Riot Games added a way for players to track their achievements in League of Legends in the form of Eternals. While this would be a welcoming addition to most, what wasn’t welcoming was the price of admission. Due to some heated fan feedback, League of Legends Eternals is delayed so changes can be made to the new premium feature.
In a post by the developer, League of Legends product manager Ken Adams assured that Riot Games has been listening and gathering feedback on Eternals from players worldwide for the past two weeks. This is mostly in reference to how the developer was monetizing the new system. Eternals were introduced in the Public Beta Environment (PBE) recently, with each champion having its own achievement system. However, it costed 850 RP to get a set of three, which is roughly $7.
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Much of this feedback is represented in a thread by Reddit user saltypuddingmountain titled ‘Eternals perfectly summarise Riot in 2019.’ Bringing attention to some of the monetization practices made throughout this year, the poster believe Eternals are the culmination of these practices.
“Paying for a sense of pride and accomplishment. There’s no real other way to put it. They are ‘rewards meant to show you mastery’ yet are locked behind a pay wall,” says saltypuddingmountain about Eternals. “Achievements are only something worth showing off if it took effort to do, not how little money means to you that you thought that spending it on the ability to see how many kills you got with Garen ult, a worthless number that every other game would happily show you for free.”
Many in the thread agree with these sentiments. Reddit user PixlCake stated there are a lot of things they would “gladly” pay for, but showing off these “simple stats” is not one of them. Another Reddit user, abloopdadooda, said that the amount work put into Eternals should be put into announcer packs and personal minion skins.
With comments like this, Eternals sets will now have a lower price and be split into two set types. Common sets will be available all year and cost 225 RP, which is roughly $2. They will only include Eternals that aren’t champion-specific, including Kills, Objectives Destroyed, and Takedowns. They will also be available in the Essense Emporium twice a year for 3500 BE. Each Common set contains three per champion.
Unique sets will include Eternals that are catered to specific champions and will cost 590 RP (about $5-6). This includes Sylas’ “Stop Hitting Yourself” and Shen’s “Party Crasher” Eternals. Unique sets will be available all year and include three per champion in one set.
Not every player only plays one or two champions. There are some who are talented enough to play multiple champs depending on the role or roles they play. Riot Games is currently trying to find ways to offer discounted Eternals bundles that include multiple champions. There are no details about these bundles as of right now, but information will come closer to the feature’s launch.
Whether this price decrease will alleviate League of Legends players’ problems remains to be seen. Many of the complaints, as seen above, seem to have an issue that this feature is monetized at all as other games have stat information as part of the base game.
A specific launch date has yet to be announced for League of Legends Eternals cosmetics. However, you can play in the PBE right now and test them out on all of your favorite champions. If you do have suggestions regarding Eternals, whether you have ideas for Unique Eternals or have a problem with the new achievement system, you can post your thoughts on the PBE Boards.
