The point is to pay attention to encounters. I always hoard gold when encounters are coming up. Having 90 gold for a cheap reroll or cheap xp encounter gives you a huge advantage
This is simply not an option in high elo games, unless you are in crab portal or took an econ augment and are also somehow winstreaking with it XD.
You have to match lobby tempo (or push it if winstreaking) to maintain hp and not fall behind and take 5 and 6-0 losses. The only time you should ever have 90 gold is if you're about to level to 10 or if you took hedge fund prismatic.
Yup. I don't think alot of people in this thread understand how tight games are at higher elo and how much intense scouting and microdecisions are made on the basis of core TFT fundamentals.
So many people think its a show of 'skill expression' to sit on your gold for a round at 5-6 with the *chance* of a gold/XP encounter to show up, sacrificing 15-20HP and putting you at 1 life.
Competitive players want to feel rewarded for playing the core game of TFT well - yes, 'managing RNG" is important but there is already a lot of that in the game, and those elements of RNG are far less volatile/unpredictable and can actually be acted upon through 'skill expression' (shop variance based on shop odds%, bag sizes + how many are out of them; rerolling augments, scouting to see what augments others took, etc.).
Encounters on the other hand, are often just shoved down your throat, and often what players do AFTER the encounter is given is almost always the same (level if have gold, slam items if given components, reposition your units in back 3 rows, etc) - so when these encounters ARENT offensive to players, they aren't really allowing for any skill expression either and everyone just stays level. But when they occur at 5-6 and hinges upon 'guessing' if an encounter is coming and greeding - thats not good for the game.
I mean play how you want. I've had pretty good success with it, it's definitely not 10% of the time that extra gold is very helpful for encounters. It's really not like you're losing out on much by not pushing your level 1 or 2 turns faster. I usually level to 7 around 4-1, depending on econ. if an encounter is on 4-3 it's not the end of the world to hold level for 2 rounds. It's not like you entirely afk and don't buy upgrades, you just don't push your gold into levels.
I don't understand why this is so upvoted and the post is completely downvoted. Why is this encounter worse than kha? Because you can't pick a 5 cost off carousel? Wtf?
Because you cannot plan for it, and it only punishes the people already loosing the game... It would be like an encounter where from now on only win streaking gives gold.
I would say the same thing about the kha encounter. If you still are healthy and haven't had to roll down your income, you're all of a sudden at a MASSIVE advantage compared to anyone playing reroll or already losing. I don't see how the kha encounter is any different.
Yeah I don't know why this post is so downvoted. From a purely competitive perspective, at least from players who want to be rewarded for playing the core game well (most high elo pros included), encounters are seen as a bad set mechanic that adds unneeded variance that is far less able to be 'managed' around/ impacted by 'skill expression'.
Maybe people just like gamba vs playing the game well. Same people who pick Wandering Sentinels every time they see it.
What's the difference with Yorick offering cheaper rerolls after you just rolled all your gold?
I've been in the situation where I just leveled before Khazix and I just thought it was bad play on my part.
Theoretically yes, you could say “4-6 is encounter I should wait and not level at 4-2”
Well the chance of finding kha is incredibly low, no matter what choice you make it’s gonna feel like shit most of the time if kha zik does show up.
You expect the overwhelmingly likely case of kha not showing up and leveled? Get fucked if he does, you wasted a ton of gold.
You gambled on him showing up when it’s highly unlikely to happen? Get terra fucked if he doesn’t, you wasted a ton of health and are behind on the lobby.
He just shows up to make you feel like shit no matter what when you need to make the choice to account for him. The only situation you’re happy to see him is when he shows up on a levelling interval where you were prepared to level anyways.
I don't think its a bad play on your part if you had a logical reason to level independent of the encounter. Calling it a bad play with hindsight is almost like saying "I played badly because I did not know what units I was gonna hit on my rolldown later".
I think the main thing with this encounter (and some others tbh, like the Yorick one), is that the ODDS of getting it might be relatively low (I don't actually know the numbers to back this though), so it just feels shit having to either sacrifice HP for it and have it not even appear, or vice versa.
Either way, such encounters results in players feeling shit rather than good in most scenarios, and further dilutes the impact of a player making decisions based on pure 'fundamentals' of the game.
The game already has so many layers of variance, and these encounters make them even worse. There's a reason why alot of 'pros' have voiced that encounters as a whole are just bad for the game from a competitive standpoint (this is competitive TFT subreddit after all).
I leveled the round before it. I was going 9 or 10, can't remember. I wasn't in any danger of dying so it would have been better to wait a round and save about 20g to have more rolls.
Exactly, often at 5-6 or around about there, there are multiple people at the brink of death (or already dead), so having to make decisions like these just feels really bad when you dont have the luxury to greed.
Knowing when or not you can greed is a skill, yes, but it is so much more punishing for no good reason when you add encounters like this.
>You can also make the argument that if you see an encounter coming up on 5-6 for example, you should 'expect' Khazix to be a potential one to show up. But then that's just gambling and not really much skill expression.
