LoL Season 2025 update secretly made free-to-play experience much worse

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During League of Legends Season 2025, several adjustments were implemented that enhance the player’s worth for their investments. However, it appears that the free aspect of the game has suffered a significant setback.

The functioning of League of Legends’ Battle Pass has undergone a significant transformation, and most of these changes have proven to be substantial advantages. Instead of merely accumulating tokens and loot capsules as in previous iterations, players who purchase the pass will now receive 5 skins upon completing it.

Considering how skins generally go for over $10 individually, purchasing the pass at roughly $15 is quite a significant saving. Yet, there’s one aspect in the Patch 2025.S1.1 update that’s a real downer.

After navigating past that hurdle, accumulating Blue Essence becomes exceptionally challenging for most players, especially those who don’t yet own every champion in the game and play for free.

LoL Battle Pass change makes getting new champs a lot harder

As an avid player, I can’t help but acknowledge that for Riot Games to continue providing us with their amazing free-to-play titles, they need to generate income somehow. While the majority of their earnings stem from cosmetic purchases, the allure of acquiring new champions is undeniably a significant contributor to that revenue stream.

Players can acquire Game Pass to have immediate access to League of Legends’ champions, but the authentic free-to-play experience remains challenging for those who aspire to collect all champions. While you can focus on specific characters to play initially, it becomes tougher once the new player bonus Blue Essence is exhausted.

According to Riot employee BarackProbama, the revised Battle Pass system provides players with four champion capsules and 4750 Blue Essence each year, potentially allowing them to amass a total of 24 champion capsules and 28,500 BE in one year. While some champions are affordable at 450 points, the thrilling new characters typically cost 6300.

If you’d like to acquire a character priced at 6300 BE and you’ve already utilized all the currency from previous milestones, your only choice is to gather small BE rewards of approximately 50 BE as you level up beyond level 50.

The Battle Pass provides meager rewards once you hit level 50

The daily victory challenges you were using are no longer available; they’ve been transformed into daily quests that contribute to your Battle Pass progress instead.

A total of 900 hours is needed if you grind for the 6300-character reward drop from the end of each passage.

BarackObama addressed multiple Reddit posts seeking clarity, eventually disclosing that the calculations suggest a committed player could obtain approximately 30 new champions each year through continuous grinding.

On the other hand, that figure takes into account if players create permanent shards from what they’re provided. It’s possible to disenchant these items to obtain a desired character, yet inexperienced gamers might not realize that this action only prolongs the process of acquiring fresh champions, as it delays the acquisition of additional new ones.

It would likely take a fresh player approximately 5 years to access all characters, though this timeline does not account for any new heroes introduced during that period.

In simple terms, the current rate is introducing about four to five new champions each year, and these new champions will likely cost money. Consequently, a player who only plays League of Legends for free would need to invest six to seven years of continuous gameplay just to match up with those who have spent money on the new characters by 2025.

One significant reason for this issue is that the updates to the Battle Pass now affect champion mastery milestones too, making it significantly tougher to acquire Hextech Chests. These chests were a common method for players to gain access to new champions and collect Blue Essence.

WHAT DO I EVEN HAVE THESE FOR??? XD

— Enderspider (@Enderspider) January 9, 2025

You’ll receive free keys as a bonus, which will become usable if you choose to purchase a chest from our in-game shop by spending premium currency.

Regardless of whether it’s deliberate or not, the latest update in League of Legends has significantly increased the challenge for novice, free-to-play participants.

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2025-01-11 16:19