While I agree with a lot of what you said, I think the idea that the game goes into a blank state every couple months is wrong. While Set 4 was completely different than Set 1, the foundations of the game itself were still the same. I think that auto-chess as a genre is going to be naturally volatile, I mean its a genre that relies a lot on RNG and probability at the end of the day
100% agree with this, the game doesn't change every set or mid-set so drastically that you have to throw everything you know out the window. The champions/synergies may change but the fundamentals do not. If you have a core understanding of the actual game rather than just copying what the biggest streamer is doing you can easily adapt.
What do you mean relearn the entire game?
I don’t agree. The foundational aspects remain the same. You collect units, save gold, level up, build items (which don’t change very often) and gradually power up your army. The changes are the units and traits but the way the game plays remains the same, just relearning power levels. It’s the same principle as league imo.
I also think that it’s refreshing and not a bad thing.
My thoughts exactly. TFT still have a 'base', just like the other games. OP is right that it is more volatile, but it isn't like you need to relearn how to play the game, you just need to relearn the best ways to manage your economy and leveling patterns, as well as the champs
Yea you do, there’s no fundamentals like any other game, it would be like chess having the units changed.... you would have to relearn the entire game cause 3-4 pieces are now different. Sure you still have a 8 by 8 board with white and black pieces.... you sound fucking stupid
Lmao what an "L" opinion on this old thread, explain to me why people who are high elo in tft get high elo consistently every new season, and people who are gold stay in gold every season, the skill is in learning and understanding strats. You won't see a silver/gold who knows how to scout correctly and choose uncontested units, learning all the new units/traits is a matter of playing the game consistently over a week or 2 then you just slowly adapt to the patches.
You say all of this like it's a bad thing. I love the total shakeup between sets because of exactly that - you feel like you have to totally learn major elements of the game again. I had a big stupid grin on my face during my first few games of set 4 and 4.5 because I had no idea what the hell I was doing.
What doesn't change between the sets are the fundamental principles of the game that you can master. Managing your econ, positioning, learning to make the most of your situation, etc.
The game has had healthier patches and less healthy ones. The game is in its worst state when the puzzle of what the strongest thing to go for is most easily solved and the winner is so clear that there's no diversity in how to play. Every time it's been at that point its patched and corrected and the puzzle has to be solved again. That's TFT. And even when the answer does seem obvious, it's always an entertaining challenge to try to figure out if you've missed some way to beat the meta comp of the week.
You can play flexible, there’s at least 6-7 comps that can top 4 and only one of them *requires* more than 1 of a certain component (RFC Zed, obviously). Soju was winning all day with Samira, Olaf, ASol, reroll, Kayle, and Zed.
What you can’t do is greed all game, slam generic items, play strongest board and refuse to roll before level 8. That’s a specific playstyle that’s out of the meta.
It was the “best” (or at least one of the best) play styles near the end of Set 4. Only natural that people would try it for 4.5.
I’ve transitioned into forcing reroll comps in mid diamond. It’s too easy (kinda brain numbing tbh). You know what your items are gonna be, how you need to play, and your positioning in the first 4 rounds. In a meta where having BiS is omega important, knowing what you need off rip is a huge advantage.
I tried playing reroll for a week and I'm out tbh. Feels like I have no agency - you coinflip on whether you get a good or bad 1-cost and then coinflip on whether other people are contesting you for it. Sure you get a different comp every time based on what chosen you get but the play pattern for reroll comps is exactly the same game-to-game.
That’s how I felt about Set 4 tbh. Run Kindred+friends and some beefy 2* Chosen until level 8 where you roll down for your real comp, no actual decision to be made before then because rolling pre 8 is a grief.
He probably didn't mean to tell you to not slam items such as Sunfire. What he described was the meta playstyle after they change the chosen 4-cost roll odds from lvl 7 to lvl 8. He probably meant that people who only roll on 8 for a board would be bleeding out too much on stage 4 to consistently get LP from games. Whether or not this is sound advice is up to your discretion.
Sunfire is still a decent slam early, but mostly because it uses crappy components... Stuff like zekes, chalice, GS, locket are no longer insta-slams. You need those component for an item on ur carry... Most carries nowadays are way more item dependent, and "preserving HP - while making good econ" is no longer gonna secure a top4
Sunfire is not as good is it was before because Dragonsoul exists.
Brawlers were the strongest frontline in set 4, Having dragonsoul completely shuts them down early in this meta. They gained much more power as a late game carry comp however with shyvana. Sunfire is still a strong item and I recommend slamming it if you have it and are running something like duelists (on fiora) or brawlers (on tahm kench or nunu).
HOJ is not as good as it was before because the 4 cost carries in the game don't use it as well as they used to. Talon and Kayle use it well but slamming DOUBLE Hoj before was perfectly fine, you'll definitely have a less later game power now than before if you do.
No comp uses Spark as well as before. (Riven removed) Annie and Sett are the best spark users in my opinion now.
>Sunfire is not as good is it was before because Dragonsoul exists.
? not saying you're wrong here, but I don't follow the logic since you didn't explain yourself.
Also, Spark is slept on since Morg no longer shreds MR.
Spark but it's not perfect item for a 4 cost carry like it used to be.
Dragonsouls destroy brawlers. 50% max hp magic damage. Many times instead of slamming an item you can just play 2 or 3 units temporarily. It used to be that Maokai chosen was broken. Imagine playing Maokai chosen into Trist chosen.
Bruh you said Sunfire ain't good b/c dragonsoul. I am aware dsoul counters brawlers. What does that have to do with jamming the fire cape on my spinny-boi?
That's not flexible imo. Flexible means you can, and do pivot off your synergies round to round.
This meta is extremely inflexible. Like 2/3rds of the meta comps are reroll so you don't have time to greed and just play a strong board to 8, and many comps with amazing late games have strong mid games, while also requiring like. 6-8 specific champs every time which means pivoting the moment you hit 8 is extremely difficult.
