Path of Champions — A Wishlist
A few changes that an expert TPOC player would love to see in TPOC 2.0
I was kindly asked by Herko and Conansson to write about my thoughts on The Path of Champions (TPOC 1.0), and my (realistic) wishlist of changes or additions that Riot could add for TPOC 2.0 to our ever-growing PvE gamemode.
For quick context, I’m YouuXun “Yun”, a player that has spent enough time on TPOC 1.0 to beat everything, with all S badges, with all Champions, all of them maxed out, as you can see in this link to the relevant reddit thread.
I’d like to let it be known that I love the gamemode for the most part (otherwise I wouldn’t have spent hundreds of hours on it, of course!), but there are some minor things that I have issues with, or that I believe can be improved in general.
I'll go into detail about some of the changes I’d suggest, and their intended outcome / reasons of why I believe they could be good to implement. By the way, not all of these changes are aimed at just the tryhards like myself: even though I have sunk many hours into TPOC at a higher level, I believe that TPOC can be a great game mode for all different types of players.
Badges
Badges could be visually changed to different ranks (like Masters, Diamond, Bronze, Gold…)
Admittedly, I don’t have nearly enough knowledge to know if the letter-based ranking system of badges is confusing or odd in other languages, but this would be a possible solution to any language differences if it is a problem.
A way for players to see the requirements to get each badge.
When I was first badge-hunting, I wasn’t completely sure of how to get each badge.
The original Saltwater Scourge mode (LoR's previous iteration of PvE) was set up so that the wealth badge was gained based on the total amount of gold that was gained during the entire adventure.
In current TPOC 1.0, that is not the case (although it was bugged to be the same early on in TPoC’s life). If the badges' requirements are ever changed, it would be nice to have a way to pull up the requirements to obtain each badge.
A few examples:
“Wealth S: Beat the final boss with 900 or more unspent gold.”
“Speed A: Complete the map in 30 minutes or less.”
Simply having a list and explanation of how to get these badges would be nice, and would clear up a bit of confusion. And perhaps this info could be unlocked after beating the map once, that way newer players aren’t bombarded with info overload?
An additional great thing about having the badges set up this way is that every different map with every different champion could have different numbers in order to obtain each badge…
… or even different badges entirely!
The Speed badge
This may be getting into far too much detail about one small thing that made my life very, very difficult when trying to get SSS on every map, but here it goes: the Speed badge.
This badge was awful to get for many reasons, notably animation times.
From what I understand:
When an animation is playing, the timer for the speed badge is not paused,
When the enemy is playing out their turn, the timer is not paused
Time spent on the overworld does not count towards the timer.
I wouldn’t be able to fully confirm these because there’s no way in-game to track your in-game time.
On top of that, players on different platforms with different run speeds might not be able to viably get the speed badge. Legends of Runeterra was simply not designed as a speed game.
I have come up with a couple of potential solutions to fixing or changing the speed badge in a way that can appeal to the tryhards, casuals, and even speedrunners.
Idea #1:
Speed rank is based on total rounds used in the run.
This would encourage players to go for quicker strategies, or clever earlier combos. This way if players are running on hardware that isn’t as quick, or just need more time to take their turns, they can still get the badges by playing in a way that encourages smarter play, not faster play.
Idea #2:
Swap the badges entirely.
If the TPOC team wishes to keep the consistent badge system that TPOC currently has (where every map, for every champ, shares the same three badges and the same requirements to get them.), then a few badges that might be interesting to use instead of the speed badge would be:
Overkill badge (Extra damage done to the nexus of the final boss),
Skippers badge (For opting to just not use or enter a number of safe nodes),
Collectors badge (For completing the run with a high amount of cards)
Minimalists badge (For completing the run with a low amount of cards)
Idea #3:
Having an in-game or on map timer would be incredibly helpful for anyone looking to get the Speed badges, so that we’re able to know if we’re on pace or should just restart.
And a nice side effect to having an in-game timer that counts seconds is that by the end of the run, speedrunners would get to post an official, Riot-endorsed time.
No more cutting loading times out of your speedrun submission!
Idea #4:
I’d imagine this would be much, much harder (or even impossible) to implement, but for the sake of discussion: enemy turns, and above all time where you literally can’t do anything before the animation finishes (looking at you, Time Trick!) should not count towards the timer.