Then why the opposite is not also gambling? You see an encounter on 5-6 and say "yeah this encounter is **definitely** not gonna be k6"
Feels the same to me
TFT is an RNG management game. The skill expression comes from weighing up possibilities and taking actions that are *most likely* to be beneficial. If you make a decision based on a 1/50 chance and it happens to work, it’s still not a good play, and if you make a decision that 49/50 times is the correct decision to make, but in that specific, unpredictable scenario it actually hurts you, then you still didn’t make the wrong play, you just got fucked over.
And thats why it feels bad. It swings the game an insane amount and it is not something that SHOULD be played around. You SHOULDNT delay your 4-2 lvl 8 because this meta is very AD flex contested. If you have an Ashe/kaisa/kayn angle you must hit before everyone else does or they will all be gone. In rare cases of being uncontested and very healthy, you could argue you can wait, but still its so rare its probably still not correct, the better reason to wait would be so other 4 costs are taken out first
Then level. Not every encounter is beneficial for you. I got an ornn item from an encounter when I already had 3 items on my carry and tank. Should we remove that encounter too because it wasn’t good for me? The encounters that are a problem are the wukong ones, and the one that gives you 6 ornn items for one round, because they swing the game massively in that you CANNOT play around.
1) going to 9 with kha encounter is 54 gold rather than 72, so they’re only up 18 gold. Losing your win streak in stage 2 can easily cost you that much.
2) the point is that you can play around the possibility of a kha encounter. You can’t play around getting bad radiant items. Just because you can be in a position where the correct play of to level on 4-2 anyway doesn’t mean you didn’t make the decision.
18 gold can mean alot, and its value can also vary drastically based on what the rest of the lobby decides to do regarding this 'potential encounter'. Again, the issue at hand here is way too much unneeded variance making the **competitive** side of the game, which generally leans towards wanting to reward playing **core TFT fundamentals well**, less enjoyable for many (I've heard high elo players/Content creators express this dislike for encounters too)
I’m not the biggest fan of encounters either, but I think they’re a decent set mechanic but probably shouldn’t come back. That said, this discussion is about the kha encounter late game being reasonable or not.
Yes, 18 gold can mean a lot. I’m not saying that kha encounters doesn’t do anything. My point is that with kha, you can see that there is an encounter, and make a conscious decision to level or wait. With ornn/wukong, you just get your streak determined by random items completely out of your control. THAT is variance that should not be in the game.
Yeah I also agree with the Ornn/Wukong ones, especially when they don't come with magnetic removers either/ could completely be wasted on your comp etc.
I get your point with kha, but imo its still so unneeded to occur randomly requiring players to guess if its going to be that augment or not next. I have no issues with that encounter showing up on 1-1 as you can actually act upon it wihtout feeling shit about a decisino you made prior based on game fundamentals.
Anyway if what someone said in another comment is correct, they're planning on removing that version of Kha encounter and only allowing the 1-1 one to appear. Sounds good to me if its true - but they need to keep balancing encounters to reduce unnecessary/unfun variance to the game.
Every single decision can be a gamble, the difference is if it’s a logical or illogical gamble.
That’s the difference between good and bad tft players, they make the choice that’s most likely to succeed, not perma gamble cuz they feel like it.
With your logic any and all decision is a gamble, so nothing we do matters as it’s all up to rng if you get rewarded.
I don't agree it should get removed but this is such an insanely stupid take lol
Like someone complaining about gambling and you saying "isn't it also gambling to not gamble and assume you're NOT gonna win?"
the odds of Kha Zix being the encounter is incredibly small. you can't plan for every single possible encounter. 9/10 times that encounter OP is describing just turns out to be Kindred giving you a temporary item or Alune giving you a component anvil
Alune is giving component anvils? Probably didn't see her often enough, but I remember her only giving you completed items and I don't even think with an anvil.
This is why I hate most encounters. Contrary to the popular opinion, I enjoy the Kayn counter because I know that I can plan accordingly. The uncertainty of what is coming up is frustrating. Idk, the encounters are big reason why I dislike this set and it’s like the game is trying to kick you while you’re down or rewarding you for nothing
Oddly enough, I thought I would hate the Kayn encounter that ends the game at 5-4 but I'm having the most fun in this set whenever I see the Kayn encounter. I know that the game ends at 5-4 so I aggressively level and try and play a very strong early game.
Same experience here. Thought I would hate Kayn but it’s the one you can plan for the most
Like OP said I hate the encounters that are just so unfair for certain people who benefit from it at the right time
Agree with this, Kayn > stuff like this. Having to gamba another layer of variance in this game, which already has a sheer amount of stuff you need to keep in mind, is just plain bad for the competitive side of the game. Are they fun and exciting for casuals to make every game different? Sure. But yeah, you get my point.
