Teamfight Tactics by Riot Games — Breakdown
By: Tolga Coşkun
Tags: Games, Game Design, Teamfight Tactics, Riot Games, Game Development

This document is based on the dekstop version of Teamfight Tactics. Mobile and Desktop version only differ in UI/UX in the respectable platform’s context.

Name : Teamfight Tactics

Release Date : June 2019 (PC, macOS) — March 2020 (Android, iOS)

Platform : Cross Platform between Desktop and Mobile

Genre : Auto Battler

Monetiztion Methods : Cosmetics Sales, Battle Pass(Cosmetics)

Examplary Games : DOTA Auto Chess, Conventional Chess & Mahjong

`Teamfight Tactics` is published by `Riot Games`, known for their MOBA `League of Legends`. `Teamfight Tactics` shares the same theme/world/universe/lore with `League of Legends` and has the same assets(Ex. Champions) with it as well. It falls under a relatively new genre; `Auto Battler`. The genre itself is inspired by both conventional chess and mahjong. First entry in the genre is `DOTA Auto Chess` and `Teamfight Tactics` followed after it.

Gameplay in seven bulletpoints;

* Draft a starting champion/item

* Complete the PvE stage and continue to build on your set

* Try to gain as much gold as possible with streaks in PvP stages

* Create a good synergy with your champion composition

* Micro-manage items, and try to equip the most suitable item for your champions

* Micro-manage gold between purchasing experience points and purchasing champions.

* Scout your opponents and try to place your champions around your opponent’s vulnerabilities.

Gameplay

`Teamfight Tactics` is a 8 player multiplayer game that has `Matchmaking` based on different `MMR`’s (Matchmaking Rating). Each player has their own `Arena`, `Attack Style` and avatars called `Little Legends`. Player can select these elements in the client and are completely cosmetic as they do not have any advantages or disadvantages over each other. Queuing a game is done thru the client. Players are pitted against 7 other players depending on their `MMR`s.

Shared Draft

This is where Teamfight Tactics differ from their rival. Upon entering the game players begin in a shared area that contains 10 champions. This stage is called `”Shared Draft”` as players can choose/draft a champion by simply colliding with them. Champions also contain different items to let players aim for either a champion or an item. This procedure is a recurring concept in every stage of the game. First `Shared Draft` is free-for all as in the later ones, players get to pick an element in groups of two, sorted by players’ health points.

Sometimes in `Shared Draft`, the entire item pool is consisting of a one particular item. This item can be any one of the items in game.

Arena

After the initial `Shared Draft` is done, players will teleport into their own arena. First stage starts after a brief timer for to player to experiment with their positioning of their champion.

Each unit in the Arena is a hexagon and fitted in a 4x7 grid. Champions can be placed anywhere on this grid. There are 9 reserve champion slots serving as a champion inventory in the bottom of the arena. Player avatar `Little Legend` and item inventory is on an elevated area to the left side of the champion inventory. On the top side of the elevated area, reaching to the opposite side, there are 5 empty slots, these slots are Interest orbs to visualize interest rates in certain thresholds (10/20/30/40/50 Gold). Arena is symmetrical in x axis as the same lements are present in the opposite side as well.

Little Legends can roam the arena freely and have the ability to dance, emote etc. Players have the ability to see other player’s boards and placements thru using minimap or by simply clicking on their avatar.

Phases & Combat

There are two phases in a round. First phase is intermission, players can only arrange their champion placements in this phase. Second phase is the combat phase, should the player is going to an opponent’s arena first stage concludes in teleporting to the arena, if not the opponent will port into the player’s arena. Player’s perspective is always the same whether they are ported into an opponent’s arena or stayed in theirs to keep ease player’s conception of placement.

Players can buy/sell champions, equip items (Only exception is if a player equips an item in the combat phase, new item’s special ability will not be activated) and rearrange items/champion inventory at their disposal in both of the phases. Players can only interact with the board placements in the intermission phase.

There are two types of combat in Teamfight Tactics, both are on a timer and is automated. These are seperated as PvP and PvE. Players only have the ability to oversee the combat and can no way influence the combat besides item/champion placement.

