to the DOTA 2 site, it has 6.5 million players. Compare that to LoL's 70 million worldwide. Free games aren't often advertised directly on Steam - but even if it were - doubling their existing playerbase would be an impressive feat: and it still wouldn't hold a candle to LoL's gargantuan playerbase.

I think both games are doing what is right for them. DOTA2 is trying to focus on becoming "the" MOBA eSport - and LoL is trying to focus on being "the" people's game: they are aiming for different niches. Just because LoL currently occupies DOTA2's desired market-space doesn't mean they are in direct competition

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/04/10/do...claims-report/

[ProfessorTjc]

Getting all the champs at the start would be boring. I like the feel of unlocking champs and it's not like the OP champs cost much anyways. Some of the starter champs are pretty damn awesome like Garen, Annie, Master Yi and Ashe (forgive me if I missed any). I'd rather it stay the way it is then Riot turning into Oprah Winfrey (YOU GET A CHAMP, YOU GET A CHAMP, EVERYONE GETS CHAMPS). To me DOTA is boring because there is nothing to unlock other then skins.

TL;DR (even though this post isn't long) - I like working for stuff.

[Kargarok]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/04/10/do...claims-report/

Read your own source or you'll sound stupid.

Update: Riot have questioned DFC’s findings, telling Games Industry that League of Legends sees “over 500,000 peak concurrent players every day on just the EU West shard.” Note that Dota 2′s highest ever concurrent player count, according to SteamGraph, is 325,897 users worldwide.

[ProfessorTjc]

They can leave champ cost as is. But something thats been bothering me is the whole rune cost. Tried to make my brother who's played original dota and dota2 come over for some 5v5 league play.
His responce was "grind 30 levels and buy all those runes + unluck champions just to be able to play ranked, no thanks". And its hard to argue against that so instead we jumped over to dota2 and started playing 1 hour later.

Leveling is soo easy in LoL. I have 3 30's without even trying on different regions. The Major runes that you need don't cost much at all. You save your points all the way to level 20 and you should have enough to buy the Tier 3 runes you really need. Last but not least to get champions I says wait for free week and try them out; If you like them just buy them with real money. I'm not rich by any means but I bought most of my champs little by little until I had them all.

[Yvaelle]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/04/10/do...claims-report/

It's a pretty sensationalist headline when the second half of that article could be titled "Ten Primary Sources that Explain Why This Articles Headline is Wrong".

- DFC only focused on "Western" usage
- DFC's only mentioned source for their finding was Xfire usage, but Xfire says "XFire is currently reporting League of Legends as being way ahead of Dota 2, at 21,075 players to 2,330." (Not to mention that this is too small a population size to metric for tens of millions of players)
- "Essentially, unless the stats are coming directly (and accurately) from the developers, it’s hard to see how there wouldn’t be at least some sample bias"
- "Steam are currently reporting 197,507 concurrent Dota 2 players"
- Riot: "League of Legends sees “over 500,000 peak concurrent players every day on just the EU West shard.” Note that Dota 2′s highest ever concurrent player count, according to SteamGraph, is 325,897 users worldwide."

[SqueektheWeek]

Anyone saying they dont play league because of the grind; A. shouldn't be on a site primarily for WoW and B. is not someone I want to be playing with anyway.

It really doesn't take that long to buy even the high cost ones, you get to learn the new one as you grind the next creating a new experience every time, with some mild research you will realize the 5-10 or so you want to start off with, as you can see by the pros having them all isnt even close to necessary, and with a small investment of even $60 (the price for most games with less hours of play now a days) you can own a solid amount of champions.

[Tojara]

It's a carrot on a stick of sorts. People like incentives and it's something to work towards. You can bypass it by using money or you can just play a lot. Either way Riot wins and it's a good business model for them because it gets people spending time/money (which are the same thing!) on their game.

I was miffed about it to begin with when I first started playing LoL years ago when it first released (as a veteran DoTa player) but changed my view rather quickly when thinking about it. Yes their ultimate goal is to get people to work towards something and keep playing, but the blessing in disguise is that people are limited to a few champions. Their model to try a limited amount each week to see if you like them is good for everybody because it limits 'bad' players from picking whatever they want.