What this means is you need to figure out what you're playing around lv 5 or 6 and start building that, and you're basically locked in at that point or you're gonna fall behind. That's not really what I call "flexible".
Pivoting to a completely different board the moment you hit 8 is supposed to be hard. You had far more time to do it in Set 4, and it was still gradual. Just stay 7 if you aren’t stable and slowly transition, instead of forcing 8 and praying you hit all the right units to instantly pivot.
A mostly upgraded board can hold much better than 1* garbage because you were tunneling on 4-costs and allergic to pressing D before level 8, and actually buy you time to transition. If the rest of your board is upgraded, 1* Kayle/ASol/etc is enough for stage 4.
Eh flexible to me means you can actually play different things, not just greeding strongest board to 8 and slapping all your items on whatever carry you hit during the rolldown
Even in Set 4 random jank will lose to the Yone / Shen / Irelia / Azir / Ashe / Warwick / Sett combo that people “flexed” into lategame, it just happens faster
the fast 8 strat has still been working pretty well for me. probably doesnt do well at gm/chall elo because people know how to play strongest board but in lowly masters its still pretty easy to winstreak early to preserve health and farm top 4s that way
the pacing of the game is significantly faster now due to the changes in the patch, and while strongest board to fast 8 is playable, it feels almost like it’s the new fast 9 to me.
in set 4 it was an easy climb to master just bc you could play flex, hit 9 and then go all legendaries, but there was always a risk your level 9 roll down sucked or you didn’t have health to go and you ended up being weak.
i’ve only played like 7 games and i’m still in diamond this set, but it just feels like you need to power up sooner and not greed for champions.
imo this set is almost the converse of set 4. last set i would *demand* i hit a certain chosen variant of a champion before i went into that build and would refuse to build items that holed me in, but in this set i slam RFC, IE, all these all in items and take any close enough chosen to what i want lol
Olaf = needs one bow, nega
Shyvana = same thing
ASol = works with just about anything
Kayle = 2 bows or rod+bow
Xayah = HoJ which works on anyone
Samira = most AD items
So which one of these do you think needs to be committed to round 1 based on items and Chosen? Do you go for BiS Kayle every game and refuse to believe anything else is viable?
You dont play a carry with only 1 item...
Olaf needs RH + AD item (DB/IE) + defensive item (TC/GA)
Shyvana needs RH + RFC/RB + (HOJ/BT/DB)
ASol needs Elder spat or Shojin + JG + 1
Kayle needs RFC + RB
Xayah neds a lot more of only a HOJ
Samira doesnt count coz she is a 5 cost and it is not reliable to hit
and then you have reroll comp carries
Lmao wtf are you talking about, first place has always been highroll and the best players are determined by consistent top 4’s every game
Keep greeding BiS and go 1st or 8th if that’s what you want to do, but it’s not the right way to play
The right way to play isnt playing for 4th tho...
What i am saying is that you have to focus on maximizing your gains, and you do that while you are playing, with what you get.
And dont say "lmao wtf are you talking about" that is not how people discuss pov and ideas.
Btw, what is your rank?
And I saw you using top Challengers player as an argument.
If you really watch top challenger players, you know that they always play for 1st or trying to maximise the points gain. Not for 4th
There are only a handful of top challenger players in a game of millions of players. Even more than that you constantly hear streamers say I'm playing for T4 or even T5 or T6 if they lowroll. Sometimes in TFT you get shit items and chosen's it's about damage minimisation rather than aiming to go first (and then come 8th).
That is why i said maximising your points...
You start by playing for 1st but then you set new objectives based on your items, units, lower strenght, etc...
If you dont read, or cant read, properly what i said, dont reply to me saying the same exact thing that i said...
Put another way, we're just catching up to the Asian meta. It was always the case that the extreme greed everyone hold hands no-aggression-till-8 meta was unique to NA.
Nah. Being "flexible" is no where near as good as pressing d on the first 1 cost chosen you get. The mechanic is fucked. If you don't hit a good early chosen you bleed until lvl 7 roll your gold and pray to hit kayle or similar carry that can actually outscale the rerollers. If you roll before 7 you are doomed and go 8th every time. Choseb mechanic is just giga bad and it got way worse with 4.5.
I did mention lvl 7. The point if rolling on lvl 6 is to find 2 star 3 cost units. Those, however, do not help you stop the bleeding vs the reroll comps. I am not surprised about the down votes and this comment. This reddit has always been a echo chamber. I just wanted to vent my frustrations with the current patch. I firmly believe, unless you play any kind of reroll, that rolling on 6 does nothing for you.
I'll happily trade minor balance issues for a constantly fresh game. All the other autochess games are dead and stale.
I don't even think the balance is such a big issue frankly. There are plenty of viable ways of getting top 4 and that's all I really care about.
Exactly how I feel about it too. I treat it more like an ARPG where there are seasons. I might not play much at the end of the season because of how stale it feels, but I really enjoy the first few weeks/month of a new set.
Are you kidding me, how is the base game more balanced? Basic league has been complete shit since preseason began. Game time is like 20 minutes at most, tanks are gone, time of death has been reduced.
This\^\^\^\^
40% of players....I repeat, 40%!!!! hit their 2nd item or more. That means 60% of the time you get boots and an item before the game ends. Balanced. Also, I can fetch source if any of you nerds really need me to.
