TFT has been out close to 5 years now, but we still haven’t solved every problem around designs of champs and their impact on fight pacing. One of the biggest challenges is still around the amount of fighting away from the front line.

One thing that we have stuck to as a core principle of fights is that we need a variety of types of fights to occur in TFT to keep them interesting. If every fight was simply a front to back race with tanks vs snipers, then the game devolves to a very simple dps check race and fights aren’t very dynamic. Someone once said “We need parts of the fight to occur away from the center of the board sometimes”.

This is where things like Assassins, Hackers, and other classes came into play. They would allow fights to occur away from the main tank, and open up alternative strategies to simply racing to the highest DPS champs. We also had spells for some units that would hit in an AOE, providing threat to more than just the tank, forcing you to consider defensive traits and itemization. All of these things did in fact, make fights more dynamic.

However at the very clear trade off of some high player frustration. In TFT you work hard to save your resources, build your items, and make an awesome carry champ that you expect to do awesome things…and then they disappear because you 50/50 wrong sided vs the Assassin Diana. Pretty tough to deal with.

I think we’re finding pieces that are getting closer. Set 10 Akali (KDA) for example was a pretty healthy version of this that had positioning counterplay…but she existed in the same set and class as Karthus so that wasn’t great. We will continue to try to innovate in this space, but it’s not an easy challenge. Keep giving us feedback on your favorite and least favorite versions of these champs, as we continue our pursuit for healthy and dynamic fights in TFT.

FWIW, my personal player bias on this subject is different than my professional opinion. As a player, I DESPISE backline access and love playing 6 sniper…but we make games for our players, not for me. So for now, CURSE YOU YONE. Ok, that’s it for now. Until next time, take it easy 🙂