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I honestly do not believe that TFT is ready for a Ranked Queue in its current state.

Dancer Neeko·7/15/2019, 12:02:48 PM·146 votes·19,241 views

I've played TFT since the first day of its release on PBE. A few weeks back I posted some balance&QOL suggestions I've seen the recent changes on PBE and am pleased with most of them, however I still believe that TFT, in its current state, is, for lack of better word, a complete fuckfest.

Here are my reasons why I believe the Ranked Queue for TFT should not be deployed with 9.14 but delayed until the issues are fixed.

  • This mode needs a Tutorial. If you've never played AutoChess or anything similar, like me, the game is very NOT intuitive and poorly explained. Tips on the loading screen are not helpful when you can only ever see one. The new tutorial for League of Legends is very nice, explains the fundamentals very well and lets you learn at your pace (rather than making you build Thornmail on Ashe). I believe an in-client tutorial is needed for TFT as well for people who are not familiar with the game genre. A newbie might not understand how to build items, the way interest works, what to do with the carousel, etc. There is a lot that is not properly explained within the game and I believe a tutorial would greatly help.

  • The game itself lacks too much information. While I appreciate the clarity update that was released on PBE with champion stats, damage graph etc, there is still a lot that should be clarified (among bug fixes - when I tested the new features on PBE the damage graph was only working half the time, but perhaps that's been fixed already, hopefully). For example, a lot of skill and item descriptions are vague at best ("low chance to do X", why don't you just give me the percentage chance? "damage increased against low health enemies", what is considered "low health"?) and missing information (red buff on live doesn't say it prevents healing although it's written on PBE). A lot of the game mechanics are also unclear, such as AP/spell damage - is it the same? Why do some champions start with their mana bar half filled? Do all champions have an equal chance to crit? Do all spells do magic damage? <- apparently yes, but how am I meant to know that when the game literally shows me no indication of that? There is just so little explanation to the champion mechanics in this game.

  • The game is in cruel need of many, many bugfixes and QOL updates. No mention to the FON/hex bug that was plaguing PBE since I've heard it's been fixed, but there are still a lot of bugs found (on live at least, I don't know if those were fixed on PBE), including but not limited to: -- units dying while in Kindred ult; -- units stopping attacking randomly; -- units disappearing at the end of a round and getting replaced by one that's on your bench, only to come back to the game the round after; -- units being locked from purchase in the shop for no reason... Some QOL updates both in-game and out of game are also needed, such as: -- a match history; -- a fix on lobbies (open parties are constantly reverted to closed parties, and clicking "play again" does not put you back in the same lobby as the people you were premade with); -- having your own board highlighted on the minimap so you can see where you are at a glance during the carousel; -- or moving people out of the carousel once they've taken their champion (blocking people out of champions should not be considered "strategy). I appreciate the QOL updates that I've seen on PBE such as being able to see item recipes from inventory, but I believe there is more to be added.

  • The game is in cruel need of many, many BALANCE CHANGES. Spear of Shojin is overpowered, Guinsoo's Rageblade is overpowered, Phantom Dancer is overpowered, Garen is overpowered, Kassadin is overpowered, Noble buff is overpowered, some champions just feel useless (nobody builds Rek'Sai unless they want an early Void buff, and then they remove her to put Cho'Gath in anyway), some classes just feel underwhelming (Brawlers? Knights? Prates should guarantee at least 1 gold per round imo). Item RNG is disgusting, although I've seen improvements on PBE -- guaranteed items on PvE rounds is exactly what balance should look like, but I've heard that this was replaced by getting gold or XP if no items were dropped? This is honestly a step back...

I cannot think of more points as of right now but I believe balance is the main point of why TFT should not be getting a Ranked Queue yet. I'm not against the idea entirely, I believe it can be great but it is definitely too early in time for it.

Thanks for reading :)

76 Comments

síií7/15/2019, 2:44:59 PM28 votes

The most important point for delaying the ranked system is really the item drop balancing. You can already have IE + RFC/GRB/SOD after the first stage and you will be able to crash anyone for the next 6 rounds. How can this be considered as skill?

Jennifer4207/15/2019, 11:59:16 PM14 votes

lets be fair: in its current state, summoners rift also doesnt deserve a ranked mode lol.

Cynicatt7/15/2019, 3:13:15 PM12 votes

A reason to build some of these items would be nice. Seems like half or more of them are not worth having/bugged to hell. Everybody wants to either grab attack speed items or shojin, since those are the only ones that really seem to have a big enough impact. Other stuff that seems like it would have its uses such as thornmail just feel super underwhelming, which sucks because even when items drop from minions it's more often than not the armors, so something useful to build out of those would be wonderful.