I could go on and on, but the idea is that we don’t have to keep a badge that doesn’t support the slow methodical playstyle that LoR encourages.
Roguelite elements & additions
TPoC 1.0 features something never before seen in any of the previous LoR Labs formats: roguelite elements.
For those who don’t know what a roguelite is, it’s similar to a roguelike in that, after failing a run, you lose all of the mission progress.
However, where they differ is that roguelites usually give players a permanent buff or reward at the end, that helps make any future runs easier (roguelikes are more "hardcore" in this regard, in the sense that all your character's progress gets wiped out and you have to start from scratch).
Now, I personally don’t like roguelite mechanics – roguelites are not bad design, and I actually enjoy playing roguelites myself from time to time, but personally I find that roguelites walk on a very tight rope when it comes to translating progress into skillful decisions or good learning experiences, and in particular when the game gives you all the solutions after you keep running into the wall, so instead of learning to move around the wall, you become so powerful you can just break the wall down with force alone.
In other words, roguelites are good, but not when they give you too much power, as opposed to the player learning how to get better at the game.
Having said that, many casual players aren’t always willing to keep dying over and over again just to “git gud”, and in that sense roguelite mechanics helps smoothing the road bumps. Character progress also helps adding a bit of a goal to the mode aside from beating all the enemies, by trying to max out your Champion rank.
TPOC 2.0 has already announced that they plan on expanding on this concept by introducing Legend Levels. From what we know, this will be a way for your runs to have some nice consistency across different champions without having to redo the grind (which is a great change, Riot!).
My ideas for potential interesting additions to the Legend Levels would be further customization or consistency.
Idea #1:
A way to toggle or change certain powers.
For example, I really hate Enfeebling Strike. It would be nice that maybe after reaching a high enough Legend Level, perhaps we’d be able to never see this power in every single one of my runs ever again.
A possible alternative that may be harder to implement: a way to change the way some powers work.
For example, changing Fast Deal to instead of drawing an extra fleeting card at the start of the round, it draws two extra cards at the start of the round, but the card that normally wouldn’t be fleeting is now fleeting. I think it could shake up or allow for a greater range for players to customize and really make their own “style” of play.
Idea #2:
Upgrading future found powers permanently.
Admittedly, I’m much less fond of this one, because I think it sets up players to tunnel in on one specific strategy every time they do a run (which I find not very fun), but depending on how people react, I think it could be an interesting addition. An example of this would be:
Out the Gates: Summon a random 2 cost unit from your deck → Summon a random 3-cost unit from your deck.
Idea #3:
Increasing the chances of seeing certain powers. There are some powers that I absolutely love using, even if they’re not great, like for example Endurance.
If there’s a way to implement an increased chance of finding epic items or rare powers, I’m sure there’s a way to change the odds of finding a specific power. This idea does have the same issue I have with idea #2, where it could cause players to tunnel in on specific strategies, so perhaps there could be a cost to it, though. Maybe decreased starting health? Or reduced gold gain, or even a lower chance to find epic powers/items/events just to balance out the possible shenanigans?
Challenges
This is for all of you fellow players that believe you’re the hottest stuff in TPOC – if you want a way to prove your skill, show it off to the world, are looking for a real challenge… you’ve come to the right place!
First off, some type of visible Leaderboard / Scoreboard, for players to compete for high scores (and of course also a way to compare your own score to the best). This would create a reason to replay the same maps, looking for synergies, strategies and such, while also cutting the grind for advanced players looking to get to a more competitive part of TPOC.
The main idea
Have optional “Negative Powers” that can be drafted for a score multiplier (and increased items at the end of the run). The way I would personally implement it is by having a large pool of “negative powers” with their own score multipliers / item increases.
I came up with an idea to implement it in two different ways.
Idea #1: The “Unsustainable way of making a bunch of negative powers”.
If there are a limited amount of “negative powers”, then I would recommend a screen similar to what some rhythm games have, where you can change the mechanics of the game to make it tougher on yourself, for the reward of a higher score.
The goal would be to have a list of handicaps that the player could voluntarily apply to themselves, like decreased Nexus health and/or enemies starting with spell mana / units.
Of course, there are only so many modifiers you can add onto a single page of UI before it becomes basically unusable, which is why I believe this option could be quite restrictive for future design space.
Idea #2: Negative draft.
