Thoughts on TFT

Hi! As someone who was completely new to the Autobattler genre, I just wanted to share my thoughts on TFT as I've experienced it on the PBE the past few days. Please note I'm not here to complain I'm simply sharing my perspective only to give Riot or anyone else feedback on my experience.

Firstly, this game is incredibly addicting and fun. I was excited when the announcement went up but I didn't expect to enjoy it so much. Now, I've encountered a couple bugs (as expected on the PBE) but I was/am unable to report them as they instruct. The website continues to tell me that my region is not supported but shows me actively logged in and the domain name doesn't indicate I'm logged into a different region. Being such a fast paced project I'm pleasantly surprised by how smooth, seamless, and bug-free the actual game mode is. Of the bugs Ive encountered it seemed that Riot was already on top of resolving them. (Lulu's ult or the overall audio bug to name a few) I do think that balancing is going to be an ongoing challenge as it is with every game. Currently it feels like the AS/Mana/"good ult" combo is unbalanced. Rushing Rageblade, Spear of Shojin x2 and sticking them on the best ult unit you have (Brand, ASol, Kayle, etc) is nearly impossible to beat once completed. On the opposite side Fiora as an individual feels underwhelming and I personally believe her health is too low for a melee even with her short invulnerability. Some other opinions I have, granted my lack of experience... I think that if Riot intends to add even 1 more champion to the pool the board size, shop size, and bench should all be increased. It feels great early on to have lots of board space and bench space to play around with passives/composition but once you're in with 6-7 champs on the board and you're trying to shuffle two different sets of 2-star champs and two 1-star champs to make room so you can get ___ champ to 2-star it starts to feel like the bench is too tight. Perhaps it's just my inexperience with strategy or board/bench manipulation, but it feels so bad to sell a 1-star and have what could have been the last 1* you needed to rank up to 3-star roll in the next shop... My final opinion to share here is that I personally feel like items are extremely random, unpredictable, and incredibly luck-based. Again, maybe it's my lack of experience with the genre, but it feels so unfair and un-fun when you finally face off against a person and they have a full item on one of their champs and half an item on another while you've got the Elise with the BF Sword from the first shared-draft and whoever else unequipped. I've played games where the only items I've received were from selling the champs holding them after the Shared-Draft but I've also played games where I had a 3 item 3-star Vayne before the 3rd Shared Draft (counting game start as the 1st) it just feels luck based and if that is how Riot wants items to be then perhaps reducing their impact a bit so skill in strategy is more important than whether you were fast (or losing) enough to get the Re-curve Bow at start and the Needless Rod on the second draft...

If you've read this far, thanks for hearing my thoughts on this awesome game. If you agree (or not) feel free to share your thoughts below as well -but keep in mind these are just my opinions as a new player to autobattlers and after just a couple days playing on the PBE. Here's hoping others share these ideas and we can help Riot build this new game together! Cheers and see you on the Rift!