‘There’s no incentive to be nice’: LoL players confused over new honor rewards system

Riot Games making the League of Legends community happy seems to be an urban legend at this point, with the latest changes to the honor system only causing more confusion with the changes they have made to the honor system.

Riot announced it would be changing how the honor system works. With the launch of Patch 25.04, players will no longer be receiving honor capsules or orbs. In its place, players receive battle pass XP, an already unfavorable 2025 system in the eyes of the LoL community. On top of that, after Patch 25.06, players who have been saving their honor tokens will have them exchanged for 1,050 Orange Essence, which likely won’t go down well with the players who enjoy collecting on the LoL crafting page.

The honor rewards system allowed players who were role models on and off the Rift to be rewarded for their willingness to uphold the code of conduct and ensure a positive experience for their teammates. These rewards came as capsules and orbs that can be opened, rewarding players with skins, icons, and more. If players were good enough to earn honor level five, in the past they could use their honor tokens to open up a pop-up honor store which gave them access to cosmetics like rare skins and more.

But now, LoL players have turned to Reddit to express their anger over the revamp of the honor system, questioning why there are no rewards for being an excellent teammate, along with linking this to the overall changes Riot has been making to the game, like removing free rewards and adding skins that cost upwards of 100 dollars. “If it doesn’t bring short-term corporate success, it isn’t worth their time,” the original poster of one popular thread said.

Players who showcase a positive attitude don’t think they’re being rewarded for it, and while there shouldn’t be an incentive to be a nice person, players believe it should be equal to the punishments doled out for being toxic. Riot is still punishing players for having a negative attitude in the honor system. If a player is honor level two, they are banned from all-chatting. “Instead of rewarding players who spread positivity, they just punish the ones who don’t,” the original poster pointed out.

While there are several ways Riot can address the toxicity in LoL, the company is removing the incentives players did have for trying to stand against the negativity. By removing their opportunity to get free orbs and capsules in return for being a positive teammate, there’s no current replacement to ensure those players won’t go back to being toxic. And only using negative reinforcement, in at least one player’s eyes, is “a disaster of a system.”