That’s right, upon starting a run, at the starting node, the player will have the option of adding a “negative power” to their run. Similar to choosing a power, three random “negative powers” will be given; each with their own unique multiplier based on difficulty. Players can repeat this as much as they want, but even the best players can only handle so much… (I have compiled my own list of “negative powers”, I’m not sure if some of these could be implemented, they are purely for example.)
Items: Adding negative items to TPOC would actually allow for increased design space for future items. For example, if an item is seen as too powerful, a random negative trait/item would be attached to it as well. This would add some risk/reward decision-making and generate more unique runs.
Here's a crude list:
Stun on summon
less attack/health
increased cost
Frostbite on summon
Lose power/hp every round
Can't be effected by allied spells
Takes increased damage
Can’t damage enemy units / champs / nexus
Dies in one hit
Power = HP
Can’t attack/can’t block
To play: discard a card
To play: deal x damage to your nexus (lifesteal makes this interesting, just a straight buff.)
Reduce max number of cards in hand
Reduce max number of allies on board
Round start: If you have/don’t have the attack token, don’t draw a card.
When I’m summoned randomize my stats
When I’m played/summoned reduce allies power this round.
To play me: Kill an allyPowers that affect both players: New powers that affect both players (The Ethereal Remitter already has some examples of this).
I think it’d be interesting to see how a power that also affects your opponent has the potential to change the dynamic of some of the encounters. Perhaps sometimes the power is incredibly helpful against certain enemies or detrimental against others? This would add complexity and variety, and could change the flow of every fight (similarly to Hearthstone’s PvE mode, The Daloran Heist’s “Anomaly mode”).
Removing the early loss punishment: The punishment for not finishing the first two encounters of a run isn’t popular, neither among experienced players nor new players.
My suggested solution: let players do infinite rerolls at the cost of reduced rewards and score.
However, to encourage players to get to the midboss / second encounter, the bonus is now tied to something like Slay the Spire’s “Neow’s blessing” (rewarding more gold, or nexus hp+, or a random item on a unit) that the player gets to choose before choosing their power…
… but only if the player made it to at least the second encounter (and probably add a warning that, if the “Neow’s Blessing” is taken, the player will not be able to infinitely reroll if they pick one of the bonuses).
This system allows the rerolling of powers that players enjoyed before, while encouraging players to get to the farther encounters without constantly restarting to reroll powers.
It’s also nice for new players, or just those who want to have a good time!
Miscellaneous
Be able to see all or future nodes as one of the Legend Level rewards – This would allow for more strategic planning / pathing for players that want to use it.
The ability to use a reroll token (or two) to SKIP a card as a Legend Level reward. I personally like the unskippable cards, since it forces players into having sometimes awkward cards in their deck and to adapt, but I'm sure some players will welcome this feature.
Fix TF's power in the future, or just straight up change it.
Upon playing TF, the cards' order should be BLUE, RED, GOLD (I know this isn’t exclusive to TPOC, but I promised my friend it would be in here somewhere! =).
Being able to trade a power/unit for another power/unit (Like in Expeditions, where you used to be able to trade one card for another)
Stats and showoff stuff
We TPOC players do like to brag! =)
As such, some stats that I'd like to see (and easily share!) would be:
-Number of times I've defeated an enemy, perhaps also showing the number of losses?
-Save a featured card or run, to show it off,
-An easy way to see all the badges earned in a single list. The confirmation video I sent on Reddit is SIX MINUTES LONG. Just clicking on every encounter is just annoying to check for missing badges.
Closing thoughts
Man, I just want to see my friends play this mode.
I wanted to create a wishlist of sorts that would help draw the attention of all kinds of players, from casuals to completionists, and from challengers to speedrunners.
I dearly love TPOC, but as it is right now, there are some elements that just make it unwelcoming for new players, and annoying to returning or veteran players. From what we’ve seen, Riot’s plans for TPOC 2.0 are looking to be very exciting, fixing some of the biggest issues that we had (like grinding for experience), deck customization, and a better difficulty curve (We hate you, Nautilus adventure!).
Ultimately, this is just a wishlist, but I really do believe in the future of Legends of Runeterra, TPOC, and other future Labs content!
Shoutout to @maple for the byline bio❤️. @Clayten for playing LoR with me❤️ (even though you always beg for Twisted Fate changes).
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