In PvE, players are pitted against Summoner’s Rift themed creatures (ex. Minions, Rift Herald) and defeating these creatures yield orb rewards which can contain different items, champions and gold.

In PvP, players are pitted agains a random opponent within the game. Each round has a timer and if no result has been reached by the end of the timer, attack and movement speed of both sides’ champions will greatly increase and a brief timer will start, should the round end with a draw, both players will recieve damage.

> If there are odd number of players remaining in a match. One of the player’s board will be copied and matched with the odd numbered player. If the copied board gets defeated by their opponent, owner of the copied board do not take damage but if the player is defeated by a copied board, player will take damage.

Stages & Rounds

Each stage and round is denoted by a number. Left number is stage, right number is the round count in the top center progression bar. There is also little visual representations of each round that indicates PvP, draft and PvE rounds.

Stages have 3 PvP rounds, 1 Draft, 2 more PvP rounds and 1 PvE round in order but first stage is an exception the this template as first stage only consists of PvE rounds. It serves as a inventory & strategy builder with orb drops and early champion decisions. After beating the PvE rounds, second stage will begin and players will be paired with each other randomly.

Damage & Standings

Players are represented by their “Little Legend” and sorted by their remaining Health Points with their avatar on the right side of the screen. Performance of each player can be seen on this part and if the player won the match against an opponent, it will be denoted by a green tick, same notation goes for losses as well with a red cross. Players on a streak can be seen here as well as their avatar is on fire for the duration of the streak. This order decides the `Shared Draft` order as well. Little Legends of the players that on the streak will increase in size depending on their streak length as well.

Players take damage when they lose a round or deal damage when they win a round, dealt damage is calculated by the count of the last remaining champions of the opposite side.

When a Player’s Little Legend reaches to 0 Health Points, they are eliminated from the game and after calculating the last taken damage -health points can go below zero if there are multiple players that are eliminated from the game at the same time- players will be given a standing and get a prompt showing their standings and players have the option to continue the match as a spectator or to quit the match.

At the end of each round how much damage a champion dealt, how much damage taken, how much healing done by a champion will be displayed instead of the standings until the next round’s intermission phase. Blue denotes magical damage, red denotes physical.

Economy

> Metagame, by definition is how the game plays in its current state as a whole. Teamfight Tactics has it’s metagame revolving around it’s economy and champion synergy, thus I am listing champions under economy aspect of the game as they serve as a gateway to synergies created by classes and origins. Items and current champion pool with respect to their synergies decide the current metagame. Riot revolves the metagame around a theme, currently Fates, and uses champions from League of Legends that fit the theme and items from it as well. Riot Games introduce different mechanics as part of every season as this season features “Chosen” champions. They also tweak with balance of items and introduce new synergies that fit the theme.

Champions

Teamfight Tactic’s main gameplay unit is champions. It shares the same champion pool with League of Legends but with a cut. Currently League of Legends has 153 champions whereas Teamfight Tactics has 58. This is done to fit the gameplay in a certain theme and introduce balancing between champion pool and synergies. By having a vast selection of champions and themes, Riot Games can easily introduce different but familiar themes for Teamfight Tactics each season. Currently there are 13 classes and 13 origins. Classes and Origins compliment each other in a way that a combination of certain types of origins/classes can have an immense amount of synergy. Due to the lack factor of the game, there are multiple compositions that go well together and this makes buidling the player’s board on their current options rather than aiming for an “Ultimate Build”.

Champions in Teamfight Tactics have health points, mana, normal attack and either offensive/supporting/defensive skill in the form of ultimates primarily and attack speed, ability points, critical hit chance, attack damage, critical hit damage, attack range modifiers as a secondary. Mana points accumulate by normal attacks, should a champion reach a certain threshold in mana, they will automatically cast their ultimate. These abilities and stats are derived from their League of Legends counterparts in the context of Teamfight Tactics.

Each champion has 1 origin and 1 or 2 classes depending on their lore/skills/theme. Champions with similar backstory will have the same origin whereas champions with similar skills will have the same class. Champions also has a rank system. They can have 3 different ranks and ranks can be upgraded by stacking duplicate champions.

