Yesterday @techzztft@twitter.com asked a common question I get. “Have you considered changing the patch schedule?” The TLDR is that we have considered it, but there aren’t any good alternatives. But let’s talk about it in depth.

If we consider all possible options around our patch schedule, the options are “Less Often”, “More Often”, or keep it as it is. If we decide on one of these options, then we can figure out the exact amount from there.

First is “Less Often”. This has some advantages for sure. On the dev side, it means more time to prepare each patch and deliver a more holistic package and make sure that it’s up to quality. More testing the balance, more bug fixing, more content, etc. It also means players who enjoy when the game doesn’t change as much get longer periods where the game is the same and can hone their skills on that patch. This is especially valuable for our competitive players, knowing a tournament won’t have any surprise changes.

The downside though is that we’ve found for the majority of players in the auto battler genre, that innovation and novelty is more important, and if the patch isn’t perfect, then it’s a great way to cause churn. If players feel like every game has a Volibear or a Kaisa winning, then the game can feel stale. If you know it will be 21 or more days before there is something new to play with, you may not be as interested. And the reality is between high skill player base and various stats, the perception is that TFT is “solved” very quickly.

For now, we don’t think this trade off is worth it. With TFT sets still coming in pretty hot, the reality is “perfect balance” is still something we haven’t achieved, so the risk of that stale meta means we should probably avoid this option.

Next is “More Often”. So the advantages here are clear. If we see something out of line, like let’s say Yone is dominating a meta, we could ship a smaller patch that addresses just Yone, see how it lands, and then react from there. Balance becomes a much more iterative process where we can make many small adjustments until we over time find the right balance. Much like we do now, just in more steps more often to get to the right spot. In addition, players know that if something is off, it might only be a day or two before its addressed which can be comforting.

However there are two very clear negatives. The first is that changing that often can lead to a lot of player fatigue. One minute you know Yone is good, and then a day later its not? How are you supposed to learn the game? In addition in promotes some bad habits, where instead of trying to find a counter or adapt to options (which happens a lot in TFT), you just go “I lost this game, please nerf by tomorrow thanks”. To be honest our current patch schedule already does this, but this would be much worse.

But the much MUCH more important negative here…is that it’s just not possible. Shout out to League of Legends far before my time, but the idea of being both a Global Game played by players around the world and updating that game every 2 weeks was unheard of more than 10 years ago. The set up to make sure any new content is localized for everyone across the globe, QA’d and ready to go, and then properly distributed to every player equally is a LOT of infrastructure. Even today, you don’t see games update that often. It’s pretty insane what League has been able to do, so the fact we kind of got that for free riding along was awesome. But pushing that even faster, is pretty unreasonable on the dev side.

So that really leaves “Keep it as is”. We find that every two weeks is already a lot for core patches. It gives us time to prepare the bigger content drops or reworks properly (like the artifacts next patch), and make adjustments as we can. But in addition, we have the B patch process when we need to go even quicker for adjustments that are urgent. I know players look at B patching as a failure, and to some extent it is, but it’s also that ability to make small adjustments that have big impacts that are valuable.

All of this to say that a complex game like TFT, there is no single magic solve that makes balance easier. Faster or slower, both have big downsides. And that’s the thing with life that sometimes the internet doesn’t help make you aware of. There is almost never a magic solve that addresses all downsides. Life is about picking the best of available options and dealing with the trade offs. People will point out those downsides, but that’s not productive. You have to make the best choice you can and move forward. For TFT, the current patch schedule is the best choice we have.

Ok, this was probably TOO detailed…maybe I’m being too open lol. But you asked, so there ya go. Now I’m hungry and it’s time to take my boy to school. Have a good day, and take it easy 🙂