I guess to some extent it's supposed to seem like a random fuckfest, but it's sort of unacceptable when your unit decides to afk for half of the fight or more, or when your roulette champ+item disappear randomly, or when you reroll your shop and get 1 or 2 empty slots. These things are alright in beta, I guess, but the idea of them pushing a ranked mode so fast just shows that they really care more about the money people will spend on lil legends/etc than how the mode actually plays.

Silvarspark7/15/2019, 2:51:59 PM11 votes

I agree with everything you wrote. It is beyond me why they announce a ranked mode while the game is still in beta. I'd expect them to get a solid unranked base first and proceed from there.

Especially the information part is brutally obvious when you have never played this mode before. I remember starting my first round and having no clue what was going on or what I was supposed to do. How do I even build items ? I cannot combine them on the bench so what do I do? What items are there even? The best advice online is to use a friggin 2nd monitor to pull up a cheatsheet with an item list or to print it! Let that sink in.

Also no mention of a shared pool or drop chances changing with level, win streak bonuses, interest on gold,...you'd think that might be important.

If TFT called out to Mjolnir, it wouldn't come.

DUDE BRO7/15/2019, 4:09:48 PM9 votes

They still haven't fixed items on the PBE.

Someone could get 3 items from the first round, and you would get 1 gold.

Flemman7/15/2019, 6:54:53 PM5 votes

To add to your QoL change

-blitz should focus the target he grab and not randomly walking half the map to hit anotherone -carrousel turn should spawn player in the center, removing the bad random of "it's my turn but I was on the other side and didn't get what I wanted"

Serika Zero7/16/2019, 3:21:30 AM4 votes

I disagree with your post on a bunch of points.

Here it goes : No, the game mode doesn't require or need a tutorial. Even more so a riot tutorial. They have been notoriously bad at this on the past. making such tutorials is a waste or recourses and time. As side from this, there are plenty of tutorial videos on YouTube. what riot should do is watch those, pick a couple of the 1-3 then work with the YouTuber to have that video in multiple languages and give them a bonus. results : stronger community ties, riot chooses to promote an influencer that is good for the game (non toxic).

More TBA. edits. Point 2: Having a ranked system about this will simply help shape a "meta" and display the problems with the system. Making them more easy to fix. Like yes, we can all tell that item drops where after first round of PvE I can have 3 items, and you could have 1 item is a huge deal. But there's other things needed to make the game more balanced, and a ranking version will help with said balance/design issue.

Point 3: Spear of Sojin and other items are not "broken". Some are "broken" such as Sword of Divine which is a "broken" item as in "why would i ever want to build this? dafuq???". Spear is indeed very strong WHEN STACKED. Once riot starts making "passive unique", its going to be over.

iainB857/16/2019, 12:42:12 AM4 votes

Simple fact is Riot decided to join the Auto Chess game mode late, and they are going to rush release this stuff to try to catch up.

Wordson1x7/15/2019, 4:23:46 PM4 votes

Sweet another bug to add to the Kindred Bug list!

Ytheri7/15/2019, 6:59:21 PM3 votes

It's too bad threads didn't turn into something worthwhile, very on-point however the only thing that's important is: how can I make the most profit off of this? The early release of TFT is to quickly adapt to the shifting market place (example: like every other Battleground game, thanks PUBG) to rake in as much profit as possible with the least amount of effort involved.

There are some extreme lack of basic features / QoL / bugs; all of it boils down to putting a product out to the market in the shortest amount of time. Notice their cash shop was immediately available however (we need to make $$$), instead of the many valid points in this thread. Between hero balance / item balance / champion A.I on the board, there is a lot to be desired. How about some fun other features, like why don't my units use a random skin that I own for that champion and show it to others on the board. I've invested X amount of years into League, carry that over to TFT man.

Draven will see you guys in ranked

Z3SIeeper7/15/2019, 7:40:35 PM3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dancer Neeko,realm=EUW,application-id=RaE1aOE7,discussion-id=ue4cbBgq,comment-id=,timestamp=2019-07-15T12:02:48.478+0000)

Do all spells do magic damage? <- apparently yes, but how am I meant to know that when the game literally shows me no indication of that?

They actually don't.

Vayne does true damage. Volibear, Rengar, Graves and Draven do Physical damage on their abilities (and proc on-hit effects and crit).

On that note, Akali ability can also crit, even though it doesn't say it can anywhere.

PhearBunny7/15/2019, 12:40:28 PM3 votes

it depends how they do it. There are ranked systems that reward commitment over winning.

