Boards›Teamfight Tactics

Is TFT more like Poker or a Slot Machine?

x Kuro x·6/30/2019, 10:01:39 PM·1 votes·673 views

I think a good lens to view TFT through is to ask the question...

Is TFT more like Poker or more like a Slot Machine?

A slot machine is 100% RNG. Poker, however, has skill involved. However, I feel most of that skill is expressed through betting, bluffing, folding, and the finiteness of a single deck of cards. Imagine Poker where there was no betting, and no folding. You just dealt cards, had two rounds of strategic discards, (dealt from a 6 deck shoe not a single deck), and then everyone showed their cards to see who wins... That feels 90% RNG to me, and that is what TFT feels like.

To me, TFT feels like a slot machine.

After learning the basics, and running 60+ gold economies, is that it feels like my results (win are lose) are caused by RNG outcomes, not calculated choices. When I get that awesome card drop I wanted, it doesn't feel satisfying, because I didn't do anything to make it happen, I just got lucky. Likewise, when I get bad item RNG, or bad champion card RNG... while I can look back at previous decisions that could have turned out better, there was no way to know that at the time, with the information I had in the past. So it's still just RNG.

Maybe taking lessons from Poker could make TFT a better game.

Maybe we should bet our LP, or make bets with gold that we can use to BUY items (rather than RNG drops), or something to make it more skill based and less RNG based.

4 Comments

Karn Bishop6/30/2019, 10:26:32 PM1 votes

It's a slot machine that could easily be poker with a few changes.

  • Knights are good early game and useless trash mid to late game because armor scalings mean almost nothing in the face of items / comps that directly neutralize said bonuses, the bonus should straight up be scaling damage reduction.

  • introduce soft scaling instead of hard scaling, so instead of getting bonuses at 2 or 6 of a type you get a smaller bonus each time you add to a set while getting a major jump at breakpoints

  • Change card draw from 5 cards per hand to 6 per hand it just makes sense to do so

  • add one additional reserve slot onto the board for not in play chess pieces

  • Increase the total number of chess cards for each unit by 1 to account for the extra reserve slot

  • add 2-3 new chess pieces

  • lastly changes to reksai, morde, and pirates to make them useful picks instead of worthless trash.

edit: forgot one.

  • Ability to see who your opponent is ahead of time from round 4 and onwards, you can counter certain comps if you position correctly but that requires you knowing your opponent.
Kai Guy6/30/2019, 10:40:43 PM1 votes

So, your EXP = what champions you can grab. if your able to economy ahead and then Burn gold for EXP lead over rerolling you stand to get first dibs on higher tier champions.

Not great if your going for a single comp. But if you fell behind or already crush the opponents you can use this to build some 2 start untits at the max Tier befor any one has an opportunity and use that as your corner stone for comp build. Ideally by working off whats on the board or if its an early game comp sell chaff off and replace it with viable units that slow your hp loss or win matches.

Mc Senpai7/1/2019, 8:19:17 PM1 votes

typical noob player.