Rewards For Doing Badly > Rewards For Doing Well

Yeah. Items outweigh champions a little too much, since it's a lot easier to get champions you want than items you want.

Almost every time I lose is to someone who lost early on purpose to get an OP item/champ stack in all the circles and made a comp that can't lose. The "Youll have lower hp" argument is so irrelevant. These players intentionally drop to like 12 by the end of the game then no one will land a single shot on them after that because their team is just god tier. Being low HP literally doesn't matter if no one can hurt you.

I RARELY see the person winning early game win the entire game. They always end up item fucked.

Tbh I prefer it this way. Why?

Players obviously do not like snowball meta in the prime League game, Summoner's Rift. Rift = Doing good early generally rewards you more all game, and locks in wins. There is no balanced comeback unless someone REALLY messes up after doing good.

I've accepted that if I'm #1 for the first 11 rounds of TFT, I'm going to have a drawn out match where I finish #1 or #2 or #3, simply because I gave up all the Spatulas or people counterpicked my carousels..

But here's my general tip to beat the odds of either giving an early lead away, or losing early to win late:

1. Lose Early has a steep problem: You have finite HP, and if it comes online too late, you're going to be playing random trading matches between someone who has 100 HP and someone who has 20. If your chance to beat them is 52% (slightly in your favor), you'll still lose, because they are in a better position.

2. You can have a little of the best of both worlds, simply by monitoring how sharply you win duels by playing a winning strategy. Round 2-4 duel wins hard? Don't buy and upgrade any more than you have to. Get to 10+ gold, and sit on it. Whether you win in 7 seconds at 15 seconds doesn't matter. Doing this might also allow you to lose one match or two, and give you a better first Carousel.

If you passively do this all game, you generally can maintain an ~80+ HP position into late game, simply by buying only as much as necessary and then hoarding.

If on the other hand you fall to the compulsion to rush a level to get another pawn on the table, you may secure 100 HP, but end up having no compatible upgrades.

If on the other hand you spend your hoard on resets, you've often neither spent them on levels nor champions, so you suffer a deficit on both ends.

I've maybe only won one game of TFT where I kept the initial lead per 8 games. I've won about 3 of 8 where I play #2 or #3. I've won maybe 1 in 8 where I played a loss strategy. I've lost about three where I've played a loss strategy.

(I win about 5 of 8 games)

its just, elite gaming skills arent even part of the equation currently. The game is literally 99% RNG and 1% strategy.

From my experience people who are in the top spots are usually those who have full 2-star Champions in early rounds and early 3-star Champions. And how hard do they really try? It's more along the lines of getting those pair and triplet Champion rolls than betting all on a few key re-rolls that make or break your game.

While there are the close games where nobody's 90+ HP and crits decide the winners, I don't really think that people who are already winning in a natural manner need any more help. Yes, it feels **** to wait and watch as every remotely good Item/Champion is being picked away, but let's face it - does it really feel any better to see how the top players pick Draven/Swain or Recurves and you know that you might as well afk and do something actually productive?

Rarely do I pick a champion from the carousel. Mostly I pick items. Even the worst items are worth more than a single copy of a champion in most circumstances. Just nerf items and give out more of them on minion waves.

One thing I think isn't considered strongly enough here is that you get a gold per win aside from any win/loss streak. That means the people losing on purpose make it easier for the winners to both keep their own win streak, as well as to keep harvesting the extra gold each win. Because of this, the win streak is always better than the loss streak by 1 gold. That gold helps keep 1st at 1st, where he keeps getting extra gold...

The problem with removing items from the carousel are two-fold:

1. It becomes purely a champion pick, rather than a consideration of both items AND champs, and a decision being made from multiple factors.
2. It makes winners snowball without people having a chance for people to come back from an early flop. Who would want to play a game for 20 minutes when it's clear who will win in the first 3?? But with the carousel draft, those behind always have the ability to make a comeback.

The issues with the game are with the number of items dropped by mobs, not the carousel.

The other day I was in first place until the end. I had over 60 HP and this one guy had 1 hp...He was at the bottom most of the game and ended moving up all the way and surviving till it was me and them. I was careful with my spending, got not a lot of items from AI battles....but this 1hp guy took me from over 60hp to none....making me second. He won with 1hp. This was because the items in the draft...

How does having a rank2 pyke with 3 spear of shojins by the 2nd carousel = pro gamer skills?

I really don't feel that way. Maybe till krugs, aiming for a loosing streak is fine, but past that you just drop to low and a single bad fight can be the end. It's also risky, cause if you get that 1 win in between, your econ is totally fucked, so it fully depends on beeing the only one actively tryong to loose. And it only works if you still get a decent setup+items on your bench, else you won't be able to recover in the midgame.