There can be a certain amount of a certain champions in the pool in any given match. This amount is shared between all players. (ex. 20 Garen, meaning only 2 players can reach Gold Rank Garen). If the champion is depleted in the champion pool, it won’t be included in the champion shop until a player discards a copy from their board. Players can sell the champion to the champion shop. 1 Star champions will refund the whole gold cost while 2 and 3 Star champions will deduct 1 gold from their total cost and refund the remaining. (ex. a 2 Star Tier 2 Champion can be sold for 5 gold.)

Players can store up to 9 Champions in ther champion inventory, plus what they’ve set on the board. Champion shop refreshes with every round and are filled according to the rarity chances of the current player level. Player have the option to lock the champion shop to save a champion should they do not have the room in the board, or enough money to purchase it.

>However there is a certain item that can bypass this as it creates a 1 star copy of a champion of player’s choice in player’s board.

> One thing to note with a champion’s origin is that it can be influenced by their current skin in the current season, meaning a character’s origin can be changed with each season. With current season, there is one more element that can influence a champion’s synergy; `FATE` system. Champions that are marked by FATE are referred as `”Chosen”` and they can have a +1 to their class or origin and they can only be purchased as rank 2, meaning that they will have triple the cost of what they normally cost and they are limited 1 per board. Some synergies require additional items or `”Chosen”` champions to reach their full potential in the current state of the game.

Currencies

Teamfight Tactic’s main currency is gold. Gold is the means for purchasing champions and experience points. Players will always get gold in the end of the round. How much gold a player can gain is influenced by how much gold they have currently a.k.a interest and by streaks.

These amounts will be added to the passive income every round. Passive income is always the same and it is not dependent on any parameter besides level count. Starting from first round phase, players will gain 2,2,3,4 gold and 5 gold for every round after that. After the addition of extra gold obtained thru interest and streaks, players can earn a minimum of 6, and a maximum of 13 gold per round without including orb drops or champion selling. Players can also gain gold by selling champions that they obtained thru orbs or orbs can drop gold itself.

> Some synergies can increase how much gold a player can earn from a round depending on if the player achieved victory in the round. Currently “Fortune” synergy;

> * 3 Champions : Winning combat against a player will give bonus orbs. The longer you’ve gone without an orb, the bigger the payout!

> * 6 champions : Wins give an extra bonus orb with rare loot.

Although Experience Points are not used for purchasing, it can directly influence how a player can play their game. Teamfight Tactics has a levelling system that goes from Level 1 to Level 9. Players can use the same amount of champions as their level count. (ex Level 2 can use 2 champions on the board). Players always gain passive +2 experience points after a round and they can purchase +4 points for 4 gold. Levels directly influence champion selection as they influence rarity rates for each champion tiers.

Due to number of different competent synergies, it is up to player to micro-manage their gold between purchasing champions and ranking champions early on, levelling up early or stacking their gold to get to the higher levels quickly.

Items

Similar to champions, Teamfight Tactics share the same item pool with League of Legends. While their concept stay the same to increase familiarity, their bonus stats and abilities are fitted to the context of Teamfight Tactics.

There are 8 normal and 1 legendary item in Teamfight Tactics. Players can combine any two item and can create a superior item. Items can drop in the form of orbs or can be obtained from the `Shared Draft` rounds.

Players can obtain items by defeating pve monsters. These monsters can drop 3 different types of orbs and 3 different types of loot. Orbs can contain champions, gold or an item depending on orbs rarity tier.

White Orb

Blue Orb

Golden Orb

Items are really important in the context of the game because they immensely increase the power of a champion and some item combinations can counter synergies/items as well. Champions can equip up to 3 items and players can not sell items in return of gold, should an item is equipped to a champion, that item will be bound to the champion and player can’t unequip the item unless player sells the champion to the champion shop.

Items can influence the positioning as some items need champions to be in a specific pattern to be fully used to their potential.(ex. Zeke’s Herald)

> However there are certain combinations that can unequip items from a champion. There are 2 exceptions in the current sandbox.

