u/CardTrickOTK

I'll start off by saying I watched the Movie on X because it was free and I saw people talking about it.
Watching it was hard, the subject the movie is taking a stance against (unpunished crime, uncontrolled immigration, societal decay, and corruption) are dark and uncomfortable truths in reality. However, a lot of people hyper focus on this as some 'right wing' movie, which I don't really think is accurate.
I do agree that casting Armie Hammer is a bit... odd, but in the movie Michael Sanders, as far as I know isn't really given a strong motive. He's an American in Europe whose taking the fight to rampant criminality.
People say the movie is a racist anti-muslim dog-whistle, but I think that's just wrong and shows you haven't watched the movie. Sanders seems to indiscriminately target criminals. Early on he kills a random gang, then he threatens some punks on a bus (whom he laters beats up for bullying), he also is shown swapping the spiked drinks some white dudes had dosed while their dates were in the bathroom, and fights a majority white police force.

That said the movie very... all over the place. It jumps from scene to scene, back and forth and can be very hard to follow, and many scenes felt out of place without further thought or context. For example he visits a brothel, and sees black mold in it. We learn he owns the building and is hyper focused on things to an extreme degree to the point he's mid coitus and stops what he's doing to examine the mold on the wall. The guy is an asshole slumlord...

It was after this point I really thought more on it and realized my main issue was I was still thinking of Sanders as the hero... not as an asshole who just so happens to be killing people I don't feel much sympathy for. He is not the 'good guy', he is frankly freakin' insane- at one point driving a random guy off the road in a game of chicken to make a point to a corrupt judge about how humans tend to follow the law regardless.

To me, Citizen Vigilante is a very messy film, trying to tell the cautionary tale that you DON'T want to be relying on 'the vigilante' because while he's praised for 'taking out the trash', the 'garbage man' is insane.

It also makes a strong point about the law being more to keep you under control, rather than to protect you, which showcases a growing sentiment for a lot of people, and I think that message likely is probably the strongest point in the movie. As we see Sanders and the Chief talk on the phone at the end and the Chief is talking about his morals and principles, and the oaths he took, but these SWAT officers just broke into a guys house on a hunch.

It does a good job making NO ONE feel like 'the good guy' and pointing out the dangers of a society that's completely lost faith in the system to the point they've turned to the big bad wolf for aid.

All that said I just don't like how it's structured. It looks like he's talking in jail a few times at the movie, like in an interrogation, but we never see that. We also never see him become radicalized or really have any stakes in the game, or have anyone challenge him in any real way about his own morals.
I think maybe this is asking too much of an hour and a half movie, but in general think Citizen Vigilante would've worked better as a series, rather than a movie, with more runtime to actually get those ideas out and give you time to digest them before the final credits roll.

Overall it's just fine. I would've loved to see a gradual escalation from Sanders, and more vigilantes, and see kinda like in the boys, a kinda 'how the corrupt underbelly operates' if we're going a full on 'everybody sucks here' route, but for what it's worth the movie is just okay.

I don't think it really deserves the hate it gets from people who haven't seen it, but nor do I think it's some 10/10. I think it's just a good outlet for a frustrated populace who feel crime isn't dealt with.

Final rating: ~6.5/10: Messy, a bit too scatterbrained, but conveys the horror of relying on unhinged vigilantes to combat the evils in the world well while bringing those evils into the light.

I'm sure we all feel the problems of this patch.
-Minimal effort reskins of generic effects slapped onto everything whether it makes sense
-These aren't really 'unique skills augments' they're just 'augments for your skills' which is not the same and the hype for the patch was pretty misleading.
-Even the interesting ones are minimally useful, like Tripleshot.
-Damage is extremely high and tanking is much harder now.

Ultimately though I think the biggest issue with the patch isn't really all these things. I think it's more an issue of failing to understand what the community was asking for.

Actual ability augments.
Give Yasuo the odyssey perks like dashing through teammates to shield them, split his tornados, etc. Let champions be played in new ways, like only rockets Jinx or only MInigun jinx, Janna creating a rallying storm that damages enemies and empowers allies, etc etc etc.

There are so many ways this could be done, but I think a major issue here is scope.
With so many champions I don't think it's realistic to expect it all at once, so I propose adding another queue, where (much like what Overwatch is doing with Stadium) we gradually expand the pool, allowing smaller, concentrated, but meaningful patches and perks as well as systems testing rather than 'heres what we're pushing onto PBE'.