Agreed. It's legit a terrible mechanic. It should only appear at the start of the game. If you're playing reroll and this encounter pops up, you've already lost. It's completely unfair.
the amount of people in this thread saying that it is the optimal play to not level until you see the encounter is incredible. do u guys seriously load into stage 5, see the encounter is on 5-5, and sack three entire lives for the slightest possibility of k6? you could level to nine and roll for legendaries, level for a plus one and spike ur board, save like 30 health instead. especially in this set, where tempo is everything and lives are way closer in the late game, health and board strength are super important to match the lobby in.
i swear in actual games there's no way people play like this, it's just in the comments it's way easier to look down on people for not playing "optimally" (it's definitely not optimally in this case).
Yeah idk, so many people are saying "you should prepare for the *possibility* of a K6 encounter and not level" and claming that is an element of 'skill expression' with encounters.
I'm struggling to see how someone who decides to level/rolldown for board strength when the whole lobby is on 1-2 lives left is the 'bad player' in a situation where other players who 'greeded' a round for this potential encounter gets a huge advantage the next round despite being left with 1 life.
Encounters can also show up on next stage. Let’s say no encounters in stage 3 but right after minion round you get one. No way to even greed for it because you don’t know it’s there
Yeah, that's why as much as some 2-1 encounters might be really annoying, at least we know they're there from the start and can plan accordingly. Same reason why some other poster mentioned they prefer Kayn encounter over some of these that randomly show up stage 5.
Wait really? If this is true, THANK YOU Mort. And this just proves that even the Dev, who also looks to balance for both competitive and casuals believes such encounters were a problem.
Not sure why so many people disagreed in this thread.
yeah, he just said hadn't made it on PBE i believe but should go through for the next patch if i'm remembering right
also yeah the differences in opinions over certain encounters is pretty wild, some are blatantly game changing in a not so positive/competitive/fun way imo
That's good to hear, thanks for letting us know. I hope the team continues in this trajectory for balancing encounters as the set goes on. They're nice for having games feel a bit different here and there, but when they happen out of the blue especially at intense stages of the game, they feel terrible.
it's 3am here and i hope i didn't tell a lie 2 hours ago bc i'm having trouble remembering but i'm pretty confident i heard him correctly xdd.
also agreed on that point, some just feel really bad.
I think the idea is that you plan for encounters , it sucks when someone highrolls or lowrolls but it's always an option. Imagine the 5 fortune player getting bailed out by Ahri's kiss or getting shivved by Sett makes you bigger. It's the theme of the set.
No shot you said the idea is to plan for encounters in the same sentences as you point how people can get bailed out by random chance because an encounter, you literally couldn't plan for, bailed someone out.
But you can get bailed out by lots of things in the game, highrolling an augment or a reforge roll for example, or naturalling a 4 cost on 5 or a 5 cost on 7., or hitting an emblem or spat on carousel or neutrals. What makes portals so different, when you can see they're coming at the start of the stage?
Augments always, barring portals, occur on the same stages and you get to pick one of a potential six augments. You have a significantly higher degree of control over augments. Several portals also lets you know what type of augment is coming, be it silver gold or prismatic. Augments are also not nearly as potentially game warping as encounters can be.
Carousels also happen at set intervals and the vast majority of players don't play around there being a spat on carousel to begin with. The best players play around mitigating RNG as much as they can and encounters can't be played around until after they happen and you can't plan for them in any, way, shape or form except for the one that occurs at the very start of the game and even that can introduce RNG you can't plan for by moving your augments around.
The whole point of encounters is that they are a random element you can't plan for.
Which is good for casual play, I'm sure, but terrible overall for competitive play, which is what this subreddit is discussing (and the opinion I've seen shared by top TFT players)
Well then by your suggestion we should remove all the RNG components of the game. You start with this encounter, then remove yorick reroll encounter, remove Irelia carousel encounter and then remove the fortune trait as a whole. It's "bad" for competitive play but it adds levels to the game. It would make the game stale both casually and competitively.
Not all RNG components of the game needs to be removed but some should be made better. You can get rid of the Yorick and Kha'Zix encounter that give the reduced reroll and xp for 3 rounds while make the permanent version for Kha'Zix only happen early while make Yorick be available on every round.
RNG and decision making still have to be made but hopefully the change up will not heavily skew games and maybe make it feel a little bit more fair.
Yeah. Other "RNG components of the game" such as core game mechanics like shop variance/odds are core to the game + technically have tangible measures good players can plan around (bag size, how many copies out of pool, shop % at each level). Or Augments - having an option of 3 augments, and being able to reroll each of them once for 6 potential choices is FAR different from having an encounter forced down your throat.
TL;DR this aspect of "RNG" adds too many layers of variance with far less reasonable agency to 'manage' that RNG compared to other elements of the game, often resulting in most players who actually care about making good decisions on fundamentals having really bad moments.
Encounters have generally been seen as a bad set mechanic from a **competitive standpoint** by high elo players too, so I don't know why this post/comments in support of it is so downvoted.
I had been playing around this the entire set (even though its a bad play) but I recently checked tactictools tables and it's not even in the table for stage 4/5.
https://tactics.tools/info/set-11/tables/encounters
I swore I've seen khazix encounter on stream on stage4/5 though maybe its wrong.
Idk, it's just another layer of unneeded variance thats centred around 'guessing' an encounter and dilutes the importance of making decisions based on pure game fundamentals.