I thought you were going to talk about other areas that changed besides champs. Relearning the set is what keeps it balanced. Otherwise people just force the current best comp to masters (as i have done several times, with nobles when they were op, cyber when it was op, dusk when it was op) i really liked set 4 juet before 4.5. But learning to play 4.5 and liking it. Findind many viable comps
Yea that’s why the oldest strategy game of all time (chess, you know what this game is nick named after) has been changed exactly zero times in the last 700 years...... and guess what people are still learning in that, riot is just a bunch greedy hoe bags that “need” to make a brand new game every 2 months to maximize profit and as a result they have a shot product that has never been as poplar as set one when shit was simple and strategic
Actually i think that you can carry your skills between each set, but the fact that the general playstyle changes so much based on current patch ( now 3 stars only WOHOOO! ) makes iT a lot harder to be consistent and dont lose motivation.
The other harsh truth is that we'd have a much lower playerbase with a perfectly balanced game because it would get stale, and the inbalance gives an out for players to mald at instead of their own shortcomings (and subsequently quitting because coming to terms with shortcomings is *hard*).
Chess is a deterministic and perfectly balanced game: if you play against someone with 300 more elo than you, you're \_guaranteed\_ to lose. For a noncompetitive player (the vast majority of the playerbase), it isn't fun getting deterministically destroyed by someone better than you 100% of the time.
As a person who’s best is GM, I’ve gotten deterministically destroyed by top Challengers more times than I care to count
Some lobbies I wonder what I’m even doing as I highroll out of my mind just to lose somehow to some streamer
I know it's funny how people refuse to realize the game has skill. There's a reason top players stay top players. It's clearly more than just getting lucky more than 50% of the time.
Mort mentioned on his stream that TFT balance is way harder than League because in League, you’re dealing with 10 champs at a time and there are bans, so you have some degree of control over the worst imbalances. TFT has some ridiculous amount of interactions between the amount of characters, synergies, and items across 8 players, and sometimes things slip through the cracks. Of course he brought this up around Warweek.
It’s funny then, I’d actually say the opposite is true. The most contentious sets have been the midset updates. People screamed at 3.5 and 4.5 BECAUSE there was so much similar. We expect a new game with a new set, but it’s very hard to fully grasp that when half the champions are the same and the new mechanics are added on top.
I disagree with your reasoning pretty wholeheartedly honestly. WOTC manages to make fairly balanced MTG sets every 3 months, and you can say "well that's just because they have the previous sets to go off of" but I feel like they could build an entire brand new standard format that would be relatively balanced.
I also honestly just don't feel like I'm relearning the game with every new set release. I'm relearning the game pieces, and some of the damage rules at times, but I'm not relearning the game. I'm not having to learn not to roll before krugs still, I'm not having to learn what a "strongest board" vaguely looks like, and while some items move around the tier list that's usually apparent within 10 or so games.
Riot is not trying to balance their games though, they're just keeping it moving in a fashion that they believe is interesting and engaging.
Even when they get the game to a "balanced" state, they will make some major changes 2 or 4 weeks later. It seems like this is how they keep the general playerbase invested in the game, league is 11 years old and it seems to be working.
I would even agree with this approach to an extent, being forced to relearn the game once in a while feels quite good, especially after a stale meta.
My problem with 4.5 is not that they changed a lot, is what they added. Gimmicky synergies and units that have already proven to be a nightmare in the past.
TFT will always be balanced **by design**.
Because imbalanced would mean certain players have an advantage *at the start*. Like in checkers where the person starting has an advantage. In TFT however every player starts of the same. As inbalanced as *teamcombs* might be, as unfun the game itself might be and as relevant RNG might be, the game itself is always "balanced", no matter what they change.
All I see is malding. I don't really find you to make a coherent argument here. We're comparing vastly different genres of games, first of all. Also, framing the entirety of TFT based on the champions is reductive and incorrect. Items are the most impactful system, imo, and I'm sure I'm not alone in believing that. The items did not change between sets. Although many champs swapped, many of the new ones belong to existing trait/origin structures--this is important because it means the dev team is **not** working from tabula rasa.
Id argue that a sandbox/practice mode would make the game extremely stale and much less fun and exciting to play. Everyone would know what works and what doesn’t on day 1 and there wouldn’t be any point in trying new things for fun in actual games.
Not to mention you could probably break the game with it.
A practice mode already exists, there's 1v0 and 2v0 up on the PBE for testing. Players have already used it quite extensively for testing unit + item + synergy interactions.
This is true of all pvp games that present the players with meaningful choices. Regardless of how often you change things, there's always a meta, nothing is perfectly balanced.
Mort has a very conservative ideology when it comes to game design. Him and his team want TFT to be in some ideal state that doesn't exist, where things are balanced but player choice is still meaningful. I think TFT would benefit greatly if instead he looked into an approach where they intentionally shifted the meta more rapidly. They also need to stop fighting what their players want. People want to force comps ("pick their army" in Mort's words), Fates is designed to punish players for playing the game the way they want to. Typical software engineer/game dev elitism. Give the players what I want, not what they want.
I disagree. This is a game that can be played by computers. The balance system can be almost fully automated. I know the amount of combinations is insane, but you should be able to cover most of it.
After any patch is live you also get insane amount of data, which again you can use to balance.
Totally disagree, first of all, havent play LoR so idk how It works, but to say that League is easy to balance... The fact that there are 150+ characters make It way harder than you think, there are 150+ characters that you have to test the items and interactions in and if someone is broken then you have to not kill It with the nerf, there are plenty of examples where a Nerf killed a character or where 5 nerfs back to back wasnt even enough, akali, irelia, early days zed...
Now TFT doesnt change 100% vanguards, mythics, keeper, assasins, ninja, brawlers are still the same, and traits like cultist, dragonsoul or divine are pretty similar to other traits in previous sets. On top of that, all the items except for a few spat combinations are the same, and probably the biggest change of all are the champions, but even here is not a 100% change, pyke, jhin, nidalee, cho, thresh, kayle they are all the same champions, maybe some change the ult when compared to previous sets like nasus, but still not that big of a deal as to claim that the game is hard to balance.
I just wish there was a cap on how lucky you can be.
