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My opinion on counterplay in TFT

Cräfty·8/2/2019, 7:03:36 PM·1 votes·773 views

I've been following TFT news since it was first announced and since it was on PBE. I've been playing TFT for a while, now. I'm currently Plat 1 in ranked and I have a pretty good grasp of how this game works.

I made a few threads talking about so many things concerning TFT and even made suggestions to improve the game overall. You can check these threads, if you're curious, by clicking on the links below:

Please remove Cursed Blade and hard nerf Hush and Sword Breaker!, Unhealthy ranked system for a game still in Beta! Lack of " tactics " in teamfight tactics! Tooltip for PvE monsters, detailed ability/item descriptions and 2 item slots per unit Suggestions: Reworking Healing inhibitors, Demons and Glacials Ruining in-game progression: Hextech origin, as if Cursed Blade wasn't enough! Suggestion: Tristana and her slow ability animation/AA cancel. Let's smoothen things down, shall we? Riot's reasons for designing broken and OP stuff never cease to amaze me!

It came to my attention that a lot of people will present this argument of " having counterplay options " in the game and how some things that I, and other people, consider OP and unhealthy for the game, are actually considered fair and good for the game by some people, as well. Also, I noticed that some people think about counterplay and strategy in very " interesting ways ", to say the least.

So instead of editing many of my posts to add my insight on the matter, I decided to make a separate thread to answer some of these counterplay and strategy arguments and also answer those who accused me of being too of a crybaby about it all. So here I go:

I wanna start by saying that the act of designing a trait, or item, to counter a certain comp, or a certain item, is completely fine and understandable. I have no problem with that. As a proof, I have no problem with items like item 3046 which counters crits, item 3124 which adds AS multiplicatively based on the base AS of units (the less AS, the less effective it is), or even item 3033 which counters heavy spell spamming comps like Gunslingers and Blademasters.

But what I'm not ok with is when a trait, or item, counters everything... and I mean EVERYTHING. Every comp in the game and every item in the game.

  • Hush and sword breaker counters every unit in the game. Since the game is based on a core mechanic of using mana to cast abilities by units (except Graves Kassadin Vayne), and the only way to get your mana bar full is to AA the enemy, having these 2 items completely shuts down this core mechanic and goes against the very goal of the game itself. And it's not like their proc chance, or debuff duration, is low or anything either: Hush has a 50% proc chance (per hit) and lasts for 3 sec and Sword Breaker has a 25% proc chance (per hit) and lasts for 4 sec (in a game where rounds lasts 30 sec at best and fights last 15 sec, on average). What can you do to counter the fact that you can't AA and can't cast spells? Well, nothing! Well, actually, you can still get mana by taking damage, so there is hope, I guess? Well, not really, because (transitioning into my 2nd point)...

  • Demons and Glacials face the same problem. Why burn mana in a game based on spell casting with mana? Even when trying to build mana by getting hit to try and counter the drawbacks of the aforementioned items, well, you can't. You're simply gonna get mana burned and take true damage for your troubles. Also, why overload units with a hard CC that prevents units from attacking and casting spells in a game based on casting spells and auto attacking? It doesn't make any sense!

  • item 3137 (20% proc chance, per hit) is the same. Why ruin the whole progress of a player that spent 30 min trying to level up his unit to 3 star? Is this the strategic approach we need in TFT? Is this fair? How to even counter it? Well, you can't. You take the hit and pray, to whatever you believe in, that the item doesn't proc.

P.S.: I wanna clarify something by this point. I am aware that giving these traits and items a certain chance to proc is a way to limit their usefulness and keep them in check (even though all these proc chances and debuff durations are still too high, imho). What I'm debating here is the reason why these mechanics even exist in TFT. Why is Riot feeling the need to implement them in the game and go completely in self-destruction mode?

  • Hextech origin is no different. Why disable items when one of the core mechanics of the game is to use said items to progress through the rounds, build advantages, secure a lead, win fights and win the game? And remember, this counters EVERY SINGLE ITEM in the game. This doesn't only counter the most unfair and OP items, but also the decent and fairly good items as well. It's unfair, unhealthy and makes no goddamn sense to put it into the game.

Someone in one of my threads said that

Hextech is best used against those with items, and less efficient against those lacking items.

So basically, he's saying that taking away from the poor doesn't matter as much as taking away from the rich.

  • If I take away a million dollar from a rich man, you think I hurted him? Of course not, he's already established his wealth (the rich player already established a healthy HP lead) and invested in so many things that will give him back that money and some more (the rich player already invested in his units and got what he needed, the items are just a bonus power by this point. He's got his win streak to even give him more gold. Taking away his items won't hurt him as much since his lineup is solid already thanks to the lead he got from winning fights due to his item advantage against players with no Hextech trait active on board).