Make a live test branch like what Blizzard does, have surveys, work from a smaller pool and do group drops after that- allowing full and interesting perks to be added on a per champion basis.

As an ARAM player primarily, when Riot announced Mayhem I was extremely excited. They have shown in the past that perks and augments in League can be extremely cool and unique, with previous rotating game modes like Odyssey and Arena.

When ARAM mayhem released it was great, a mess, but at the same time, a glorious mess, where there was no 'right' answer, just a lot of questions, a good amount of RNG, and tools for experimentation.

When we got the tags like in TFT, where combining a bunch of a same type would unlock synergy bonuses this was exciting, but ultimately meant you were gatekept into awkward builds just to try and get the full effect of whatever bonus you were going for.

Thus, this being removed wasn't a major issue, especially since it was announced that we'd be getting ability augments, which made me EXTREMELY excited. The sky was the limit with this, Yasuo throwing a tornado that splits into a bunch of mini tornados, Talon Q being 360, Janna ult turning into a damage zone that buffs allies like a rallying banner, Volibear shield striking the zone and leaving a lingering lightning area!

Instead what we ultimately got was largely what feels like a rushed and untested proof of concept that was pushed to live.

-Bread and butter, and the other perks got expanded and can be leveled up in damage and/or ability haste. This is not a real ability upgrade so much as just a generic upgrade flavored as something special.
-Ability resets that for abilities with no cooldowns because it's just a generic thing, that any champion can get with no real thought put into it.
-Broken and buggy effects like the mini-dash or double cast that don't always work.

I think the best one I've seen so far was Triple shot and the one that splits the ult on hit, but again, these are generic. You can get this on Malphite, Cassio, Annie, and Ashe, Ezreal, Jinx respectively.
This proves that unit effects can exist, but ultimately most of them feel like they miss the mark.
Instead of unique tailored upgrades we got random, often nonsensical offerings that feel too weak, or completely irrelevant to the champion we're playing.
A very tiny heal for using an ability with a long CD is terrible, but a very tiny heal for using an ability with almost no cooldown, cost, or multiple charges? A lot better.

Combine this with how much more one shotty the mode has gotten now that the mode isn't league of tanks, and we've got augments that miss the mark compounding on an extremely feast or famine iteration of the mode that makes bad RNG feel even worse.

I am not saying the mode is bad by any means, but I wish time was taken with the mode rather than rushing it out in such a messy state.

Beyond that I wish perhaps that they created another Mayhem queue to try and go down that road- true ability overhaul perks, and have live experiments like what Blizzard does, rather than on the PBE. Show us, test things, give us surveys to fill for feedback!

I think personally the best idea would probably be a separate mode, that (Much like what Blizzard did with Stadium) takes a much smaller group of champions and really goes all in on pushing their abilities to the limit. I suggest a smaller pool of champions, because otherwise you have the dilemma of doing too much all at once and either we never see this update, or we see like 1 for a few champions every couple of months that you'll see 1 out of every 10 games.

I'd love to see a small, tailor picked roster, gone in on. Create completely unique ways to play the champion. Give Yasuo the dashing and shielding that captain Yasuo had during odyssey, let Jinx chompers hunt nearby enemies, Let Annie ult be Annie rides tibbers and gets new abilities, go crazy with it.

Ultimately I think my feedback for this patch of Mayhem, is that it felt too scared to allow big things to happen. It's either held back by scope, or something of the sort, but honestly I genuinely hope to see a more targeted version of Stadium that grows and reimagines champ abilities, gives them scrapped abilities, augments existing abilities- rather than just slapping the same half dozen augments on every skill regardless of how little sense it makes and calling them 'unique'.

The elephant in the room.

The first one is obviously Aurora. Almost every deck running body is running Aurora, and the card is incredibly predatory and doesn't feel like it's at all authentic Riftbound.

I'm not even arguing it's op, you can try and rush it down, run gear removal, hard removal, but no matter what it doesn't feel like 'opponent out played me' it always will feel like 'Ah, they got their thing, can I beat it right now? No? Go next'.
That's not a healthy card, and people are saying 'ban Elder'. Elder isn't the issue. If you had to spend 12 and recycle the full amount Elder would be a strong card with windows for interaction, but Aurora enables Elder to be played in an unhealthy way where they don't play the game for multiple turns, drop Aurora and suddenly 180 the power dynamic in spite of doing almost nothing for two to three turns.