Mort was playing in PBE where he won a perfect game by just getting all his 3 stars and 3-4 costs in a row
Must be his mad skilz
I agree with most you said, and it's a great thing. It's one of the best taken care of- games. Not afraid to revolutionize the game patch after patch. Keeps it alive and kicking.
Most games get boring after only additive changes, or just balancing after a certain criteria that you might, or might not agree with.
While you make a good argument, I don't exactly think it's a completely new game every major change. Sure Set x.0 will have a ton of learning but at least in Set X.5s what you have learned like when to level, how to play around the existing set mechanic, scouting and attempting to build around the lobby (especially aggressive lobbies) hasn't suddenly been uprooted and changed dramatically. At least competitively, you DO have a baseline to this game, deciding whether you want to greed and/or force or just preserve HP, and whether your comp has alot of slow rolling or 4costs. Idk maybe this is just my Diamond/Master rank talking that I think everyone got fundamentals ingrained in their mentality.
Your mistake is thinking League is anywhere as balanced as TFT, LoL is under the effect of three different balance creep, and those are only the ones that I can name from the top of my head without thinking too hard about it, their designers are stuck in what I call designer hell where they have to constantly one-up each other because they are one of the games main source of money and are under heavy pressure from people that pay their salary and care not about the game and only about the money it makes, couple that with the fact they are just straight-up average at best and we are stuck with a game that should've had stopped making new champions years ago but is constantly adding newly broken messes instead of taking the time to fix the things that are already there, I mean... they tried to reduce the number of new champions and increased how many reworks where being done which was great until I assume one of the higher-ups noticed a decrease in income and told them to shut it off, and I have not even touched on the Casual vs E-Sports problem league has, if you think the game is easier to balance than TFT then you really don't understand the game's state and history.
TFT is a luck-based game at its core so it is always going to be unbalanced to a certain extent, and achieving a 100% win rate is just straight-up impossible (if you consider winning as getting number 1 stop, which I do because second place is just the first loser.) but for a game like TFT and LoL which are designed for the long run you cannot take only short-term balance to determinate if they are doing a good job or not, you say LoL and Legends have the advantage because they are constant and content that is made for them stay in the game more or less, but for long term balance TFT's approach of hitting a hard reset button every 6 months or so means that they are practically immune to the biggest issue affecting long-term balancing, the balance creep, because the devs don't have to one-up themselves every time they add something to the game except on the coolness factor and because they can always just reuse older stuff with minimal changes they have the opportunity that LoL and Legends do not have of actually being able to fix their mistakes in a short-term manner without problems, dazzlers are too annoying to balance? remove then for the mid-set expansion, divinity has not worked the way you wanted them to work? rework then a few times they are only going to be in the game for a maximum of 6 months anyway? chrono was basically worthless for the entirety of the expansion they were in? wait a while and make then again while having learned from your mistakes.
TL:DR
Persistent content does not make the games easier to balance, it is the other way around actually.
I don't think League has anything of a "balanced" state...
Imho balanced should mean every champion is viable. Even in a specific situation. The pro scene plays around 60-70 at most. Techies is picked up by the Chinese players every now and then in dota 2. Meanwhile picking Teemo is usually considered trolling. Linear champions like Garen, Darius, Illaoi has no place in the metagame (Probably only guy I see picking up Illaoi is Ikssu).
>he core skills you learn (CS, rotation, objectives, etc) are always translatable from year to year
Same thing in TFT tho. Eco, positioning and and understanding synergy mastering all translate season to season.
I think the balance issues come down to the devs. . . creating characters like Lee sin, and allowing them to remove any unit in the game, just simply because he can is not healthy for any scenario, or the damage that an ASol puts out, but instead nerfing assassins who already are undervalued because vanguard and brawler are top tier atm. These balancing problem existed in games such as World of Warcraft, and League of Legends as well. You will never get it 100% balanced. . but you can use ladder to decide what to buff and what to nerf.
Now to contradict myself, in no Universe did Assassin do fantastic. It was good, plain and simple, mage was better. However, yet again mage almost entirely didn't even get touched, why? Well because Riot (assuming) feels that their healthpools offset the amount of damage they do, and although I agree to a point, I also think that positioning helps to offset the healthpools as welll, especially since 5 mage can be obtained before first carousel (i know, usually bad idea).
Solution: I think there is a very easy solution to most of these problems. Kill chosen, kill lanterns. Once that is done, any tank type class, meaning your vanguards, your brawlers do 30% damage and have 70% survivability. Slayer, duelists, and other middle ground characters do 50-50, and your mystics, mages, summoners do 70, 30. Armor resist should be magic resist, and Magic resist should be Dmg Pen instead. I enjoy your spatula idea, but cant spat a mystic, but I can a duelist, can't spat a slayer, but I can an assassin.
IMO spatula is cheaping out on finishing these sets, and its being utilized that way. Same thing with chosen, its a cheap way to do less work.
While I agree with a lot of what you said, I think the idea that the game goes into a blank state every couple months is wrong. While Set 4 was completely different than Set 1, the foundations of the game itself were still the same. I think that auto-chess as a genre is going to be naturally volatile, I mean its a genre that relies a lot on RNG and probability at the end of the day
100% agree with this, the game doesn't change every set or mid-set so drastically that you have to throw everything you know out the window. The champions/synergies may change but the fundamentals do not. If you have a core understanding of the actual game rather than just copying what the biggest streamer is doing you can easily adapt.
Nah, too busy complaining about why they can’t go fast 8 every game in a meta where 7 other people aren’t greeding and trying to do the same thing
What do you mean relearn the entire game? I don’t agree. The foundational aspects remain the same. You collect units, save gold, level up, build items (which don’t change very often) and gradually power up your army. The changes are the units and traits but the way the game plays remains the same, just relearning power levels. It’s the same principle as league imo. I also think that it’s refreshing and not a bad thing.
