Originally Posted by
adn
It commonly takes people several hundred runs of Dragon's Neck to get Terra Branford cards. Does that make Triple Triad not a minigame? Time investment/"work" does not mean it's not a minigame.
I think people tend to bristle at the term "minigame" as if that meant it were not meant to be taken seriously.
Of course it is part of the game, but it's not an alternative to PVE, which is the core of the game. You can't access the PVP without doing PVE to level 30 to unlock Wolves' Den, and after that you have to level up in PVE to 50 to be able to unlock Frontlines. You can't access PVP at level 1 and PVP your way to level 60. Thus it is by all definitions a minigame, whether people like that term or not. You cannot jump into the game from level 1, ignore PVE, and just play PVP (like you can in GW2, where PVP is not a minigame, it is very much so an alternative to PVE with a fully developed progression system.)