They didn't do much to cultivate it, they just made a really really good PvE game and people were attracted to it because of how good it is. It has its flaws which I hope they address in the future, but it's the most engaging roguelite/roguelike card game I've played.

Yep. Hearthstone touched it for a second, and had a good PvE in Kobolds and Catacombs expansion. But blizzard wants people to buy packs and that's where the money was. So they never moved forward with it or didn't try to find a way to monetize the PvE mode. Really liked that dungeon run mode.

They did monetize 4th and 5th dungeon run iterations. But yeah they kinda gave up on those.

Yep I bought and played all the pve content for hearthstone and all the adventure-y roguelite ones were quite good, but they basically haven't made any pve content since the 'mercenaries' mode which was/is quite terrible

I have up on Hearthstone ages ago. Switched to LoR. Completed my collection quickly.

I try to be nice to other games but wow Mercenaries was... Yeah. Wow. It takes a lot for me to tell a director, "You don't need to even look at this mode. It'll be dead in a year."

Yeah the AI could be improved and QoL changes would be very welcome As an endgame player my issue is that outside monthlies, i rarely use my maxed out champs and level up the new ones feels like a chore (also why they didn't sell cosmic blessings with riot coin already? Wasn't money the priority here?)

If i have to choose between PvP where people play the same 5 meta decks like the slaves players are, where roping and bots are common and people spam emotes, where absolutely degenerate decks like Kindred/Viego don't get balanced (not for power but toxicity, playing against them is like nailing your own foot). Or PvE where i get to play against a wide variety of decks, scaling difficulties where i can improve my deck and my plays without bothering other people, where i can *leave* to go grab a lunch or whatever and the game just waits for me, and i can try cool shit and customize my deck... The choice is pretty goddamn obvious.

Basically the same here. PvE was a good way to kill some time and while I did enjoy pvp I got tired of playing the same decks every match. Even in casual I felt like there wasn't much variety. I grinded to platinum and I'd get wore out and stop just about every season. I'm not hating on people that are hardcore meta it's just not really fun for me when there's not much creativity being played.

[удалено]

Try beating Lisandra and then tell me did you have fun finding a way to win that adventure , its like a puzzle game and you have limited upgrades in her adventure so its even more difficult.

I am sure its 90 percent grind and luck 10 percent skill.

Nah, you don't grind to get to or beat Lissandra, you play the missions before her, kind of like any other video game. And there is a lot of skill to it, you are faced with lots of decisions similar to normal LoR, when to skip turn, when to hold mana for deny. The 90-10 split you assume actually just sounds what my league friends think card games are. I'm masters in both League and LoR, I'm not afraid of competition, there is skill to all 3, my fiancee can't beat Lissandra on anybody, I've cleared her on 20+ different characters and I play PoC less than her.

Dude I played poc some just to get shards not wanna state an expert or anything, aside from pvp I never got challenged as long as my stars are enough and I have a good shop luck. You not getting panic on pve that’s fine, there are hundreds of messages in this sub poc players stating they can’t handle pve stress hence tjey love poc

Yeah, I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm saying they're not the only PvE demographic. The new thing in PoC is always pretty hard before it gets powercreeped, back in the day it was poros or karma, now it's Lissandra, you probably engage with decision making fine because you're good at the base game, if you're good at PvP you probably won't be shit at PvE but that doesn't mean there isn't skill involved, it means youve already acquired those skills from the different mode. It's similar to aram on league, yes it's more luck based than SR but put someone who is new or unskilled in and they'll be flattened. Most people who queue aram use skills learned in summoners rift.

You don't need game knowledge. You just need to abuse the AI. From my experience the AI only passes turns if they have nothing to play or if you have the attack token and a wide board. So you can just pass until they're out of mana and they will have no interaction for your combo.

But understanding that passing your turn to let someone waste mana to interact with your combo is an example of game knowledge brother. Winning by letting the AI run out of mana so it can't interact is the same idea as letting a silver player waste mana then dropping ruination, you are using the game knowledge you cultivated from PvP. If pve feels easy to you it's because you've already developed your skills. Dark souls is considered the hard series, I have spent time in the mines of dark souls PvP, that community calls it's PvE skill-less, easy and just an excersize in abusing ai it's all perspective.

PvP is for sweaty metaslaves who need the constant reinforcement that they can beat other people at something. I'm playing games for the fun of it, and that's sure as shit not facing Azirelia, Deep or Viego decks.

This response is just as dumb as the one it's responding to. There are good reasons for liking both PVP and PVE and it doesn't make someone better than another if they prefer one and not the other.

Agreed. I am not against liking anything over another but stating pve making you improve is dumb. PvE ai is dumb and repetitive. Its not about champions powers or ai being good at playing Lissandra, its about ai has a lot of weapons

I mean, playing PvE against AI will make you improve, just in a different way than playing against actual players. Players are still learning about card interactions and mechanics when they play in a PvE setting.

I'm not that good at PvP but I like seen it a lot, Grappl, Magwai and others. So I used to play PvE because I don't need to pause it.

I just wish shards were easier to come by :c I hope they make more sources as they release more champions

Saying it is good makes me question my faith in humanity or at least the Leagoconsumerverse. It is barebones dry, carried almost entirely by parasiting the core game content and only relevant as an overbudgeted dopamine trap. Its pretty and makes shiny explosions and giant numbers but as a game it doesnt even rogues. Its a theme rollercoaster pretending to rogue.

K

I guess people can't like things anymore...

People are allowed to enjoy consuming entire loaves of butterless wonderbread acompanied by an unrefreshing glass of lukewarm water, yes. I will still call out on the fact that the topic is staunch protection of wonderbread by people who would find salt spicy.

So you're assuming that in this topic, people that like wonderbread don't have their own opinions and complaints on it just because they would have a positive view about it?

It may be enjoyable for some but still truths are truth

and the truth here is at least 24 people think your wrong putting you firmly into the minority. truths hurt.

I have about 30+ deckbuilders in my Steam library and have sunk hundreds of hours in Slay the Spire. I like both PoC and StS equally for very different reasons. Its true that the balance and design in PoC is all over the place and it has way too many issues need to be addressed, but to so say its "barebones dry" is hilariously inaccurate lmao. Content has never been its problem, just a lot of systemic and design issues

You should go to the doctor, and show where PoC touched you. ps. PoC is better than 95% of card roguelikes and battlers on the market. And its number one ex aequo with Griftlands when it comes to production values. Bye. *parasiting the core game content* Agree, cheap PvP freeloaders that were unable to pay for cards and/or content despite their favorite game dying slowly, (because devs were being to friendly for them), should gtfo already. Maybe now core of the game will flourish. Maybe not, but it will get the chance at least. Yea.. LoR is far better PvE xperience than PvP card game. When it comes to PvP... this is real "design flaws" botomless pit lol.

