It was a promotional event open to a very limited number of players.
There is no way in hell they would ever let you keep your progress after something like that, and they were very open about the fact that progress would be wiped. If you consider that a waste of time, you shouldn't have bothered.
I'm starting to think more and more that the only viable way to get 3 champions of a kind is to buy champion wildcards with real world cash, which is kinda a bummer.
Crafting a Champion with shards is perfectly viable. You get a lot of extra random value by doing an Expedition, and that's balanced against the phenomenal value of creating exactly the Champion you need. Both options are good; it just depends on your needs at the moment, your long-term goals, and your level of patience.
There is always an XP bonus for Expeditions, even after you've run three, with no cap and no diminishing returns. Of course, you have to get seven wins to get the top bonus, but even just a win or two is worthwhile.
I know it's hard for a free player to save up enough shards for three Expeditions in a week, and I'm sure that's by design. If I were a free player, I'd save up my tokens from the Vault until I could spend three in one week. Better than that is to buy a few coins and support the game. Either way, it is worth it to unlock the only unlimited source of XP, especially if you like draft mode.
Apart from that, here are the daily caps for each category:
30 PvP wins
10 PvP losses
20 AI wins
10 AI losses
(There is also the daily PvP bonus and the quests, but that all runs out long before you hit the caps.)
Sorry, I was going off of the keyword list in the forum here, assuming it was taken directly from the game.
At any rate, we get how it works; re-explaining it in different ways doesn't make it more correct. The interactions as you describe them could still be unintended. Or even if they are intended (for now), there's no reason they couldn't be retuned if Overwhelm proves to be overperforming.
Coins are purchased with cash. Apart from cosmetic items, your ability to spend coins in the game is very limited, with a weekly reset. You may use them to purchase up to 3 Champions, 3 epics, 6 rares and 6 commons per week, plus expedition tokens (of which you can use only 2 or three per week).
Wildcards are exactly as you said: You used them to craft a card of the given rarity, on a 1-1 basis.
Each Expedition Token will get you one expedition run, consisting of two trials (i.e. separate drafts). Each trial lasts up to seven wins or two consecutive losses, whichever comes first (though you do not get a second chance at the final battle). Each trial grants an XP bonus upon completion (up to 2000 XP for seven wins), so it's important to do your best on both trials. Your first three Expeditions also grant card and shard rewards based on the completed trial with the better record; the worse trial doesn't figure in at all for this part of the reward. This final reward always includes a random Champion.
After three Expeditions in one week, further Expeditions are free to enter, but they are only one trial apiece and there are no card or shard rewards. You simply get the normal trial completion XP bonus based on your number of wins.
Shards can come from chests or from receiving a fourth copy of a common or rare. (Extras are converted automatically; you can never actually own more than three copies of anything.) Shards can be spent to craft any card or to enter an Expedition.
Note also that random card rewards of epic or Champion rarity will never be a fourth copy. You will always get something you didn't have three of.
Also, the shard price to craft a Champion is 3000, the same as the price to enter an Expedition (up to three Expeditions per week). The deciding factor here is: Do you need a specific Champion, or are you content with a random one plus the additional Expedition rewards? In the long run, Expeditions are more economical than spending your shards on Champions directly, but in the short term, your decks will be better if you craft what you actually need.
The point is that Overwhelm doesn't care what happens to the blocking minion: it just calculates the difference between the attack value and the health value and everything exceeding is inflicted as damage to the Nexus.
Barrier protect only the minion with it from the first istance of damage, but that doesn't affect in any way further injuries dealt to other targets. Another example of this is Withering Wail: if one of the enemy minion has Barrier, the damage is prevented only for that single one but not for all the others.
That's not the point at all, though. Withering Wail states that it damages all enemy units. Overwhelm is not supposed to hit the nexus unless the unit dies (or is removed from combat, which should probably be the actual wording). Barrier does not remove anything from combat.
The definitions of both keywords point to this not working.
Board clears are a part of collectable card games, period.
More important, the statement that "all good players understand that setting up your field while diminishing the enemies is more important than constantly belittling the opponents hp" is very, very far from the truth.
There are multiple strategies possible in a game like this, and many different ways to win. In fact, a dominant control strategy has always been to allow the opponent to overextend on the board, then destroy everything and start fresh with the advantage.
When you are playing against Shadow Isles (or Noxus or Demacia, for that matter) it's important to remember that many factions have ways to wipe out your entire board with ease, so it's usually wise to hold some resources in reserve if you can. Sometimes you just can't possibly win without going all in, and that's just one of those decisions that separate the seasoned players from those with room to grow.
Identifying your opponent as control, midrange or aggro is your first step toward playing around such crushing strategies.
