Chapter 294: Skins
Gold coins could be used to purchase various avatars, avatar frames, ward (vision) skins, some hero skins, and chroma skins for certain hero skins.
Of course, allowing players to use gold coins to buy some hero skins was essentially a concession to the players, and it had to be strictly controlled, otherwise it would cause the entire economic system to collapse.
Gold coins could only be used to buy a small number of average-quality skins. The specific purchasable list would change every week, and the corresponding hero’s mastery had to reach the highest Grandmaster level before they could be bought, with extremely high prices.
As for chroma skins, they were nothing more than recolors of existing skins, which weren’t difficult to make, so Chen Mo also included them in the first version.
After a player obtained a certain skin, they could spend additional points plus gold coins to buy the chroma version; it couldn’t be purchased with points alone.
In addition, players could use gold coins to open loot boxes.
Of course, opening boxes didn’t conflict with direct purchases. All skins, avatars, ward skins, and so on had clear prices, so players could buy them directly if they wanted.
But if a player chose to open a box with gold coins, they might get any item—it could be a worthless avatar, or it could be a rare skin.
Naturally, this probability was strictly calculated by Chen Mo. Overall, opening boxes was slightly more cost-effective than buying directly, but what you actually got depended on luck.
For the vast majority of players, unless they were incredibly lucky, those very precious, rare skins, as well as some limited-edition avatars, avatar frames, ward skins, and so on, still required points to purchase.
Additionally, gold coins could also be used to swap heroes in ARAM mode, with the cost increasing progressively.
...
Jia Peng’s rewards were divided into two parts: one was the new player reward, and the other was the season reward.
The new player reward was something every player received upon entering the game and completing the tutorial, including [Death Knight] Garen, 4500 points, 10,000 gold coins, and the Snowman Ward skin.
The season reward was a skin distributed to all players for each season. The first season’s skin was Vayne’s [Dragon Slayer].
The rewards were quite generous. The price of an epic skin was 6900 points, meaning Chen Mo was giving new players rewards worth at least 200 yuan. Moreover, the [Death Knight] Garen skin had a bit of a crossover feel with *Warcraft*, giving it a lot of prestige.
Of course, given the depth of *League of Legends*’ in-game shop, this 200 yuan was nothing.
The other players in the experience center also received these rewards, all happily admiring Garen’s Death Knight skin and thinking about jumping into the game to try it out.
Jia Peng said, “I checked, and after the tutorial, we need to play a few bot matches before we can start real matches. Let’s team up for bot games.”
“Sounds good,” Chang Xiuya said. “I’d rather not fight against real players yet; I’m scared.”
Jia Peng: “...”
The three of them queued up for a beginner bot match, and soon, a game was found.
Currently, *League of Legends* could only be played at the experience center, so the player base was small, for sure. But since the experience center was now quite large, and most people in the PC area were playing *League of Legends*, matching a few teammates for a bot game wasn’t a problem.
Entering the champion select screen, Jia Peng started browsing the champions.
The selection screen had several tabs: [All], [Top], [Mid], [Jungle], [ADC], [Support]. Clicking a tab would quickly filter champions for that role.
In the current version, there were only 25 champions in total, so after filtering, each role had just 5 champions—not many. But since no one had played before, everyone still spent a long time agonizing over their picks.
Jia Peng originally wanted to pick Garen to check out the Death Knight skin, but the two random teammates instantly locked in Garen and Vayne, leaving Jia Peng speechless.
No choice. Jia Peng browsed around and chose Master Yi, the Wuju Bladesman. This champion reminded him of the Blademaster from *Warcraft*, and he looked pretty strong.
As for Wen Lingwei and Chang Xiuya, they picked Annie and Lulu respectively, for a very simple reason: they were cute.
Chang Xiuya originally wanted to pick Teemo, but considering there was already a top laner in Garen, she decided to go with the support role and chose Lulu, the Fae Sorceress.
In the tutorial, Chen Mo specifically taught players about the division and roles of the five positions, encouraging them to pick champions according to these roles.
Of course, this was just a suggestion. Players could pick whatever they wanted, even five ADC champions, and the game would still work fine.
However, this clear role distribution also served as excellent guidance. At least these five random players, despite being completely unfamiliar with the game, managed to put together a very well-rounded team composition—which was practically a miracle.
After confirming the champions, there was a short period of time, and Jia Peng started checking other information on the screen.
During this time, players could choose champion skins, masteries, and summoner spells.
For masteries, Chen Mo temporarily adopted the Season 3 mastery tree, without keystones like Thunderlord’s Decree or Grasp of the Undying. This was mainly to reduce the learning cost in the early stages, with new mastery systems to be gradually introduced in later versions.
Season 3 masteries were very simple, mostly increasing stats. The three trees—Offense, Defense, and Utility—were very clear, and a little study would reveal how to allocate points.
Right now, Jia Peng’s account only had the first row of masteries unlocked.
There were six rows of masteries in total, with the sixth row being the keystone masteries. Players unlocked one row every two levels, fully unlocking all rows at level 10.
As for summoner spells, players could initially choose Ghost, Heal, and Smite. Barrier and Exhaust unlocked at level 3, Teleport and Cleanse at level 5, Ignite at level 7, and Flash at level 9.
This meant that after level 10, there would be no further differences in the combat power provided by the account.
Jia Peng looked it over. There wasn’t much to adjust with masteries and summoner spells, but considering he was playing a jungler, he still took the [Smite] summoner spell.
He also took a moment to browse Master Yi’s skins.
Like other champions, Master Yi had three skins. The best one was marked with the [Epic] label and was called [Carefree Swordsman]. From the appearance, this skin’s model was vastly different from the original—it depicted a Chinese swordsman in ancient attire, wielding a long sword.
Jia Peng’s eyes lit up, and a strong urge to “buy, buy, buy” surged within him.
This skin was an original creation by Chen Mo. He felt that the original Master Yi skins weren’t very good-looking, with only Project and Dark Star being decent, while the rest were pretty lackluster.
So, Chen Mo simply designed a new skin himself, based on the image of a Chinese swordsman, and named it [Carefree Swordsman].
This skin was far more attractive than Master Yi’s default skin. Before Jia Peng could even wrestle with his inner desires, the game had already started.
“Let’s play first. If this champion is strong, then I’ll think about buying the skin...” Jia Peng thought to himself.