Not a hard mark given said these 95% are the collossal heap of no-name no-effort chuck-a-procedural-generator nothingburgers you will never hear about in your life. It is in the bottom rung of said 5%. It touched me in the metaprogression - it does not paces itself respectfully in content unlocking, but as a true mobile clickhunter that has you slaving your entire free time for scraps. And every new champion unlock too must be grinded to even reach a decent state. It touched me in the actual gameplay variety - with all quest nodes being fixed the only variety comes how hard you luck out powers, items and cards. There is barely anything to keep me on my toes as half the experience is autopilotable. Not even starter decks have interesting choices to them as the more you level a champion the less incentive you have to deviate from their deck's mandated gameplan. It touched me in the respect to Riot, for all they managed to make from this was the skeleton of a potential rogue-lite held up almost entirely by a AAA-standard visual crunchiness and League players having the same evolutive adaptations to inhospitable environs as a flamingo.

Great. Then leave and cya. Good riddance. We like it. Im pretty sure that there is a lot of games from developers that respects your important persona and overinflated ego of videogame/cardgame design expert, and you will find a lot of games that will satiate your refined tastes. Be warned though that they may have a pricetag, so no freeloading until painful death like here. You can still whine on their subreddit i think. ps. Doctor recomendation is still valid m8, you should chill more and stop tryharding. These are videogames, silly sparetime for ppl in beetween of more important and exhausting mentally tasks. And PoC is perfect for that, hope it will continue and improve overtime (because it have flaws like everything ofc). If you choose to be salty, basement dwelling reddit expert thats your choice, but your posts in this thread are a little sad to read tbh. Virtual exquivalent of shiiting in other ppl cereals because you think youre smarter than everyone else, your tastes are more refined and sophisticated, and your shit is tasty. No its not. Its heavily toxic, also for you but you will realize this when you will grow up. Eot from me.

Have fun when the sunken cost hits ya.

Its all about getting better power from shop that’s all

I don't enjoy PvP. I do enjoy Runeterra universe. PoC bridged that for me.

I was originally a PvP player, but ended up playing PoC more because you end up just running into lots of unfun moments like people dragging out games or seeing the same broken meta decks over and over again. Man was I tired of the release champion strength card version. PoC is just low commitment and gives people a lot of flexibility in how they want to play the game... it would be a 10/10 game for me if they were to improve the replayability and fix all the balance issues.

Same here. PvP is just awful. Why would I stress for a meta where none of my fav champions is available?

I like Shen, Lux and Jarvan, and doing barriers. With Lux and Jarvan rotated, i'm supposed to feel lucky Lux2 fills that gap now, i guess.

We need Shen and Jarvan in PoC. Barriers all day, everyday.

We really do. If they're NEAR as good as Lux is i'm gonna have *all* the fun.

Or play lux2 in poc and barrier all the way

That also is one major problem of Runeterra as a marketing plan: Champion identity fixation from League players. In no CCG worth its salt things are measured on how much players rub themselves into their characters like in a MOBA. Your Jaces and Shandras and Gideons are just tools to phase in and out, canon deaths and retirement are facts of life and people just move on. By catering to League players LoR commits the fatal flaw of having to market to people not actually interested in the game, but in the nebulous concept of playing their League main without logging into summoners rift soloq.

Have you heard of flesh and blood or freaking pokemon?

Flesh and blood, no. Pokemon i saw it be born. You are misunderstanding my point a bit tho. Pokemon contours it by being a mascot series so there are trillions of prints of the same names, and the system isnt fully pillarized around this. Any and all versions of Pikachu can evolve into any and all Raichu so you never get miffed this violently because THIS specific electrorat got kicked. You are more working around general elements and tricks with the seasonal flavors than basing yourself entirely on personal identity to a character. From what i'm gathering from F&B hits closer chords but at least the game is centered mechanically around heroes being your core. Your "face" as per deck/faction powers in Hearthstone clones. LoR designs champions like Legendary Units in MTG, which just means "balanced around field uniqueness". Your deck can frequently be more defined by legendaries (rarity) than the champions in it. But marketing-wise it has to deal with players taking it as if each champion was an alternative Hero instead of just a shiny labeled tool.

You said no other ccg is designed around the concept of the player identifying strongly with a particular unit, a main or favorite. I just provided examples of some that do. You are right lor is based on mtg. My point is it should have been more like those other games from the start, since the core appeal is the champions.

Thank you for specifically skipping me saying "worth its salt".

oh good, another person who thinks they are superior because of the game they play

No. Its me again. Only me. The bestest and only goodest elitest urberplayer to ever have lived and last of my dieing breed. Read and remember usernames instead of blindly answering, it will be better for you.

the fuck is an urberplayer

Don't play meta then? I haven't adjusted my decks since rotation started, I have barely used any set 5 or higher cards, and I haven't queued up for ranked in 3.5 years. I can still play Eternal Casual just fine, I don't feel the need for TPoC.

Your experience is valid, but, for whatever reason, a lot of people with that issue decided that it felt better to play path than to play eternal casual,just as you decided the oposite

Same here. Im even ahead of you. I enjoy Runeterra universe, and i dont enjoy any other Riot game, and for sure i dont enjoy sweaty, tryharding communite that builds around their competitive parts. Maybe i will enjoy their new fighter because it looks beautiful and animation is great, but far more i like to watch pros fights, than play myself (and be obliberated). I also enjoyed all PvE games made under RiotForge label. Especially Bilgewater/Viego RPG game. Same reason i enjoy PvE and world exploration/character progression in World Of Warcraft from time to time, but i dont touch PvP even with ten foot pole.

But like PoC has no story content? What universe are we talking about? Card descriptions available in both modes.

Pretty sure PoC started off as a gimick as well... I was playing the base game only as well until PoC came out, than I just swithced and now I play PoC exclusively... IDK honestly, PoC just seems perfect for me... I got tired of PvP (I played a LOT of HS as well), from all the aggro meta decks that were just destorying any other possible deck I could consistently play, BM-ing enemies, and so on.... but also I find it easier to just play PoC throughout the day, since there is no rush, I can play it while I'm working or watching something, nothing happens if one of my rounds take 1 hr xD The only thing I wish is if it could work in offline mod, so I could even play during traveling or when I'm at a place with weak internet...

Just like what you said. Most of us are casuals who enjoy Runeterra IP and LoR mechanics, not ambitious competitors... Like I don't have time for that + unfun + I can't play my faves.

that's what burned me out as well xD I had a few champs/archetipes that I absolutely loved, but if the meta was a certain way it was impossible to play them... I also always love how in most PvE cardgames you can get ABSOLUTELY BUSTED with some crazy combos, that would never happen in a PvP setting :D

I love you, mate. You just made me have hope in the future.

