Riot reflects on good and bad randomness for Teamfight Tactics’ future plans

Developers look to move away from bad RNG in Set Two.
Image via Riot Games

Riot Games’ autobattler Teamfight Tactics has made a huge impact on gaming after only three months since its launch. But one of fans’ biggest complaints is its sheer randomness (RNG), which can make the game feel like it’s working against you. Riot is looking to make this a thing of the past, though.

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TFT lead designer Stephen “Mortdog” Mortimer reflected on the autobattler’s first season in a Nexus post today, explaining that random effects should be contained in “positive and controlled spaces.”

“At a high-level, Set 1 reaffirmed to us that TFT is about how you play around the randomness presented to you through the store, item drops, and various effects in game that cause variance,” Mortdog said. “That being said, we certainly learned a lot about where inserting variance worked and was received well and where it wasn’t.”

Mortdog cites the two-unit Imperial bonus, most commonly used with Darius and Draven, as a good random effect. This way, one Imperial unit deals double damage, leaving it up to a coin flip that’s an “acceptable random” situation.

02_Hextech
Image via Riot Games

The randomness behind traits like Phantom and Hextech, however, adversely impacted the integrity of the game.

“Many players had a very real negative reaction to their most important champion losing all three of their items or being set to 100 HP with nothing they could really do about it,” Mortdog said.

TFT developers updated the item distribution system two months ago to create more controlled outcomes, leading to a “fair” and “exciting experience.” Riot wants to continue that trend with Set Two, keeping random effects positive and removing RNG disasters like Phantom and Hextech. 

Set Two: Rise of the Elements is scheduled to go live in early November.


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Andreas Stavropoulos
Staff writer for Dot Esports. Andreas is an avid gamer who left behind a career as a high school English teacher to transition into the gaming industry. Currently playing League, Apex, and VALORANT.