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Thoughts on the state of TfT from a diamond player

SpaceDonut·8/20/2019, 6:28:52 PM·16 votes·7,953 views

Right now, I think the most problematic aspect of TFT is the abundance of RNG elements. Now I understand that the game is inherently based around some randomness, but in its current state it feels like too much. Since there is a ranked TFT ladder it seems like Riot wants to have a competitive TFT scene, and toning down the RNG would help to showcase player skill.

I like being handed random champions and items to play with, that rewards creative players who can adapt to what they're given. I don't like having some players get 4 item components from minions and others get one or even none. I would like to see item drops normalized, so minions always drop for example two gold on the first round and one item each on second and third rounds. Same for the other PvE rounds.

Following the theme of excessive RNG, the current phantom and hextech bonuses feel either overpowered or useless depending on which unit they hit. Reducing a 3 star volibear carry to 100hp before the fight even starts is nuts, but you can also hit the warwick who's only there for brawler synergy. Same with hextech to a lesser extent. I would suggest making phantom bonus instead cause your phantom units on death to become untargetable and continue fighting for 5 seconds, and for hextech to give an additional 50%/100% base stats to all your items.

Healing and the grievous wounds mechanic are quite busted at the moment. Having a healing based unit like warmog's gnar or swain puts you in a position where your unit is either going to be an unstoppable juggernaut without grievous wounds or die far too easily with it. I would suggest nerfing healing items and abilities across the board and reducing grievous wounds to a 60% or 70% reduction rather than 100%. That way healing is less oppressive against teams without grievous wounds and not completely useless against teams with grievous wounds.

Nobles are another problem, they just feel bad to play. The three noble bonus falls off incredibly hard past krugs, but the 6 noble bonus is so strong it's worth playing three one star nobles just because you found a kayle. And that's the other problem with nobles, pulling off the comp is entirely dependent on finding a 5 cost unit. I think nobles could be fixed by changing the 3 noble bonus to give your whole team just the 35hp restored on hit so it's worth running 3 nobles mid-game, lowering the 6 noble bonus to 50 armor/mr, and adding Lux as a 3 cost noble sorcerer. This would make nobles much more consistent while tuning down their late game dominance just a bit.

Gunslingers are in a good spot right now with the addition of Jinx as a strong late game carry, but their itemization feels problematic. Cursed blade's effect is currently a balance nightmare. Dropping units down a level for the rest of the fight can have a huge impact for a single item. I think it would be better if it instead reduced damage output by 50% for four seconds and had its proc chance increased. This would give gunslingers a powerful defensive combination with hush rather than having a chance to basically delete a unit in one attack.

Demons are in a weird spot right now, their bonus is quite good but building a comp to take advantage of it is awkward. The viability of demons seems to scale in direct proportion to the number of darkin items you can build because right now the fewer actual demons you have in your demon comp the better. That said sorc comps with Morgana and Brand seem to do very well.

Rangers make me sad. Kindred is a disappointment of a 4 cost unit, doing little damage and having a powerful but inconsistent ability. Ashe is the best of the bunch, but I have more success using her in a glacial comp instead of four rangers. She's more of a support unit than pure damage, which is fine but leaves your ranger comp lacking in potency. Varus used to be solid damage, but his ability damage was reduced on top of his targeting being inconsistent at best. He would be far better if his ability targeted the farthest unit like Aurelion's does, even if it means further reducing his ability damage or increasing his max mana. Vayne is, well, vayne. Good rageblade/hurricane user, can't really solo carry, but at least you're the only one collecting her.

Other than the issues I listed the game feels pretty nice right now. Multiple team comps can do well, and most items feel pretty balanced. I think TFT could support a strong competitive scene with some polishing, which would be great.

3 Comments

BigIdea8/21/2019, 1:36:29 AM4 votes

The rng is intentional, as it forces players to play an exorbitant number of games before achieving true elo - active player bases are good for games. It's never been about making a fair game in which skilled players immediately outperform. Riot knows what it's doing.

Shakthyana8/21/2019, 12:38:56 AM2 votes

I'll just leave this here instead of opening a new thread - not Diamond, but Plat. In regards to the RNG, what I liked was that they increased the time people have through taking less damage in the first rounds, which counters the RNG a bit, as you are able to last longer and hence increases the chances of getting a working comb together and more items. Just that, well, I am not sure what exactly the reason for this is, but even though when things go bad I now last a few more rounds, I then die extremely fast - so in games that go bad, the outcome hasn't changed, I just survive a few rounds longer - but without the feeling that I now have a better chance of changing that outcome. Again, this is just from games that go bad - I am quite stable in Plat, so I "win" more than I loose. My guess would be that this is because of the additional champions that came into play - this is just from my feeling of course, but when I was behind before and managed to hold out long enough with econ, I then much more often managed to recover and get my comb together, but with more champs in the pool that could pop up, I often go through 60-100 gold or more without getting what I "need", to a much bigger degree than before. Well, getting any comb together seems to have become much less as well for me, even in the games I manage to get 1st place it seems like mostly just a randomly thrown bunch of units with a few two units boni. What is affected by this is something that existed before, someone having big luck with items & champs at the start, who can then relaxed econ - but before it seems that once I managed to survive long enough that was much more easily beatable than now.

Xhandel8/21/2019, 10:47:00 AM2 votes

I agree wit the op on most things, disagree on others.

I dont think is bad for strong comps, like nobles and imperials that are the ones that currently need a 5 coin, to need those units. The problem is the apparition rate, 0.5% for lvl 6 and 2% for lvl 7, even 5% for lvl 8 are very VERY low, thats why the people that gets one of those early by sheer luck gets so ahead of the others, while others struggle up to lvl 8 to find the thing that will complete their comp. Riot should change the rates to something like 2 - 4 - 7 - 10%, or 2 - 4 - 6 - 10%, that way the players can have a bigger chance of completing those comps, this without flooding the game with 5c units.

Agree with nobles, riot should split the benefit into 3 tiers: 30 healing per attack in all tiers. Tier 1 (2 nobles): 1 random ally, +30 armor / mr Tier 2 (4 nobles): 3 random allies, +50 armor / mr Tier 3 (6 nobles): all allies, +70 armor / mr This way, the opener is weaker, but the mid game is stronger and worth to build.

About items RNG, my opinion havent changed: They should set the minimum drop of items for each creep stage to at least one, and after that, set a chance to get more items, riot should remove the coin drop from creeps, and if they want to keep it, they should increase the coin drop to at least 10.

About Rangers, Yes, its sad, the comp gets hard countered by a lot of other comps, and i dont think that buffing kindred will help the comp, i havent thought how they could help the rangers.

About demons: the problem is in the units. The benefit right now is good, but they nerfed so hard the core units previous to this, that its better to make them an splash than to try a full demon comp.

Your idea for phantom, is awesome, maybe should be tested also with 6 - 7 seconds in case 5 seconds could fall short. On the other side, your idea for hextech is a very bad option, because that would make jinx off the charts op. But i agree the current benefit is as obnoxious to deal as blitzcrank and phantom.

Adding to it, i would like a chart with the position blitzcrank will pull depending on where is positioned, because sometimes he pulls shit that is not the fartest units from him.