Teamfight Tactics Set 16 Design Philosophy Shows Improvement
Coming off a disappointing Set 15, the Teamfight Tactics team has a lot of work to do. The team has set out goals and their focus for the upcoming set. Riot Mortdog, through his PBE rundown and an engaged player discussion, revealed the intentions of Set 16. The Teamfight Tactics team wants the set to have less complexity. They also want to focus on more flexible compositions and units. If you are a reroll enthusiast, unfortunately, this set is not for you.
Teamfight Tactics Set 16 Complexity
At the outset, having one hundred champions brings complexity. But in reality, it is not. What made balancing K.O. Coliseum nearly impossible was the fruits. Each power-up brought so many combinations that it created a headache for developers. Identifying the issues with champions alone is less strenuous. The balance and bugs should not be as problematic in Set 16.
Flexibility and Late Game Compositions
The goal behind Teamfight Tactics’ Lore & Legends is to make the best compositions focus on four and five-cost units. In most games, you should see players win with late-game boards. Does this mean that you can not win with reroll compositions? Not at all. But you will need to be in the correct spot with ideal items and augments. If you can force a reroll composition every game and win, it will be nerfed.
The dev team expects players to run vertical compositions for the mid-game, but then transition. The intention is that if you see one of the non-unlockable five costs, you add them to your board. The majority of them are designed around the champion and do not need a trait. If they do not meet these goals, they will make changes. They also do not want to see the same legendaries dominating late-game boards.
Support Champions
In recent sets, we have seen the Teamfight Tactics team move away from support-style champions. Everyone must be able to use items. The reason is that there are not enough champions in the game. However, with one hundred champions in Set 16, there is room for support for exclusive champions. It means that these champions will not be effective carries. Units like Lulu, Cho’Gath, and Aphelios will provide support and utility to your board. The likelihood that these types of champions stick around in future Teamfight Tactics’ sets is low.
Augment Changes and Transparency
The Teamfight Tactics team has tried to include augments that feel good. They want you to look at them and say, I can use it in this spot. If there is no way to use it, it either must be changed or removed. Secondly, they will be more transparent on the augments. We are not getting augment stats back. However, Mortdog, for at least the first month, will deliver a list of augments that are outliers. Any augment with an AVP lower than 4.2 or higher than 4.8 is considered an outlier. The list should come out every Monday.
Artifacts and Radiant Items
They have acknowledged that Artifacts have been problematic. They are changing them to be less narrow. An artifact should only give roughly a 1 to 1.5 power increase over items. On the other hand, all radiant items will be 2x the power of standard items. Essentially, all radiant items will see their stats doubled and any additional effects removed. For example, radiant Warmog’s Armor grants double the health, but no longer heals.
Balance Patches
They want to be more proactive in targeting issues within the set. That is regarding balance, or if there are outliers not within their goals, like a dominant three-cost reroll. However, they aim to have less swingy patches, unless necessary. The 16.2 patch will likely have a vast majority of changes. But that is due to it coming after the Winter break.
