Usually Riot doesn't change a lot about events and their Event Passes, but this time they nerfed it by quite a bit and players are not happy.
With the new Winterblessed event comes the release of a new Event Pass. These generally have a pretty good price to reward ratio for the average player. This time however, Riot has changed the pass and the players are not happy.
LoL Event Pass Has Been Nerfed, Players Mad At Riot
The rewards of the new Winterblessed event have already been leaked. In comparison to the last Event Pass we got from Soul Fighter, they have nerfed the new one quite significantly. Riot has removed a grab bag and 625 orange essence in exchange for 2 banners.
Keep in mind that during the Soul Fighter event we got a free event banner. Now we are getting a banner instead of a grab bag Those grab bags are a major reason why players even buy the Event Passes as they provide a good amount of random skin shards.
The community on Reddit and X/Twitter has been vocal about it, and they're not happy at all. Some fans are not surprised this is happening, giving Riot's recent focus on making more money through gacha-elements or expensive skins.
The Community manager Caden House has already responded on X/Twitter thanking players for the feedback and asking more questions about the value. He also stated that he doesn't know if they will change something about the pass issue, but they will be debating about it internally.
Since the Reddit thread got quite a bit of traction on the League of Legends subreddit other rioters have joined the conversation.
Comment by u/Rafaap from discussionin leagueoflegends
BarackProbama mentioned that players really enjoyed the banners in previous passes, and they are experimenting with different distributions. They are experimenting with putting in more thematic, event-rewards instead of just more loot boxes. Personally, I like the thematic touch but at this point they are just taking monetary value out of the pass. In the words of Riot BarackProbama this is just a "value transfer".
He also apologized and stated that they will change their strategy to line up more with player values.
Comment by u/Rafaap from discussionin leagueoflegends
Personally, I am not a big fan of removing grab bags for banners since I will keep using the Soul-Fighter Banner anyway, and I would like some more skinshards. What do you think? Will you buy the battle pass?