Well seeing as how there isn't really a proper board for this; I will post in Champion suggestion, because my post sort of revolves around champions and it is a suggestion.

What sets apart League of Legends from other 'DotA' games? What is going to make me want to play it? As you probably can state, the reason is, is that it is free. If you were to play DotA, you would have to spend about 30$ on the Warcraft Battlechest. If you were to play Heroes of Newerth, you would have to play a 30$ charge per account. While here at League of Legends, you could play COMPLETELY for free. Although, there is one major flaw...

The store. With it coming out yesterday, I rushed onto the computer to see what kinds of things would be available in the shop. So I log on, click on the shop and stare at a black screen for about 5 minutes, realizing that it the shop is probably really busy so I had to try again. Anyways, I was eagerly awaiting what champions I could purchase, and finally after connecting, I click on the Champion tab, and I see all the champions. I start looking at the top row. Seeing the heroes priced at 450 to 1350 IP, I was quite pleased with this, seeing is how they let us get more heroes for a bit cheaper. But upon looking at the next row, I grew increasingly angry. 6,300 IP for a champion. Or 975 riot points. I've played over 25 games and won about half of them, and I only have 3,600 IP. 6,300?!?!?!? That is ridiculously high... So I decide to check the prices of riot points. Seeing how you actually want to make money, I thought that maybe that I can buy the expensive heroes with riot points, because there probably is some discount or advantage.

But was there? NO! There wasn't. They expected me to pay about 8-10$ for ONE champion!? JUST ONE. Karthus, Anivia, Corki, Blitzcrank, and Twitch cost 6,300 IP or 8-10$ for EACH ONE. Well were never seeing these guys in our matches again....unless some people save up all their IP and that is the only hero they actually unlock.

Alternatively, we can buy the collectors edition for 30$ (includes a 10$ riot point card), and then buy the champion bundle for the other 20 champions for 25$, but that really defeats the purpose. Lets do some basic math, shall we?

30$ + 25$ = 55$, You could argue 45$ because there is a 10$ gift card, but the fact of the matter is you still have to dish out 55$.

30$ - You could buy Warcraft 3 and play DotA. While you'd be missing out on some of the great changes here in League of Legends, you at least get all the content and you don't have to worry about dishing out 10$ for the new hero...

30$ - You could buy Heroes of Newerth. This is where your competition lies, Riot. Warcraft 3 is getting old and the server structure sucks. You and HoN are the 'new versions' of DotA that are trying to capture both the DotA audience and some new audiences. You both offer great new features to an outdated game that make it something desirable again. While I'll argue that League of Legends is the better game here, I have been debating between the two games for quite awhile now. I can pay 25$ less for an included VoIP system, and all the content unlocked.

Now my suggestion...
I suggest you make your prices a bit more fair. Charging almost 10$ for a champion is ridiculous. We will rarely see these Champions in play. The only people who will have them are the people who bought either the 30$ pack, the 25$ pack, or both, because no one in their right mind would play 60 games for just ONE champion, or pay 10$ for ONE champion.

A second point: Since we have to pay to unlock our Champions, it creates an imbalance. With games of this type, their is a fairly large and extensive set of playable characters. 40 here in LoL, 90-some in DotA, and somewhere in between in HoN. This creates for diverse game play and new experiences each time.

However, with such a system with an extremely expensive shop, you are limiting your game to the 10 heroes that are free that week. Every game will have nearly the same heroes as the next. While people will play with the heroes that they have bought, lets say they bought Heimerdinger, playing with one champion gets old after a 5-6 games. Its always nice to switch to another. However since they spent 3k on that champion, they are less likely to have many other heroes unlocked. Resulting in repetitive, non-diverse, game play, because their options probably consist of one or two other heroes, and the weekly free set.


Please, I'd hate to see such an awesome game just go wrong because of an expensive shop. I only ask that you re-balance the shop. If anyone has already made a purchase to a re-balanced price, refund them or offer something in return so they don't get angry either.

Closing, please take this into consideration, I understand that this is a lot to take in or is probably a large problem to fix, but if it were fixed, this game would be all that much better.

I was surprised at the prizes as well. Especially since I never played any normal matches (I can wait for hours and STILL not be assigned a match) I get about 30 IP per match I lose (Which is basically all PvP) and 50 for each match I win. I have 1500 IP, and I need over 3000 to get Heimerdinger permanent. (Heimerdinger, the worst champion in the game, and he costs 3000 IP!?)

