Riot Games details League of Legends champion price changes

Riot Games announced yesterday its implementation of sweeping pricing changes for League of Legends champions, with the overall effect intended to reduce costs on older champions and equalize the ratio between cash-bought Riot Points (RP) and Influence Points (IP) earned per match.

As a way to give players "more time to accumulate IP between champion releases" and Riot more time to develop and polish new champions, the release rate for new champions in 2013 will slow to around 14-17 for the year, or one every 3-4 weeks. Riot's previous release schedule typically rolled out two new champs per month, so this change isn't much of a significant difference.

Lastly, Riot detailed a slightly confusing automatic price drop for old champions whenever a new champion arrives. "The oldest 6300 IP/975 RP champion will be reduced to 4800 IP/880 RP whenever a new champion is released," according to Riot. With every third new champion release, an older champion costing 4800 IP or lower bumps down to the next lowest pricing tier in a chart Riot supplied, seen below:

League of Legends revised champion price tiers

Swipe to scroll horizontally

450 IP	260 RP
1350 IP	585 RP
3150 IP	790 RP
4800 IP	880 RP
6300 IP	975 RP
7800 IP (first week)	975 RP

As someone out of touch with the intricacies of the MOBA genre, I consider these changes a positive step up in drawing new players into the sometimes complicated-looking world of jungling, lanes, last-hits, and other phrases that sound like secret club passwords. It's also worth noting that rival MOBA Heroes of Newerth's champion stable went entirely free earlier this year.

Omri Petitte is a former PC Gamer associate editor and long-time freelance writer covering news and reviews. If you spot his name, it probably means you're reading about some kind of first-person shooter. Why yes, he would like to talk to you about Battlefield. Do you have a few days?