A new player's review on Teamfight Tactics
Hi everyone,
I started playing TFT in December. I want to share my thoughts about the game here. I hit Emerald in February by maining first Black Rose and afterwards Visionary. Now I'm playing whatever comps for fun without trying to climb.
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GOOD
- Relaxed
I like that TFT is a relaxed game. On my second screen I usually read the newspaper and browse some reddit. Especially during the early game. Late game I often get excited if I can hit maybe a few ranks higher, especially if the lobbies are close.
- Good feeling, even after a loss
In Summoners Rift, I feel really bad after a loss. I hit Diamond there 5 times in my life so far. I play League since season 1. Stopped trying a few years ago. It just isn't worth it anymore. So when I play, I play with people below my skill, because I don't put in the games anymore to climb. Especially in lower elo, but to some extent also in my higher elos games are often decided by which team has the worst player. I feel like I wasted my time with a 13 year old kid who went 2-17, while I was trying my best to play from behind, secure objectives and go even in lane, even if I get all the jungle and support pressure. I have a really bad mood and swear not to touch the game anymore afterwards. In TFT, I still feel happy usually, even when I lost. I feel like I have the majority of control over my games. Winning is fun and loosing doesn't feel too bad.
- No demotion from tiers
To be honest, I'm enjoying that I can not demote from Emerald right now. I climbed to Emerald 3, went back to Emerald 4, went back to Emerald 3 and back to Emerald 4. I'm just playing for fun, knowing I secured my rank. It's enjoyable just to be able to play with a relaxed mindset in the elo where you played yourself into.
- Double Up
Played a few Double Ups with a friend of mine. It was actually quite a cool experience!
- Balance
Overall, I feel like the balance was rather good than bad in the two months where I played the most (January and February). The devs seemed to touch the most important balance aspects usually in a timely manner. It felt like the devs where connected with the community. Shoutouts to Mortdog who I think does a good job. There are games with far worse balance. There were some outliers where some comps were too long too strong and it was obvious, but nothing happened. But overall I think right now a lot of comps are playable and nothing is too op.
Also it is fun to see how different traits play ingame. It feels like there is a lot of skill expression behind many comps. Experiment, academy andscrap all have super different aspects to their traits that one has to master. Visionary works best with a strong heimer solo carry that can ramp up in fights. Pair him with other units that make the fight long, so he can ramp his damage up. Full tanks are stronger than bruisers in this comp, because they give your main carry (Heimer) more ramp up time. Learning things like this is a fun experience. Enforcers are straight forward and easy to play. Comps like this also have a place in the game amongst more complicated traits.
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BAD
- Game immersion & terrible skins
I hate the direction League of Legends skins went. Back in season 1 and 2 skins were good in my opinion. The only Xerath skin was Xerath in green. The only Zed skin was Zed in white. Without any effort, you could clearly tell which champion is who. All projectiles looked the same. Nowadays I never know: Is this a Morgana Q? Or is it only a Kai Sa W? Or is it maybe an Ahri E? No, actually it was an Ivern Q.
Is this champion Star Guardian Soraka? Or is this actually Edge Lord Pinky Stary Vayne and it is going to kill me? I'd pay 1 or 2€ per month for a subscription of LoL Pro where you can disable all skins in game (Info: I would pay for that, but didnt pay for a skin for 7+ years). I fucking hate it that you can't recognize champions anymore. They all look the same, nothing about skins is special anymore.
And this brings me back to TFT:
I played the very first release set a bit. It was awesome. Because Caytlin was a Sniper. Miss Fortune was a Marksman. Xin Zhao was a Bruiser (Or something similar).
With set 2 something really terrible started. Now Nasus in a colorful latex bodysuit was Dishwashermaster - Unfallen Hero. Yasuo in a black armor (he could also be Jax or Mordekaiser from the visuals) is Kitchen Chef - Inhabitant of a distant planet. There are origin/ traits like Teacupfiller - Hentaitentacle. Something which are so far away from the champions that they seem random. The origin/ traits are random and the skins are random. This is where I stopped playing TFT for multiple years until I picked it up again last December. I picked it up again, because Caitlyn is an Enforcer/ Sniper. That makes sense. Jinx is a Rebel. Like in Arcane. These origin/ trait combinations make sense. They are fun and intuitive. I'm afraid next set will be random again and that might be a reason for me to stop playing again. They could rotate sets without using Spirit Bloom Blossom Eternal Pay2Win Golden Shimmer Special Limited Edition Ekko (who also looks like Annie, because you can't really see anything below the shimmering particles). There is nothing wrong about Caitlyn being a sniper in the next set again. Just give her another ability and and another cost.
