Some Thoughts About TFT Missions

Let me start by saying that I love the start to TFT, from the consistent updating and great response to feedback that Riot Games has made to this game. And I haven't had this much fun with a game since the first time I started playing LoL. With that being said, there are still some errors, nothing dreadful, but ideas that can be improved upon for the future, particularly pertaining to missions. While I think that giving everyone an equal playing ground for rewards like the different stages are great, I also want to make sure that the missions reward players for the right reasons; it's nice to have daily points that can be obtained that increase depending on how much you've played TFT in the past 24 hours, and the missions compliment them. At least, most of them do.

There are some missions that have worked out really well. I enjoy the use of missions that reward consistent playing, while also trying to prevent rewarding players from going AFK and dying before wolves. I also really enjoy the missions that encourage playing a specific class/origin, they teach players to try out different strategies, and allowing them to choose between two options lets the player try one over another based on the current meta. That being said, there are some stinker missions out there, and I'd like to talk about a couple and other missions that did what they did better.

1. Build 3 full items on a 3 star character: This seems like it could be a good mission, until you consider the likelihood of those 3 items necessarily being good/the chance that you'll get to put them all on a 3-star champion, and the likelihood that this 3-star champion is a carry isn't very likely. I could definitely see it working in the current meta with something like Shyvana, Kennen, or Morgana, but I remember looking at this, saying to myself "Alright I guess I could just stock up on tier 1 characters," and built crap on top of a Fiora that in no way helped me actually win. The problem with this mission is that it doesn't encourage players to choose what strategy to go with, or even to really strategize at all, but rather rush the fastest character to 3 stars and shove every item you get onto them. Better missions should encourage all different types of strategies. Such as: BETTER MISSIONS: Put 3 full items on one character OR Build x 3 star characters: These missions let the player prioritize a champion fit for 3 full items, namely their carry, or focus on putting together a team with 3 star character(s) and gives the player more freedom. Neither of those tasks alone is challenging enough, and if it were too easy I wouldn't recommend it, but to force players into risking winning in order to gain mission points doesn't help the player learn the game at all.
2. Get a 3 star character before Round 3-1 and Reach Level 6 before the second carousel: These strategies encourage players to play the game incorrectly, not to suggest that there is a true right or wrong way to play TFT, but they encourage methods of play that more often than not put the player behind their competition and usually, they end up losing early. I remember for the get to Level 6 one I literally didn't buy any characters and sold my first carousel champion and just continuously lost with no one on the field just to get this mission completed (A much better player now than I was back then, I realize that I could have gotten to level 6 in a somewhat better way). My point is that it encouraged me to tank completely and go down over 50 health by the 2nd carousel that the game was sealed in stone for me and I ended up losing that game, believe it or not. As for the former, I couldn't even complete it because of how luck based it was, and by the time I saw it, I wanted to play the game correctly more than I wanted to keep rerolling just to find a character that probably would have outlived their utility by late game. Again, it would just be better to have to work for multiple 3 star characters over a couple of games, or even go for 2/3 3 star characters in a game. That way, you can still focus on a strategy of looking for specific characters over the course of the entire game rather than press your luck. LEARNING HOW TO PLAY THE GAME AND CHALLENGING THE PLAYER TO DO SPECIFIC TASKS THAT HELP THEM IN THE LONG RUN SHOULD BE THE FOCUS OF MISSIONS, NOT LUCK. BETTER MISSION: Get to Level 9 in a game -This is something that I know a lot of people struggle to do, and most people don't even get to Level 9, but this is a challenge, and it encourages the player to have the maximum number of players on the field (without Force of Nature). I think that missions like this aren't gimmes, but they certainly are doable, as this encourages the player to start strong, save up money, build interest, and buy XP appropriately. And at the same time, there's no time limit, which is a big issue with the Level 6 mission; the rush doesn't just get me to level 6 faster, it made me lose the game faster.
3. Obtain a 9 unit set bonus: This mission is what encouraged me to write this. This mission does encourage playing the game around set bonuses and getting to level 9/getting a Force of Nature, but it also is wayyyyyyyy too reliant on luck. For starters, there aren't many 9 unit set bonuses in the game (I think there's Assassins, Blademasters, Sorcerers, and Yordles only) so that limits you to 3 strategies. Next comes the issue of finding Spatulas, which are by far the rarest of the single items. For each of these strategies, you need at least one, but some of them cough Yordles cough require up to 3, and with those three Spatulas you need the proper item, which is a pain in the a**. So not only can you not use those specific items to aid your team (Blademasters need two recurve bows to go with their spatulas, which is a full Rapidfire Cannon or could be use to make Rageblade, Static Shiv, Giant Slayer, etc.), but you have to hope that some of them drop from monster camps, because there's no way you're going to get 2-3 spatulas plus the required items to pair with them in the 4 carousels with single items (the 5th carousel has all full items). At the same time, getting the minimum required spatulas isn't necessarily the best option, like you only need 1 spatula and 1 BF sword to go with the other 8 assassins, but this also ruins Akali and Zed's ninja bonus if it's just the two of them, so in actuality you should be looking for 2 spatulas and BF swords with 7 assassins and turning the other Ninjas into Assassins, or you could go for Assassin Cho'Gath and Rek'Sai and have a Void Assassin comp, but again, now you need two. Now you don't necessarily need to get to Level 9, but that also means getting a Force of Nature, which is two more Spatulas that you can't use for your comp. All of this on top of the luck that you'll get those necessary late game characters that can complete the comps. BETTER MISSION: See above or Get a 6 unit bonus x times or Change a character's class/origin x times: These all encourage the player to complete a challenge, but now they're given so much more freedom to choose what they do, and that's how to play the game! Paying attention to what other people are going for and seeing what characters/items you're getting and how you can use them with the current meta to your advantage should really determine what path you take in the game, 6 unit bonuses are much more available and are much more common, so requiring multiple trials would be better than a single trial of absolute hell. And encouraging the player to experiment with the different spatula items and finding working strategies with those characters is very beneficial to helping other players understand and enjoy the game!

In conclusion, I enjoy the game, but I wanted to try and help improve this particular aspect of the game. I want players to feel encouraged to play the game and succeed, rather than tank for XP and spend 15 minutes playing a game that they're not improving in. Hope to see in the game soon to pull off some epic Shurima Shuffle combos!