The League of Legends Worlds 2022 event and its associated pass have prompted backlash from the MOBA‘s community for being too grindy and lacking in substantial rewards for its price, prompting a reply from developer Riot Games.
Releasing on October 6 to coincide with LoL’s biggest event of the year, the Worlds event and its associated battle pass have been out for a few days now, but they haven’t exactly been the hit the devs likely hoped they would be.
There are two different passes (Worlds pass and Worlds pass bundle), both of which give you access to the premium battle pass track and, with the latter, some of the new Spirit Blossom skins. Each milestone will take 400 XP to unlock, but players have deemed this a little too much.
Putting out feelers on the League of Legends Reddit, one player asks “can someone do the maths and check it the Worlds pass is worth it or if it is just prettier? Right now our impression is that it’s the same level of grind as the previous Steel Valkyries pass (which was a lot) with just two better rewards (the bags).”
“It seems way more grindy,” replies one player. “They took out the weekly mission, and the missions listed in the event’s page support says we’ll be getting 5850 XP, which is about 14 levels. You have 50 levels until the bags, the amount of playing seems absurd.”
On top of that, the apparent rewards to cash ratio has also kicked up a storm. “You have to pay $15 for the pass PLUS grind two hours a day for 30 days just to get one prestige skin,” comments one player, equating the cost of the pass to $615 given the time taken to grind it.
This prompted a response from senior designer on the League of Legends event team, Daniel ‘Rovient’ Leaver, who writes “It’s 2.1 games of SR per day on average to get 2000 tokens, but this Worlds event is actually longer so you can play fewer games per day and gather the 2000 tokens.”
When one player points out that you “don’t unlock everything,” Rovient replies “correct, it’s a shop. You buy the chromas or item you want. Stuff you don’t get a choice on is on the rewards track. Plenty of value there too,” with a follow up statement reading “there’s 160 plus champs and most people play around four or five tops. We allow players to choose what they want with the tokens they earn. It’s not a scam, it’s a shop. You DO get all the stuff in the rewards track which is worth FAR more than 1650 RP alone.”
While the Worlds pass operates similarly to its predecessors in practice, it’s clear that the community aren’t enamoured by the 2022 iteration. Whether or not Riot will adjust the XP and the rewards remains to be seen, so for now we’ll just have to grind.
If you’ve already picked up the pass, you can check out how much you’ve spent on League of Legends using out handy breakdown (which may, in turn, also cause a breakdown). Additionally, if you’re looking to get ahead of the curve, be sure to check out our League of Legends preseason 2023 guide to make sure you know what to expect post-Worlds.