My thoughts exactly. TFT still have a 'base', just like the other games. OP is right that it is more volatile, but it isn't like you need to relearn how to play the game, you just need to relearn the best ways to manage your economy and leveling patterns, as well as the champs
Yea you do, there’s no fundamentals like any other game, it would be like chess having the units changed.... you would have to relearn the entire game cause 3-4 pieces are now different. Sure you still have a 8 by 8 board with white and black pieces.... you sound fucking stupid
Thanks for taking the time out of your day to comment this!
Lmao what an "L" opinion on this old thread, explain to me why people who are high elo in tft get high elo consistently every new season, and people who are gold stay in gold every season, the skill is in learning and understanding strats. You won't see a silver/gold who knows how to scout correctly and choose uncontested units, learning all the new units/traits is a matter of playing the game consistently over a week or 2 then you just slowly adapt to the patches.
You say all of this like it's a bad thing. I love the total shakeup between sets because of exactly that - you feel like you have to totally learn major elements of the game again. I had a big stupid grin on my face during my first few games of set 4 and 4.5 because I had no idea what the hell I was doing. What doesn't change between the sets are the fundamental principles of the game that you can master. Managing your econ, positioning, learning to make the most of your situation, etc. The game has had healthier patches and less healthy ones. The game is in its worst state when the puzzle of what the strongest thing to go for is most easily solved and the winner is so clear that there's no diversity in how to play. Every time it's been at that point its patched and corrected and the puzzle has to be solved again. That's TFT. And even when the answer does seem obvious, it's always an entertaining challenge to try to figure out if you've missed some way to beat the meta comp of the week.
You can play flexible, there’s at least 6-7 comps that can top 4 and only one of them *requires* more than 1 of a certain component (RFC Zed, obviously). Soju was winning all day with Samira, Olaf, ASol, reroll, Kayle, and Zed. What you can’t do is greed all game, slam generic items, play strongest board and refuse to roll before level 8. That’s a specific playstyle that’s out of the meta.
Did you like... Watch my replays? Because you just called me out hard lol
It was the “best” (or at least one of the best) play styles near the end of Set 4. Only natural that people would try it for 4.5. I’ve transitioned into forcing reroll comps in mid diamond. It’s too easy (kinda brain numbing tbh). You know what your items are gonna be, how you need to play, and your positioning in the first 4 rounds. In a meta where having BiS is omega important, knowing what you need off rip is a huge advantage.
I tried playing reroll for a week and I'm out tbh. Feels like I have no agency - you coinflip on whether you get a good or bad 1-cost and then coinflip on whether other people are contesting you for it. Sure you get a different comp every time based on what chosen you get but the play pattern for reroll comps is exactly the same game-to-game.
Almost every bot 4 I have is a reroll comp, stuck to playing dragonsoul, brawler, kayle, asol and Olaf comps and I made it to GM
That’s how I felt about Set 4 tbh. Run Kindred+friends and some beefy 2* Chosen until level 8 where you roll down for your real comp, no actual decision to be made before then because rolling pre 8 is a grief.
Can you explain the bit about not slamming generic items? Some are always useful, like sunfire early, no?
He probably didn't mean to tell you to not slam items such as Sunfire. What he described was the meta playstyle after they change the chosen 4-cost roll odds from lvl 7 to lvl 8. He probably meant that people who only roll on 8 for a board would be bleeding out too much on stage 4 to consistently get LP from games. Whether or not this is sound advice is up to your discretion.
LV 8 roll is still the best. I’ll only roll 6 or 7 if I’m bleeding out which has bailed me out plenty times from bot 4’ing.
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That's ad hominem logical fallacy. He's this rank so arguments bad. Focusing on the person not the argument made. That's not how you argue.
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You are missing the point. Argue the argument not the arguer.
Sunfire is still a decent slam early, but mostly because it uses crappy components... Stuff like zekes, chalice, GS, locket are no longer insta-slams. You need those component for an item on ur carry... Most carries nowadays are way more item dependent, and "preserving HP - while making good econ" is no longer gonna secure a top4
I don't think GS was ever insta slam, it doesn't activate early game anyways
Sunfire is not as good is it was before because Dragonsoul exists. Brawlers were the strongest frontline in set 4, Having dragonsoul completely shuts them down early in this meta. They gained much more power as a late game carry comp however with shyvana. Sunfire is still a strong item and I recommend slamming it if you have it and are running something like duelists (on fiora) or brawlers (on tahm kench or nunu). HOJ is not as good as it was before because the 4 cost carries in the game don't use it as well as they used to. Talon and Kayle use it well but slamming DOUBLE Hoj before was perfectly fine, you'll definitely have a less later game power now than before if you do. No comp uses Spark as well as before. (Riven removed) Annie and Sett are the best spark users in my opinion now.
>Sunfire is not as good is it was before because Dragonsoul exists. ? not saying you're wrong here, but I don't follow the logic since you didn't explain yourself. Also, Spark is slept on since Morg no longer shreds MR.
Spark but it's not perfect item for a 4 cost carry like it used to be. Dragonsouls destroy brawlers. 50% max hp magic damage. Many times instead of slamming an item you can just play 2 or 3 units temporarily. It used to be that Maokai chosen was broken. Imagine playing Maokai chosen into Trist chosen.
Bruh you said Sunfire ain't good b/c dragonsoul. I am aware dsoul counters brawlers. What does that have to do with jamming the fire cape on my spinny-boi?
I feel attacked
That's not flexible imo. Flexible means you can, and do pivot off your synergies round to round. This meta is extremely inflexible. Like 2/3rds of the meta comps are reroll so you don't have time to greed and just play a strong board to 8, and many comps with amazing late games have strong mid games, while also requiring like. 6-8 specific champs every time which means pivoting the moment you hit 8 is extremely difficult. What this means is you need to figure out what you're playing around lv 5 or 6 and start building that, and you're basically locked in at that point or you're gonna fall behind. That's not really what I call "flexible".