That'd be.... 39 botmatches (I think it was 3450). Since I do not like any of the other champions in the rotation system. Starting next week, I probably have no champion to play with. And only playing botmatches. With the same champion. 39 times. over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

League of Legends has potential, but with prices like these and my favourite champion being basically banned from games, I probably won't keep playing.

i feel prices on RP could be a little high, but having to play lots of games to unlock things is entirely fair, if you want it for free when riot needs to make a profit, you should be working your ass off for it

the only problem i have with the store is that lower teir champions are too cheap, and legendary champions are a little too dear

i think it should be 800-3200 per champion scaling 800 per rank rather than 450-6300

Yes I came here to comment on this very same problem. IMO, there should not be such a wide variance in price. 450-6300? so one hero is 14 times better/more complicated/valuable than one of the cheap ones?
Yes i understand giving newer players easier access to simpler heros, but restricting those upper tier champions so much is quite ridiculous. It would be very easy to simply have sections for "recommended" or simple champions without really needing a price difference at all.
Another potential problem is this: I will likely get bored of playing with my current champions and the rotations before I have the points to unlock the more entertaining upper levels (Cryophoenix is the one I have my eye on) I might just stop playing before I unlock anything up there. I also am not inclined to buy the collectors edition very soon or at least not spend the riot points untill we get some sort of comment on whether Riot is planning on reassessing this at all. (IE I dont want to spend a bunch on something that will be made cheaper because it was ridiculous)

Anyway, letting you know that I also find this massive price range a little upsetting.

There is certainly no way I'm going to pay $8-10 for use of a single champion. That's insane.

Absolutely. I still don't understand the variation in real-money pricing. IP, I can understand. But seriously, more than $1-2 for a champion is bat****-retarded.

I dont like the pricing either. I dont like that they treat some heroes like they are gold and others not. it is silly. Some say it's because of their difficulty.. well, who is to say what is difficult? Someone may find the cheap chars difficult and one of the ones they claim is hard totally fits that player and comes naturally to them

Like blitzcrank is easy for me, but i'd find a tougher time playing many of the cheap ones i see.. oddly enough. cuz he comes naturally to me. i dont know why.

I think there should be total fairness in pricing between all champions and to charge one set price for each.
I'd rather have it 1,000 ip each hero rather than this random business of 450-7000 ip, depending on who it is.

And who is to say what is most desirable.. i find Nunu is cooler than most of the expensive heroes, yet he's so cheap.

And why call those certain hero's legendary and others not? It makes me feel like the other characters are just not special. It's like saying "oh you can have these easier cuz we kinda half-assed them together"

if they are going to play that "collectors" game with pricing then they should just do that with skins since that has little effect on the actual gameplay.


Another thing i wouldn't mind is if the heroes were each like 1,000 and every time a NEW hero comes out, slap a big price tag on it of say like 3x normal price.. then after a week or 2 passes drop it down to normal price witht he rest. This way Riot would make money off of the players that just can't wait to try out the new hero, yet, everyone else would be rest-assured that if they wait a little while they can have that hero discounted to normal price when it is no longer classified as "NEW".

i think that would be fair enough for me.plus it would be easier for them and their systems to keep track of nice even numbers of 1k a piece rather than all these random numbers.

We are of course constantly assessing pricing, and can adjust as time goes on. I can tel you that some champions are obviously mispriced to prices that are too high, while others are clearly underpriced. We will figure this out as we go, generally in terms of adjusting things that are priced high and which people are not interested in.

I would like to point out though that you can pay $0, or you can buy champions at about $1 each via bundles.

Additionally, there is no power problem here. If you have cryophoenix, and I don't, I can still compete vs you because I have Ashe, or any number of other inexpensive champions that are top tier viable.

Lastly, I think that apples to oranges comparison to HON is unreasonable. For one thing, they are selling you heroes that you've already played for 5 years, so you are in most cases paying for an art upgrade. Secondly, all of our core features like maps, matchmaking, etc, come to you for $0. That's a major part of the game that we do not charge anyone for. Lastly, it is possible for you to get all the content for $0 in LoL, so while you may pay $7.50 for one champion, you are getting a bunch of others for $0 -- so it's very difficult to say that one game is more expensive than the other in general, even though it's possible to say that Player A spent more on HON and player B spent more on LoL.

My two cents:

The real money price range for the characters is pretty ridiculous. From a BUSINESS perspective, I think you guys are actually losing out on potential dollars because of it.

I bought the collector's edition so I have enough champions that I will likely never spend real money on them. (Skins, yes. I already have the Cho'gath skin because it's awesome.) A third of the price that I paid for the collector's edition for just a single champion? I'm sorry, but no thanks. I'd rather wait two weeks as I build up IP to pick them up, if I ever bother to do so. (I personally don't really LIKE any of the super expensive champions so I lucked out.)

Keep them that high if you really want, but you're only shooting yourselves in the foot as everyone just ends up being Ashe every game.