Riot admits it 'screwed up' League of Legends' new reward system, because somebody forgot to add a big chunk of numbers in the new XP calculations

pcgamer.com:

Riot Games says it «screwed up» recent changes to League of Legends that were intended to simplify the game's overly complex reward systems, but instead dramatically slowed level advancement and new hero unlocks. Head of studio Andrei «Meddler» van Roon said in an update posted today that «the numbers we shipped were pretty far off from what they should be for many of you,» and promised that fixes are incoming.

The changes, announced in November 2024, were intended to reduce the «unnecessary complexity» of League's reward system by moving most of it to the free track of the game's battle passes. «Most rewards will now be in one place, with systems like Honor and Champion Mastery feeding into the pass,» van Roon explained in a dev update. «For example, having a higher Honor level will give a bonus to past experience earned.

»There will always be a battle pass active with both a free and a paid track, with the price the same as an Event Pass today. You'll get Pass rewards through the tracks, meaning we're removing the Event Tokens and Shop."

But the elimination of the previously-existing level-up rewards had the knock-on effect of making it much harder to unlock new champions and skins, particularly for new players: One redditor estimated it would likely take more than a year for a new League of Legends player to be able to play ranked matches, because players need to be level 30 and own at least 20 champions to be eligible, and it would take that long to achieve those requirements. «This really feels like a bug to me [rather] than being intentional,» they wrote.

As it turns out, they were correct. Van Roon said in today's update that Riot intended to ensure the earn rates for Blue Essence—an in-game currency used to unlock new content—were the same or slightly better for all players under the new system. It also didn't mean to slow the speed of leveling or increase the number of games required to access ranked play.

But an analysis of player behaviour reveals that