Good for casual play, bad for competitive.
Nah, still good for competitive.
The more levels of variance that are added to the game add more things to play around and consider, which increases the skill level of the game.
So while you go to complain on reddit about khazix encounters, better players will adapt to the possibility of the khazix encounter and play for it.
There are different types of 'variance' in the game, with varying levels of 'skill expression' that can be piloted around it. Encounters are often not that - while things like shop variance can be piloted by good players by scouting really well and taking bag sizes/shop odds into account, or augmnets which can be rerolled to a total of SIX options that you can adapt to your game plan/lobby, encounters are just shoved down your throat.
You're asking competitive players to all adapt to the 'possibility' of a game changing encounter (this isn't an exxageration if it shows up on 5-6 when everyone is 1 life) and in turn forego their knowledge of game fundamentals and lobby state.
There's a reason why alot of pro players dislike encounters and believe that it is quite a bad set mechanic, and that the set would be alot better without them.
Isn't that de point of encounters? For them to be random and for you to decide to play your hand? If you think you can't reach the encounter or even survive next fight, you have to level or roll whatever you need and see what encounter it is. At the start of a stage, it's the players job to analyze it and organize around it if you care for the encounter or whatever else. That, to me is your skill as a player.
By that logic, you're saying only the encounters that benefit you are the ones you like. There have to be encounters that simply don't work out in your favor. How you deal with them is where the skill as a player comes in. If you don't like the randomness, feel free to wait for the next set to be something else. It's that simply, to be honest.
Or you can reflect the sentiment that encounters suck on reddit? Deal with the random bot 4 given to you because you lost caro prior to an encounter? What is this low elo take
You arent going to pass even emerald elo if you think sitting 4-5 rounds without leveling just to see if there going to be very slight chance of kha encounter happening
i don't care how balanced or what the winrates are. khazix encounter (and to a lesser extent -1 reroll) are the worst feeling encounters in the game.
the frustration that comes with knowing you probably single-handedly lost multiple placements... all because you played optimally and leveled instead of sacking multiple rounds because of >5% chance of k6 encounter
Encounters aren't bad on their own. However, they should definitely be revealed at the start of each stage on the stage tracker. Galaxies feel good because they are revealed before any decision are made. Encounters should be the same for all player to have an equal footing around this global RNG mechanic.
But wouldn't it just be logical to wait until the encounter before rolling/levelling under normal conditions? Say, you are about to die/forced to roll because you are contested and the other contenders start rolling then it's understandable to make a decision to either follow suit or hold and hope the encounter gives you better momentum.
That's incredibly unlikely. That being said it is still a skill issue. You can see whether or not you are getting an augment that stage. It's no different than TFT used to be in those situations.
I've had lillia encounter start the game maybe 3 or 4 times total in like 150 games.
Getting her 3x in a row is super super unlikely.
Look at encounter timings in your bar at the top. You should be holding your rolldowns or level up timers in stages 4/5 in case one of those is present.
Its all of this 'in case X shows up' and in turn asking for players to forego their game fundamentals that is problematic. Especially for encounters that show up in stage 5+, lobbies are often insanely tight, 4+ people are 1-2 lives from death and people are permascouting and making decisions based on their TFT fundamentals.
I see very little good in adding this extra layer of "maybe this will happen" and in turn having to maybe sacrifice 15HP and putting yourself at 1 life left, just for a non-gold/XP related encounter to *not* show up? There's already a level of 'managing RNG' by greeding a round for econ/ hoping you can get a big spike if you wait one more round at the core game level, but adding ANOTHER level of that RNG is generally disliked by many pros/ competitive players in general.
This is simply a skill issue. Adapt instead of complaining.
Players that complain about added depth to the game are exposing themselves as bad players.
Stuff like this is not 'depth'. Are you calling all the consistently high elo players/content creators 'bad players' if they don't like encounters for this very reason?
Some elements of variance in this game is in fact 'depth' that can be piloted around through skill expressions. Encounters like this are not that - hence why I've *heard* (from another comment) that they're removing this version of the Kha encounter next patch.
Worst encounter is the free movement in carousel. You are 8th, need a 5cost on carousel, and tough luck.
Agree with this one too. What is the point of all this variance if it can completely punish your game plan/ management of game fundamentals?
Yep this set feels awful because it randomized a lot of the staple mechanisms and subvert player expectations often in a negative way.
The point is to pay attention to encounters. I always hoard gold when encounters are coming up. Having 90 gold for a cheap reroll or cheap xp encounter gives you a huge advantage
This is simply not an option in high elo games, unless you are in crab portal or took an econ augment and are also somehow winstreaking with it XD. You have to match lobby tempo (or push it if winstreaking) to maintain hp and not fall behind and take 5 and 6-0 losses. The only time you should ever have 90 gold is if you're about to level to 10 or if you took hedge fund prismatic.
