Legends of Runeterra (Amazing new card game)

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Totally agree with @rrc complimenting @4RM3D . (And don't worry, @4RM3D ....we'll bail you out of the CDPR doghouse, if needed.) I don't know; every time I see LOR, Hearthstone, or Magic I think they all look so "cartoon-y," for lack of a better term. I've been spoiled by the outstanding artwork in Gwent. And are not the other games a wee bit more RNG-oriented than Gwent? Nice comments here from all, though.
 
And are not the other games a wee bit more RNG-oriented than Gwent?

LoR doesn't really have much RNG outside of the inherent card draws (which aren't as bad as MtG's land screws). There is no RNG damage, only a few cards that can create a random card, if their condition is met. And even for most of those cards, the RNG variance is neglectable and can be limited. Only Karma, the legendary spell leader, and the RNG spell card can have some funky rolls. So, (only) 2 RNG heavy cards in the whole game is not bad.

Excluding the card draws, LoR definitely has less RNG than Gwent. If you want to include the card draws, then Gwent wins in consistency. To put it differently, with Gwent you draw more consistently but the cards themselves have a higher (RNG) variance. LoR is the opposite.
 
Things Gwent and other CCG's could learn from LoR -

1. Reward big early and diminish returns to discourage grinding. For me that's a big one since it shows me the devs actually might respect my time as a player and want me to play for fun, rather than expect me to behave like a hamster in a wheel when it comes to progress.

2. Reward for playing in all game modes. Yes, even playing AI. Again it shows me the devs respect my time as a player. OK, so those AI games didn't contribute to populating the PVP queues, but I took some time to play your game. Maybe I was chasing a quick win. Or maybe the meta sucks and I really needed a break from seeing the same few decks. Admittedly LoR is still new and fresh, but it's only a matter of time before Swim floods the meta ;)

3. Limit how much crafting is available to player without making it so grindy that a competitive deck is something most players devote all their resources toward, to the detriment of all other cards. Gwent and MTGA tend to sit on opposite ends of the spectrum and LoR is in the middle. Gwent is too generous, to the point where players can reasonably quickly amass cards and resources to build a T1 deck. So whilst cards get added to the collection, players don't really have much incentive to play them unless they are serious about jank. MTGA, once you disregard the bad cards that solely exist for drafts, makes it that you often require 4 copies of any card for consistency in a T1 deck. Thus players are less inclined to spend a wildcard on a card that looks or sounds interesting and fun. LoR allows direct purchase in addtion to scrap and wildcard redemption. However the amount of wildcards for purchase is capped at a weekly limit and shard (scrap) cost is fairly high for champions, prompting players to instead divert resources to expeditions - a kind of draft mode capped at 3 xp rewarding + unlimited, no xp reewarding after 3 expeditions/week- to acquire new champions and much larger xp rewards than regular play (for the first 3 expeditions only).
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Yea and Magic is also better because of the land syste...
Exactly. Even Garfield expressed the idea that lands were something he'd redo if he were to make MTG knowing what he did. Even when he later said that lands were a system that most new players intuitively understood for determining what they could cast from hand, it still didn't change the fact that they are zero-sum plays on their own and they form a system that effectively prevents a player from playing their cards. Not being able to play your cards and combos being a big factor in ruining one's fun. I think this is why Hearthstone, LoR and many other games use incremental mana scores. At least this way, your hand is only likely to be bricked for a few turns at worst. Gwent, however, just doesn't bother with casting costs at all, making it's bricked hands entirely based on card abilities and required combos.
 
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Still really enjoying this game. I won the first expedition I ever did which felt epic. Got crushed the second one but oh well since they give you a legendary card even if you win zero games. That is crazy.

Hoping they balance elusive cards since they are very strong. Also something isn't quite right with those deny spell cards. I don't know if they are OP or if it's just a problem that only one faction gets them. All I know is right now I feel like I should have three in every deck. Right now I don't have any.
 
I also started to move from Gwent to LOR as sadly the game starts to get boring more and more. After two weeks of LOR I asked myself "why" and played a few games Gwent again and luckily the seasonal mode is currently quite funny.

Anyway, after a few of hours playing during this weekend again I personally came to following conclusion regarding the "why":

1. Games are simply to time consuming. A games takes roughly 20min. while I can manage to finish a game in LOR in 5min. in case i play an "aggro deck". Correspondingly to quickly play Gwent during the week is quite challenging.
--> Nevertheless, the diffence in time needed per game leads to the fact I can manage in LOR to do my dailies and feel like moving forward a lot while in Gwent in case I don`t manage to permanently get a win streak I might not even achieve the first crown..