I agree -- they should either reduce the health or remove Overwhelm. Or not snowball.
I strongly disagree that other 6-mana followers are as impactful. Champions, perhaps, but not followers.
Apart from those that revive themselves, I can't think of any follower that's so difficult to remove. It is effectively immune to combat the first round, and it is guaranteed to take several units down while dealing massive nexus damage at the same time -- all with no precondition to be met.
Listing a bunch of hard removals is not particularly helpful -- by definition, those work on literally everything. A 6-mana follower that snowballs very quickly should not require hard removal.
One way to fix it would be to keep its stats at 0/12, but add: "Play: Capture an ally to grant me that ally's power." Because the ally is piloting it, see? (And remove the Attack effect, because logically, why would a real battering ram's attacks get stronger over time?)
Unless a dev has commented, I don't think anyone should be saying "working as intended."
Since the Barrier keyword is supposed to negate the damage, and "negate" means "cause to be ineffective," it makes sense that the damage should not happen at all.
Yes, I'm in the camp that believes there are too few ways to counter Overwhelm as it is.
I was pretty hyped before release, and honestly I'm enjoying it even more than I thought I would. The only part of OP's "cons" I agree with is that the UI can be a little weird to navigate. The buttons are definitely way too boxy and bland.
I love Expeditions, whereas I never could get into Hearthstone Arena or drafting in Magic no matter how I tried. The bucket approach to drafting and the back-to-back loss rule just make it so much more approachable.
I love the progression system; any game with randomized packs is going to feel like a huge ripoff after this.
I love that the "classes/colors" are region-based and so deeply rooted in lore. I also love that they plan to add more over time.
I love that Champions are the true centerpieces of most decks, and getting them into play is so baked into the overall game design.
I also love that Champions level up, and that there's a whole extra level of strategy surrounding that.
I love how the Champions' abilities so vividly reflect their lore and personalities. This is true of most followers, too. In other games (and I'm sure this gets harder over time), it very often seems like an ability was imagined first, and then slapped onto some random minion with a very contrived-sounding name that only vaguely relates to the mechanical part of the card. I hope Riot can keep making their cards seem as organic and unforced as this first batch.
I love that there's no land, and I love how spell mana smooths out the curve so elegantly. (Seriously, guys, this tiny thing is a major work of genius!)
I love the combat. I love that the defender assigns blockers, but there's no gang-blocking and most units don't regenerate.
Besides the tiny UI issues, I'm honestly having trouble coming up with anything to complain about. Little balance things, maybe, but those would not be a critique of the game itself.
It seems a bit...let's say "odd"...if the only way to add friends is to have 2 pieces of information, one of which could only be distributed outside the game client.
Using Hearthstone as an example, I can understand why they would not enable such a thing.
Considering how the emotes in Runeterra are completely nonverbal, I suspect they are actively trying to minimize opportunities for toxic behavior.
I don't know of any basic strategy videos specific to Runeterra, but until someone makes some, it might not be a bad idea for people new to the genre to check out basic strategy videos for Magic and Hearthstone. The rules may be slightly different, but the core concepts of board control translate very well.
When I first started Hearthstone, Trump's Teachings changed my life. (Trump the streamer, not the other one.)
- To the person who suggested healing was a counter - healing is actually quite poorly handled in LoR in my view, at least in this early stage. Healing from spells seems to be valued phenomenally highly, judging by the cost of spells with healing built-in (and the low values of those heals). It seems significantly more efficient to play a lifesteal minion and then buff it, even if that minion only gets a single hit off - and that has the potential to stick around and continue to heal.
For what it's worth, I think a lot of people consider lifesteal to be a form of healing. I certainly do!
@OP: You keep saying it's uncounterable. It is not. The counter is to remove the units that are putting puffcaps into your deck. If you are talking about spells that give you puffcaps, it's no different than a spell dealing direct damage to your nexus -- it's just slightly delayed. In the end, damage is damage. The only concern is the amount of damage in comparison to the mana cost required to inflict it.
A puffcap deck generally doesn't deal egregious amounts of puffcap damage per mana unless you leave a leveled-up Teemo unchecked. If that is how you are dying, I don't think it's fair to blame the game design.
Also, is there a way to disenchant cards or it's not permitted ? I usually focus on a narrow set of classes (here regions) but I'll be unable to do such a thing if I can't scrap the cards I'll not play :<. This can come awkward if your favorite tailored deck is nerfed (wanted to try Karma Braum first but the nerfs...).
It is not possible. Allowing you to disenchant would speed up the process of building finely tuned decks, and Riot wants to keep it slow.
I think the idea is that it will help keep the meta fresh longer if we don't all copy-paste the three "best" decks in the game after one week of play.
