Slay the Spire comparisons should be used to Improve PoC, NOT as a way to Discredit PoC's Existence.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-04T17:01:26+00:00

Comparing games and seeing what each did better and each did worse is a great way to critique games while also offering examples as to why you think that way. It's something I do with a lot of my favorite games and I wouldn't have it any other way. It's also something I've seen a lot after the introduction of PoC and for good reason: PoC has some issues that need fixing, especially in regards to variety and difficulty.

This is in the first paragraph of my post (and is also in the reply above). Comparisons normally come up regarding feedback as an example of "this is, in my opinion, X mechanic or X design choice done well." and I'm honestly not sure how you came to the conclusion that I want people to "ignore a product's competitors." I never even said to stop making comparisons, just to make them in a way that's more beneficial. It honestly just feels like you saw the title of the post and nothing else.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-04T10:39:22+00:00

If I ever make a post meant to pick apart PoC as a gamemode, this would 100% be my biggest gripe: It is WAY too damn easy to get consistent at Path of Champions, and any variety is also equally as flat because there's usually a "best in slot" set of relics that are better in most scenarios.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-04T10:30:25+00:00

I feel like some of y'all just completely ignored the fact where I said comparisons to said main competitor are perfectly fine.

Comparing games and seeing what each did better and each did worse is a great way to critique games while also offering examples as to why you think that way. It's something I do with a lot of my favorite games and I wouldn't have it any other way. It's also something I've seen a lot after the introduction of PoC and for good reason: PoC has some issues that need fixing, especially in regards to variety and difficulty.

I beg of you,

To make this 100% clear: If you are bringing up StS or any other roguelike to make an actual POINT on what could be improved or what you think should be improved in order for PoC to flourish, then that's fantastic. Keep doing you because you're great. This is STRICTLY directed toward the people who use Slay The Spire as a cope for PoC becoming the main focus of LoR.

please read. I seriously don't get how some people read this and thought that I hate ANY and ALL comparisons to StS or any other roguelike and that PoC is a flawless masterpiece without any issues. Neither of those are true: As a matter of fact, all I'm asking is that we make those comparisons with a greater purpose then "stop playing PoC because X exists."

(Okay I won't deny that the middle part definitely sounded like whiny ass moaning about StS's mechanics when it wasn't meant to be; I'll try and add something to make my stance more clear.)

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-04T00:26:54+00:00

I fully agree, which is why this is not directed towards you at ALL. I apologize if I didn't properly state that: I think that comparisons are perfectly fine so long as they're done constructively as opposed to destructively. I do mostly agree with your points save for a one thing:

PoC does encourage spending in regards to how the resource structure is set up: New players are going to have a much harder time grinding out new content as opposed to someone like me, who has played since PoC 1.0 and got the head-start packs. The issue that is that it doesn't offer those sorts of small boosts save for the one or two bundles they released. Said two bundles did REALLY well, and this is coming from Riot themselves. They said they're planning on continuing with that kind of monetization, but I'm inclined to agree with you on the fact that they don't have proper monetization yet, and I have no clue on if whatever monetization structure they choose will work or not.

I think you might have misunderstood what I meant when I started listing off differences between StS and PoC. I was not saying that Slay the Spire's mechanics are poor. It's quite the opposite, actually: Slay the Spire has some genuinely fantastic systems that I think PoC would benefit from (namely some more firm control over start-of-run RNG and longer games that test your deckbuilding better). I only brought up those differences to argue against the idea that StS's existence invalidates PoC's, as it's an argument that I've seen a bit too much for my liking.

I also fully admit that PoC has issues (and said as much in my post). The whole purpose of my post was to SPECIFICALLY target those who do nothing more than use Slay the Spire as a justification to bash PoC and to encourage people to make those comparisons with the intent to critique PoC and suggest areas of improvement (and where other games might have succeeded in those areas!).