> * If a player equips a “Thief’s Glove”, all the other items that are currently equipped to the character will return to the player’s item inventory.

> * If champion has any item that can create the same class as itself with the “Golden Spatula”, if player tries to create a superior item inside the champion, superior item will be returned to player’s item inventory as champions can’t have a duplicate class item on themselves.

> A certain item, `Golden Spatula` can be combined with different items to create class affinity items that can be equipped by champions. These items that created with the `Golden Spatula` will add the class to the champion’s synergy. Two `Golden Spatula`s can be combined to create an item that gives “+1 to the team size” thus increasing the amount of units can be placed on the board. By having such strong influence on the gameplay, `Golden Spatula` is the rarest item in the game currently.

Design Pillars and Social Succes

To understand how Riot Games cater to new audiences, we have to look at League of Legends first, their first entry. Riot Games always thrived -but not exclusively- on word of mouth. League of Legends grow exponentially with it and TFT is not an exception. Like the first time, following the footsteps of their rival Valve/DOTA, they tapped into a new genre, Auto Battler. Due to the vast selection of champions and League of Legends being a top 5 all time played game with E-sports branch, they had the opportunity to re-use and build the game mode revolving around their champions within an exceptional world. They’ve successfully derived a fun Auto Battler game mode with the assets of League of Legends.

Not only being based on the same universe, League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics share key similarities between them. Like League of Legends, Riot Games managed to create a metagame out of Teamfight Tactics with a lot of fun, engaging and different item, champion and synergy combinations. Players can build their champion or -in TFT- board with vast selection of elements (ex. Items, Champions, Synergies) These build variation lead players to experiment with different combinations and even sometimes game forces players to experiment. (ex. Only Spatula “Shared Draft” in TFT and Random Champion Selection in ARAM mode in LoL) In League of Legends player’s build “quality” depends on how players perform within the Summoner’s Rift whereas in TFT, it depends on how players micro-manage their economy and simply luck(RNG).

One of the biggest success of Riot Games is on how they take on “Meta Shifting”. By internalizing “only thing that doesn’t change is change itself” motto, they always change how the game’s sandbox behave by adding in new champions/items or nerfing/buffing certain skills, items, champions, stats etc. This is done masterfully thru seasons in the game. With the introduction of a new season Riot Games introduce new sandbox changes to the game to keep it fresh and seasons ensure players to experiment or experience within a set amoun of time frame. Either they can explore new mechanics or experience their favourite champions’ new playstyle.

With matchmaking you are always paired with an opponent with the same skill level as them. In League of Legends, players are always one engagement away from victory while in Teamfight Tactics, players are always one item drop, one champion selection away from victory. This lead to players to share their experiences with the game to the community via different social media platforms and Riot Games forums. Some players created “How to Play” style guides to guide the members of their community on how to achieve victory in their next game. Players can use emotes or in-game chat to express what they are feeling quickly within the game like when a player “steals” a Champion/Item in Shared Draft and the other player spams emotes to express their frustration.

Riot Games rely on player’s ability to experience different builds and satisfaction/frustration of competition to keep players engaged int he game for a long time. If changes can scratch the players’ experimentation itch, season beginnings are a great way to rekindle players’ desire to play the game. Players can experiment the same build on and on just to experience the “Just right” feeling of a certain build in one satisfactory game or to claim victory on their opponents game after game. This feeling can fuel experimentation as players can move on and try to experience the same feeling in different builds.

Currently Teamfight Tactics is easy to get into but hard to master as it has a lot of depth within it’s economy and champion synergy. With vast selection of combinations and factoring in luck it is important for player to iterate with what they currently have and explore their options further down the game. Pivoting from certain builds at the right time is one of the keys to success within Teamfight Tactics. Players need to improvise, adapt and overcome their opponents with the tools that are given to them.

Monetization

Riot Games uses a `Free to Play (F2P)` model for their games and Teamfight Tactics is no exception. Game store does not offer any items that give an advantage over their opponents. Items that are sold on the store are purely cosmetic and only changes the skins of their champions. Core gameplay is never interrupted and player is never required to make a purchase to progress further in the game. Everything that affects the gameplay can be obtained by simply playing the game. Riot Games’ games does not contain any advertisements besides E-Sports events. They constantly deliver free updates to the game and actually they are one of the first adopters of `Games as a Service (GaaS)` business model.