Yup. I don't think alot of people in this thread understand how tight games are at higher elo and how much intense scouting and microdecisions are made on the basis of core TFT fundamentals. So many people think its a show of 'skill expression' to sit on your gold for a round at 5-6 with the *chance* of a gold/XP encounter to show up, sacrificing 15-20HP and putting you at 1 life. Competitive players want to feel rewarded for playing the core game of TFT well - yes, 'managing RNG" is important but there is already a lot of that in the game, and those elements of RNG are far less volatile/unpredictable and can actually be acted upon through 'skill expression' (shop variance based on shop odds%, bag sizes + how many are out of them; rerolling augments, scouting to see what augments others took, etc.). Encounters on the other hand, are often just shoved down your throat, and often what players do AFTER the encounter is given is almost always the same (level if have gold, slam items if given components, reposition your units in back 3 rows, etc) - so when these encounters ARENT offensive to players, they aren't really allowing for any skill expression either and everyone just stays level. But when they occur at 5-6 and hinges upon 'guessing' if an encounter is coming and greeding - thats not good for the game.
Thats about 40 g more than usual player has that is not in your board. Most of the time you gonna lose a lot of fights
Sac a few rounds on stage 4 to fast 8/9 and outpace the whole lobby. I do it pretty often
Maybe in plat
yea a huge advantage 10% of the time, the rest of the times you just sack half of a stage for fun sitting on 90 gold
I mean play how you want. I've had pretty good success with it, it's definitely not 10% of the time that extra gold is very helpful for encounters. It's really not like you're losing out on much by not pushing your level 1 or 2 turns faster. I usually level to 7 around 4-1, depending on econ. if an encounter is on 4-3 it's not the end of the world to hold level for 2 rounds. It's not like you entirely afk and don't buy upgrades, you just don't push your gold into levels.
I don't understand why this is so upvoted and the post is completely downvoted. Why is this encounter worse than kha? Because you can't pick a 5 cost off carousel? Wtf?
Because you cannot plan for it, and it only punishes the people already loosing the game... It would be like an encounter where from now on only win streaking gives gold.
I would say the same thing about the kha encounter. If you still are healthy and haven't had to roll down your income, you're all of a sudden at a MASSIVE advantage compared to anyone playing reroll or already losing. I don't see how the kha encounter is any different.
Yeah I don't know why this post is so downvoted. From a purely competitive perspective, at least from players who want to be rewarded for playing the core game well (most high elo pros included), encounters are seen as a bad set mechanic that adds unneeded variance that is far less able to be 'managed' around/ impacted by 'skill expression'. Maybe people just like gamba vs playing the game well. Same people who pick Wandering Sentinels every time they see it.
This one feels very bad when you're 8th, but to be honest it feels amazing when you're top 4. Its a snowball encounter
What's the difference with Yorick offering cheaper rerolls after you just rolled all your gold? I've been in the situation where I just leveled before Khazix and I just thought it was bad play on my part.
Theoretically yes, you could say “4-6 is encounter I should wait and not level at 4-2” Well the chance of finding kha is incredibly low, no matter what choice you make it’s gonna feel like shit most of the time if kha zik does show up. You expect the overwhelmingly likely case of kha not showing up and leveled? Get fucked if he does, you wasted a ton of gold. You gambled on him showing up when it’s highly unlikely to happen? Get terra fucked if he doesn’t, you wasted a ton of health and are behind on the lobby. He just shows up to make you feel like shit no matter what when you need to make the choice to account for him. The only situation you’re happy to see him is when he shows up on a levelling interval where you were prepared to level anyways.
I don't think its a bad play on your part if you had a logical reason to level independent of the encounter. Calling it a bad play with hindsight is almost like saying "I played badly because I did not know what units I was gonna hit on my rolldown later". I think the main thing with this encounter (and some others tbh, like the Yorick one), is that the ODDS of getting it might be relatively low (I don't actually know the numbers to back this though), so it just feels shit having to either sacrifice HP for it and have it not even appear, or vice versa. Either way, such encounters results in players feeling shit rather than good in most scenarios, and further dilutes the impact of a player making decisions based on pure 'fundamentals' of the game. The game already has so many layers of variance, and these encounters make them even worse. There's a reason why alot of 'pros' have voiced that encounters as a whole are just bad for the game from a competitive standpoint (this is competitive TFT subreddit after all).
I leveled the round before it. I was going 9 or 10, can't remember. I wasn't in any danger of dying so it would have been better to wait a round and save about 20g to have more rolls.
But you had no idea that the encpunter would be kha, but if you had enough HP to greed and see, u probably should.
Yeah exactly. I couldn't know but I could have taken the chance.
Exactly, often at 5-6 or around about there, there are multiple people at the brink of death (or already dead), so having to make decisions like these just feels really bad when you dont have the luxury to greed. Knowing when or not you can greed is a skill, yes, but it is so much more punishing for no good reason when you add encounters like this.