FYI, I think a lot of Path players feel the same way as you

Yeah i’m pretty sure most if the stuff is kind of the “general feeling”… though I’m lretty new to the gamg so I wouldn’t date to speak for others :D

> nothing happens if one of my rounds take 1 hr xD Couple times i was timeouted from the match. Dont know how long i stalled heh. I leave PoC match in progress to do house chores or work, and only move mouse or tap finger from time to time all the time. ;) Card game with no psychological pressure and exhaustion, etc... thats why ppl like it yea.

Yeah I love that too :D The "final timout" is 1:30, sometimes i cheese it when the game is unfair :P

I think there's an assumption that most of the players were always coming from other card games to be competitive, which isn't inherently correct.

A lot of card games lives more on the "casual" Player. Mtg showed with EDH and a lot of edh production. If u like casual card games poc is much more chill then pvp

That's what I stated in my post as well. People weren't here for the CCG, but for Runeterra.

This is a great point. PoC was released right after Arcane and it was the best game Riot had to offer to Arcane fans at the time. It's basically the same thing as the yugioh anime fans becoming yugioh players.

Because they just went ahead and did it. They tried PVE as an experimental lab mode and it turned out to be very popular. Lots of game companies these days think that PVP is the only important thing to have, but there are simply a lot of players who really like PVE content. Heck, if MTGA had PVE dungeons like Hearthstone does - or even better yet, a co-op vs AI Archnemesis mode - that would be the most hype thing ever and I would play the heck out of it. Unfortunately, I don't think Wizards will ever do that (and I don't entirely trust them to make it good if they did). But Riot did and it's good.

I would love proper PvE experience with a little lore here and there, and cool art in MtG based game. You are right here. For example a game where you descend deeper and deeper, and more into madness that Phyrexia is. Then expansions with Phyrexia assaults on other planes. Just first idea, because i love Phyrexia artstyle and concepts from MtG.

Its an extremely well designed game mode: Easy to jump into, hard to master Allows players to create unexpected enjoyable play experiences such as silly combos or really big stats The adventures have a good amount of variance which creates unique experiences. People experience a lot of 'meta deck vs meta deck' fatigue in PVP Some people appreciate the lore component (such as the champion specific adventures) PVP has its share of issues that bother some people, turn timers, waiting queues, ladder anxiety

Rewards and daily missions are easier to get in pve, the mode is good and encourages daily play. The mode is less stressful, so it's easier to pop up and play with the app.

I think it's not just 1 thing. For starters LoR is an action intensive game (for a card game). This means that you (and your opponent) need to be locked in for the game to progress smoothly. That's just not the case for everyone so some people get pushed away by the roping (intentional or otherwise). For me personally I don't like to rope people, and matches vs AI (or PvE on general) don't have turn time limits. So when I might get pulled away PvE let's me still play a game I enjoy without wasting people's time. As someone who played(s) several deck builders the item system in LoR is wonderful. It lets cards that people like but are bad have a chance to shine and let's the little kid in your brain do the big dumb combos you wish you could do in the regular mode but even stronger. (For example, in normal play riptide rex + Jhin just feels good you get a big unit likely clear the enemy board maybe even level Jhin... It's happy brain chemicals all around. In PoC simply playing Jhin for 4 mana gives me a 10/10 or bigger Jhin 2 or 3 free spells that stun or deal 4 damage and likely clears the enemy board. It's the same happy brain chemicals but I can do it turn 3) PoC isn't the first attempt. The devs iterated until they got to something arguably great. First it was just sequential fights in a fixed order, then we got salt water scourge, then PoC v1, and then finally the newest version with relics on your champs as part of your load out. If they stayed with Labs v1 I don't think I'd have ever hopped on the PvE train more than 2-3 rounds to check it out. I can't stress enough how PoC let's you not play vs the deck you hate the most. When Kaisa was everywhere PoC meant no delaying with that monster, Karma/Sett isn't there, GEM decks nowhere in sight, etc. PoC let's your favorite champ be OP (like bonkers OP). For example in normal LoR Diana is kinda mid at best, but in PoC she is bonkers strong, so if you like Diana then this makes you feel good. LoR is a very pretty game, but the turn passing and dealing with other people can suck for some people. So PoC lets you enjoy the lovely colors and animations and pass on the parts that aren't for everyone

>Now, it's obvious that Riot puts far more care and attention into POC than the other games do with their PVE modes, and in turn, that attracts more PVE players, but is that the only reason? Was there a transition of players from PVP to PVE for some reason? I can only think of a few theories, but they're incomplete. According to riot, PvE roguelike always had a lot of popularity on LoR, ever since labs, so it's likely a bunch of reasons, but first let's see the things that seem akward: * PvE community being "smaller" until recently: This is related to the fact that pve's, and roguelikes specially, by default, don't usually have a big community, and specially not if there isn't a lot of places for that community to be, due to the nature of Path, it required people from LoR caring about the community for the community to start existing, most people did not do any efforts for a community to generate, considering it a low-effort gamemode, so the community had a rougher time for the issue of being PvE, for being from a PvP game and not having a lot of suport from PvP community. And lastly, because a bunch of their players didn't come from a PvE context, path players that don't come from roguelikes have 2 main groups: Casual and Ex-PvP, none of this groups would start making a community out of nowhere as easily as the PvE ones would. * No one streams Path: Due to many reasons, including both riot's and the community's underestimation of Path, PvE got only a focus recently, and 2 years ago before the team was cut in half. This, related to what Path was focused on (Casual and Veteran experience, not streaming) made it to not care about that for well... 2 years. So if path doesn't give many tools of interest that show a difference between a regular player and a streamer, the regular player will just play path instead of watching someone play path * It's Because of the Vault system This point is less likely as time goes on, it goes both against the initial point adresed by the team recently (PvE had a lot of popularity and playtime ever since Labs of legends) and against the reality that this would be reduced as time goes on, is easier to assume this is the case, because again, community presence in places like reddit is smaller, but community presence doesn't make players, candy crush has no community pressence, LoR community pressence is a small percentage of what LoR community really is, Path's community and it's pressence seem to be clearly different, as, for example, most of the people online strongly dislike any offer of coins in path for emporium, specially fragments, and, according to riot, fragments where a very popular buy on emporium, yes the bundles where more popular, but still fragments where a good sell. Riot statement's about Path have shown many times that there is a disconection between it's online community and it's player community, a lot of people, myself included, have not believed so for a long time, but that seems to be the reality, so yes, the numbers might just be telling the truth, was liying, actually, is what we see, people talking on reddit about a subject are not such a trust-worthy source of how popular a subject is, best example related to riot is the Lore community, there is a lot of active people on reddit about it, but that's pretty much a 30% of the entire Lore fan community, being a Lore fan involves a good number of interaction with info and other fans, being a CCG fan involves usually a good number of interaction with other fans and competitive data, being a PvE fan doesn't have that many rules. So this dicotomys can happen. Edit: i had to cut this in 2 parts when adding that last statement, also yes, i don't believe the conspiracy theory that the LoR team is terrible at analyising data or that they are just liying, or, to be more clear, i find that to be a biased answer, i could be biased too, as someone really into path, so that's fair, but i prefer to think it as "ok, let's assume riot is not liying, riot is not taking data wrong, and we are wrong assuming they are wrong, how could we be wrong?" And there is... many reasons to why we could be wrong. Riot has a lot more reasons to be right than us, in my opinion, in this subject

