Chapter 280: Removing Runes and Hero Fees
Having decided to create "League of Legends," the question of how to go about it still required careful consideration.
Strictly speaking, "League of Legends" was a commercially very successful game, but in terms of balance and competitiveness, it had some flaws introduced to boost its commercial appeal.
Its ability to remain popular for several years relied on constant version updates, using these frequent changes to continually offer players fresh experiences, thereby largely diluting the game's inherent imbalances.
Whether this approach was the optimal solution or not, it at least effectively addressed the problem.
It allowed players to explore new powerful heroes with each update, deriving different kinds of enjoyment.
In Chen Mo's view, the reasons why the previous life's "League of Legends" took this path were complex, but the key factors boiled down to two: the game's own positioning, and the corporate characteristics of its developer and operator.
In terms of positioning, "League of Legends" was a game with the ultimate goal of exploring, expanding, and unifying the market. The deliberate effort to lower the barrier to entry (even at the cost of game balance) was driven by this purpose.
Therefore, the subsequent operational strategies and version updates inevitably had to continue this goal. This was established from the very beginning, a consistent thread.
As for corporate characteristics, Riot Games was not a wealthy, large corporation at its inception. It grew gradually alongside "League of Legends." Expanding the market and developing the game required money everywhere, so it also had to consider the game's revenue-generating capabilities.
This was similar to Chen Mo's own situation when he initially had to create some pay-to-win games.
As for the operator, there's no need to explain; everyone on Earth knows whether they love making money or not.
Of course, after "League of Legends" achieved massive success and Riot was no longer strapped for cash, they increasingly considered a transformation, such as removing the level cap and the rune system.
They even considered completely eliminating in-game charges for players, relying entirely on various tournaments and merchandise as profit points (similar to traditional sports).
"League of Legends" had several major versions in Chen Mo's previous life. Each major overhaul drastically changed the entire game. Deciding which version to create required careful deliberation.
...
In his own studio, Chen Mo began writing the design concept draft for "League of Legends."
This concept draft probably took him the longest to write. Although he had most of the content about "League of Legends" memorized, the trade-offs on some key issues forced him to think repeatedly.
The most crucial point was: what should the final form of this game look like?
From a purpose standpoint, Chen Mo was now highly aligned with the previous life's Riot Games. What he needed was a MOBA game with an extremely low barrier to entry, a phenomenal blockbuster that could dominate the MOBA market for a long time. If the barrier to entry was too high, it would fail to achieve comprehensive market dominance.
Secondly, to what extent should the game's competitiveness and balance be developed?
One aspect of the previous life's "League of Legends" criticized from its inception was the talent and rune system. The rune system, in particular, made the game somewhat unfair, as it created a disparity in combat power between players with different playtime lengths entering the same match.
Of course, the rune system had its reasons for existing, such as:
1. Providing players with a sense of growth and long-term goals.
2. Allowing different rune combinations for different heroes, creating diverse playstyles.
3. Generating revenue.
However, Riot later removed the rune system during a revision.
Chen Mo's decision was: for the first version of "League of Legends," keep the talents but remove the runes.
The player level cap would still be 30, but all talents would be unlocked within the first 10 levels. This meant that as long as a player put in a little effort to reach level 10, they would have no attribute gap compared to other players.
Corresponding to this was a change in revenue content: all heroes would be free, and all revenue would come from skins and other value-added services that did not affect combat power.
Removing revenue from runes and heroes would certainly impact the revenue-generating ability of "League of Legends," but Chen Mo was well aware that the benefits outweighed the drawbacks.
By making "League of Legends" an absolutely fair competitive game, its professionalization would also get on the right track much faster.
The reason Chen Mo dared to do this was that his current situation was different from Riot Games' at the time. If Riot was playing from a disadvantageous position, he was playing from a highly advantageous one.
Riot Games had to consider the game's profitability, but Chen Mo did not.
Chen Mo currently had very ample R&D funds. Even if funds ran short, he could just create another pay-to-win game. There was no need to use "League of Legends" to extract money from players.
For the first six months or even a year, it didn't matter if "League of Legends" made no money at all. As long as the player count piled up and the foundation for e-sports was established, making money later would be inevitable.
In other aspects, Chen Mo considered adopting the general framework of "League of Legends" from the Season 3 era, with some adjustments.
Seasons 1 and 2 of "League of Legends" were essentially the pioneering and development phases. It wasn't until Season 3 that the game truly formed its own style and had a widespread global impact.
Especially starting from the third season, "League of Legends" began to introduce a large number of heroes with distinctive LOL characteristics, such as: Jayce, Zyra, Diana, Rengar, Syndra, Kha'Zix, Elise, Zed, Thresh, Zac, and so on.
These heroes were all typical examples that balanced hero mechanics with playability. It was precisely these highly "flashy" heroes that gave "League of Legends" its strong vitality, leading to an explosive surge during the Season 3 period and ultimately establishing its dominant position.
If simple-to-play heroes like Amumu, Malphite, and Garen were the foundation of "League of Legends," then these "show-off" heroes were its face.
It was these flashy heroes that allowed the game to cater to the vast majority of players and gain long-lasting vitality.
Of course, the "League of Legends" Chen Mo was going to create would definitely differ from any version in the previous life.
Chen Mo even considered completely overhauling the entire numerical balance system of "League of Legends," allowing the vast majority of heroes to be viable and making the game's strategies much more diverse.
Genius remembers this site address in one second: