SestorServant of Illidan 1757 PostsJoined 09/04/2019
Posted 3 years, 8 months ago
In my own experience, when faced with burnout, I've only found two things that work. Taking a break, or find a way to change my mindset about the game.
Thankfully Runeterra's incredibly generous card rewards make taking a break very non-punishing. You can easily stop playing for a few weeks, and still have very little issue getting all the cards you want. Personally, I think this helps the most with burnout, since it gets you away from things long enough for them to feel fresh, while at the same time freeing up time to do other things, which is often independently energizing.
Keep in mind, with the expansion around the corner, and reveals beginning today, you can also have fun with the game without even playing. Theorycrafting during reveal season is a great way to keep in the game without necessarily playing it every day.
Alternatively, changing how you play the game to look for new kinds of fun, or making your own can be a way to stave off burnout in card games. I find that in digital card games especially it's easy to get sucked into focusing on the ranked climb, but that's also almost always the most repetitive experience in my opinion, which contributes to burnout.
Not everyone finds fun in the same aspects of card games, but suggestions like the one from Sunforged before are perfect examples of things I like to do. Building something quirky and taking it into a less competitive mode can be a great change of pace, without having to be constrained about how optimal it is. Sometimes this even allows you to discover powerful combinations you didn't know about (or more often terrible things that create hilarious outcomes!).
Labs also scratch this itch, but I feel the current one dives back into the repetitive side of things a little hard for my taste, whereas the last one I got a lot of mileage out of as a fresh experience.
Lastly, I find I have more fun in any kind of competitive game the less I focus on my opponent, and more on my own play. Reading into things like your point 3 and 5 can make the entire game experience feel more negative, since you infer nobody else seems to be having fun either. But as I stated before, people find fun in different places in card games. I know people who have the most fun playing a deck that plays on curve minions every turn and has little interaction. Alternatively, I know people who have the most fun playing meme decks that lose 9 out of 10 times, but the 10th time does something spectacular, which makes the losses worth it in their eyes. Negativity has a way of amplifying itself, and so dwelling about how much fun other people are having (or not) just makes your own experience worse over something you cannot confirm or control.
Just my own thoughts as a long time card game player who has gone through this cycle a few times. Hope it helps!
SestorServant of Illidan 1757 PostsJoined 09/04/2019
Posted 3 years, 9 months ago
I'd say my favorite champtions are a toss up between Swain and Katarina. The gameplay you build around Katarina is super satisfying to pull off, and just feels great. Swain delivers really well on his lore fantasy, and his level up animation is my favorite in the game.
Favorite non- champ minion is probably Arena Bookie. Great interactions with cards, and a really fun gameplay mechanic to build around. I actually really liked playing decks with him even before the buffs, and he's so much better now it's just crazy. Runner up is Ember Maiden for the interesting synergies she brings out, and the unusual situations trying to play her optimally creates.
Favorite spell is Noxian Guillotine. Feels great when you get a good setup for it, and catches a lot of people by surprise. Also has a top tier animation.
But my point really has a lot less to do with whether or not he's mad about the results, and more about how talks about it.
Having watched both Twitch Rivals and both Progress Day podcasts that feature Swim, I feel like I have some insight that might temper some of these points. I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm not actually a fan of Swim. Don't watch his stream or videos, and the times I have come across his content, didn't really care for it.
Quote From meisterz39
His description of his loss to Kripp's Burn Aggro deck was "because he brought this - one of his decks, it was Noxus/P&Z and he was running a lot of low cost cards and all of his cards reduced my Nexus health…then I just got zero health and lost." He talks about it like a crazy deck straight out of left field.
I'm 99.9% sure this was a joke. His delivery was a little off, but Panda and Mogwai both reacted to it properly as a joke, and him saying that seriously doesn't line up with how he was talking about burn earlier in the same podcast.
Quote From meisterz39
He could have said that the Burn Aggro archetype was degenerate for the game and bad for competitive play (which is true)
He could have talked about how the timer rules meant that popular control lineups were left worse off (which is also true, and contributed to his poor Swiss record)
Both of these are great points. It's been a while since I watched the podcast, but I suspect these points may have been brought up when talking about the balance changes instead though?
Quote From meisterz39
Instead he talks about it like something unfair that no one could have seen coming, and continuously tries to downplay the impact that Kripp had on his losses because that would seemingly mean that he's worse than Kripp.
While bashing another player the way he did here is in poor taste, unfortunately, there's a lot of truth to what was being said. Kripp was attending the tournament for promotional purposes (as were a number of the participants really), and not as a serious player of the game. I can tell you as someone who watched several of his games, he had only a passing knowledge of how the game works. To cite an example, in a tournament, he played into a Fiora+Judgement combo, and even when it was revealed, he had no idea that he had just lost the game until it actually happened. Honestly, Kripp's record was one of the best arguments to date of why Burn needed nerfing.
Quote From meisterz39
His broader description of his opponents is unduly disrespectful. "It's more competitive when everyone is on the level and you have some kind of anticipation of what people will bring and then if they bring something surprising it's because they're outgaming you instead of just bringing random stuff"
What he's describing here - opponents bringing decks he couldn't anticipate - is basically the nature of competitive CCG innovation. There are lots of examples across Digital CCGs of decks which aren't great on ladder but are great in tournaments because of how they play against specific, popular decks. This is extremely common.
In this moment, he's basically saying "I'm the expert, so if my opponent has brought something I couldn't anticipate, it's because they have no idea what they're doing and just got lucky"
While all of these opponents he's talking about are not major LoR streamers, they're all major CCG streamers with years of expertise in CCGs. LoR is not so different among CCGs that their experiences are not applicable or relevant.