I wouldn't worry too much about nerfing. Even when they make balance changes, they don't seem to nuke any deck or strategy into oblivion. Their goal is to make things fair, not completely remove a deck from play.
You don't have to worry about a ranked meta, so it seems like a great way to flesh out the collection before trying to put together a deck for ranked play.
I guess after my third, I'll have to make the leap, though...
They are whimsical animated stickers, for crying out loud. They aren't even voiced!
There is no etiquette, and there never will be.
Anyone who has a problem with the way another player is emoting can mute them. Problem solved.
That wasn't even a beta, per se.
It was a promotional event open to a very limited number of players.
There is no way in hell they would ever let you keep your progress after something like that, and they were very open about the fact that progress would be wiped. If you consider that a waste of time, you shouldn't have bothered.
If you intend to spend any money on this game whatsoever, you should start with the Starter Pack.
It contains some of the most useful commons and rares in the game, and you will be very glad you don't have to craft them.
I assume it's the region whose cards you used the most up to that point.
Crafting a Champion with shards is perfectly viable. You get a lot of extra random value by doing an Expedition, and that's balanced against the phenomenal value of creating exactly the Champion you need. Both options are good; it just depends on your needs at the moment, your long-term goals, and your level of patience.
This is actually not true. There are several ways to get duplicate Champions on the board at the same time.
They do not act like legendary cards in Magic.
There is always an XP bonus for Expeditions, even after you've run three, with no cap and no diminishing returns. Of course, you have to get seven wins to get the top bonus, but even just a win or two is worthwhile.
I know it's hard for a free player to save up enough shards for three Expeditions in a week, and I'm sure that's by design. If I were a free player, I'd save up my tokens from the Vault until I could spend three in one week. Better than that is to buy a few coins and support the game. Either way, it is worth it to unlock the only unlimited source of XP, especially if you like draft mode.
Apart from that, here are the daily caps for each category:
(There is also the daily PvP bonus and the quests, but that all runs out long before you hit the caps.)
Sorry, I was going off of the keyword list in the forum here, assuming it was taken directly from the game.
At any rate, we get how it works; re-explaining it in different ways doesn't make it more correct. The interactions as you describe them could still be unintended. Or even if they are intended (for now), there's no reason they couldn't be retuned if Overwhelm proves to be overperforming.
Coins are purchased with cash. Apart from cosmetic items, your ability to spend coins in the game is very limited, with a weekly reset. You may use them to purchase up to 3 Champions, 3 epics, 6 rares and 6 commons per week, plus expedition tokens (of which you can use only 2 or three per week).
Wildcards are exactly as you said: You used them to craft a card of the given rarity, on a 1-1 basis.
Each Expedition Token will get you one expedition run, consisting of two trials (i.e. separate drafts). Each trial lasts up to seven wins or two consecutive losses, whichever comes first (though you do not get a second chance at the final battle). Each trial grants an XP bonus upon completion (up to 2000 XP for seven wins), so it's important to do your best on both trials. Your first three Expeditions also grant card and shard rewards based on the completed trial with the better record; the worse trial doesn't figure in at all for this part of the reward. This final reward always includes a random Champion.
After three Expeditions in one week, further Expeditions are free to enter, but they are only one trial apiece and there are no card or shard rewards. You simply get the normal trial completion XP bonus based on your number of wins.
Shards can come from chests or from receiving a fourth copy of a common or rare. (Extras are converted automatically; you can never actually own more than three copies of anything.) Shards can be spent to craft any card or to enter an Expedition.
Note also that random card rewards of epic or Champion rarity will never be a fourth copy. You will always get something you didn't have three of.
Also, the shard price to craft a Champion is 3000, the same as the price to enter an Expedition (up to three Expeditions per week). The deciding factor here is: Do you need a specific Champion, or are you content with a random one plus the additional Expedition rewards? In the long run, Expeditions are more economical than spending your shards on Champions directly, but in the short term, your decks will be better if you craft what you actually need.
That's not the point at all, though. Withering Wail states that it damages all enemy units. Overwhelm is not supposed to hit the nexus unless the unit dies (or is removed from combat, which should probably be the actual wording). Barrier does not remove anything from combat.
The definitions of both keywords point to this not working.
Board clears are a part of collectable card games, period.
More important, the statement that "all good players understand that setting up your field while diminishing the enemies is more important than constantly belittling the opponents hp" is very, very far from the truth.
There are multiple strategies possible in a game like this, and many different ways to win. In fact, a dominant control strategy has always been to allow the opponent to overextend on the board, then destroy everything and start fresh with the advantage.
When you are playing against Shadow Isles (or Noxus or Demacia, for that matter) it's important to remember that many factions have ways to wipe out your entire board with ease, so it's usually wise to hold some resources in reserve if you can. Sometimes you just can't possibly win without going all in, and that's just one of those decisions that separate the seasoned players from those with room to grow.
