‘Gacha games respect your time more’

With January gone, League of Legends‘ monetization is still a hot topic. Players across social media continue to express their dissatisfaction with the game’s direction, specifically in regards to its Season 2025 progression, currency acquisition, and the lack of Hextech Chests.

One of them wrote in a Feb. 4 Reddit post how it would take them around two and a half weeks to grind out the 200 Blue Essence they need to unlock a new champion, saying how “leveling up is literally pointless” at the moment. In a reply to him, another player quipped that several “gacha games respect your time more,” which hits a bit too close to home, considering Riot Games introduced something like a gacha system of its own to League, requiring players to spend hundreds of dollars to have a guaranteed chance of obtaining the “new” and “rare” skins—which are often just rehashes of previous ones.

It’s even gotten to the point where some would advise new players to steer clear from League. “I wouldn’t recommend any new players to play this game,” one Reddit user said. With 170 champions in the game and a progression system where casual players can never even hope to obtain anything of value in time, it’s gotten to the point where telling people to avoid what many used to consider one of the best live service titles out there seems reasonable.

You used to be able to earn a plethora of chests each time you earned an S rank in a match, making quick queues like ARAM that much more rewarding, especially considering you could earn skins, champions, and Blue and Orange Essence just by playing it every once in a while. I still have about 20 chests sitting in my Hextech Crafting tab, which these days defaults to the gacha screen, not the one where chests, shards, and currencies are.

And the lack of Hextech Chests has echoed throughout the League community heavily, perhaps even more so than the abject reduction in Blue and Orange Essences post-Season 2025.

Players on every social media post League has made have been writing on the issue, including comments on our own posts. In a discussion thread regarding the latest League update, Patch 25.S1.3, there have been many comments along the lines of “ok, cool, but where are the Hextech chests?” Their removal seems to have significantly reduced the influx of free skins and champions, and paired with the removal of most level-up rewards like Glorious Champion Capsules, getting anything for free is now only a distant memory.

Although Riot issued an update on the whole ordeal earlier in January, it seems that even with the increase in rewards, the new system just pales in comparison to the old one that was in the game for almost a decade.

Dot Esports has reached out to Riot for comment on League‘s new progression systems.