EPT
On March 08 2011 08:57 Seuss wrote:
The gap that hurts competition is entirely the one between relatively recent players who won't spend money and everyone else. These newer players don't have a year and a half of earned IP to keep them level with paying players, and by definition aren't going to spend money to catch up. Unless you do 5 minute IP farms for the entire three hours of available time every day of every week in addition to grabbing first win you aren't going to catch up.
To give an idea of the uphill battle, right now you need 236850 IP to buy every single champion. Even if Riot stopped releasing champions today it would take over 6-7 months to catch up using the playstyle I just described. Three hours of mindless 5 minute games every day for 6-7 months.
You don't actually need all the champions to be competitive, but it's hard for the cash-strapped gamer to look at that mountain and do anything but grimace.
The gap that hurts competition is entirely the one between relatively recent players who won't spend money and everyone else. These newer players don't have a year and a half of earned IP to keep them level with paying players, and by definition aren't going to spend money to catch up. Unless you do 5 minute IP farms for the entire three hours of available time every day of every week in addition to grabbing first win you aren't going to catch up.
To give an idea of the uphill battle, right now you need 236850 IP to buy every single champion. Even if Riot stopped releasing champions today it would take over 6-7 months to catch up using the playstyle I just described. Three hours of mindless 5 minute games every day for 6-7 months.
You don't actually need all the champions to be competitive, but it's hard for the cash-strapped gamer to look at that mountain and do anything but grimace.
It's worth noting that closing this gap is only exacerbated by rapidly shifting champion power. A few months ago, Garen and Galio would definitely be included in a list of champions that one would want to be competitive. But now, for a new player trying to budget their IP efficiently towards building a competitive champion selection, having those 2 champs won't be of any great use.