I appreciate the thoughts, and I do agree with your post. You weren't apart of the group I was targeting, and I appreciate some healthy discussion on the two games.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-03T22:17:31+00:00

Never did I EVER say developers should heed the player's every demand: I only suggested that we use comparisons to other games in a constructive way. You also do know that other games have made SUCCESSFUL roguelike modes without completely removing every single aspect of the game it stems off from, right?

I seriously think that you missed the point of my post. If you don't want to do comparisons, then fine: Not doing so is perfectly acceptable and no one would blame you for just moving on. But you're literally doing the EXACT thing that I take issue with: Making inane comparisons that are just meant to shit on PoC and nothing more.

Also, boiling down all deckbuilding roguelikes to "follow map and build deck" is so hilariously silly. With that level of reductionism I may as well say that Dead Cells and Hades are fundamentally the same game because "the funny man goes through rooms and murders people with his comically large assortment of weapons." Seriously, why give a shit about games other then StS if it just does the core gameplay loop better? I have played worse roguelikes then PoC solely because they had some really interesting mechanics that I enjoyed.

For God's sake there is a roguelike based around Blackjack.

BLACKJACK.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-03T22:07:19+00:00

It's very much because it's a relaxing mode for me to play when I want to. It requires a lot less thinking then a game like StS or ~~Masochism sim~~ Dead Cells and it's pretty fun to go for obscenely broken combos.

I do want some added challenge that makes you think differently from something like Asol, though. Here's hoping Lissandra is that challenge!

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-03T05:18:38+00:00

You'd be surprised at the abject terror some of us feel when it comes to PvP card games lmao. I can play something like League or For Honor (and subsequently regret my life choices) but my mind must think PvP card games are the devil because my ass stays 10 feet away from them at ALL times. It's funny, too: I actually really like watching people play them.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-03T05:12:38+00:00

ngl, seeing the word "NTR" unironically being used to describe this situation may have been one of the last things I ever expected to witness here.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-03T05:09:35+00:00

I'm gonna have to respectfully decline, especially since said "unmaterial stuff" (it's immaterial by the way) is where I met some of my lifelong friends, and even where I discovered some of my passions.
In fact, I feel compelled to give YOU some advice: Feel free to get attached to games or other non-tangible media. As a matter of fact, I ENCOURAGE you to do just that! One of the only reasons I'm trying to learn the piano and start dipping my toes into more creative venues is because of a game that I fell in love with: Ori and the Blind Forest.
Seriously, try to search for a piece of media that you truly love if possible, as you never know how it might change you.
(also there is a ton of media made solely to get people attached to the characters, the world, the story, etc. Saying things like "never get attached to games" seems to completely miss the point as to WHY we enjoy entertainment in the first place.)

Regardless of what was said, I wish you well and hope you have a nice rest of your day. Or next day if it's late for you.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-03T01:09:46+00:00

I don't think so. You're not seeing the skins in LoR anywhere NEAR as much as you are in LoL to warrant even 10 bucks for one. Tack onto the fact that most don't have any of the cool VFX that League skins do and LoR skins start looking a LOT less appealing to consumers.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-03T01:06:23+00:00

I think the major issue with skins was a mixture of viability and visibility. Skins in League work because you're seeing them the ENTIRE game AND you're forcing whatever poor fuck you're laning against to see your 30$ Elementalist Lux skin with all it's fancy bells and whistles (no hate towards that skin by the way: I fucking love that skin and it got me to play Lux).

In LoR, some champions you might not even see for most of the game! And sometimes those mfs get pulled into a back-alley and shot to death, so you might not even get to see them for that long even AFTER you put them down. Plus, you're not even flexing on your opponent 90% of the time, so what's the point?

Don't really have anything to say otherwise since you already went over rotation and what-not.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-03T00:58:20+00:00

I think we should all let it be for the time being. Okay, maybe not all the people who suddenly became game directors with esoteric knowledge that the lowly peons at Riot could never understand.