Banning Elder does not stop Aurora. Aurora lists will just move on to go find another boss monster to jam instead, or wait a set (Mind you Vendetta is supposed to be introducing opposing domain legends so get ready for MIND/BODY Aurora Lists as well).

The only way to stop Aurora, is to just not allow the card to be played, and encourage people to actually build decks around their legends not build decks around Aurora.

The other pain point.

The second thing that everyones aware of but is still incredibly frustrating is the constant erratas, and bad rulings on how cards work.

I come from games where it's very very common for 'card texts beats rules text' to be the standard. This is frankly how it should be in general, because the general rules cannot account for EVERY card, so cards occasionally explain or exempt themselves in their text to function or to make unique interactions.
This SHOULD have been the case with Stalking Wolf who literally says "EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE OTHER UNITS THERE". Instead Riot looked at the Ambush ruling and went with that, which is honestly just straight up wrong imo, and a terrible ruling.

At worst they could've cleaned up the wording by adding '-only if the ally you killed was at that battlefield' or something along those lines to ensure Wolf is being played at the spot where the poro, bird, cat, or dog was. And probably clarified that the card doesn't count as being their until after the death resolves for cards like Loyal Poro/Lonely Poro.

Instead the card has text that riot have decided is just a lie.
This needs to stop happening.

This is a multi-faceted question, so I'll bring up a few points, and if you can think of more feel free to bring them up.

1- As a new player, how easy/difficult is it to get into Riftbound?
For me I think the answer to this is it's much easier, vaults (while the shape of the box is terrible), offer a good way to bulk up your collection, and the starter decks feel like they've found the sweet spot WOTC missed for ages, having actual playable staples in your decklist, without making it feel like a competitively constructed deck you don't want to tweak.
Honestly the only thing I'd really want now is a toolkit (IE a ~$20 box, with a few bulk runes, legends, a bit of bulk cards, and a few boosters), and with the upcoming duel decks, I feel the game is doing very good for new players. The one drawback being they are doing too many erratas I'd say. Most casuals won't know about or use those erratas.

2- How healthy is the meta? Are bans holding up and what problematic cards might need to be addressed?
Personally I see a lot of people playing all sorts of stuff, it's still early, but even the 'niche' legends got played this set just because I think a lot of people like the varied playstyles we got which is a good thing.
That said I think Aurora is becoming more and more of a problem, not because it's inherently op, but more so it's just a meta warping card for any body deck, and I think this card might need to catch a ban just to encourage these decks (especially Sivir and Miss Fortune), to actually play around their legends instead of just making good stuff piles that dig for Aurora. Aurora definitely feels like a big anti-diversity card because it seems to be auto-include for a lot of decks, and I think if they take it out, we'll see a lot more exciting builds.
And if banning it causes a major problem, that points out more about the color having a problem than Aurora itself.
Beyond that right now I think it's pretty healthy, varied and exciting to build decks.

3- What would you want to see in future sets/what other problems do you see in the games ecosystem right now?
I think the biggest issue here is all champions being rare+ and legends being in the rare slot instead of a token auto include at the back of a booster. Also a lot of the rare champions often feel stronger than the epic variants.
I think of those the biggest issue is obviously the legends problem. I was trading yesterday with a dude and looking through his unleashed stuff, and guy must've had like 100 or so of the new legends. It's just wild.
Beyond that I'm curious if they'd ever do like 'uncommon champions' like how Magic has uncommon legendries now. Making it easier to get something playable for a champion you like, and also broadening the pool without necessarily forcing mediocre effects into the rare slot. A good example of this in my opinion would be Xerath-Freed, who doesn't feel like he has a home an just feels like worse Caitlyn, because unlike Cait he doesn't have innate scaling AND he has a power cost to do flat damage. It's just an uncommon in the rare slot imo.

As for what I'd want to see in future sets, I'd honestly love if they release draft boxes with a few recent sets. It'd be really fun to just pull from like the past 4-5 sets and draft, rather than only having draft boxes for pre-release. I think drafting in riftbound is probably one of my favorite experiences with the game so far, so seeing draft boxes beyond just pre-rift kits would be nice. Maybe even put an variant art on the legend and champion in those kits to make them unique without mechanically changing them.

What do you all think? How are you feeling in set 3 right now?