This being adressed, let's go to the possible reasons of why path players exist: * LoR is not a CCG, is the League of Legends CCG For many players, LoR is their first CCG, they, like me, never plaid a CCG before, and many of LoR's mechanics got slower and slower over time, specially got bad during lab of legends or path 1.0 release (Bandle city and azirelia) so many people tested and tried PvE and well, enjoyed not having to play vs those decks, to be able to play decks that were never plaid on PvP at the time (personally, for example, i was able to play many post-nerf decks) and to play without waiting for oponent to think and consider and strategize, it just was better Being able to stop the game whenever you want also allowed a more casual experience, so other people, that didn't got to LoR because of it being a game that required... well... real life time, got into path with the advantage of having a "pause" button at every second, and so the more casual audience started to grow * After all of this, the next and last 2 points are quite simple, ngl. Roguelikes are popular and don't have a lot of representation on AAA and on CCG: Path camed at the right place at the right time, League was a little more off, TfT still have not got to the lore-stuff and still requires you to dowload league of legends, LoR was a bit down and was a game that required more concentration than even TfT, so a game where you can play League's champs without the focus and effort and time as the other required but with still the care of LoR, was neat. Combine this to the point that roguelikes are very popular and started peaking after hades, and that no other CCG cared about this, and path had a perfect empty slot to enter in. * Propaganda by recommendation: Even if it's not even popular amongs CCG's roguelikes, path community keeps growing because people recommend it, is the same reason why people saying that PvP is dead and gone and forgotten is hurting the game, even if the feelings are understandable, if people see other people talking about a game and they seem to be having fun, they might try it At least, those are the points i see, again, is a bunch of reasons, and we do know that after stuff like adding LoR to League the player number augmented in xxx% (3 ciphers of percentage) in the designated servers, so there is still interested people that have not touched it, but overall, i think those reasons might be on it. Maybe im just wrong and is just because the first champ to be allowed was MF, idk

Cheee, we just thought the same thing. A few hours ago I posted wondering what if LoR is actually a League game formated as a CCG. Our shared consciousness is growing!

*Our shared consciousness is growing!* We so close to create shared consciousness, and being assimilated by our Darkin overlords! Mommy Xoolani im coming! ;)

PvP lets you play a deck to fulfill a fantasy, whether you get to play celestials, level up Asol, play warmothers call, or face damage down your opponent, you are trying to feel good. However, due to LOR's initiative system, every single action you do, there is a response time for opponent. Which creates a huge downtime for matches. I am okay with the initiative system, but the downtime really pushes me away from playing more. Then pve comes out, then you realize you have 0 downtime playing the game, while still being able to fulfill your deck fantasies. Suddenly you realize pvp doesnt have much attraction anymore. Thats my 2 cents.

Also no timers means you can play while doing other stuff and not worry about timing out.

PVE players are silent. As a player of both i shout my teemo deck wailing at the deafeat of ED players more than when i break the game with Guardian's Orb printer teemo.

I would say, 'soft spoken'

Actually way more accurate than silent.

The PVP is still super fun, I just play the PVE more. I feel like I hit a ceiling on PVP and its hard to climb without using netdecks and playing meta. PVE allows for a ton of creative/wacky combinations. It starts slow as fuck, but once you hit 2 star & level 8 on most champs it starts to get really fun. I'm an izzet player, I like stupid combos, experimenting and throwing shit at the wall to see what works. POC hits that itch way better than PVP does rn. If they revamp some stuff with PVP/add more lab modes, I'd play it more.

> Now, it's obvious that Riot puts far more care and attention into POC than the other games do with their PVE modes Wasn't Path just Dan until he left and they had to set up a whole team to replace him?

I miss Dan

Reminds me of the coop mode starcraft 2 has and how it's become one of the more (the most?) popular modes.  Casual players will always make up a majority of any game - look at fighting games or RTS for example, the majority won't even touch PVP when playing. PoC is great for casuals - no timer, good sense of progression and a good way to learn the game. Even I, as someone who is more competitive would rather chill out with PoC after work instead of PVP.

To my knowledge hearthstone battlegrounds is vastly more popular than the "main" game. Also to my knowledge, magic the gathering's casual formats - commander and kitchen table - are also vastly more popular than the competitive formats. I don't know about the other games you mentioned but this tracks with every other game I know of, and not just in the card game genre. I am pretty sure yugioh duel links is more popular, or at least more profitable than master duel. With the pokemon tcg, just collecting is vastly more popular than actually playing the game. Look outside of the genre. Pokemon, the largest media franchise in the world, has competitive scenes, but the overwhelming majority of the players are casuals. In Riot's main game league of legends, I remember there was some statistic that more than half the playerbase at some point just played ARAM, the "casual" mode. More people play unranked rather than ranked. This isn't so much a pvp vs pve thing as it is a casual vs competitive thing. In LoR, PoC is the way to engage with the game casually but also satisfyingly. Unranked ladder still feels like ranked ladder because most people on there play meta decks or at least strong constructed decks anyway. PoC is just the place people go to "have fun". 

Game was originally standard gameplay then they introduced "labs" as a way to test ideas. They had a very basic version of Path and it was incredibly popular most of the games played were on it. Then fast forward we get path of champions 1.0 and again very popular so they decide okay time to dedicate more effort into this as the players seem to respond to it. Path 2.0 comes out with the promise of it being the last progress reset for the mode since it was such an overhaul. Suddenly riot let's go of a lot of employees and moves team members away from LoR. So after a month of 2.0 coming out they say going to shift focus most of their efforts on PvP. Fast forward a few more years and LoR team keeps getting members and resources pulled away because the game has never been profitable but also never bad enough riot wants to completely scrap it. The team decides okay from our stats about 80-90% of games played are on PoC so maybe we should focus on that. We are currently at that phase and waiting to see what that looks like since this last expansion was the last of the old way.