2. RNG: The first round playing seasonal again I faced NG using cards to summon a card from my deck and insteadly thought "omg how bad designed are these cards?!". They can be insane or completely garbage. For sure if you play multiple games per day in average the cards are most likely fine but if you only consider one single game they feel bad.
I didn`t get this feeling for any cards in LOR and they are definetely not perfectly balanced.

3. Meta: Both games have meta decks, without any doubt, and before the last patch the LOR meta was quite stale. Nevertheless, the game manages to encourage me to try out combinations. I have honestly spoken no idea why I don`t have the same ambition in Gwent. Gwent in contrary encourages me to achieve high win rates, which is only achievable by playing the best available decks. Potentatly it is because of No. 1 as a lose in Gwent simply "hurts" more while in LOR I don`t really care.

4. New player friendly: As I already started to play in Beta I have no idea how it feels to start with limited amount of cards in Gwent. I have all cards (or can easily craft missing once) and correspondingly can play meta decks anytime.
As I like to be efficient in getting cards fast I probably would start with Arena to get additional rewards, omg. I would probably stop after two weeks...
In contrary LOR offers a good way to get to know all cards and gather cards quickly within a similar mode called "expedition". Nevertheless, while Arena get`s quite boring after 1 or 2 runs I am already started my 7th expetion run on Sunday.
It`s simply fun and allows me to get forward fast.


Overall I wanted to briefly share my thoughts regarding LOR in comparison to Gwent. Esp. as I think Gwent has more to offer in terms of strategy, design and potential but it seems the game doesn`t manage to make use of it.
 
2. RNG: The first round playing seasonal again I faced NG using cards to summon a card from my deck and insteadly thought "omg how bad designed are these cards?!". They can be insane or completely garbage.
There are loads of cards like this in Gwent. Look at Vincent van Moorlehem and Defenders for example. Especially NG with their Damien and Stefan and then a leader that boosts so everything can be protected. Big swing gambling, terrible design.

Overall I wanted to briefly share my thoughts regarding LOR in comparison to Gwent. Esp. as I think Gwent has more to offer in terms of strategy, design and potential but it seems the game doesn`t manage to make use of it.
Potential needs to come from the devs, but it seems they don't understand their own game and don't have basic design rules, thereby creating some horrible cards. Card design is all over the place: you make a unit stronger with a boost, but then it gets killed by Destroy or two cheap Poisons. You protect a unit with a Shield, but then it gets killed by an artifact that destroys units with Shield or a unit that Destroys units with a status. Immune was deemed a bad mechanic, but then Defenders got added that basically make a whole row immune. It all makes no sense. It's chaos card design, allowing very little strategy but a lot of RNG. And because of that, after trying Gwent again this week, I have now decided to simply uninstall it.

LoR has a much higher pace than Gwent, RNG comes almost exclusively from the card draws and not unbalanced card abilities and the battle animations are much better looking. Where is the battle in Gwent actually?
 
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Overall I wanted to briefly share my thoughts regarding LOR in comparison to Gwent. Esp. as I think Gwent has more to offer in terms of strategy, design and potential but it seems the game doesn`t manage to make use of it.

Thanks for the long reply. I'm having a good time in LOR just playing in normal games and low ranked games as I collect cards. I really just enjoy the general gameplay a lot because it actually feels very strategic and different in each game. I just don't get that feeling in Gwent right now. It just feels very same over and over again. The big thing people say about Gwent is that it's less about RNG and more about skill. The problem is that when you have more control over your hand the games play out so similar each time. It's so easy to predict what's going to be played, especially in the third round. The round system compounds this problem because everyone saves certain cards for that round so it just gets really dull seeing the same plays made at the same approximate time over and over again. People just save the same power moves for the last few turns. What I like about LOR is how with more draw RNG the games are less predictable and more focused on how you use the cards you have. I get that some people might not like the draw RNG but for me it makes the games more interesting and your skill at using the cards you have is still huge. Also without the three round system games can start and end in very different places. They can go very short or very long. It just makes for these wildly different experiences and it feels like a battle. The strategy in the game has that chess like feeling where you fight over board control.

Anyway I hope Gwent can entice me in the future. I'll be watching for patches but I'm done being disappointed with them. If they drop yet another bad patch I can just be happy that I will be focusing on LoR exclusively.
 
I tried LoR yesterday, had the impression that it is very RNG-based and the rounds are short. I guess opinions differ widely on this. I don't like both in a basic mode. But that is only a first impression, I soon stopped playing, because I cannot stand the childish art. That's funny, because I don't care about skins, cardbacks e.g. in Gwent, so I learned that however the look of the cards is important for me.
 