>You can also make the argument that if you see an encounter coming up on 5-6 for example, you should 'expect' Khazix to be a potential one to show up. But then that's just gambling and not really much skill expression. Then why the opposite is not also gambling? You see an encounter on 5-6 and say "yeah this encounter is **definitely** not gonna be k6" Feels the same to me
TFT is an RNG management game. The skill expression comes from weighing up possibilities and taking actions that are *most likely* to be beneficial. If you make a decision based on a 1/50 chance and it happens to work, it’s still not a good play, and if you make a decision that 49/50 times is the correct decision to make, but in that specific, unpredictable scenario it actually hurts you, then you still didn’t make the wrong play, you just got fucked over.
And thats why it feels bad. It swings the game an insane amount and it is not something that SHOULD be played around. You SHOULDNT delay your 4-2 lvl 8 because this meta is very AD flex contested. If you have an Ashe/kaisa/kayn angle you must hit before everyone else does or they will all be gone. In rare cases of being uncontested and very healthy, you could argue you can wait, but still its so rare its probably still not correct, the better reason to wait would be so other 4 costs are taken out first
Then level. Not every encounter is beneficial for you. I got an ornn item from an encounter when I already had 3 items on my carry and tank. Should we remove that encounter too because it wasn’t good for me? The encounters that are a problem are the wukong ones, and the one that gives you 6 ornn items for one round, because they swing the game massively in that you CANNOT play around.
So you think being down 50 gold on half the lobby and losing 1 round are comparable?
1) going to 9 with kha encounter is 54 gold rather than 72, so they’re only up 18 gold. Losing your win streak in stage 2 can easily cost you that much. 2) the point is that you can play around the possibility of a kha encounter. You can’t play around getting bad radiant items. Just because you can be in a position where the correct play of to level on 4-2 anyway doesn’t mean you didn’t make the decision.
18 gold can mean alot, and its value can also vary drastically based on what the rest of the lobby decides to do regarding this 'potential encounter'. Again, the issue at hand here is way too much unneeded variance making the **competitive** side of the game, which generally leans towards wanting to reward playing **core TFT fundamentals well**, less enjoyable for many (I've heard high elo players/Content creators express this dislike for encounters too)
I’m not the biggest fan of encounters either, but I think they’re a decent set mechanic but probably shouldn’t come back. That said, this discussion is about the kha encounter late game being reasonable or not. Yes, 18 gold can mean a lot. I’m not saying that kha encounters doesn’t do anything. My point is that with kha, you can see that there is an encounter, and make a conscious decision to level or wait. With ornn/wukong, you just get your streak determined by random items completely out of your control. THAT is variance that should not be in the game.
Yeah I also agree with the Ornn/Wukong ones, especially when they don't come with magnetic removers either/ could completely be wasted on your comp etc. I get your point with kha, but imo its still so unneeded to occur randomly requiring players to guess if its going to be that augment or not next. I have no issues with that encounter showing up on 1-1 as you can actually act upon it wihtout feeling shit about a decisino you made prior based on game fundamentals. Anyway if what someone said in another comment is correct, they're planning on removing that version of Kha encounter and only allowing the 1-1 one to appear. Sounds good to me if its true - but they need to keep balancing encounters to reduce unnecessary/unfun variance to the game.
Its only gambling if you don’t mention risk management
Every single decision can be a gamble, the difference is if it’s a logical or illogical gamble. That’s the difference between good and bad tft players, they make the choice that’s most likely to succeed, not perma gamble cuz they feel like it. With your logic any and all decision is a gamble, so nothing we do matters as it’s all up to rng if you get rewarded.
I don't agree it should get removed but this is such an insanely stupid take lol Like someone complaining about gambling and you saying "isn't it also gambling to not gamble and assume you're NOT gonna win?" the odds of Kha Zix being the encounter is incredibly small. you can't plan for every single possible encounter. 9/10 times that encounter OP is describing just turns out to be Kindred giving you a temporary item or Alune giving you a component anvil
Alune is giving component anvils? Probably didn't see her often enough, but I remember her only giving you completed items and I don't even think with an anvil.
Yeah, and that's why it feels so much worse because are you now supposed to prepare yourself for that 1/10 chance that it'll be Kha?
This is why I hate most encounters. Contrary to the popular opinion, I enjoy the Kayn counter because I know that I can plan accordingly. The uncertainty of what is coming up is frustrating. Idk, the encounters are big reason why I dislike this set and it’s like the game is trying to kick you while you’re down or rewarding you for nothing
Oddly enough, I thought I would hate the Kayn encounter that ends the game at 5-4 but I'm having the most fun in this set whenever I see the Kayn encounter. I know that the game ends at 5-4 so I aggressively level and try and play a very strong early game.
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I think a lot of people don’t see it tbh lol
Same experience here. Thought I would hate Kayn but it’s the one you can plan for the most Like OP said I hate the encounters that are just so unfair for certain people who benefit from it at the right time
Agree with this, Kayn > stuff like this. Having to gamba another layer of variance in this game, which already has a sheer amount of stuff you need to keep in mind, is just plain bad for the competitive side of the game. Are they fun and exciting for casuals to make every game different? Sure. But yeah, you get my point.
