@evanbelcher

4 months ago

I feel like everyone suggesting the champion mastery requirement is way underestimating how much that would suck. First of all, it breaks champ trading in champ select. Nobody's going to put 3 normal games (or whatever the requirement) on some random champ just to unlock trades. It also breaks autofill. I'm not playing 3 games of normals on random off role champs so I have them unlocked for ranked.

It also would just suck to play. Normals are just not even a part of the game for so much of the player base, you're just forcing everyone into low quality games for essentially no reason. Any number of games/champion mastery points that feels sufficient to set people up for instant success in ranked will be way more than most players will ever choose to get. And for adults who only have time to play a few games a week, forcing them to play in ways they don't want to in order to play the champ they already unlocked would suck.

And it ignores many of the ways people learn new champs: watching videos / streams of people playing it, watching the champion spotlight, reading the wiki to learn the moves, trying in practice tool or custom games, watching pros play it in competitive, playing against it in ranked. Like you're going to tell me I don't know what Renekton or Thresh do well enough after 1000 encounters with it to play it in ranked?

Also think about it from Riot's pov. That champ mastery gate would kill the hype and momentum of every single champion release. It would also mean waiting weeks more for any meaningful balance feedback.

And finally. I think it way overstates how big the problem is. The games with people first-timing new champs are just not that bad imo (speaking as a one-trick who doesn't play or ban new champs to be clear). You can ban them, or you can also just chill and play the game and have a good time. It's much more likely I'll encounter some random griefer or toxic player that runs it down way worse than some first time Ambessa player.

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