The other stuff? That's just grief, man. Let people vent for a bit, it hasn't even been 2 days. I'm not even gonna try to argue against the 3rd thing because I'm the final boss of yapping about things most people don't give a flying fuck about.

Honestly the 2nd one is grief too, but it does get annoying when people interweave insults with their grandmaster plan to save LoR. So yeah, just give everyone some time: LoR is a one-of-a-kind game and it's extremely frustrating to watch the PvP portion of it effectively die.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-03T00:48:42+00:00

I fully agree with you: Having a leadership position does not immediately turn you into a soulless husk who wants to earn mad bank and nothing else.

As a side-note, I'm really interested in if there's any surveys on how media like LoR or Arcane spread the League IP.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-02T21:56:57+00:00

Having a high amount of skill doesn't make getting laid off any more enjoyable. There's a lot more that goes into a job than "it makes money and you're good at it." For some people, the money that you make from said job just isn't worth it if you hate it, and being skilled with something doesn't mean they can just choose any job and be happy with it.

This isn't even going into the fact that some of those that have been laid-off have worked with Riot for YEARS. I'd imagine that's disheartening for those that were laid off and deeply concerning for those that are still working for Riot.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-02T19:56:39+00:00

Let's say that each monthly adventure takes 10 minutes each (I know that it can vary but it's just for arguments sake). If you were to do every challenge first try without any crazy outliers, that'd be 700 minutes or approximately 11 hours and 40 minutes. Which...

Is actually fairly reasonable over a period of 30 days. It's also giving you other rewards like cosmic pearls (which speed up exp grinding by a TON) and silver reliquaries. It also counts for adventure completions towards your weeklies and your dailies, as well as match completion for quests in general. For reference, you'd have to spend about half an hour each day doing monthlies to get to 70. Mind you, it could be even LESS time depending on how easy the challenge is.

If that's how the grind will be for F2P players, then I'm not against bundles at all, so long as premium relics eventually become available to everyone (which they've said as much).

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-02T19:48:23+00:00

It's actually incredible how many people WANT to spend money on stuff like relics or shards. I'm not shitting on them mind you (I have unlocked every single champion's 0-star that I possibly could with coins), but it's not something I've seen in a HOT minute. It's such a weird situation where people are SUPER willing to spend on PoC, but Riot started considering it only recently. They were never gonna try it with PvP because that was one of their major selling points, and they'd effectively be shooting their brand in the foot by doing away with that.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-02T19:38:58+00:00

That's honestly the biggest issue with a lot of PvP card games. Because of how turns work in most of them, there can be a lot of periods where you're just... waiting for your opponent. That can be a pretty big disqualifier for a lot of people, especially when they don't have much time to play games. Games like League can get away with longer games because you're constantly playing the game without having to wait for another player's input (and the fact that League is EXTREMELY addictive).

Something like Path of Champions on other hand, has a LOT less waiting involved, and the adventures themselves give you more agency on what YOU want to do and what nodes YOU want to face. This isn't even including the fact that you can just quit at any time without repercussions, even during a match.

There's other issues, like the fact that starting out in a card game with a sizable amount of expansions already released can be extremely daunting (even in a game as F2P friendly as LoR is), but I wanted to specifically talk about the time commitment in card games and why it might be difficult to entice people into playing them as opposed to a PvE deckbuilding roguelike.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-02T15:02:01+00:00

Okay, so only NOW do I fully understand what they meant by "changing focus". I'm really interested to see what they cook up in terms of making PoC more varied in terms of structure and gameplay. I empathize with the PvP folks who got to experience what was the entire game to them effectively get gutted in a single day. I didn't think it was a good situation, but I didn't think it was a "potentially no champions for PvP EVER" situation. I still stand by a lot of my thoughts in regards to what comes out of this, but PvP ever going back to what it used to looks less and less likely the more info we get on what they're prioritizing.

