The reason for lose streak gold is because it takes time for the skill of a superior player to manifest itself because of the RNG interactions throughout. Indeed: skill in TFT is principally in a players profitable interaction with the RNG. I actually made a whole post on this, if by chance you are interested, and likewise curious about the proper way to compare the mathematical aspects of the RNG interactions with LOL.
https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/teamfight-tactics/HYxMA7TI-thoughts-from-a-cut-rate-mathematician-and-an-even-worse-gamer
I absolutely agree, though, that intermittent loss benefits should probably not exceed win benefits. But, just as the game should not be a coin flip--there should be some material and rankable concept of skill in the game--it should also not be a max squat--interacting with the RNG is integral to the game, which necessitates that the superior/prudent strategy lose to the inferior/risky strategy a nontrivial number of times. The post talks in detail about both aspects of randomness interactions.
By the way, since the last paragraph has references to other games, let me mention something about chess. In chess, there is absolutely an innate randomness: whether you or your opponent will recognize each other's strategies in time to counter. I talk about this sort of thing in my post, but problems like this are actually not tractable mathematically--they turns on something that cannot be reliably regarded as an RNG. This is what makes the game interesting. The same is true in TFT, the point is though that the obvious and meaningful presence of an RNG requires that people who do not roll well initially be given the chance to continue rolling--for at least a while. Nothing of the sort is necessary in proper chess, but only because there is no obvious or meaningful RNG presence.
Lastly, if you think about it for a moment, then we should be able to rank certain scenarios in the order of their likelihood for gaining rank/Elo--in other words, placing in the top 3 or 4. The best possible case is:
- executing a strong early game strategy then transitioning into a strong late game strategy, with good rolls early, transitionally, and late.
But which of the following 4 sorts of strategies is next best, and how to rank the other 3, is a development choice that will change with the meta:
2. executing a combination of strong early and moderate late game strategies, with good rolls
3. executing a combination of moderate early and strong late game strategies, with good rolls
4. executing a strong late strategy, with good rolls
5. executing a strong early strategy, with good rolls
The central question is: "where in this list do the corresponding strategies fall, with moderate rolls?" For the sake of argument, let's say the 5 scenarios mentioned can be statistically ranked for a given patch, and that their ranks are as above. The question then is, where does "executing a strong early game strategy then transitioning into a strong late game strategy, with moderate rolls" fit on the list? Between 1 and 2? Between 3 and 4? Getting this placement right is the result of properly balancing losing streak gold, where as giving too much or too little gold will result in a placement that is too high (you should not just be able to blindly go for 6 nobles with AS on vayne if the first 6 or 8 RNG rounds do not roll any nobles or any recursives!) or too low (the game shouldn't feel like a coin flip; just because you didn't roll any nobles or recursives on your first 1 or 2 RNG rounds should not mean that the strategy is absolutely off the table).