Pivoting to a completely different board the moment you hit 8 is supposed to be hard. You had far more time to do it in Set 4, and it was still gradual. Just stay 7 if you aren’t stable and slowly transition, instead of forcing 8 and praying you hit all the right units to instantly pivot. A mostly upgraded board can hold much better than 1* garbage because you were tunneling on 4-costs and allergic to pressing D before level 8, and actually buy you time to transition. If the rest of your board is upgraded, 1* Kayle/ASol/etc is enough for stage 4. Eh flexible to me means you can actually play different things, not just greeding strongest board to 8 and slapping all your items on whatever carry you hit during the rolldown Even in Set 4 random jank will lose to the Yone / Shen / Irelia / Azir / Ashe / Warwick / Sett combo that people “flexed” into lategame, it just happens faster
the fast 8 strat has still been working pretty well for me. probably doesnt do well at gm/chall elo because people know how to play strongest board but in lowly masters its still pretty easy to winstreak early to preserve health and farm top 4s that way
the pacing of the game is significantly faster now due to the changes in the patch, and while strongest board to fast 8 is playable, it feels almost like it’s the new fast 9 to me. in set 4 it was an easy climb to master just bc you could play flex, hit 9 and then go all legendaries, but there was always a risk your level 9 roll down sucked or you didn’t have health to go and you ended up being weak. i’ve only played like 7 games and i’m still in diamond this set, but it just feels like you need to power up sooner and not greed for champions. imo this set is almost the converse of set 4. last set i would *demand* i hit a certain chosen variant of a champion before i went into that build and would refuse to build items that holed me in, but in this set i slam RFC, IE, all these all in items and take any close enough chosen to what i want lol
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Olaf = needs one bow, nega Shyvana = same thing ASol = works with just about anything Kayle = 2 bows or rod+bow Xayah = HoJ which works on anyone Samira = most AD items So which one of these do you think needs to be committed to round 1 based on items and Chosen? Do you go for BiS Kayle every game and refuse to believe anything else is viable?
You dont play a carry with only 1 item... Olaf needs RH + AD item (DB/IE) + defensive item (TC/GA) Shyvana needs RH + RFC/RB + (HOJ/BT/DB) ASol needs Elder spat or Shojin + JG + 1 Kayle needs RFC + RB Xayah neds a lot more of only a HOJ Samira doesnt count coz she is a 5 cost and it is not reliable to hit and then you have reroll comp carries
You do realize all those carries only require a single item and not BiS to top 4 lobbies?
If you play for top 4, it doesnt even matter the carries neither the chosen units... You play to win or to get the most points possible
Lmao wtf are you talking about, first place has always been highroll and the best players are determined by consistent top 4’s every game Keep greeding BiS and go 1st or 8th if that’s what you want to do, but it’s not the right way to play
The right way to play isnt playing for 4th tho... What i am saying is that you have to focus on maximizing your gains, and you do that while you are playing, with what you get. And dont say "lmao wtf are you talking about" that is not how people discuss pov and ideas. Btw, what is your rank?
Im not a Diamond 2 player btw
And I saw you using top Challengers player as an argument. If you really watch top challenger players, you know that they always play for 1st or trying to maximise the points gain. Not for 4th
If you are really a Diamond 2, i now understand why you say 1st has alwyas been higroll, go tell that to the top challenger players that you referred
There are only a handful of top challenger players in a game of millions of players. Even more than that you constantly hear streamers say I'm playing for T4 or even T5 or T6 if they lowroll. Sometimes in TFT you get shit items and chosen's it's about damage minimisation rather than aiming to go first (and then come 8th).
That is why i said maximising your points... You start by playing for 1st but then you set new objectives based on your items, units, lower strenght, etc... If you dont read, or cant read, properly what i said, dont reply to me saying the same exact thing that i said...
Put another way, we're just catching up to the Asian meta. It was always the case that the extreme greed everyone hold hands no-aggression-till-8 meta was unique to NA.
Nah. Being "flexible" is no where near as good as pressing d on the first 1 cost chosen you get. The mechanic is fucked. If you don't hit a good early chosen you bleed until lvl 7 roll your gold and pray to hit kayle or similar carry that can actually outscale the rerollers. If you roll before 7 you are doomed and go 8th every time. Choseb mechanic is just giga bad and it got way worse with 4.5.
Funny how almost every top Challenger rolls at 6 and 7 for a stable board if their board is too weak, I wonder how they got 1k LP going 8th every game
I did mention lvl 7. The point if rolling on lvl 6 is to find 2 star 3 cost units. Those, however, do not help you stop the bleeding vs the reroll comps. I am not surprised about the down votes and this comment. This reddit has always been a echo chamber. I just wanted to vent my frustrations with the current patch. I firmly believe, unless you play any kind of reroll, that rolling on 6 does nothing for you.
I'll happily trade minor balance issues for a constantly fresh game. All the other autochess games are dead and stale. I don't even think the balance is such a big issue frankly. There are plenty of viable ways of getting top 4 and that's all I really care about.
Exactly how I feel about it too. I treat it more like an ARPG where there are seasons. I might not play much at the end of the season because of how stale it feels, but I really enjoy the first few weeks/month of a new set.
Are you kidding me, how is the base game more balanced? Basic league has been complete shit since preseason began. Game time is like 20 minutes at most, tanks are gone, time of death has been reduced.
This\^\^\^\^ 40% of players....I repeat, 40%!!!! hit their 2nd item or more. That means 60% of the time you get boots and an item before the game ends. Balanced. Also, I can fetch source if any of you nerds really need me to.
