Andrew "Umbrage" Yip worked on League of Legends and several game prototypes from Riot Games before becoming the Design Director for Legends of Runeterra. He's a big fan of card games, and that's why he's sharing his opinion on the current state of the beta.
He's talking about the game, the meta, the economy and progression system, and the personalization before broaching the future of the game. ( Source)
Open Beta
Umbrage explains that the decision to launch LoR in Open Beta comes from the fact that Riot wanted some feedback from players in order to learn how to shape the game to the desires of the community. According to him, "the overall response has been extremely positive", proving that their choice was the good one.
"It’s impossible to walk the floor at Riot without seeing a LoR stream on a monitor," concluded Umbrage to showcase the commitment of LoR's teams.
The Game
"Our goal is to bring deep, interactive strategy to the genre through a combination of back-and-forth gameplay, indirect attacking, “skillshot” spells that provide reaction windows, and exciting champions that level up through smart play," explained Umbrage.
Riot Games are satisfied with the current state of champions, event though Teemo and Ezreal might be considered "obnoxiously-effective". In the same way, they feel they have achieved what they wanted with the interactive strategy.
"The back and forth gameplay combined with fast and slow spells allow for lots of strategy and outplay moments".
However, there are still a lot of things they want to improve, including the clarity, the UI and the deckbuilder, the timer, the FPS lock and finally the animation speed and input blocking.
The Meta
"From the beginning, we believed bringing the Riot “live service” mentality to bear would help keep LoR fresh and ever-evolving," states Umbrage.
As a consequence, they want to make sure that there are no bad cards, notably by updating some of them every month, but also by regularly bringing new cards and more content. They clearly noticed that the current meta of LoR is shaped by a new "OP deck" meme each week such as Elusives, but they're using several tools to monitor these: card play rate, card win rate and, of course, deck win rate. Obviously the region plays a big role in that with some meta being completely different according to it.
Umbrage explains they're keeping an eye on several things, including the healthy patterns and RNG. For instance, Ezreal Frostbite decks are closely monitored, and it goes the same with the Shadow Isles since the faction "has been performing as the best region holistically by a decent margin". On the other hand, some champions such as Vlad, Shen or Kalista have very low play rates, meaning we should expect them to be changed ver soon.
The Economy and Progression
"From the inception of LoR, we knew we wanted a progression system that proved to players why card games could be awesome: imaginative new decks, endless tinkering, and fierce competition. We anticipated having to get creative to accomplish this, even if that meant throwing away the traditional pack model," said Umbrage.
"So far, 75% of Open Beta players are saying they’re satisfied with the progression system, while 18% are dissatisfied (7% neutral). That’s pretty solid, but we think there are some key areas where LoR can do better."
Riot Games are "planning to update reward distributions to tilt toward more agency and less randomness before launch." to make sure that all players "can achieve their shorter term goals, like completing a particular deck"
Because of the way Wildcards and Shards are currently distributed, some players fear to experiment and invest into certain champions and cards — something that Riot also want to address.
Personalization
Umbrage explains that they are "delighted by the response of the initial batch of guardians and boards" and teases the arrival of new cosmetic lines, such as card backs, emotes and card styles. Does it mean our champions will soon have skins?
On the Horizon
"We’ve already talked about some of our plans to increase player expression in the form of new cosmetic lines, boards, and pets. But there’s something else we haven’t mentioned yet: modes and formats," said Umbrage.
"Many of our favorite formats were even made by the community, in lieu of the original designers pursuing them. We believe that it’s when tons of cards meet an equally wide variety of modes that our game will truly shine, and we’re excited to start down that path this year. You can look forward to new ways to play with your collection, compete, and be recognized."
Can we expect a 2v2 mode in LoR? Or something comparable to Hearsthone's Tavern Brawls? It remains to be seen what Riot Games is preparing for us...
We've all been waiting for it for a while, but it was the Singapore players who first got their hands on the mobile version of Legends of Runeterra.
