I'm gonna just drop this here from the thread I made regarding possible fixes to the same problems:
Reading through the multitudinous complaint threads on both gameplay boards, as well as playing a dozen or so rounds of this game mode, has given me the idea to make a list of the primary complaints along with what I think are the best possible fixes to implement to resolve the issue.
1: RNG in item quantities.
People do not like the fact that the number of items dropped by mob phases is entirely random. Yes, this is how it was done in the unofficial DotA 2 mod that INSPIRED TFT, but in the official version from Valve this is no longer true because IT WAS THE NUMBER ONE THING PEOPLE COMPLAINED ABOUT AS BEING UNFAIR IN THE MOD!
Now, granted, we would likely NOT want the version from DotA Underlords implemented here for three reasons. 1: One item/global buff per creep round no matter how many creeps or how hard the fight. 2: DotA Underlords only allows one item per unit, period, the end, and you can't combine them either! 3: As stated before, creep waves in DotA Underlords also contain options for global buffs which we don't want here because they'd need to be overwhelmingly powerful to even be a viable option to pick instead of an item drop.
Proposed solution: Force an item to drop for every two creeps killed prior to Dragon camp stage, then one item per Dragon/Herald/Elder Dragon. Yes, with the odd number of minions in round 2 this will mean that there is a hanging item waiting for your first kill in the first 'jungle' camp, which all seem to have odd numbers of creeps anyways so it'll average out in the end. 3 Krugs, 5 Wolves, 5 Raptors, 7 items in total available from jungle camps provided you kill all creeps in the jungle camp stage. This would be a vast improvement over the current state of the mode where one person with a streak of bad luck could get ZERO items from the minion waves while another person can go into their first PVP round with a silver champ that has two rageblades and a guardian angel.
Proposed solution #2: Any creep that does not drop an item drops 10 gold instead. This alternative offers some form of compensation to those who are not LUCKY enough to get an item drop in the form of a champion availability steroid/level-up steroid, which can compensate for a lack of items by allowing unlucky players to search the shop earlier to get silver champs, or to give them a boost in interest income early on if they choose to sit on it.
My preference is the first proposed solution because the shop ALSO suffers from RNG issues, but that's an issue with the game TYPE rather than this specific version of it.
2: Limited Availability of Champions
Nobody likes this. Nobody likes being forced to reroll a dozen times just to find the ONE champ they need because some dunce that got knocked out in round 4-2 had five of them and created an artificial scarcity.
Yes, we get that raising our level makes starting champions less likely to show up, but some of those starting champions are really good and they don't always show up in the first shop option every match when you're at the right level. With INTEREST being such a huge thing as a gold income steroid, it deincentivizes spending gold on rerolls early on for a CHANCE to see another unit of the champ you want. Gold income early on can be agonizingly slow and NOBODY wants to make it even slower to get to that lovely stage where you're pulling in 10+ gold per round from passive income and full interest.
Proposed solution #1: Any time a player is knocked out of the game, their standing army is recorded for the end screen and then their units are broken down to bronze levels and put back into the 'deck' so they are once again available in the shop for anyone to buy.
Proposed Solution #2: The player that knocks another player out of the game is given the option to pick any one champion of their choice to take from the roster of the player who has been knocked out. Items are not included in this, and any gold champions are broken down into three silvers so nobody gets a free gold champion without having worked their way up (unless they already have two silvers of the same champ on their own roster of course, in which case they HAVE earned it). At the end of all combat the between-matches timer is frozen and all other players are then given the option to pick any one of the remaining champions from the former player's pool STARTING WITH THE PERSON IN LAST PLACE and moving up from there until everyone has either chosen or declined to take a free champion. Play then proceeds as normal with the pre-match setup phase restarting.
Obviously option 1 would be simpler to implement as well as generally more balanced while option 2 gives struggling players a CHANCE to get a bit of a boost via a free silver, or lower, champion. Both options are still better than what we have now where those champions are still locked up and effectively removed from play, blocking another player who just needs one more (Insert 1-gold champ of choice here) to finish their tier-3 version of the champ.
3: Random avatar damage
This is simply a case of the game not explaining that higher-tiered champions deal more end-of-combat damage to avatars, as well as end-of-combat damage being based on the number of enemy champs remaining, plus a random amount of damage from the enemy avatar based on the current game phase that scales up as the game goes on.
Proposed solution: Give us a quick breakdown of the damage taken, similar to how DotA Underlords does at the end of a fight: 3 damage from a gold champ, 2 from a silver, 1 from a bronze, and then whatever damage from the avatar based on game stage, presumably 1 damage per major creep camp with increments increasing after krugs, wolves, etc. Yes, there's already an in-game tip stating that the damage that you take increases as the game goes on, but people will UNDERSTAND better with a quick displayed breakdown of damage taken that takes all of ten seconds to show us, if that.
4: Facing the same player over and over
Some people get stuck facing the same two opponents constantly until the next roulette/carousel event. A simple and quick fix would be to have the game avoid putting you against the same person less than three matches apart unless there aren't enough people for that.
Sorry for the lengthy post, but PLEASE discuss other solution options in a comment, or at least discuss ideas I have presented here that you like so that this gets the attention it needs to influence how this mode matures and develops so that it can be enjoyable for every player and luck/randomness is GREATLY reduced to better allow for the use of TACTICS. You know, that thing in the name of the mode that's currently almost a joke?