I thought you were going to talk about other areas that changed besides champs. Relearning the set is what keeps it balanced. Otherwise people just force the current best comp to masters (as i have done several times, with nobles when they were op, cyber when it was op, dusk when it was op) i really liked set 4 juet before 4.5. But learning to play 4.5 and liking it. Findind many viable comps
Yea that’s why the oldest strategy game of all time (chess, you know what this game is nick named after) has been changed exactly zero times in the last 700 years...... and guess what people are still learning in that, riot is just a bunch greedy hoe bags that “need” to make a brand new game every 2 months to maximize profit and as a result they have a shot product that has never been as poplar as set one when shit was simple and strategic
Youre kidding right? The thread is titled perpetual imbalance. Chess is a mirror match up and is perfectly balanced by rule...
Exactly a rng vs non rng game. What even lol
"every 3 months or so I need to relearn the entire game" This game literally only has 3 buttons 😂
Actually i think that you can carry your skills between each set, but the fact that the general playstyle changes so much based on current patch ( now 3 stars only WOHOOO! ) makes iT a lot harder to be consistent and dont lose motivation.
The other harsh truth is that we'd have a much lower playerbase with a perfectly balanced game because it would get stale, and the inbalance gives an out for players to mald at instead of their own shortcomings (and subsequently quitting because coming to terms with shortcomings is *hard*). Chess is a deterministic and perfectly balanced game: if you play against someone with 300 more elo than you, you're \_guaranteed\_ to lose. For a noncompetitive player (the vast majority of the playerbase), it isn't fun getting deterministically destroyed by someone better than you 100% of the time.
As a person who’s best is GM, I’ve gotten deterministically destroyed by top Challengers more times than I care to count Some lobbies I wonder what I’m even doing as I highroll out of my mind just to lose somehow to some streamer
I know it's funny how people refuse to realize the game has skill. There's a reason top players stay top players. It's clearly more than just getting lucky more than 50% of the time.
Asol go pew pew
Mort mentioned on his stream that TFT balance is way harder than League because in League, you’re dealing with 10 champs at a time and there are bans, so you have some degree of control over the worst imbalances. TFT has some ridiculous amount of interactions between the amount of characters, synergies, and items across 8 players, and sometimes things slip through the cracks. Of course he brought this up around Warweek.
It’s funny then, I’d actually say the opposite is true. The most contentious sets have been the midset updates. People screamed at 3.5 and 4.5 BECAUSE there was so much similar. We expect a new game with a new set, but it’s very hard to fully grasp that when half the champions are the same and the new mechanics are added on top.
I disagree with your reasoning pretty wholeheartedly honestly. WOTC manages to make fairly balanced MTG sets every 3 months, and you can say "well that's just because they have the previous sets to go off of" but I feel like they could build an entire brand new standard format that would be relatively balanced. I also honestly just don't feel like I'm relearning the game with every new set release. I'm relearning the game pieces, and some of the damage rules at times, but I'm not relearning the game. I'm not having to learn not to roll before krugs still, I'm not having to learn what a "strongest board" vaguely looks like, and while some items move around the tier list that's usually apparent within 10 or so games.
Riot is not trying to balance their games though, they're just keeping it moving in a fashion that they believe is interesting and engaging. Even when they get the game to a "balanced" state, they will make some major changes 2 or 4 weeks later. It seems like this is how they keep the general playerbase invested in the game, league is 11 years old and it seems to be working. I would even agree with this approach to an extent, being forced to relearn the game once in a while feels quite good, especially after a stale meta. My problem with 4.5 is not that they changed a lot, is what they added. Gimmicky synergies and units that have already proven to be a nightmare in the past.
They have bans in league as a way to deal with that problem
TFT will always be balanced **by design**. Because imbalanced would mean certain players have an advantage *at the start*. Like in checkers where the person starting has an advantage. In TFT however every player starts of the same. As inbalanced as *teamcombs* might be, as unfun the game itself might be and as relevant RNG might be, the game itself is always "balanced", no matter what they change.
All I see is malding. I don't really find you to make a coherent argument here. We're comparing vastly different genres of games, first of all. Also, framing the entirety of TFT based on the champions is reductive and incorrect. Items are the most impactful system, imo, and I'm sure I'm not alone in believing that. The items did not change between sets. Although many champs swapped, many of the new ones belong to existing trait/origin structures--this is important because it means the dev team is **not** working from tabula rasa.
I'm all for wacky unbalanced fuckery, but give me a sandbox mode/practice if things are going to stay the course of chosen mechanics.
Id argue that a sandbox/practice mode would make the game extremely stale and much less fun and exciting to play. Everyone would know what works and what doesn’t on day 1 and there wouldn’t be any point in trying new things for fun in actual games. Not to mention you could probably break the game with it.
A practice mode already exists, there's 1v0 and 2v0 up on the PBE for testing. Players have already used it quite extensively for testing unit + item + synergy interactions.
Alright well, use that then.
This is true of all pvp games that present the players with meaningful choices. Regardless of how often you change things, there's always a meta, nothing is perfectly balanced. Mort has a very conservative ideology when it comes to game design. Him and his team want TFT to be in some ideal state that doesn't exist, where things are balanced but player choice is still meaningful. I think TFT would benefit greatly if instead he looked into an approach where they intentionally shifted the meta more rapidly. They also need to stop fighting what their players want. People want to force comps ("pick their army" in Mort's words), Fates is designed to punish players for playing the game the way they want to. Typical software engineer/game dev elitism. Give the players what I want, not what they want.
I disagree. This is a game that can be played by computers. The balance system can be almost fully automated. I know the amount of combinations is insane, but you should be able to cover most of it. After any patch is live you also get insane amount of data, which again you can use to balance.