  • If I take away 1000$ from a poor guy, however, he's doomed. He doesn't have much to begin with and I just took away all he's got. The player, in this instance, already doesn't have much items to begin with, so he's gonna lose more than others, who got item advantage on him, thus falling behind. And now he even has unit disadvantage too, since he's losing (no wins, not enough economy to buy units). He might get back into the game if he get that 1 or 2 items from the next PvE round. He finally gets them. But then, he gets matched vs me, who already have a lead on him (itemization wise and HP wise), and suddenly, I disable all his items (I rob him of all his possessions, as few as they are). Yeah, it won't affect him that much, he's just gonna get demolished and lose the game, and that's it. No biggy, I guess...

Finally, to illustrate my final thoughts on the whole matter, I'm gonna give an example, with the most famous MMORPG out there, to illustrate what Riot did to TFT gameplay:

**--> **Imagine Blizzard releasing a raid boss, in WoW, which fight lasts 10 min. At pull, he has the ability to disable players' equipped items for 3 min (and I'm being generous here, not targeting items in the bag as well). So now, they don't have any of their set bonuses active and they can't even use their active procs on items such as trinkets. But we're not done yet. This boss also has a 25% chance (per AA) to disarm and 50% chance (per AA) to silence players for 2 min each (2 min is being generous here). He also has a 20% chance, per AA, to reduce the level of the players he hits, for the rest of the fight.

And I'm not even gonna mention abilities that mimic the Demon, Glacial and Phantom traits. You can imagine that by yourself.

And remember, in WoW, you control your character all the time, you don't simply put your character in the boss arena and then watch him battle the boss on autopilot. With that in mind, imagine how this all feels like, in TFT and all its RNG bullsh-t, when we're facing this raid boss every single game!

And mark my words: If Riot continues to think this way, instead of nerfing or reworking the hextech trait, they're gonna do the exact same mistake and, instead, design something new to disable unit traits in the same way Hextech disables items. Afterall, Riot's approach is to disable OP items as a counter to them, right? But they ignored all the other decent items in the process. Well, the exact same thing will happen for traits: Riot is gonna disable OP traits as a way to counter them, ignoring all the decent and fair ones in the process.

[zombie-brand-mindblown]

I hope I was very clear in my opinion and that I didn't miss out on anything. If I missed something, maybe I'll come back later to edit it in. I hope people now understand that I'm not simply crying about this just for the sake of crying about it. I don't gain anything from doing this. I care about the game (TFT and SR) and I wanna see it improve. If I didn't care and all I did was crying about things, I wouldn't waste hours of my time posting threads and trying to make suggestions in order to make the game I love better.

That's it for me and have a nice day everyone and GL in your games (all games, from TFT to ARAM!).

8 Comments

Illabethe8/2/2019, 7:39:54 PM1 votes
  1. Mana can be gained other ways than autoing, although yes; it's not that effective.

I've witnessed Shen and Darius passively gain mana every time they are ATTACKED. There's actual videos where Darius does nothing but stand still and use his skill after being hit 8 times. I do not know the mechanic behind this, but it does happen.

Furthermore, Swordbreaker and Hush have a maximum of 4 targets they can hit. While strong, it isn't stopping ALL attacking or casting. Strong back line nukers can break a SB/Hush comp.

  1. This isn't WoW. WoW is an MMO genre based on high HP amounts, high sustain amounts, and meant to give you the FEELof skill than actually DEVELOP skill. It uses large teams and XP grinding to synthesize the experience, rather than BE the experience. I've led 3 top guilds over the course of ~ 12 years of gaming in 3 different top MMO's. it's about gear. It's about wasting time. It's about item shops. It's about zerging.

TFT/League were designed to challenge people's skill and help them develop it. They aren't friendly "anyone can win" environments tainted by P2W.

Subdue8/2/2019, 8:49:39 PM1 votes

I think if you're going to compare this to a game outside of its genre, you should at least compare it to an RTS, not an MMO, since the fact that you control an army of units rather than a single unit is significant when analyzing how it /feels/ to have units disabled in certain ways. I'll use Starcraft, the game that defined the genre and largely put e-sports on the map as an example. From Starcraft we had the following units:

Dark Archon

  1. Maelstrom: Freeze all organic units for 7 seconds
  2. Mind Control: Permanently take control of an enemy unit
  3. Feedback: Reset the target unit's energy (mana) to 0 and deal damage equal to amount removed

Arbiter

  1. Units near the Arbiter are invisible and untargetable.
  2. Stasis Field: Freeze all units in a radius for 44 seconds. Targets cannot be damaged.

Corsair

  1. Disruption Web: Ground units underneath cannot attack

Science Vessel

  1. EMP Shockwave: Deplete all the energy and shields of all units and buildings within a radius.

Queen

  1. Broodling: Destroy target unit and spawn 2 Broodlings

Defiler

  1. Dark Swarm: Units underneath the cloud cannot be hit. 38 seconds.

My point is that the mechanics themselves are fine, and contribute to a rich and varied experience. Having your unit shrunk or disarmed doesn't feel any worse than having Veigar instantly delete it, or having a Shyvana with Warmogs / Thornmail solo kill 4 of your units at the end of a battle. As long as Riot finds a balance where the mechanics are such that there is a plethora of viable strategies to win, the game will be enjoyable and competitive.