League of Legends and Bloodline Champions

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Victo wrote:

You can't buy runes for RP (money) and you can purchase every champion for IP (playtime).

It is as much pay to win as stash tabs are, which is: Not at all.

You just got level 20.
Now you have enough IP to fill exactly 1 runepage. I know, I have made smurfs. If you use RP to purchase champions you have more IP for runes, this is clearly an advantage. This is grind to win to an extent.
Free to play champions just don't cut it.

LOL is as much Pay to Win as PoE. Not at all. Paying for convenience is not paying to win i.e. Stash Tabs and RP. Stash Tabs = mule accounts, RP equals faster IP = smurfs

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skinnay wrote:

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Victo wrote:

You can't buy runes for RP (money) and you can purchase every champion for IP (playtime).

It is as much pay to win as stash tabs are, which is: Not at all.

That's blatantly wrong. Spending money on champions leaves you more IP to buy runes with. You also have to buy both to play at a competitive level. Do you think there are any pro players who DON'T have every single champion, due to how the metagame works? Also, you can buy IP boosts for real money which allow you to buy more runes. Both champions and runes are in-game advantages that can be bought either directly or indirectly with real money.


Stash tabs are not comparable. You're completely able to get more stash tabs for free simply by creating a new free account, and the microtransaction option is purely buying convenience by not having to log in between accounts to access your extra stash.

Rune pages and champions are available with RP. Having more means you have more room for counterplay.

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skinnay wrote:

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Victo wrote:

You can't buy runes for RP (money) and you can purchase every champion for IP (playtime).

It is as much pay to win as stash tabs are, which is: Not at all.

That's blatantly wrong. Spending money on champions leaves you more IP to buy runes with. You also have to buy both to play at a competitive level. Do you think there are any pro players who DON'T have every single champion, due to how the metagame works? Also, you can buy IP boosts for real money which allow you to buy more runes. Both champions and runes are in-game advantages that can be bought either directly or indirectly with real money.


Stash tabs are not comparable. You're completely able to get more stash tabs for free simply by creating a new free account, and the microtransaction option is purely buying convenience by not having to log in between accounts to access your extra stash.

Stash tabs and Champion/Boost purchases are comparable in the sense that both save the player time. This is what I noted in the Quote.

Professional players have all runes and champions available, correct. But that does not mean that they purchased them through RP and it especially does not mean that they would have had to do so.

Games played in the leveling phase and very low elo max level games are not competitive by default as players do not start on equal terms because of their level - a level 15 account is disadvantaged against a level 24 account with or without runes, the same goes for the level 24 account against level 30.





What is arguable is if the possibility to shorten the IP grind via boosts and champion purchases is pay to win and in my opinion it is not.
Pay To Win means that you will never have the chance to participate against other players on equal footing without paying money - they will always be more powerful when compared.

In League of Legends you are not buying power with money, you are buying temporary versatility.
You will not be better at a role than players who do not buy boosts or champions with money, but you can fill in more roles than they do.

What this means is that both players can compete fairly at their role in the actual game and have equal chances of winning on paper, but the player who bought champions or boosts will temporarily be able to play a larger variety of roles if he wants to.

A non-paying player will be able to reach the same level of versatility simply playing the game and the amount of versatility is capped by the amount of champions and runes available in the game (further deminished by the fact that not every role/champion/rune is viable and/or interesting for the player), so even if you count versatility as an advantage (for example during champion selection in draft mode) it is not permanent. This is not possible in a Pay-To-Win environment.

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skinnay wrote:

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Victo wrote:

Pay To Win means that you will never have the chance to participate against other players on equal footing without paying money - they will always be more powerful when compared.

You use a very strict definition of pay to win that is just convenient for your argument. Any in-game advantage that is purchasable with real money is a pay to win aspect. Just because some people have all champions and many rune pages purely from grinding thousands of games does NOT mean that it's not pay to win to circumvent having to play several thousands of games with real money, especially since a large majority of players do not have every champion already. A paying player has an inherent advantage against MOST players.

The same could be said for you. Pay to Win and Pay for convenience are NOT the same thing. In LOL one could purchase IP boosts to speed leveling. There is no in game advantage. Everything in LOL is available FOR FREE if one Grinds their Gears for it.

Pay to win gives an in game advantage. Pay to win comes from the games where one basically can dominate every non-casher by just purchashing some item or advantage. Runes of Magic is a good example.

Pay to win is where the users that are paying receive greater benefits or areas, where as the free player aren't able to reach that kind of benefit or area no matter how long they play.

Wolfteam, Warrock, Rumble fighter, Runes of Magic are all pay to win games.

RIP Vladimir, the only champ where I have the legendary skin. I will never forgive Riot for nerfing him that hard :<

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