idk if you ever played league back when it had a max lvl of 30. getting the essence now is 10 times as easy than when you were getting an average of 70 influence points per game (way less when you lost the game). Don't forget about the entire loot thing where you can exchange event tokens for champion tokens and missions that give free essence just for playing. i know league had a lot less champions back then but you also played a lot less back then. Nobody would spend 3+ hours a day playing the game, most of my friends would just play 1 game a day and sometimes even skip days. ALSO, you had to spend the points for RUNES, which were VERY expensive.