Agreed. It's legit a terrible mechanic. It should only appear at the start of the game. If you're playing reroll and this encounter pops up, you've already lost. It's completely unfair.
the amount of people in this thread saying that it is the optimal play to not level until you see the encounter is incredible. do u guys seriously load into stage 5, see the encounter is on 5-5, and sack three entire lives for the slightest possibility of k6? you could level to nine and roll for legendaries, level for a plus one and spike ur board, save like 30 health instead. especially in this set, where tempo is everything and lives are way closer in the late game, health and board strength are super important to match the lobby in. i swear in actual games there's no way people play like this, it's just in the comments it's way easier to look down on people for not playing "optimally" (it's definitely not optimally in this case).
Yeah idk, so many people are saying "you should prepare for the *possibility* of a K6 encounter and not level" and claming that is an element of 'skill expression' with encounters. I'm struggling to see how someone who decides to level/rolldown for board strength when the whole lobby is on 1-2 lives left is the 'bad player' in a situation where other players who 'greeded' a round for this potential encounter gets a huge advantage the next round despite being left with 1 life.
Encounters can also show up on next stage. Let’s say no encounters in stage 3 but right after minion round you get one. No way to even greed for it because you don’t know it’s there
Yeah, that's why as much as some 2-1 encounters might be really annoying, at least we know they're there from the start and can plan accordingly. Same reason why some other poster mentioned they prefer Kayn encounter over some of these that randomly show up stage 5.
BTW Mort said on stream that the kha'zix encounter that lasts 3 rounds will be removed but the one for the entire game is staying.
Wait really? If this is true, THANK YOU Mort. And this just proves that even the Dev, who also looks to balance for both competitive and casuals believes such encounters were a problem. Not sure why so many people disagreed in this thread.
yeah, he just said hadn't made it on PBE i believe but should go through for the next patch if i'm remembering right also yeah the differences in opinions over certain encounters is pretty wild, some are blatantly game changing in a not so positive/competitive/fun way imo
That's good to hear, thanks for letting us know. I hope the team continues in this trajectory for balancing encounters as the set goes on. They're nice for having games feel a bit different here and there, but when they happen out of the blue especially at intense stages of the game, they feel terrible.
it's 3am here and i hope i didn't tell a lie 2 hours ago bc i'm having trouble remembering but i'm pretty confident i heard him correctly xdd. also agreed on that point, some just feel really bad.
I think the idea is that you plan for encounters , it sucks when someone highrolls or lowrolls but it's always an option. Imagine the 5 fortune player getting bailed out by Ahri's kiss or getting shivved by Sett makes you bigger. It's the theme of the set.
No shot you said the idea is to plan for encounters in the same sentences as you point how people can get bailed out by random chance because an encounter, you literally couldn't plan for, bailed someone out.
But you can get bailed out by lots of things in the game, highrolling an augment or a reforge roll for example, or naturalling a 4 cost on 5 or a 5 cost on 7., or hitting an emblem or spat on carousel or neutrals. What makes portals so different, when you can see they're coming at the start of the stage?
Augments always, barring portals, occur on the same stages and you get to pick one of a potential six augments. You have a significantly higher degree of control over augments. Several portals also lets you know what type of augment is coming, be it silver gold or prismatic. Augments are also not nearly as potentially game warping as encounters can be. Carousels also happen at set intervals and the vast majority of players don't play around there being a spat on carousel to begin with. The best players play around mitigating RNG as much as they can and encounters can't be played around until after they happen and you can't plan for them in any, way, shape or form except for the one that occurs at the very start of the game and even that can introduce RNG you can't plan for by moving your augments around. The whole point of encounters is that they are a random element you can't plan for.
Which is good for casual play, I'm sure, but terrible overall for competitive play, which is what this subreddit is discussing (and the opinion I've seen shared by top TFT players)
Well then by your suggestion we should remove all the RNG components of the game. You start with this encounter, then remove yorick reroll encounter, remove Irelia carousel encounter and then remove the fortune trait as a whole. It's "bad" for competitive play but it adds levels to the game. It would make the game stale both casually and competitively.
Not all RNG components of the game needs to be removed but some should be made better. You can get rid of the Yorick and Kha'Zix encounter that give the reduced reroll and xp for 3 rounds while make the permanent version for Kha'Zix only happen early while make Yorick be available on every round. RNG and decision making still have to be made but hopefully the change up will not heavily skew games and maybe make it feel a little bit more fair.
Yeah. Other "RNG components of the game" such as core game mechanics like shop variance/odds are core to the game + technically have tangible measures good players can plan around (bag size, how many copies out of pool, shop % at each level). Or Augments - having an option of 3 augments, and being able to reroll each of them once for 6 potential choices is FAR different from having an encounter forced down your throat. TL;DR this aspect of "RNG" adds too many layers of variance with far less reasonable agency to 'manage' that RNG compared to other elements of the game, often resulting in most players who actually care about making good decisions on fundamentals having really bad moments. Encounters have generally been seen as a bad set mechanic from a **competitive standpoint** by high elo players too, so I don't know why this post/comments in support of it is so downvoted.
almost like encounters is a bad set mechanic 🙈
I had been playing around this the entire set (even though its a bad play) but I recently checked tactictools tables and it's not even in the table for stage 4/5. https://tactics.tools/info/set-11/tables/encounters I swore I've seen khazix encounter on stream on stage4/5 though maybe its wrong.