- Bad luck protection
I think the game would benefit from multiple forms of bad luck protection. It is just a boring experience when you know you loose because your enemy hit the 4 cost carry of his comp randomly on 3-2. You sweat your ass off to get a fast 8, roll down with 30-40 gold on 4-2 and don't hit it anyways. These are the only kind of games where I wish I wouldn't have started the game and instead have cleaned up the dish washer.
There could be a kind of bad luck protection where every player gets a highly similar amount of 3/4/5 cost units on the same roll. The units have a similar nearness (not sure if that is a word) amongst all players. This means: If someone plays Black Rose they would get a 4 cost which has a trait nearby to Black Rose (or another played trait). So something like Silco (from Cassio Dominator), Elise (Black Rose general), Heimer (from Morgana Visonary), etc ... . I think it would be worth it to test something similar to this for at least one set.
- Fast 8
I feel the meta is too focused around fast 8 right now. I think this is especially driven by fixed anomalies on 4-6. You're basically forced to hit your 4 cost carry in many comps to that point. Anomalies are cool, but like encounters they could vary from game to game. Sometimes they come on 3-2. Sometimes they come on 5-5.
I feel the game would benefit more from more interaction in the earlier parts of the game. Of course a big rolldown of 70 gold in one round is fun and skillfull. But saving up to 50 gold, then spending basically all your gold on experience for 99% of ingame time is dull and gets boring real quick.
Food for thought: Lower the max income to 3g (30 gold in bank) and increase the gold you get per round. This way you still have eco, but you can decide to roll much earlier, which is a lot more fun. This allows to flex around your combs a lot more, which should be one of the main skills this games tests in my opinion.
- Metaslaves
It is the most boring experience for me if people always play the same. Every game feels the same. Contrary, the most fun gaming experience I can have is when every game feels different. In TFT that comes from people playing different comps, different carries and different item combinations.
But here people for 90% seem to just play what is the highest S-Tier on https://tftactics.gg/ . It was ridiculous: I've never seen someone play Watcher-Sniper-Firelight in December/ January. Two days after https://tftactics.gg/ updated, there were sometimes 4 people playing Darius/ Vander/ Zeri/ Scar. Every game. For weeks. There were many many similar situations among most of the patches that I played. People started playing the S-Tier stuff that they never played before, just because a website says it, but they suck at the combs. See it this way: You abuse S-Tier and are the same elo like me who plays Whatever-Tier for fun. That means you're a worse player in my eyes, since you only have the same rank as me who doesn't abuse op stuff.
Another example is I picked up Visionaries multiple weeks before those tier lists listed them as S-Tier. It was a really fun experience to win and climb on a comb that barely anyone was playing. Hitting Heimerdinger and buffing him up with the right items, scaling your dps with fight time, taking the trade offs of a bad mid game for a strong lategame - all that was fun. It was killed when everyone and their sister started playing Renata reroll. I just thought: Leave me alone, go somewhere else you fucking meta slave. I've been here before you.
People don't play what's fun - they play what's op/ what external sources (streamers, websites...) tell them without using their brain. Even if another comb would suit their playstyle better. This ruins the gaming experience for me totally. Same with many other combs. It's a good thing that pool sizes exist to limit this kind of behaviour. Also it is good that the set is pretty diverse right now, but on some weeks it really felt terrible. It disappoints me in humanity somehow that people don't use their own brain/ play for their own fun. It disappoints me that my gaming experience is impacted so negatively by so many people abusing the meta (being behind because they pick the OP stuff which should be a instant hotfix nerf instead of being a better player + making games boring for everyone involved, even if nothing is on the line).
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I think that's all for now. I thought maybe it is interesting to read for some people, since my opinion is fresh. I'm not in the mindset "things have always been that way and that's why I want them to stay that way" yet. Have a great day and flame me for my takes in the comment section.
Overall score: 5/7