Winstreaks give huge gold advantages on top of NOT loosing live, and haveing a winstreak usually means your setup is doing nicely already, so you can save gold for interest which in the long run gives a huge advantage. Ofc if you get an early loss in between your gold isn't that great, but still better than for interupted loosing streaks and you still have more health and most likely a better setup.

As for the shared draft, i think the main issue is item balance right now. If some items weren't as clearly overpowered(mostly the off items) with others beeing rather weak(most def items), beeing 1st pick wouldn't be as bad. and even then, i rather have the health, gold and an already working setup than getting that itemadvantage unless your lucky enough to get multiple spatulas from it.

Also, it's really the only thing that keeps your hope up on an **unintentionall **loosing streak, else you could just as well leave if you drop to 50 befor reaching wolfs

So far, i havent seen much loosing strats, and most of them dropped out early, cause even when their setup got to a strong point, one fight vs assasins with crit luck or some prema CC glacials and they are out... On a winning streak however, if i reach wolfs as one of the top 2, i finish the game as one of the top 3 90% of the time, and the 10% are insanely bad luck with not getting ANY of the pices i want from there on. Doesn't matter what strat you go if RNGsus hates you.

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:

1. 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).

First pick in an early draft isnt all that great generally, as you can at best just get an item you specifically want or maybe a 3 cost for your comp. Youre getting enough power to balance out your lost HP.

Later on the first pick gets better as you get the option for a 4 or 5 cost unit first, but youre also usually down 50+ HP at that point.

If anything, winning and losing evenly is the biggest disadvantage.

The flaw in the argument that the original post makes is that it equates losing HP early on with "Doing badly." HP is a resource in this game, and can be traded for an advantage elsewhere. The concept of forgoing something in the early game for an advantage in the late game is not unique to TFT either. In RTS games like Starcraft for example, it is a common to forgo an early army in exchange for an early expansion. Lack of an early army makes one susceptible to an early loss if the enemy decides to rush (a very early attack), but benefits the player if the player survives the early game, by allowing them to have an economic advantage over their opponent. Likewise, in TFT a player can forgo a resource, HP and win gold, to gain an advantage elsewhere, items.

It is a risk though. Since everyone is fighting each other randomly, it is hard to know how much HP you will lose next time. It is risk and reward play that may or may not kill you. Making "Losing" as a viable strategy make it so that dumping every gold you have is not the only strategy to go for and more about saving gold for that interest and secure more chance at winning the game. If you think about it, there is nothing so strategic about brainlessly use gold at all. Remove the reward for losing encourage brainlessly spend gold which also remove the "interest" gold gain mechanic since a lose will snowball into a lost. Also, it is not like going on a win streak is bad either: You get more hp so that you can afford a few lost in late game which you will not get if you use "intentional losing strat", The lose streak gold (2g) also is lower than the high streak gold (4g).

I strongly disagree with your conclusion. This is a strategy game at its core, and their are observable trade-offs.

In Team Fight Tactics Health is a Resource, just like gold. As strategies become more complex, manipulating your position for drafting will become a key factor to success.

A valid strategy to win late game is minimizing HP loss, and consistently lose rounds to be close to the higher priority picks while having high gold income. The risk to this strategy is not being able to make your comp come into fruition before your HP is too critically low. Every strategy has a caveat.

so... what's your solution Rembrandt?

you want they should remove items from the draft circles? cause i'm all for that.

Only someone who frequently "loses" (5th-8th) would claim this. To try to "do badly" and throw early matches for a draft pick advantage makes a significant negative impact as opposed to trying to do well. Having an advantage in 1-2 drafts won't matter if you do not have the HP left to risk holding onto a better economy. Trying to do well on the other hand keeps you healthy enough that you aren't forced to make choices earlier on and let's not forget that each pvp win grants you 1g.

Losing early will get punished when people learn better strategies. have fun tanking your hp and then getting blasted randomly by someone who just all-inn'ed and now your game is over.

Whats even more funny is i get people who mock me for losing the early rounds only to later find out I won precisely because i lost early.

You forgot:

Do Badly:

• If you're not buying champs or extra slots, you also save up enough for interest gold faster. You can buy extra higher-tier champs later.

Try Hard:

• Because your team's stronger, you're more likely to win the NPC levels and have more items.

i do agree i lose the early game everytime just to have first item picks,,

unless i end up with a t3 or 3 t2 units before lvl 4 then i go tryhard