Most notable example would be World of Warcrafts original PvP system with the Scout-High Warlord/Grand Marshal system.

Morgwic7/15/2019, 9:14:16 PM3 votes

As a player who never touched league before, yes it was confusing when I picked it up, but that was also the fun part, of figuring out in a game: "Oh so you can combine items." or "whoah, 3 of 1 star make a 2 star unit" I think it's much more rewarding to figure stuff out on your own than through tutorials, it's really not that hard to play the game, even as a complete beginner it's very easy to pick up and learn everything. There are some bugs and I wouldn't mind better tooltips, but what I mostly want is a creative mode where you can put any unit compositions on either side with any items, to test stuff out, that would allow for much easier theorycrafting. Really, I've never played a tutorial that has been beneficial for my gameplay experience, indeed most are harmful. Can't believe someone wants a tutorial in such a simple game as this.

Sakowitz7/15/2019, 3:08:46 PM3 votes

While I agree, the sooner they release a tft ranked, the sooner mmr issues will be ironed out for the most part

TheBrothersGrymm7/15/2019, 11:05:46 PM3 votes

i made a post like this, idk why its ranked is getting rushed, idk why loot for it cost so much, idk how you can make a pure rng game have a ranked system, people flamed me and said i just suck at it o.o fun community

Summoner SpeII7/16/2019, 1:17:05 AM3 votes

You are very bad at tft if u think rageblade is overpowered, its literally getting buffed next patch for how weak it is compared to rapid fire cannon or other items that are actually broken and they are buffing other items like warmogs so the good items right now are not even going to be that broken compared to them, if you don't understand teamfight tactics all you have to do is go to twitch and watch good players play team fight tactics, it is literally how the game should be learned, and in the long run rng evens out and loses heavily to skill, which is what ranked grinding is for, to punish the players that get lucky 1 game. literally there is no point in drafting to win consistently at higher ranks in the normal mode right now because there is no reward at all except xp, and if i dont get a ranked system for TFT asap i'll be sad af. I dont even see that many bugs in the many hours i have played, true there are some bugs but they are rare and the next patch will fix those problems hopefully. There is a lack of information because too much information would overload new players, but i agree there should be better indications of stats and death recap is useful in seeing what is good. If a new player is overwhelmed by the amount they have to learn or complicated numbers they will be scared of playing (though the percentage indicators would be useful). But if i don't see a ranked system and i lose to some monkey who got 3 more items than me from luck and i don't any reward for playing consistently better it causes depression for me. At least in ranked if the monkey gets lucky 1 game he won't get consistently lucky enough to grind through a ranked system.

Panthaz897/15/2019, 4:57:26 PM3 votes

Noble buff is probably only the 3rd strongest in the game and that's at 6 which has to have an exclusive 6(very weak at 3 past early game) set 2 of which are 4 and 5 cost...they are probably gonna be worse than demons after the update too. The Buff does nothing against magic burst comps at all. Brawlers bonus is actually really good especially at 4 and getting 4 of them early in the game will dominate early game.

Janakin7/15/2019, 6:31:40 PM3 votes

The main problem is the sheer amount of randomness. Yes, it includes some thinking, but it is merely about luck most of the time.

True Garen7/22/2019, 12:29:20 AM2 votes

I don't think that this game should ever have a ranked system.

Vigorous Goat7/15/2019, 8:00:06 PM2 votes

I actually disagree with you here. I played dota auto chess on release and enjoyed the fact that your rank was updated every game. For me it made me feel like the game actually meant something. That game had some broken stuff as well, but I still think having a ranking helped gauge your own growth as a player.

Critmaster Garen7/15/2019, 8:40:43 PM2 votes

Garen is overpowered

trolling? he barely does anything past the first 5 rounds. they went way overboard with the nerfs.

they nerfed the spin damage because of morellos, but also cut morellos damage in half, and lowered the drop rate of T1 units all in the same patch.

knights synergy also completely sucks ass.

if you look at people who are actually good at the game, like scarra, they basically never buy garen or most of the other knights even in the early game anymore, unless they get extremely lucky and get poppy for a chance at the 4 knight buff during the first rounds.

Garen spin nerf should be reverted, and he should get a couple of stat buffs to be promoted to a T2 unit, so knights actually have a unit in that tier.

Poppy is a knight who has single target cc and has to compete with shit like Kennen on the same tier, and Ashe as a better ranged version.

she should get the noble trait added to make up for having a terrible ultimate for her tier.

the knight buff itself needs to be switched out for something that actually scales, considering 6 knights requires a legendary unit.