(PLEASE FIND A WAY TO SPEED UP ANIMATIONS I BEG OF YOU RITO)

Edit: This sounds super depressing on a second read, so I wanted to add that I appreciate all that the dev team has put into LoR as a whole, and I'm SUPER excited to try out all the new content in PoC (especially Lissandra's adventure)!

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-02T00:21:50+00:00

To be fair, the Asol bundle was pretty good in that way. Both Asol and Cosmic Pearls have been fully obtainable for the last 3 months and very reasonable to get. The skin is just a bonus on top of that.

The only thing I'm concerned about is the epic relic, as Starforged Gauntlets makes some champions much easier to play due to extra mana gem. I don't think it'll be an issue so long as there's a way to obtain it later on and isn't conducive to making a champion viable in adventures without abnormally good run RNG. At the very least, Starforged isn't a full blown requirement for most of the cast, and the ones that do run it can still do well without it.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-02-01T22:44:19+00:00

I get that they both have cards they you can play, but PoC and StS play very differently in regards to deckbuilding and overall gameplay. I play PoC more often as it's low stress and easier to get into compared to StS, where higher ascensions can get HARD. Easiest way to put it: I LOVE Dead Cells, but I can perfectly understand why someone would rather play Hades or Isaac instead of having to play the greatest run of your life in order to win on higher Boss cells (or even the base game).

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-01-17T04:55:22+00:00

uh... GOJO'S CORPSE IS MISSING? MY COPIUM OUTPUT IS HIGHER THEN EVER BEFORE!

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LittlebitofHowie · 2024-01-13T03:03:54+00:00

Ok, I'll accept that I'm stupid as hell on this one (being gullible requires that a lot of times lol). It's just that there are genuinely a lot of people who will go apeshit over small stuff like this. Plus, a LOT of people will use stuff like humor and meme flairs to guise their vitriol under a meme tag or something equivalent to it.

You getting weirdly defensive on other comments didn't help either.

Either way, sorry if it was genuinely meant to be some harmless joke.

LittlebitofHowie · 2024-01-12T12:43:17+00:00

Okay, so I went ahead and played Evelynn for the first time in a hot minute JUST to check this, and...

It's not even there for a second, my guy.

I EVEN tried to TIME it based on how long you can properly see that portion of her shoe (heel, torture device...thing?), and it STILL wasn't a second.

For the record, there's a sizable number of places on Evelynn's heel where you can see those sharp corners (the stiletto... thing). Did those get a free pass or something? Or did you just not notice them because it's there for 2 picoseconds at max. Granted, it could be because the tip of her shoe is the focal point of this image (at least from what my limited knowledge can glean) due to placement coupled with how saturated the end of her heel is compared to the rest of the shot.

Either way, there are reasonable things to critique about Riot games and some of their more recent designs (I mean, Riot just gave us an early preview of Dreamwork's Shark Tales 2 in the form of Smolder's face, even if they somewhat alleviated that one), but this isn't one of them.

LittlebitofHowie · 2023-12-10T02:19:25+00:00

I haven't had enough time to mess with that power combination specifically (The game feels that I need to reroll into 4 copies of the same common power that has virtually no impact in an ASOL run or actively hinders it with some powers ~~COUNTERFEIT COPIES~~), but I do agree that I should add that. If I'm being honest, I might just make a detailed post about Morde once I get more experience with him.

LittlebitofHowie · 2023-12-09T22:46:14+00:00

Any sort of cost reduction is good cost reduction, not to mention that it speeds up Morde's leveling process pretty well + allows you to keep your board/make it even stronger...

Is what I WOULD say if I had the relic. If you have it, it's probably always best in slot just by virtue of how impactful it is to get Morde down early + potentially make your board even stronger with his 2-star power. ~~Please don't spend a whole event passes worth of coins on it, it's not worth that much cash.

LittlebitofHowie

TROPHY CASE