Riot Games is changing the role randomness plays in Teamfight Tactics, aiming to make RNG-based setbacks less frustrating. All auto-battler games require some amount of RNG, but it appears Riot wants to make its League of Legends spin-off a little less random in the Set 2: Rise of the Elements update.

After first introducing Teamfight Tactics as a temporary League of Legends game mode in June 2018, Riot made Teamfight Tactics a permanent part of the League of Legends ecosystem. The title, Riot’s take on a popular Dota 2 mod called Dota Auto Chess, quickly gained momentum, reaching 33 million monthly players by September. The game had solid competition in Auto Chess, which dropped Dota and went standalone in June, and Dota Underlords, Valve’s official version of the mod, but Teamfight Tactics seems to have ultimately proven more popular. At the time of writing, Teamfight Tactics has more viewers on Twitch than either of its contenders - though its current numbers are much lower than its initial, nearly bigger than League of Legends numbers.

In a recent blog post, Riot Games discussed its plans for Teamfight Tactics’ future, including how the developer will be approaching randomness, going forward. According to Riot, randomness is a core part of Teamfight Tactics, since being able to adapt to and play around the randomness a match presents is one of the ways players show their skill. But, Riot said, in updates such as its item distribution system patch, it has taken strides to move towards “controlled randomness.” This is something the team plans to continue in the future by limiting the number of potential effects random items and abilities can have on gameplay.

In addition to reducing frustration with less RNG, Riot said it plans to make the game more balanced in other ways. For example, the team feels there are currently too many disabling abilities in-game, which prevent players from taking any actions. Riot feels these abilities are necessary to some extent, but it plans to include less disables in Set 2. Riot also said that its teams are aiming for more balance among Champions and that Set 2 will include more soft counter Traits than hard counters.

Teamfight Tactics already had some so-called bad luck protection, but it appears Riot felt these were not enough for players. Following the blog post, Riot Games released information about the new rotation of champions being introduced in Set 2, detailing the new element and class systems. Between these changes and Riot’s promises of less frustrating, more controlled random elements, Rise of the Elements could end up being a largely positive change for Teamfight Tactics fans frustrated by RNG.

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Source: Riot Games