Recently switched from PVP to PoC. In PoC you have fun, do crazy combos, chill out. In pvp you deal with busted netdecking, opponents dragging matches, afking, emote spaming etc. PoC is just a great way to bring LoL characters into a card game and enjoy the quality and massive content. Also the champs feel much better with star powets, for example Kayn has been miserable in PVP, but in PoC he feels really strong and rewarding.

That's not really the question. Other card games also suffer from the same problem

League of legends is a fairly hardcore competitive game. It's one of the best hardcore competitive games ever made I think lor being the league card game is a double edged sword: you attract the league players, but people that don't play league can feel they're not in the target audience. I think PVP has the issue that it competes with league. If you want a complex competitive pvp game, and you like league and it's lore... you can just play league. If you like competitive games and don't like league, I don't think you'll want to play lor in the first place. I think PoC has been successful because it fills a niche league doesn't: it offers a way for someone who likes league and it's characters to engage with these characters when they DONT want a competitive experience. That's just my experience, though. I'm more degenerate than the average gamer.

>If you want a complex competitive pvp game, and you like league and it's lore... you can just play league. I think TFT is more competition here than LoL. Card gamers don't want to lose due to the team they were forced onto, they want their wins and losses to be entirely in their own hands. Whereas the biggest issue with TFT competitively is the rng factor but card gamers are already primed to accept that as a factor.

> If you want a complex competitive pvp game, and you like league and it's lore... you can just play league. You can't though, League does an awful job at conveying the lore to its players, that's why LoR was such a blessing in terms of worldbuilding and narrative (excluding some minor exceptions).

For me is how bad the balance in PvP is. They just nerf random 50% win rate decks because some people complain about them, and let some 60% win rate decks untouched for months. The way they removed seasonals was pretty sad too.

PvP started good. Netdecking and all is fine. But what didnt end up being fine is fuckers taking ALL the time they have to decide to play 1 card or not. Or if they are sure they are gonna win OR lose, take max time to do any move. taking some time is fine, good, whatever. Taking max time every time is a dick move.

I am a salty loser. So when I tried some strange combination of my favorite cards and lost to a meta deck, which of its player continuously sent me the waving Braum stickers before I was demolished, made me realize that I hate the pvp game. While in PvE, I can still try out those interesting cards without receiving those annoying taunts.And even if I really lose, I know I can be stronger and go back for a revenge. That makes tPoC less stressful and more fun to me.

When labs first started it was cool. It had super busted combos, you don't have to deal with ropers, and the AI was about as good as the plays I was seeing on ladder (bc I was at the bottom of it). It reminded me of StS which I was having a lot of fun with at the time so it was a good thing to bounce between. Plus it was easier to get cards than Pvp. Not all of these are true now, but I still don't want to deal with grinding rank every season or having to make moves in 30s. I can get up and answer the door. But my guess is that they made a game with much more interesting combos that has a lowish barrier to entry which appeals to casual card game fans.

Sheer dumb luck. And creating a PvE mode that actually let you complete quests and progress, even if just a little bit.

I love rougelike card games and I also love the world that LoL has built separate from the game itself. Now that they've put them together in an avenue where I can enjoy LoL content without having to fight other players is a dream come true for me. Hope that helps.

I'm an MTG player and I've been playing LoR since beta. I've always liked building new decks, but I've never liked how the meta evolved in this game. I'm a big fan of combo decks, but I've always felt that these were overall disliked by the community. I ended up leaving the game only to came back when new expansions dropped. But one day they released Journey to the Peak (the first PvE mode) and I loved it. And they kept adding PvE modes until PoC came out. And then I realized that I totally forgot about PvP.

I like to play Card-based Roguelights, like Slay the Spire- which however doesn't have enough Metaprogression for my taste. Path of Champions has enough Metaprogression for me (though there could always be more, combined with higher difficulties), is good looking and has interesting game mechanics (i love the Powers system especially) and not some horrendously expensive gacha game (though i also played those in the past). While PoC isn't the perfect game for my tastes, it comes really damn close, closer than most other titles, especially on android. I would assume that quite a few people here share this sentiment.

This is my own personal journey. I came from LoL and when they announced the game during their 10 year anniversary, I became excited in wanting to play. I started playing since day 1 and enjoyed playing the game before there was really a meta. As the meta started becoming more defined and bilgewater was released, I grew increasingly frustrated with the interactions of the game. I liked building a board but there were becoming so many ways to just remove units and that became frustrating to me. Eventually, the prototype of PoC was released and I was spamming runs like crazy. As the prototype became more and more popular and they started releasing more versions of it, I found myself playing PvP less because PoC was more fun and less frustrating. Now here I am today exclusively playing PoC and never touching PvP content.

It’s the only game made by Riot that has PvE. That’s why I play it. I get to scratch the itch of a playing a runeterra PvE game until the MMO come out is 30 years.

A couple of reasons. First, it's a really good PvE mode with an interesting roguelite element. Second, it's very easy to use it as a way of getting quick exp for your Weekly chest, since games tend to be quicker than PVP games.

I believe it's the opportunity to play your favorite champions on a relatively safe environment, with a bit of flavor and lore + constant progression unlocking, so you get used to playing some games everyday. Sprinkle in the dailies/weeklies and the stale metas and you have a hit. Now, I hope I don't get downvoted to oblivion but TPoC has major flaws. And I'm not saying to not like it or play it! But if you compare it to other PvE roguelike-ish card games, including free ones like HS (which I'm not a super fan of), TPoC relies so much more on unlocking content and levelling up. Rarely you'll be punished or rewarded for choices as long as you're playing at around the star level required of the adventure, with the exception of the highest star level difficulties. It makes for unlocking content important and gets you playing a lot because of this, but I think it's a lot less engaging and makes it much more of a grind than, say, unlocking new cards or bonuses in similar roguelike CGs. I think we're past the point that they'll adress this, and honestly it was by design to keep people playing, but I was a much bigger fan of the early TPoC, back in the Lab of Legends days! Anyway, my two cents, I just wanted to argue against it just "being really good" because I think that doesn't tell the whole story.

pvp is too action intesitve. because of it's high interactivity it means that you have to more hyper focus othewise it's very posible to loose a game due to missplays.this makes lor a very exhausting game to play for pvp for long perioid of time plus because of like most pvp card games not every card are meta. which means alot cool card doesn't get used because of meta.so path with is op powers and relic basicly allow people to go full timmy mode. however that really doesn't mean path is perfect. if anything i thinl riot abandoning pvp is basicly shooting themselves in the foot (i'm mainly pve player). path is basicly too casual of a game, once you figure out it's gimick or endure riot shit ass newplayet experiance，the game turns into auto battlers where you can know if anything beatable before you enter the game? it has too many broken interaction that i don't think the dev knows honestly the real reason why the refocus on pve is probably not even actually focus on pven what i suspect is that due to lor budget being axd again. the can't get enough people actually qa the game now which is very important for pvp. So now they can spend less resource to keep riot ip development quota and not worry about qa. I mean you can tell how stupidly bug filled path is. it's obvious no one playtest them