Riot Games introduced relatively new monetization method `”Battle Pass”` in Teamfight Tactics as it offers both free goodies and premium tier items as well. `Battle Pass` serves as a global progression and it resets with every season. Players can make progress on their passes simply by playing the game or doing the quests that come with the `Battle Pass`. Besides `Battle Pass`, monetization on Teamfight Tactics is purely cosmetic as well.

Proposed Improvements & Hurdles

> It is always hard to create a new dynamic for a game that adopts “Games as a Service” model without a deep dive into user behaviour and metrics as a change can certainly upset a subset of players almost everytime. Without the knowledge of metrics a good intentioned change can be met with a revolt from the playerbase.

> Additionally Teamfight Tactics has a massive champion pool and item/synergy combination, currently it is on a delicate balance and even a small thing such as changing champion inventory size can change the pacing of the game drastically

>These proposed changes are not final and are open to discussion with the development team.

Single-Use Consumables

Neeko’s Help : Place on a champion, creates an extra 1-star unit of that champion and add it to your bench.

Teamfight Tactics already dip their toes into single-use consumables with one entry; “Neeko’s Help” but it only affects game in an indirect manner. Similar to it’s kin, League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics can introduce stat enhancements in the form of a single-use consumable for certain amount of rounds/time.

* Single-Use Mana Fill Potion : Players can use this item to fill up a champion’s mana for the next round, allowing to use their ultimate at the start the round immediately.

* Single-Use Offensive Potion : Players can use this item to increase a champion’s attack and magic damage for %50 for the next round.

* Single-Use Defensive Potion : Players can use this item to increase a champion’s health points %50 for the next round.

While these items can introduce fun comeback/dominate mechanics, they will increase the already stacked item pool count further, making harder to aim/hope for item drops.

Wildcard Items

Currently there is no way to obtain an item of choice besides `Shared Draft` system, and if the player wins matches early on, it’s hard for a player to aim for a specific item for a build. By adding a wildcard item, players can trade this item to get an item of their choice except `Golden Spatula` in return. By giving such an item, players can experiment with some builds at their disposal.

This item should be as rare as `Golden Spatula` as it can heavily influence snowballing if the item drops to an already established player. To counter this;

* Players can only get the item if their health is below a threshold only once. This can ease certain players’ comebacks but players can intentionally get their health below that threshold to obtain the item. Setting the health threshold low can counter the issue but this can render the item useless for most scenarios, as games are rarely just an item out of reach.

* By creating two different items, one can be traded for offensive items, other can be traded for defensive items. This will factor in luck again but still lowering the item pool for players to achieve a certain build. This will lower the effectiveness of the idea but still rendering the items useful for achieving a build.

One RNG Champion each round — Different Game mode

Currently top 3 runs can last up to 40–50 minutes in Teamfight Tactics if players perform well in the game. To cater to people with time constraints, we can introduce a different game mode. Core gameplay and economy meta will fundamentally stay the same but we can introduce a small twist; Random one extra champion at the start of each PvP round depending on player’s level. With the introduction of this mode our aim is to create a shorter game experience while being robust as well.

* If the player has a full champion inventory, player takes the cost of the champion as damage

* If the player is above Level 6, random champion can be 2 Star(Silver), if the player is above Level 8, random champion can be 3 Star(Gold). This system will share the same rates as with the champion shop rates.

Shared Draft Wishlist

The first champion a player picks in the first `Shared Draft` will become as “Wishlisted Champion” and it will have %10 increased occurence rate in champion pool. This will make `Shared Draft`’s influence on the player’s board bigger.

This can lead to depletion of champion pool and early 3 Star champions and shortening the game’s time.

General QoL Changes

* Champion Origins/Class and item details should be visible while player is in `Shared Draft`

* Damage Dealt/Taken is not visible enough, currently they are only a small, hard to see pop up numbers where the opponent’s Little Legend resides.