When he says "on the level" he basically means "using my tier list on Mobalytics and treating it as undeniably correct"
I only want to say that this is all spot on. I didn't interpret it as much about his own narcissism (specifically being about his own tier lists), but I don't think that interpretation is at all unreasonable based on how he was speaking.
SestorServant of Illidan 1757 PostsJoined 09/04/2019
Posted 4 years ago
2 legendaries in 80 packs. Unfortunately that's pretty normal, the best I've ever done is 3 legendaries out of my usual 80 packs at the beginning of an expansion.
Killed Lorewalker Cho with a free Vendetta. Cho copies spell but opponent plays it for free? 0% chance that he meets the condition for it to be free though.
Never knew Cho copied discounts, how is this a thing wtf
Maybe I'm wrong with how it works, but I would assume since Vendetta is still a Rogue card, it's checking for non-Rogue cards, not "different from the class you're playing." I don't know that for sure but would be my guess to explain that interaction?
I guess the class you should consider "main" is the one you're playing (if you're Jaina, then Mage), so it shouldn't matter if Vendetta is a Rogue card. But yeah, I don't know why it happened.
I think this is the actual reason. If you're a mage for example, Vendetta will check for any non-mage cards in your hand, and as it turns out you have one. You have a rogue card called Vendetta.
In my own experience, when faced with burnout, I've only found two things that work. Taking a break, or find a way to change my mindset about the game.
Thankfully Runeterra's incredibly generous card rewards make taking a break very non-punishing. You can easily stop playing for a few weeks, and still have very little issue getting all the cards you want. Personally, I think this helps the most with burnout, since it gets you away from things long enough for them to feel fresh, while at the same time freeing up time to do other things, which is often independently energizing.
Keep in mind, with the expansion around the corner, and reveals beginning today, you can also have fun with the game without even playing. Theorycrafting during reveal season is a great way to keep in the game without necessarily playing it every day.
Alternatively, changing how you play the game to look for new kinds of fun, or making your own can be a way to stave off burnout in card games. I find that in digital card games especially it's easy to get sucked into focusing on the ranked climb, but that's also almost always the most repetitive experience in my opinion, which contributes to burnout.
Not everyone finds fun in the same aspects of card games, but suggestions like the one from Sunforged before are perfect examples of things I like to do. Building something quirky and taking it into a less competitive mode can be a great change of pace, without having to be constrained about how optimal it is. Sometimes this even allows you to discover powerful combinations you didn't know about (or more often terrible things that create hilarious outcomes!).
Labs also scratch this itch, but I feel the current one dives back into the repetitive side of things a little hard for my taste, whereas the last one I got a lot of mileage out of as a fresh experience.
Lastly, I find I have more fun in any kind of competitive game the less I focus on my opponent, and more on my own play. Reading into things like your point 3 and 5 can make the entire game experience feel more negative, since you infer nobody else seems to be having fun either. But as I stated before, people find fun in different places in card games. I know people who have the most fun playing a deck that plays on curve minions every turn and has little interaction. Alternatively, I know people who have the most fun playing meme decks that lose 9 out of 10 times, but the 10th time does something spectacular, which makes the losses worth it in their eyes. Negativity has a way of amplifying itself, and so dwelling about how much fun other people are having (or not) just makes your own experience worse over something you cannot confirm or control.
Just my own thoughts as a long time card game player who has gone through this cycle a few times. Hope it helps!
I'd say my favorite champtions are a toss up between Swain and Katarina. The gameplay you build around Katarina is super satisfying to pull off, and just feels great. Swain delivers really well on his lore fantasy, and his level up animation is my favorite in the game.
Favorite non- champ minion is probably Arena Bookie. Great interactions with cards, and a really fun gameplay mechanic to build around. I actually really liked playing decks with him even before the buffs, and he's so much better now it's just crazy. Runner up is Ember Maiden for the interesting synergies she brings out, and the unusual situations trying to play her optimally creates.
Favorite spell is Noxian Guillotine. Feels great when you get a good setup for it, and catches a lot of people by surprise. Also has a top tier animation.
They are completely different pets. You do not need to own the normal Silverwing to use the Sharpsteel Silverwing after unlocking it with the pass.
Having watched both Twitch Rivals and both Progress Day podcasts that feature Swim, I feel like I have some insight that might temper some of these points. I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm not actually a fan of Swim. Don't watch his stream or videos, and the times I have come across his content, didn't really care for it.
I'm 99.9% sure this was a joke. His delivery was a little off, but Panda and Mogwai both reacted to it properly as a joke, and him saying that seriously doesn't line up with how he was talking about burn earlier in the same podcast.
Both of these are great points. It's been a while since I watched the podcast, but I suspect these points may have been brought up when talking about the balance changes instead though?
While bashing another player the way he did here is in poor taste, unfortunately, there's a lot of truth to what was being said. Kripp was attending the tournament for promotional purposes (as were a number of the participants really), and not as a serious player of the game. I can tell you as someone who watched several of his games, he had only a passing knowledge of how the game works. To cite an example, in a tournament, he played into a Fiora+Judgement combo, and even when it was revealed, he had no idea that he had just lost the game until it actually happened. Honestly, Kripp's record was one of the best arguments to date of why Burn needed nerfing.
I only want to say that this is all spot on. I didn't interpret it as much about his own narcissism (specifically being about his own tier lists), but I don't think that interpretation is at all unreasonable based on how he was speaking.
2 legendaries in 80 packs. Unfortunately that's pretty normal, the best I've ever done is 3 legendaries out of my usual 80 packs at the beginning of an expansion.
I think this is the actual reason. If you're a mage for example, Vendetta will check for any non-mage cards in your hand, and as it turns out you have one. You have a rogue card called Vendetta.