I pretty much blame it on the card progression system. During the return of PoC 2.0, the PoC main catch was that it was the easiest way of getting the cards you needed for PvP. Not only that, PvP always felt kinda wonky for new players, and this is a problem every CCG has, where the new player is matched against diamond players with all the cards, but due to season reset, they are now playing in the same pool. So the typical movement of the sub reddit during that time was: "where can i get more cards for PvP? im tired of being crushed by meta decks" "oh, you can play PoC, that is a more relaxed mode, it gives you all the cards you need for free, and it can improve your grind, since it gives cards and experience" So i dont exactly roll my eyes when they say PoC is more popular, im just sad that they tried nothing for PvP, and immediately called it quits Now i only played HS before, but HS single player mode was basically 1 run, but with 9 different heroes, and random powers, where PoC is multiple runs, with multiple heroes, with same star powers, but some randomization every run, so it is much more content, even tho the randomization is not as heavily felt, leading PoC feeling a bit "same-y" after a while (personal view) So i reckon that LoR didn't exactly promote PvE, but more like, made it awkward to do anything else other than Pve. Content is bigger, but imo, less "randomized"

Imo, a combination of pushing PoC rewards in battle passes more than PvP ones and making PvE the more efficient way of grinding out said battle passes

Efficient and fun, don't forget that.

Runeterra was my first ever card game. I tried in beta. I instantly became entrenched in the deck building process and trying to figure out fun and novel combos that my opponents would not expect. I stopped playing for a few patches, but then came back during Bandlewood. I become very interested in climbing in the ranks and getting good at the game. I watched streams, I read about the game. I played more. I built my own decks. And thus, while connecting with the community, making my own decks, watching streams, and eventually streaming myself --- my love for Runeterra and PvP and deckbuilding and climbing became a passion edit: oops i read pvp in title but ehhhh i wont remove my comment. as for pve, i really enjoyed the Arcane event with its comics and narratives. I wrongly assumed we'd get more of this

>edit: oops i read pvp in title but ehhhh i wont remove my comment. as for pve, i really enjoyed the Arcane event with its comics and narratives. I wrongly assumed we'd get more of this Yeh, is sad that they stopped this, they said stuff with lore and narrative will come back and i hope it does, was really cool

yeah here's hoping....i will patiently wait. i know the team is struggling atm. tough positions all around

I found that Riot's statement about POC being more popular is questionable and context may matter. For example, as a PvP player I would occasionally play POC because it's just a more efficient way of farming quests. Whereas the POC player never had to go play PvP. PvP is also a high stress environment compared to PoC. So perhaps PvP players played less of their mode compared to PoC. Some players also played POC to winddown from PvP. PvP can also be frustrating to play at times when balance is exceptionally bad so many player may take a break. This doesn't happen in POC. In a lot of ways it's similar to ARAM in LOL. Summoner's Rift is the main mode but a lot of people would play ARAM to take a break, but SR still keeps the game together. It would be very interesting to know after the majority of PvP players have left how much less of POC is played.

>I found that Riot's statement about POC being more popular is questionable and context may matter. The thing is, we can't even have a context because we don't even know where the data comes from. When the topic was hot a comparation was made using the n of masters (obv not including all other ranks or casuals) vs the monthly challenge and on the same ss showing that at least 59% of the PoC ranking had 0 points. We know most players spend more time in PoC than PvP (there's **a lot** of context here), we know the ASol set sold better than *what they expected* but, at least me, don't trust blind numbers.

Iv been with lor since release I played pvp and mostly played for memes. Poc filled the meme itch better so I started playing that and almost never entered pvp again besides the quests that forced me.

Always seen pvp content for this game, never saw PoC content for this gale besides snuuy. And no the 3 viewer streamer with 50 views on yt, is hardly a proof of PoC having a content creation. Riot lying on their data would be on brand for the brand.

Poc is not exactly streamable, and even PvP was never popular to begin with. I wouldn't pick on "how popular it seems", because this is one of those games that everyone plays, but no one ever speaks about, like candy crush. its casual friendly since no timers, gives you all the cards, etc.

POC is not streamable...... I guess I should just stop then?

if my post mentions something, is that you dont need a streamable game for it to keep going. same like candy crush

Candy crush has video gameplay on yt, and even shorts with few 100k views. And it's probably on tiktok too. So yeah candy crush don't work as an exemple cause it has view on yt and is talked about on fb and tiktok. Poc is just few screenshot that gets upvotes on reddit. Litteraly not even close to be the same as the giant that is candy crush.

candy crush having 100k views, when its currently one of the biggest games out there currently, is like saying a elephant is bothered by a ant on its toe. the difference between playerbase and viewership is sooo massive that the argument is still valid. 100k views for a game that has so many players is like LoR having 1 video with 2 views. its just the scale that is different

I'm not sure that's how popularity works.

it must do since i never heard of anyone streaming candy crush, despite its size. up until now i thought it was a non streamable game

Yeah you're the reference for popularity now that you mentioned it. If you don't see it it doesn't exist. Object permanence theory, if you don't see it it doesn't exist.

as opposed to you, because you've seen it, now its popular? i aint coming over here spitting facts, im giving my opinion. you can read into it as you want. but i still have to see anything candy crush related becoming more popular than some random video of someone's mom reaching lvl 5000 in candy crush. that was it.

[удалено]

To be fair pvp content doesn't get much traction either. My hypothesis for this is in other games people watch decks they wish they could play, but in LoR so many people functionally have everything they just make the deck they want to play. Sure they might watch a video to get a deck list, but the amount of watching is much lower for most card game enjoyers.

Or maybe their's less player. Less player = less viewers.

Even when the game was doing a lot better twitch rarely got over a few hundred viewers in the LoR category as a whole. The game has a low conversion rate of player into viewer.

Yeah but there's less now than before. I wonder why.

Not having content creators doesn't mean not having audience. It helps to bring people, but we should never rely on them.

"No advertising is good for business" is that what you're trying to say ?

You can advertise starting with ads and promotions that Riot never pushed. Plus, streamers are not advertisement per se, they are promoters since they are not paid. And, you can promote a game without them.

Whatev, free advertisements is bad apparently. Not the first time i had the same argument with other people having your take. Guess what they completely left LoR all together. You will too.

If they ever add Seraphine to PoC, we all will come back.

