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RNG-fest: No strategy and minimal tactics (and why that is)

Żügżwäng·7/6/2019, 4:45:15 PM·1 votes·585 views

I'm not just here to complain because I lost some matches, but I'd like to give my preliminary thoughts. For what it's worth I'm glad they didn't call this 'auto-chess' because that title is insulting to the game of chess. Tactics is more appropriate, but this game is just more heavily reliant on RNG. Those who are more experienced will make fewer mistakes, but once everyone has a level playing field, it comes down to luck:

  1. Champion draft: at the start where you start determines who gets the good stuff as everyone dashes to grab something. A cute idea, but dumb for a competitive game.
  2. Champ shop: This is the worst offender, as gold is so limited, what you can buy can either make you OP, or leave you screwed. With only 5 champs, you can't just re-roll as much as you want since you'll run out of gold. 2a. Champion levels: Having a 3-star system is a dumb idea. Again, it's fun to get a super-powered champ, but the method by which you obtain them is extremely frustrating (see point 2). Thus, rather than buying a variety of champs to change your, you know, TACTICS from round to round, you're always trying to buy multiples of the same one, but then you start to run out of space. So many times I'd have 8 of the same champ, and the game ends before I can ever find the last one. There is no meaningful risk/reward planning, it's all up to luck. Cap champs out to level 2 if you insist on this mechanic.
  3. You have no idea what's coming up: What is the point of tactical planning, if your opponent is seemingly random. You can't see what they own, you can't rearrange your units meaningfully... Just, put your tanks up front, ranged in back. Even assassins I see some people putting them on another side of the board. It's meaningless when they INSTANTLY dash across the map anyway. Also which champs do you choose from round to round? Your strongest ones obviously, the ones that you've been pumping up from the start. Do you have a new slot? OK put the new hero you bought there, and now let's hope you win.

There's more than that, with the item drops, etc, but honestly I don't understand why companies have invested so heavily into this auto-chess phase. The new characters are cute, but another ploy to get people buying. What is the point of them even walking around the map when you just left click stuff around.

Perhaps a more experienced player would like to give me their take on this, but as someone who loves strategy and tactics games (chess included) this doesn't really do it for me. Maybe I came in with the wrong expectations (because the genre is called auto-chess), but this whole thing feels so hands off. Make a few "this feels generally OK" decisions, and hope for the best.

1 Comments

Ratpie7/6/2019, 5:14:15 PM2 votes

Sorry this is long, but hopefully this helps.

I think people are having a hard time seeing what this game actually is. It is not an everybody has the same situation and all out strategy game like chess. It is a game based on decision making in adaptable circumstances. If you have to compare it to chess, think of it more as a chess where conditions can change, and you have to be able to adapt and make new decisions based on the current situation. Chess with rng. You are playing and then OH CRAP THE RULES JUST CHANGED! How do you manage that? There are certain elements of placing the pieces in the right positions for maximizing potential, understanding how the different pieces can work together to create traps, but you will not always get the same pieces, or even the same quality pieces. With what you are given, how well can you do and how well can you adapt as that changes?

As an example I had a game that just showed this (and sadly I failed cause I was lazy). I initially got early assassin pieces with good items for it in the first rounds. I positioned them for maximum damage and did very well as some people mispositioned, had crappier starts, or just didnt care in the early round, hoping to get better pick spots for the carousel rounds. I went the first 1/4 not losing, but then I never got any more assassins and my setup was about to fall of hard and I saw that, so I started phasing in void immediately to hit harder with my two 2star Khaz that I couldnt get to a 3star. I also started building a Shen in case I could get blademaster combo going with a Draven, or a spatula/bow to make one of my assassins into a blademaster. I continued doing really well for 2/3 of the game not losing anything, and absolutely wrecking people. Now at this point one of the people who did horrible at the start, through good money management was building up and get a 3star vayne stuck in the corner. I wrecked him once, but then he was the first person to wreck me when he got 3 full items (titanic hydra, RFC, and bladethirster), as my Shen with phantom was not staying alive because I was blocking his crits he got RFC which bypassed my phantom. Now at this point I had a solid team, 3 Void, 3 assassin, 3 blademaster synergies with a 2star Draven that was getting ignored because of all my meat shields and assassins. I thought at that point, I needed to counter that Vayne, but that person was almost dead and if things rolled out nicely someone else was killing him every time because of a different comp than mine. That is where I screwed up. I should have taken a blitz I passed on to pull out his only big weapon but I was having fun with my existing combos. Then it got down to us as the final 2 and he had survived with 5 health. He then plastered me for 3 rounds in a row without me getting to his vayne, so I burned 50+ gold and never found a blitz and he won. I did not adapt soon enough and I lost to someone that at the start of the game had crap RNG.

Now, can RNG just crap on you all game? yes occasionally, but from what I find for every crap game you get one that is nuts in your favor, but those are few. MOST games are all about management and you can do really well if you make smart decisions. Most of the games I lose because I made poor decisions, and only rarely is it just because of RNG.

I think some people have a hard time because they either can't get past those few games where they can't do anything because of RNG, they don't understand all of the moving pieces well enough to find consistent success, or they just want a winning strategy that works EVERY TIME. There is NO winning strategy that works every time. Well being adaptable in the face of change is, but even then you have to be okay with losing some rounds. There are things I have had to try because what I was doing wasn't working and something that I thought would be awful works really well.

In this mode you could be the best in the world, and you still will not win every time, and that doesn't sit well with everyone. BUT, if you make good decisions you can on average stay in the top few spots, which is probably why Riot is making the ranked version give you LP if you are just in the top 4.

I hope that helped. ( oh and as a side note I look at all the other teams boards before I make purchases and positioning. I position for the biggest threats to my team,which can mean different things. Someone puts a blitz on their board? I swap my itemized adc with a lower impact champ in the back row. I am in the top 2 and the other team is pure assassins? I corner in OR I swap my backrow with my front and leave an empty far back and flip the table on them. You can watch all the other team comps on the minimap, you just have to be fast in analyzing them and getting back into time to make your purchases.