These games are also really fucking overwhelming for new players. Throwing hundreds of choices at somebody is cool for some types of players, but it's such a knowledge based game with a fickle player base that already gets pissed if somebody doesn't know how to play the champion they picked. It still happens with LoL, especially at the start of each week, but it's much more frequent in DoTA.

[Xs]

I like the LoL system in that it feels more rewarding when you play a new character with all the runes and shit, although it sucks when you just want to play a new one but you can't afford 6300 IP + 9 new marks or something.

Dota to me always felt like you couldn't trust people playing the heroes, they could have quite easily never played them before, which is a lot rarer in LoL

- - - Updated - - -

It still happens with LoL, especially at the start of each week, but it's much more frequent in DoTA.

Don't forget when a champion gets reworked or a new legendary skin comes out, and you get the tides of people who can't play so you're forced to ban in ranked or play mirrors in normals lol

[Rhaide]

It definitely shouldn't be free.

Also - while Steam is an incredibly powerful engine for pushing new games - don't lose track of just how big League of Legends is.

According to the DOTA 2 site, it has 6.5 million players. Compare that to LoL's 70 million worldwide. Free games aren't often advertised directly on Steam - but even if it were - doubling their existing playerbase would be an impressive feat: and it still wouldn't hold a candle to LoL's gargantuan playerbase.

I think both games are doing what is right for them. DOTA2 is trying to focus on becoming "the" MOBA eSport - and LoL is trying to focus on being "the" people's game: they are aiming for different niches. Just because LoL currently occupies DOTA2's desired market-space doesn't mean they are in direct competition

Agree entirely with your point, but you made one small mistake. Valve DOES directly advertise free games, so long as they are high quality and relatively new (or have major new content). Some previous examples of f2p games that had front page space on the steam store marquee for a week or more include:

Dota 2
Jagged Alliance Online
Marvel Heroes
Ragnarok Online 2
Warframe (for SOOO long, I thought it would never leave)
Planetside 2
Dwarfs
War of the Immortals
Gotham City Imposters
etc etc... the list goes on

[hawtlol]

Yeah lets start making everything free and easily obtainable just like WoW.

[Deleted]

No, but the fact that I need to get like 40 wins just to unlock the next champion I want (Rengar), which ultimately means I can't buy runes until then, otherwise i'll never get any 6300 champions.

[Deleted]

Keep the champions priced. However, having runes cost IP is just borderline retarded. This was the first thing I reacted on when I started playing and it's a fucking miracle it hasn't changed yet.

[Deleted]

The only reason I spent about 200 euro on RP was to buy champions because I can't stand the farming and I spend the IP on runes. I think it would be a huge loss in profit.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

since Valve released Dota 2 i mean, u can use all the champions from the get go, shouldn't Riot games respond and make their champions free? i mean, its valve we are talking about, they can just plaster Dota 2 in front of their Steam store and it will pick up more customers than riot can. shouldn't they be doing something to keep players playing LoL?

If you like DOTA better, play that. Leave LoL alone kthxbye

- - - Updated - - -

Pretty much the reason I don't play League, well, one of the few reasons.

I'd rather not be forced to play thousands and thousands of games just to get all the characters unlocked, since they should be unlocked from the start. I can play DotA and play anything I want right away, and have fun with it, instead of only having like ten choices, and then like two of each role. Oh, you want to jungle? Better wait until next week since there are no jungle heroes this week in the pool. Just stupid.

I'm glad you play DOTA instead, since you can't be bothered to figure out they have a jungler every week, for free. (Not to mention you can buy one and always have him available)

If all champions were free, I doubt you would play every single one of them anyway. People just get their panties in a twist when they are told they can't do something.

[Schmilblick]

Why ? there will be always players to pay

[zenzaliv]

As a fairly new player to LoL I really enjoy the IP/champ rotation system. I'm only level 23, own 7 champs including a couple 6300 IP ones. I have 1 full all purpose rune page set up and am sitting at around 8k IP. The rotation let's me try champs without feeling overwhelmed. I won't buy a champ til i feel I am comfortable with them. I don't feel like I need to own every champion. When I start ranked I plan on having enough unlocked for about 3-4 for each role. While in the beginning it will be difficult to counterpick, at least I will be playing champs I am familiar with. I'm fine with people who have been playing longer/more then me having more available champions, as their experience means they can play more of them well. I can honestly say if they were all free i would prolly play way less and it would fell like there's nothing to work towards.