Why Giving Players What They Want Destroyed Legends of Runeterra

One of the best things to come out of LoR was the visualization of passing player priority they used. I used it as an example when teaching people yugioh before master duel came out. One of the biggest questions a lot of newer card game players (not even just yugioh) is “when am I allowed to activate these cards?” Having a template where you can physically see the windows of interaction was just huge and not to mention does a subtle amount of heavy lifting when it comes to readability from a spectator perspective.

Runaterra gave me alot of cards and the f2p experience was great so I ended up spending money on the game. Mtg arena never gave me anything and its awlays trying to make me spend money , so I never payed for anything ontg arena.

Man , the print outs taped to the wall really got me

I wish that you guys had podcast episodes that are over an hour long so I could easily listen while driving or doing chores. I also love these "shorter" single topic videos as well.

I don't think "being too kind to players" was what caused the issues. It's just like you mentioned at the end of the video, the game didnt properly account to the monetization system they created. And it saddens me that the game wasn't able to pull it off because everyone will just look at LoR and conclude that "see? We need to be scummy otherwise we'll fail". I love love card games. Most of my phone's storage is packed with card games, but most PvP ones have such horrible monetization that I just resort to single player ones

The thing that keeps players in rank is the amazing rotation system I think. To figure out how to build your decks with new cards is so much fun

One of my least favorite decisions was when they chose to start making all new champions with hyper-complex level up animations. Not only do I (personally) find those new animations less interesting than the ones for the older champions, I imagine they must have signified a HUGE increase in costs for little gain. Those fully 3D rendered 10 second animations were a mistake

Interesting to see the alternative monetization efforts seen as good from outside the space. I was one of the competitive players (won ~20k over the games lifespan). It was pretty apparent inside the space that they were bleeding money, and weren't really making efforts to fix that. Obviously a more standard monetization scheme could have helped, but also it felt for a long time that the cosmetic monetization was also rather low on the priorities list. Felt like they launched without a monetization scheme, and were perpetually behind on getting one rolling. Ideas would happen, but years later than they really should have (skins not existing for almost 2 years into the games existence for example). Definitely think the community is kinda silly for thinking the generosity was a true positive (obviously good for players in the abstract, but also makes profitability much harder), but also think monetization kinda never got the attention it needed.

One other important caveat is that they did not have any incentive for players to play or win PVP, and players can farm daily quests and battle passes in PVE. Hearthstone has the "three daily PVP wins" quest that kept players logging in daily.

as your average joe small spender I felt I had to grind mtgarena and hearthstone daily for prolonged periods of time to somewhat keep up which ultimately drove me away from both games. they are both still around and probably profitable so good on them but for me I didn't like that the thing I did for fun wanted me to engage with it as almost a job or drop some serious money consistently. nowadays I just play paper mtg in my lgs and love marvel snap on mobile

For me the visual elements of LOR. The tiny flairs on the cards, the love put into each level up animation, allowed me to fully invest into the game. I felt awesome everything I leveled up and I got a sense of awe whenever a card had an animation attached. Mechanical it's not adding any value but the value of a game should be in the impact and feeling of it, not just if the game is fun to play.

i think they solved 2 matters (1 potentially) but were not able to grab the playerbase valume they needed for the gamble to work long term. i absolutely am in the same mindset as gavin that, digital, can do a lot to evolve the card game space that is yet to be explored. not just patches would bring a lot of life and dynamism, but also pve type game modes, seasonal 1v1 modifier games etc. it would be feasible to make a card duel game that actually evolves with type and the players, in the sense that demons gain new powers (new mechanics) since they dominated a meta and angels then get new cards to match evil forces on the battlefield. those kinds of dynamics would not just be more resonant with the community, and organic, they would also be more resonant with lore and diegetic. now, i realize this is a bit of a large scope ofc. but the number one problem i see within ALL games space is that there is a finite amount of player spending, player time, and especially, a very elusive and shifting player interest. you can make the best game in the world but if nobody hears about it, no success comes. in the same manner, even if ppl hear about it, since most are already invested in x or y things they may not have enough time to give you a shot. videogames are ever-filled with crowded spaces, from MMOs to shooter subsets... it's easier for a game in a new genre or subgenre to establish itself since the novelty gameplay experience is conducive to rooting a new core audience - people like new things, it solves the fatigue of playing too much of a genre - but the counterpoint to that is humans naturally also resist unknown experiences. lowering costs in terms of assets and having a very agile crunchy side is imho where the gold veins lie currently but with all the backlash and fear around AI of late we might not see anyone in a position to properly take advantage of all the available strategies in the market for a while.

LoR did not launch knowing what they were doing with cosmetic monetization lol. It's crazy that they launched a League Card Game without skins or foil equivalents, took then way too long to try and monetize the game.

One of the LoR content creators, GrappLr, put it well when he said that LoR is not a Collectible Card Game, it's just a Card Game, because you get all the cards so quickly. I left the game for half a year and could still craft every single card when I came back. I think this is especially a problem because it's framed as a CCG, so your expectation is different from the reality. My expectation, like in every other CCG, is that I'm gonna open packs and get excited when I get that high rarity card and try to decide what deck I want to make without spending that much time (this does face the problem of the optimal solution being to wait for the meta to settle, then netdeck, but choosing which deck you want to play is still a commitment), but in LoR, the excitement is experimenting with the new cards because you already have all of them.

Played Runeterra for hundreds of hours. Never spent any money on it.

I'm super tuned into LoR but I'd never heard those art prices. That's insane.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the two of you decide to discuss Marvel Snap. I've never played a card game whose design intrigued me so much before playing that I fell off of faster.

The main reason why Lor didn't attracts more players is because it requires more attention, on the screen. Priority system turns a lot of card gamers off, but i love it.

One thing I find interesting is that there is a player organized mtgo format Penny Dreadful(PD). Which says that any card in a week of rotation is below 0.02 tickets is legal. customization happens quite a bit in this format too. Since if any copy of the card is legal any art of that card can be played and with player avatar. Since there are free loan programs available until 5 tickets. So any deck is available right away to the players. The format does get solved sometimes, but we don't always succeed at that. This format always rotates a week after a standard set releases. I am wondering whether adding aggressive rotations for a game like runeterra would keep that game interesting as well without having to put an unfair system onto the players and still keep the game interesting. You can get perhaps some artificial rotation by randomizing the cardpool a little bit.

The only thing I loved more than LoR's gameplay was its community. Im so sad to see it go, and for reasons that felt so avoidable. Other riot games have proven rhat desirable cosmetics will milk the whales and keep the game afloat, i simply dont understand why great efforts to monetize were never made :( A favorite game died for it