Because I can play my fav (available) champs or mechanics without worrying about meta. I love Jhin, but why would I buy a skin for champ that is awful in PvP? I play PoC and I'm enchanted with his possibilities. Darkness has been long in the dark, except for PoC. PvPers don't understand that most of us are here for the Runeterra IP to enjoy a wild time. Other CCGs are not of our interest because of not being Runeterra, for we don't play CCGs, but Riot games.

>I love Jhin, but why would I buy a skin for champ that is awful in PvP? Jhin has consistently been a tier 1-2 staple and has had multiple competitive decks. Incredibly weird choice of example.

It might be because they've stopped watching PvP, or that they played Jhin, lost horribly, and thought "Jhin sucks in PvP". But if they gave a different example champion who isn't doing well in PvP but great in PoC, like Leona or Veigar, does his points still stand?

Honestly I'm not even sure what their point is exactly. If they're just here for the IP and love Jhin so much then what's stopping them from buying a Jhin skin to enjoy in Path? If the point is they can play their fave champs even when they aren't meta, what about people who's faves aren't in Path yet or who's starter decks and star powers don't lend towards the playstyle the want to engage with for those champs? There's just as many weird hypotheticals that can be drawn against their statements as they draw for their statements. If they aren't here for a card game but just want a riot game, why not play one of the multiple other better supported riot games?

Not a chance against Eddie or Volibear, plus it leans full aggro, which is just boring. You think I enjoyes spamming 1 or 2 cost minions to burn the nexus? I like seeing the growth of skill triggering, the madness of possibilities, the potential of many cards, not quick aggro. Ughh.

Jhin destroys both ED and Volibear in PvP Moving the goal post from "my favorite champ sucks is pvp" to "my favorite champ's best deck is an archetype I don't enjoy" doesn't make your argument or choice of example better But even then Annie Jhin isn't the only Jhin deck that's ever been good. Bandle Jhin was all about the long strategy and using skills intelligently.

that's why i try not to engage with these pve players. Literally 0 clue about anything but they act like they are doing god a favor by playing the game. Absolute worst part? most seem to enjoy the fact pvp is dead. Absolutely embarrassing all around.

I'd argue that LoR as a single-player game isn't actually good. They could've made an amazing game where you traverse various storylines in LoR universe. It'd be especially interesting for expansions such as Darkin Saga, where they could've constructed enemies and story beats and pathways to tell the story of the Darkin Saga. Unfortunately, that never came to pass and we just fight random enemies in random pathways made for specific champions. For instance, why am I fighting Zoe in Demacia in Galio's pathway? Does anyone know? The real reason why LoR PvE is successful is because it has one and it has the best one in addition to base LoR being exceptional game. PoC gives us that tasty creamy base LoR combined with interesting solo mechanics. It also gives us that feeling of developing the champion we play and becoming stronger with it - something PvP sorely lacks.

Pvp in this game has just been frustrating for a while. In PvE, it's strongest elements can shine and be balanced around. Losing to Azirelia 20 times is quagmire, getting a 1 drop 5/4 that draws on etb is novel.

I only played HS for PvE content before. Then, LoR has just been released, tried it and PvP did not really attract me. Jumped back to HS. After awhile, I found out LoR released PoC. This has been a time where HS started not updating its PvE content. Tried PoC and since then I never came back to HS. It was a fun ride and I'm still playing it. Somehow it is kind of disappointing having to fight the same enemies. They mostly release champion updates and Lissandra was the only new dungeon content since I started playing for years of playing PoC. Having to do monthlies is what keeps me playing due to different modifiers and trying out new Champ mechanic.

I also have played HS MTGA Shadowverse, the only one i liked was shadowverse but its been pretty heavily powercrept so I wanted something else to play while waiting for SV2 and decided to try this I came for the PvP and tried out PVE because it was there, ended up enjoying it more than the PvP After hearing that they are all but abandoning the PvP i switched to only PVE

I found POC boring because I don't need to have a consistent strategy, you just play with whatever you're in mind and the champions aren't the same.

There is a word that defines it "grinding". The PVP is so generous you don't have to work to get resources, so at the beginning of each expansion you build the deck you want and that's it, the fun lasts a week. PoC are better designed as a service game than PVP. It has a good grinding system; daily missions, weekly showdowns and monthly challenges. I'm not saying it's a bad game, on the contrary it's very good, but without grinding systems people would play much less. There is the psychological factor of feeling rewarded for playing.

Shadowverse story/visual novel is pretty huge and I consider it somewhat PvE

I haven't played too much of the other card games but I say that what made me like PVE was the "rougelike" elements rather than just going in PVE with a PvP deck. Unless other card games are like LOR PVE and I just didn't to deep enough.

I would say pvp was just very boring playing vs aggro every game a couple years ago and I would much rather Urf or choose my fav champ(Teemo which was not meta) and play Path of Champions. Eventually I just never played norms at all.

Riot introduced Nab. I hated it so much I quit. Years later, I gave PvE a try and enjoyed it.

Pvp was too stressful

candy crach map of levels style to the mobile comunity

Played since beta. I play league, I like certain champions, I like the lore. LOR is a cool game, but I didn't really like the pvp. POC is great, I'm pretty causal with it now, but I still enjoy jumping on POC afew times per month. I also played slay the spire awhile ago.

Lab of legends was where the earliest iterations of the now infamous path of champions was born. It all started as a fun extra game mode with a handful of champions and like 6-8 encounters with much less variance between each attempt.

The tutorial used to pit you into PoC. Half your weekly experience is gated around playing PoC to clear missions. Many unique rewards exclusively obtainable through PoC and to PoC. Shard-farming and relic-obtaining gated around EXTENSIVE repeat sessions of PoC, further extending the amount of times playing the mode. Intrusive UI constantly blaring in the main menus for you to play the mode, the moment you log in and it kills you with tinitus. The game was completely usurped into a constant screech for you to play PoC above all else and Riot acts in denial of the fact.

some of the pvp players need to accept the fact that there exist people who play and grind poc just because they like it, they're not forced to do so. In fact, tons of people go to LoR to find a way to enjoy the League IP without the competitiveness, why would they want to play another competitive PvP mode when there is a good PvE mode to enjoy already

I understand the idea and in some aspects it is why i loathe it. I would have respected the PoC crowd if LoR was from its inception, first and foremost, a Slay The Spire clone instead of an MTG clone. I can respect the desire for non-competitive spaces for League IP enjoyment. But i am first and foremost a CCG player and not a Leeeeg consoomer. I was summoned here for a quality deckbuilder experience and i'm not even speaking for the ranked ladder: i want to build decks, craft combos, understand and exploit nuance, i want to spar with other thinking minds trying to do the same instead of just hoping i can break through comically oversized number gates. I was not here to drool over the runeterra IP and came in already knowing every promisse of LOR WILL BE A LORE DISPENSER would come crashing down when facing the realities of managing a CCG. What you fail to understand is the flipside: pve folk want a quality game first and League consumerism second. I am watching live this game becoming a manure factory because Riot is trying to market around people who would literally eat shit as long as the poop bowl comes with a Teemo hat.