Bakm27/15/2019, 10:01:54 PM2 votes

To be fair they have made it very very clear that this first ranked season is called "The First Beta Season".

It's not like they are calling it "The First completely refined, ironed out, without out any flaws whatsoever Season"

Burn M87/16/2019, 4:41:07 PM2 votes

I had to triple check that this post was from yesterday and not like a month ago. Nobles are op?! No one even remotely decent keeps nobles into late game. Garen is a good role player at best. The items you mentioned are really just situational items aside from PD. Which I don’t see how it’s overpowered when it gets countered by RFC. Double shojin pike was a little ridiculous but it’s nerfed on the pbe. There is a ton of broken shit on the PBE though, which is the only thing that matters since that is the version ranked will be on. I hope they fix most of it.

Chewee10987/20/2019, 9:14:37 AM2 votes

So I feel that RNG is basically the name of the game. Is this a bad thing? No! Not at all. If you want no RNG in ANY of your games ever again go play an RTS like Starcraft, or Chess. Risk has RNG on dice, Lords of Waterdeep has RNG on what is available etc etc. So RNG is not the issue. The big issue with TFT is that there are many, many factors of chance going on here. You have a chance on what item you get, not bad forces you to wait a bit and get something that will workout better, maybe. Anyway you can avoid building things that other people are building so that they don't prevent you from getting what you need. I tried this before and after the ranked que was released and it does not mean that you see more options with what you are trying to find that other people are building, because it is RNG that determines what those displayed champions are out of a doze or two. The change making it so that cost 3 champs are available at level 3 is such a bad idea because it implements more RNG and therefore less strategy and control for the individual. Does having a cost 3 champ that early help? Not that often since there are ones like ashe that don't do anything on their own, or aatrox who requires a shen and fiora to make the blademaster dream come true. I Think you should revert the those changes back because they make what you have feel worse. The item drop changes.....not even funny*[zombie-brand-mindblown]* Just what were you thinking??!!? "If they don't get an item from this set of minions they will get gold equivalent to their level." Meaning one gold or maybe two or three from minions. Meanwhile someone can get 3 items to go with their first and if they are really lucky then they can maybe get 2 spears of shojin immediately. If you want to allow gold over items that is fine. But make it a flat 10 gold each time it happens so you are not literally hosed. Or something around 6-8 gold each time, you get the idea. I will say that warmogs is the most op because if it is on someone like Kassadin with constant self shielding or shyvana with the dragon buff making her immune to magic damage; that it makes certain people impossible to take out. To avoid that maybe slow down the wearer's attack speed and nothing else changes.

I still think this is a fun idea for a gamemode and sounds fine to have a rank for, as long as they are willing to reward people based on numbers of games played too, also you need to add in a report system anyway for people who decide to go to harassment or hate speech, since you like to keep the community clean, and allow people to report those for being AFK so that this next idea is not exploitable. Say getting fourth place rewards 22LP, then it takes a little under 5 to go up one, meaning that if you got fourth every game you will get to the next rank in a little under 20 games. Now if you play 60 games, which is three times the amount to climb a rank if you are lucky, or "smart enough" to get up there in 20 games; then you should be considered towards the end to have a rank of 4 divisions higher than wherever you currently are. Then you go ahead and continue it for every 20 games from their it acts like they are one division higher. This way if someone is actually just so unlucky they might as well be the reverse of twisted fate, they can still get a decent rank and potential reward. If someone does 200 ranked TFT games and is AFK for none of them, and they are rank Bronze 2. You bump them up to a reward of Plat 4. Because they tried, well as long as they didn't get 8th for more than 80% of them since you will not always lose but you cannot always win. Also just buff pirates so they guarantee 2-4 gold because twisted fate is hot garbage, you nerfed graves, and gunslinger along with poor gangplank just feeling useless with how little damage his barrels do.

Miles The Man7/16/2019, 5:27:28 PM1 votes

I agree! A lot of changes should be made before this mode gets a ranked queue. However, Riot is smart, they'll launch the ranked queue sooner rather than later to ride the hype train so they can make more money. From a business standpoint, it's great! From a gameplay one however, it's not so great.

CloudedLogic7/16/2019, 2:56:20 PM1 votes

While I agree with the last three, the game needing a tutorial has no bearing on whether there should be a ranked mode. Its been out long enough for people to play and experiment with stuff, and if you go into ranked with no knowledge of the game, then lose, you have only yourself to blame (however this is a game where you could win through pure luck atm).

BestPudgeNA7/16/2019, 5:29:00 AM1 votes

I feel the same way. Hopefully if they do put in a Ranked they do a hard reset rather in a few months when the game is past a "beta" stage of development.