I tried LoR yesterday, had the impression that it is very RNG-based and the rounds are short. I guess opinions differ widely on this. I don't like both in a basic mode. But that is only a first impression, I soon stopped playing, because I cannot stand the childish art. That's funny, because I don't care about skins, cardbacks e.g. in Gwent, so I learned that however the look of the cards is important for me.
I don't really follow you on the short rounds or childish art things. Cards don't look childish at all to me. I have a bigger problem with the leaders on gwent standing on the board like strange miniatures.
 
40 card deck that allows 3 copies of each card. It's about as RNG as Gwent in that respect. The game has just moved to open beta, so there are a few issues, including balancing to sort out. I find the area that grates the most is PVAI. Riot really needs to tune it down a bit so AI isn't consistently creating just the right answer cards for any given situation (e.g. play Teemo, AI pulls something cabaple of killing it; place a blocker that can kill AI champion and it magically has a stun/kill/barrier spell).
 
I don't really follow you on the short rounds or childish art things. Cards don't look childish at all to me. I have a bigger problem with the leaders on gwent standing on the board like strange miniatures.
I'm all with you regarding Gwent leaders, but I don't have to look at them. The LoR-cards remind me of graphic novels for kids. I didn't expected it to bother me that much, but it did.
 
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The LoR-cards remind me of graphic novels for kids.

Yes, it definetely has a different and somewhat flashy style, which fits to LOL and TFT. If I compare them I prefer the design of Gwent as well.

Nevertheless, the more I play it the more I enjoy it. It`s simply incredible how it feels like they value your time far more than Gwent does. Just played today another game of Gwent to proceed with saesonal quests as I gathered up to now every seasonal card back. But I guess this one I skip as the grind simply sucks.
Someone needs to explain me why it is necessary to win 30 rounds or play a high amount of cards to proceed? Wouldn`t 1/3 be enough...
Additionally, game crashed when playing the last card. Somehow Gwent feels more like a Beta-Game than LOR does, even though it`s the opposite :sad:.
 
After being stuck at gold tier for eternity playing Ashe frost, I switched to Heimerdinger Control and reached platinum within two hours. Probably my favourite champion in the game. The meta is quite interesting considering the card pool is pretty small. The only things which really annoy me are Elnuk highrolling, Hecarim and elusives in expedition.
 
After being stuck at gold tier for eternity playing Ashe frost, I switched to Heimerdinger Control and reached platinum within two hours.

Since the last patch, Ashe Frost has dropped off the tier 1 list. I've reached Platinum with Elusives. Taking it a bit slower now. I want to try Heimer and Ezreal (not necessarily together), but I haven't gotten enough copies yet. Though, I have the mats, if I really want to craft them.
 
Started playing this, just to give it a try since others have been clamoring about it. I have like it so far and IMO it's quite enjoyable to play. Very different from Gwent, which is good. Something of a different favor.

However, just starting out with starter deck I noticed that I am playing against some beginner opponents? (Maybe they are beginners) with insane decks and cards and like the game doesn't do a good job of showing you how to craft new cards.

I have been a little frustrated with playing beginning rank... When I am up against opponent with beginner deck, it's fun. When I am against these insane (not beginners) decks, there is literally no way I have a chance at winning at all.

Anyone else feel the same way?
 
Anyone else feel the same way?

I am not sure how the matchmaking works, but when I started out, I rarely faced any strong deck. Now that I have quite a collection and a few ranks/levels up, I am matched against pretty good decks in casual play.

Some general advice:
- You can complete quests even when playing against the AI and you also gain exp.
- Aggro decks are recommended for beginners. They are cheap and easy to play. With a bonus that games are very short, which makes grinding easier. With aggro, you either win fast or lose fast (i.e. forfeit).
- When choosing your area, grind to the first Champion chest and then switch to another area.
- Make sure you have at least 10 levels in the weekly chest for a free expedition token (= random champion).
 
Started playing this, just to give it a try since others have been clamoring about it. I have like it so far and IMO it's quite enjoyable to play. Very different from Gwent, which is good. Something of a different favor.

However, just starting out with starter deck I noticed that I am playing against some beginner opponents? (Maybe they are beginners) with insane decks and cards and like the game doesn't do a good job of showing you how to craft new cards.

I have been a little frustrated with playing beginning rank... When I am up against opponent with beginner deck, it's fun. When I am against these insane (not beginners) decks, there is literally no way I have a chance at winning at all.

Anyone else feel the same way?

When you first start out people are certainly going to have an advantage on you with their complete decks. Don't let that get you down because it won't take terribly long for you to get a full set of champions so that you can compete with other full decks. Just utilize the generous daily rewards and the big reward chests every Tuesday and you will be making full decks in no time.
 
To continue from the previous post, LoR has some pretty amazing artwork, ranging from cute to gritty.

Just a few examples:
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