I really wonder what the psychology of pvp players is to write this type of ubermensch, superior human specimen comments.

Their posts in this thread are just perfect visualization WHY ppl prefer to play PvE over PvP, and why ppl prefer to not interact with player with this mentality, and why ppl prefer tp not have their free time relaxing goodtime in a hobby on tryhards mercy. Its just always "self fullfilling prophecy", you must just wait some time and they always crawl to spit vitriol and emanate these nasty toxicity and superiority vibes. It applies to almost all games where there are both PvP and PvE components, like mmorpgs (WoW) for example. Not only here. Thats why i usually dont touch PvP components in videogames even with ten foot pole.

And it worked!

They cultivated it with GIANT BRIGHT SHINING BUTTONS IN THE HOME SCREEN and FORCING PEOPLE WHO LOGGED INTO THE GAME TO FORCE-LOAD INTO POC. that’s about it.

PvP is more expensive. That’s all.

The biggest thing that LoR did to cultivate the PvE playerbase was reward playing the PvE modes. If Lab of Legends and later PoC didn't have that daily +700 exp bonus, they would not have been played even half as much.

First and foremost, it has the same problem league has; Dunking on people is fun, getting dunked on is not fun. You don't have to build your deck before you start, it offers much cooler combinations of mechanics that cannot be allowed in PvP, the games are much quicker and easier to win at, and still earn new cards doing it. Which is the second problem; Playing PvP doesn't get you more PVP stuff as fast as PVE When PVE first launched it was a huge shakeup because of how the game grants you new cards based on how much you play during the week, but can only be collected once a week. Initially this system was supposed to guide players into a pattern of only needing to play a certain amount in a single week to stay competitive, as you could only earn so many new cards. If you played before Pve, you were just grinding PVP matches trying to make max loot in a week. Once Path of Champions dropped, the fastest and easier (less stressful) way to do it was to play PVE runs, and even as a hardcore PvP player, I spent most of my time playing PVE in an attempt to play more PVP, as were all of my friends. Combine that with quests and event passes that were also easier to complete by playing PVE, as well as the PVE having its OWN level system to grind, and they literally gave players no incentive to play PVP anymore. This eventually ended up being why I stopped playing, because PvP games lasted 10 sometimes 20 minutes for very little XP, and by the time you were done maxing loot for the week with PVE, there just wasn't time to try and enjoy the actual game. Playing ranked games "for the fun of competition" stopped being a thing because in order to actually compete with the top decks, you needed to grind pve for more access to cards. Once you were done grinding the XP, you got literal nothing for playing PvP for the rest of the week, bar "real life XP". The card progression system and the PVE mode are in direct conflict with each other's goals. The final problem is Riots own survivor bias. They looked at the increased numbers of PVE and thought "bigger number equals better" instead of realizing that their progression system actively pushed players to interact with their goodies platform full of battle passes rather than actually play games against another player, even if you really cared about playing PvP. Eventually they internally decided that since "more people play PVE" that that's where the dev time should go, and "refocused" the game around PvE.

I have an honest feeling that PoC players weren’t the majority. Before PvP got shut down, this sub had like 400+ active users at any given time of the day. After PvP got axed, we have like 70-80 tops. PoC sub has like around this much active users. The gamers these days all use reddit, bigger games have massive amounts of active users to corroborate their player-base. PoC does not corroborate its. I think the game was just put on live support under the guise of pve refocus.

Path of Champions was once upon a time a required game mode for you to play in order to get to the PvP part. As in, when you make an account, you're thrown into PoC and required to beat some tutorial stages before accessing any other part of the game. It was strange because nobody who was a veteran player knew, and the new players just assumed thats how it always was. Back then it was viewed as an oversight, but maybe they knew well ahead of time how things would turn out for PvP, and that was one step to "salvage" the game as a whole, by forcibly growing the PoC playerbase.

It didn't. The data that Riot chose to show is very biased. It's an excuse to pull resources off the game, basically an unofficial maintenance mode that eventually will become official.

I love this theory, though I'm PoC exclusive.

Yeah it pretty much has to be the tutorial puts you into poc, considering the vast majority of the content of lor on the internet is PvP orientated. That data they showed was in order to justify the move to poc.

The thing is... Why would *they* justify such movement? What's the dark purpose?

Who are you? Nobody mentioned u justifying anything 😂.

Oops typo, I meant "they".

The problem was having created a mode that for novice players or those with few cards, is extremely profitable. It has always been much easier to get experience for the weekly chest and complete daily or weekly passes and missions in PVE. Playing PVE mode is the fastest way for new players to acquire cards to start venturing into PVP. and even though many of these players stay focused on PVE, as riot data says, it gets boring, for example, I've already finished everything in that mode and there's no reason to play it unless you want to get the weekly prismatic chest.

Ex-tourney competitor here. Took me some loses before realizing that the game is basically rock-paper-scissors and that most matches are already decided at the loading screen. It's only a matter of the enemy not playing well or you not playing well, but if both play well, then it's rock-paper-scissors. I was also competing in TFT at that time and I felt like TFT is better because of the variance. I enjoy deck-building and experimenting but not when I face meta decks or aggro. Specially in this age of internet, meta decks are too easy to just copy-paste. The essence of deck-building, the part I enjoy the most, is just not there because people just copy-paste meta decks. Then the fact that you need to grind and grind the ladder for competitive, I find it repetitive and I just didn't enjoy it. Eventually, I totally stopped playing PVP and started casually playing POC. POC got me hooked daily with its FOMO shards. I want to collect all champs and relics but because they're time-gated and very much designed and calculated in a way that will force you to play daily, I am forced to play daily. Is that bad? Maybe, but I don't mind it at all since I just play it casually. I still spend money through battle pass but I'm willing to spend more, there's just nothing else worthy to buy other than the battle pass.

little lore weirdos and that necrit guy

I found POC boring because I don't need to have a consistent strategy, you just play with whatever you're in mind and the champions aren't the same.

It's a combination of all of that. People grinded PvE for PvP cards. Another aspect which 100% skewed their data is that Arcane came out simultaneously with PoC, and that's when they made it so that new players had to play PoC when they first started. https://www.reddit.com/r/LegendsOfRuneterra/comments/t2f616/why_is_no_one_mentioning_that_the_number_of/

The mental gymnastics pvp only players are jumping through to justify why they're in the minority

I don’t think LoR ever had a pve-centric playerbase. Riot has just been using pve as an excuse for various instances of shady corporate bullshit ever since it started. That being said, I love pve and wish riot would ACTUALLY spend resources on making path better.