Identifying your opponent as control, midrange or aggro is your first step toward playing around such crushing strategies.
I agree -- they should either reduce the health or remove Overwhelm. Or not snowball.
I strongly disagree that other 6-mana followers are as impactful. Champions, perhaps, but not followers.
Apart from those that revive themselves, I can't think of any follower that's so difficult to remove. It is effectively immune to combat the first round, and it is guaranteed to take several units down while dealing massive nexus damage at the same time -- all with no precondition to be met.
Listing a bunch of hard removals is not particularly helpful -- by definition, those work on literally everything. A 6-mana follower that snowballs very quickly should not require hard removal.
One way to fix it would be to keep its stats at 0/12, but add: "Play: Capture an ally to grant me that ally's power." Because the ally is piloting it, see? (And remove the Attack effect, because logically, why would a real battering ram's attacks get stronger over time?)
Unless a dev has commented, I don't think anyone should be saying "working as intended."
Since the Barrier keyword is supposed to negate the damage, and "negate" means "cause to be ineffective," it makes sense that the damage should not happen at all.
Yes, I'm in the camp that believes there are too few ways to counter Overwhelm as it is.
I was pretty hyped before release, and honestly I'm enjoying it even more than I thought I would. The only part of OP's "cons" I agree with is that the UI can be a little weird to navigate. The buttons are definitely way too boxy and bland.
I love Expeditions, whereas I never could get into Hearthstone Arena or drafting in Magic no matter how I tried. The bucket approach to drafting and the back-to-back loss rule just make it so much more approachable.
I love the progression system; any game with randomized packs is going to feel like a huge ripoff after this.
I love that the "classes/colors" are region-based and so deeply rooted in lore. I also love that they plan to add more over time.
I love that Champions are the true centerpieces of most decks, and getting them into play is so baked into the overall game design.
I also love that Champions level up, and that there's a whole extra level of strategy surrounding that.
I love how the Champions' abilities so vividly reflect their lore and personalities. This is true of most followers, too. In other games (and I'm sure this gets harder over time), it very often seems like an ability was imagined first, and then slapped onto some random minion with a very contrived-sounding name that only vaguely relates to the mechanical part of the card. I hope Riot can keep making their cards seem as organic and unforced as this first batch.
I love that there's no land, and I love how spell mana smooths out the curve so elegantly. (Seriously, guys, this tiny thing is a major work of genius!)
I love the combat. I love that the defender assigns blockers, but there's no gang-blocking and most units don't regenerate.
Besides the tiny UI issues, I'm honestly having trouble coming up with anything to complain about. Little balance things, maybe, but those would not be a critique of the game itself.
Using Hearthstone as an example, I can understand why they would not enable such a thing.
Considering how the emotes in Runeterra are completely nonverbal, I suspect they are actively trying to minimize opportunities for toxic behavior.
I don't know of any basic strategy videos specific to Runeterra, but until someone makes some, it might not be a bad idea for people new to the genre to check out basic strategy videos for Magic and Hearthstone. The rules may be slightly different, but the core concepts of board control translate very well.
When I first started Hearthstone, Trump's Teachings changed my life. (Trump the streamer, not the other one.)
For what it's worth, I think a lot of people consider lifesteal to be a form of healing. I certainly do!
@OP: You keep saying it's uncounterable. It is not. The counter is to remove the units that are putting puffcaps into your deck. If you are talking about spells that give you puffcaps, it's no different than a spell dealing direct damage to your nexus -- it's just slightly delayed. In the end, damage is damage. The only concern is the amount of damage in comparison to the mana cost required to inflict it.
A puffcap deck generally doesn't deal egregious amounts of puffcap damage per mana unless you leave a leveled-up Teemo unchecked. If that is how you are dying, I don't think it's fair to blame the game design.
It is not possible. Allowing you to disenchant would speed up the process of building finely tuned decks, and Riot wants to keep it slow.
I think the idea is that it will help keep the meta fresh longer if we don't all copy-paste the three "best" decks in the game after one week of play.
I wouldn't worry too much about nerfing. Even when they make balance changes, they don't seem to nuke any deck or strategy into oblivion. Their goal is to make things fair, not completely remove a deck from play.
You get up to 2000 bonus XP at the end of each trial, so it is worthwhile to complete both trials in an Expedition.
The amount is based on wins, so you should not concede games just to get the second trial over with.
I've actually been focusing on Expeditions.
You don't have to worry about a ranked meta, so it seems like a great way to flesh out the collection before trying to put together a deck for ranked play.
I guess after my third, I'll have to make the leap, though...