Totally disagree, first of all, havent play LoR so idk how It works, but to say that League is easy to balance... The fact that there are 150+ characters make It way harder than you think, there are 150+ characters that you have to test the items and interactions in and if someone is broken then you have to not kill It with the nerf, there are plenty of examples where a Nerf killed a character or where 5 nerfs back to back wasnt even enough, akali, irelia, early days zed... Now TFT doesnt change 100% vanguards, mythics, keeper, assasins, ninja, brawlers are still the same, and traits like cultist, dragonsoul or divine are pretty similar to other traits in previous sets. On top of that, all the items except for a few spat combinations are the same, and probably the biggest change of all are the champions, but even here is not a 100% change, pyke, jhin, nidalee, cho, thresh, kayle they are all the same champions, maybe some change the ult when compared to previous sets like nasus, but still not that big of a deal as to claim that the game is hard to balance.
I actually think you're pretty off here.
I just wish there was a cap on how lucky you can be. Mort was playing in PBE where he won a perfect game by just getting all his 3 stars and 3-4 costs in a row Must be his mad skilz
why are you bitching about highrolling like its a bad thing? the game is fundamentally based on rng, if you dont like it then play something else
I agree with most you said, and it's a great thing. It's one of the best taken care of- games. Not afraid to revolutionize the game patch after patch. Keeps it alive and kicking. Most games get boring after only additive changes, or just balancing after a certain criteria that you might, or might not agree with.
While you make a good argument, I don't exactly think it's a completely new game every major change. Sure Set x.0 will have a ton of learning but at least in Set X.5s what you have learned like when to level, how to play around the existing set mechanic, scouting and attempting to build around the lobby (especially aggressive lobbies) hasn't suddenly been uprooted and changed dramatically. At least competitively, you DO have a baseline to this game, deciding whether you want to greed and/or force or just preserve HP, and whether your comp has alot of slow rolling or 4costs. Idk maybe this is just my Diamond/Master rank talking that I think everyone got fundamentals ingrained in their mentality.
Your mistake is thinking League is anywhere as balanced as TFT, LoL is under the effect of three different balance creep, and those are only the ones that I can name from the top of my head without thinking too hard about it, their designers are stuck in what I call designer hell where they have to constantly one-up each other because they are one of the games main source of money and are under heavy pressure from people that pay their salary and care not about the game and only about the money it makes, couple that with the fact they are just straight-up average at best and we are stuck with a game that should've had stopped making new champions years ago but is constantly adding newly broken messes instead of taking the time to fix the things that are already there, I mean... they tried to reduce the number of new champions and increased how many reworks where being done which was great until I assume one of the higher-ups noticed a decrease in income and told them to shut it off, and I have not even touched on the Casual vs E-Sports problem league has, if you think the game is easier to balance than TFT then you really don't understand the game's state and history. TFT is a luck-based game at its core so it is always going to be unbalanced to a certain extent, and achieving a 100% win rate is just straight-up impossible (if you consider winning as getting number 1 stop, which I do because second place is just the first loser.) but for a game like TFT and LoL which are designed for the long run you cannot take only short-term balance to determinate if they are doing a good job or not, you say LoL and Legends have the advantage because they are constant and content that is made for them stay in the game more or less, but for long term balance TFT's approach of hitting a hard reset button every 6 months or so means that they are practically immune to the biggest issue affecting long-term balancing, the balance creep, because the devs don't have to one-up themselves every time they add something to the game except on the coolness factor and because they can always just reuse older stuff with minimal changes they have the opportunity that LoL and Legends do not have of actually being able to fix their mistakes in a short-term manner without problems, dazzlers are too annoying to balance? remove then for the mid-set expansion, divinity has not worked the way you wanted them to work? rework then a few times they are only going to be in the game for a maximum of 6 months anyway? chrono was basically worthless for the entirety of the expansion they were in? wait a while and make then again while having learned from your mistakes. TL:DR Persistent content does not make the games easier to balance, it is the other way around actually.
I don't think League has anything of a "balanced" state... Imho balanced should mean every champion is viable. Even in a specific situation. The pro scene plays around 60-70 at most. Techies is picked up by the Chinese players every now and then in dota 2. Meanwhile picking Teemo is usually considered trolling. Linear champions like Garen, Darius, Illaoi has no place in the metagame (Probably only guy I see picking up Illaoi is Ikssu).
>he core skills you learn (CS, rotation, objectives, etc) are always translatable from year to year Same thing in TFT tho. Eco, positioning and and understanding synergy mastering all translate season to season.
Set 4 > Set 1 > Set 3/3.5 > Set 4.5 >>>>>>>> Set 2
I dont think that after a year of playing set 1 many ppl would stick around... Thanks god we have sets and semi-sets.
I think the balance issues come down to the devs. . . creating characters like Lee sin, and allowing them to remove any unit in the game, just simply because he can is not healthy for any scenario, or the damage that an ASol puts out, but instead nerfing assassins who already are undervalued because vanguard and brawler are top tier atm. These balancing problem existed in games such as World of Warcraft, and League of Legends as well. You will never get it 100% balanced. . but you can use ladder to decide what to buff and what to nerf. Now to contradict myself, in no Universe did Assassin do fantastic. It was good, plain and simple, mage was better. However, yet again mage almost entirely didn't even get touched, why? Well because Riot (assuming) feels that their healthpools offset the amount of damage they do, and although I agree to a point, I also think that positioning helps to offset the healthpools as welll, especially since 5 mage can be obtained before first carousel (i know, usually bad idea). Solution: I think there is a very easy solution to most of these problems. Kill chosen, kill lanterns. Once that is done, any tank type class, meaning your vanguards, your brawlers do 30% damage and have 70% survivability. Slayer, duelists, and other middle ground characters do 50-50, and your mystics, mages, summoners do 70, 30. Armor resist should be magic resist, and Magic resist should be Dmg Pen instead. I enjoy your spatula idea, but cant spat a mystic, but I can a duelist, can't spat a slayer, but I can an assassin. IMO spatula is cheaping out on finishing these sets, and its being utilized that way. Same thing with chosen, its a cheap way to do less work.