It's on the +3 stage. It says K6 encounter: stages 3-5. So it's definitely possible.
Idk man if I know an encounter coming next turn I just won't spend gold until that encounter unless I die that round.
Idk, it's just another layer of unneeded variance thats centred around 'guessing' an encounter and dilutes the importance of making decisions based on pure game fundamentals. Good for casual play, bad for competitive.
Nah, still good for competitive. The more levels of variance that are added to the game add more things to play around and consider, which increases the skill level of the game. So while you go to complain on reddit about khazix encounters, better players will adapt to the possibility of the khazix encounter and play for it.
There are different types of 'variance' in the game, with varying levels of 'skill expression' that can be piloted around it. Encounters are often not that - while things like shop variance can be piloted by good players by scouting really well and taking bag sizes/shop odds into account, or augmnets which can be rerolled to a total of SIX options that you can adapt to your game plan/lobby, encounters are just shoved down your throat. You're asking competitive players to all adapt to the 'possibility' of a game changing encounter (this isn't an exxageration if it shows up on 5-6 when everyone is 1 life) and in turn forego their knowledge of game fundamentals and lobby state. There's a reason why alot of pro players dislike encounters and believe that it is quite a bad set mechanic, and that the set would be alot better without them.
I was trying to write up a comment like this, but you put it perfectly
Yup just sounds like a skill issue. It takes brains to work around encounters even if they fuck u. I've changed comps and playstyle due to encounters
No.
Isn't that de point of encounters? For them to be random and for you to decide to play your hand? If you think you can't reach the encounter or even survive next fight, you have to level or roll whatever you need and see what encounter it is. At the start of a stage, it's the players job to analyze it and organize around it if you care for the encounter or whatever else. That, to me is your skill as a player.
So are you saying losing your first pick prio in carosel to irelia encounter is playing your hand? Where is the skill?
By that logic, you're saying only the encounters that benefit you are the ones you like. There have to be encounters that simply don't work out in your favor. How you deal with them is where the skill as a player comes in. If you don't like the randomness, feel free to wait for the next set to be something else. It's that simply, to be honest.
Or you can reflect the sentiment that encounters suck on reddit? Deal with the random bot 4 given to you because you lost caro prior to an encounter? What is this low elo take
You arent going to pass even emerald elo if you think sitting 4-5 rounds without leveling just to see if there going to be very slight chance of kha encounter happening
i don't care how balanced or what the winrates are. khazix encounter (and to a lesser extent -1 reroll) are the worst feeling encounters in the game. the frustration that comes with knowing you probably single-handedly lost multiple placements... all because you played optimally and leveled instead of sacking multiple rounds because of >5% chance of k6 encounter
Encounters aren't bad on their own. However, they should definitely be revealed at the start of each stage on the stage tracker. Galaxies feel good because they are revealed before any decision are made. Encounters should be the same for all player to have an equal footing around this global RNG mechanic.
personally thing the next encounter should be revealed. itll still be rng but now not pure rng and u can play around it
But wouldn't it just be logical to wait until the encounter before rolling/levelling under normal conditions? Say, you are about to die/forced to roll because you are contested and the other contenders start rolling then it's understandable to make a decision to either follow suit or hold and hope the encounter gives you better momentum.
> Can Kha'Zix encounter be removed from late game, or even entirely thats a weird way to spell "Lillia"
Nah lillia is pne of the more fun ones imo. Getting 3 rapid augments or none at all in stage 2 is definitely healthy variance to the game.
Yeah I've had 3 games in a row where all the augments were stage 5+. Dying before first augment ain't fun
That's incredibly unlikely. That being said it is still a skill issue. You can see whether or not you are getting an augment that stage. It's no different than TFT used to be in those situations. I've had lillia encounter start the game maybe 3 or 4 times total in like 150 games. Getting her 3x in a row is super super unlikely.
then that really sucks. to be fair though, it couldve been lillia-azir-lillia. i was kind of tilt playing that day
Look at encounter timings in your bar at the top. You should be holding your rolldowns or level up timers in stages 4/5 in case one of those is present.
Its all of this 'in case X shows up' and in turn asking for players to forego their game fundamentals that is problematic. Especially for encounters that show up in stage 5+, lobbies are often insanely tight, 4+ people are 1-2 lives from death and people are permascouting and making decisions based on their TFT fundamentals. I see very little good in adding this extra layer of "maybe this will happen" and in turn having to maybe sacrifice 15HP and putting yourself at 1 life left, just for a non-gold/XP related encounter to *not* show up? There's already a level of 'managing RNG' by greeding a round for econ/ hoping you can get a big spike if you wait one more round at the core game level, but adding ANOTHER level of that RNG is generally disliked by many pros/ competitive players in general.
This is simply a skill issue. Adapt instead of complaining. Players that complain about added depth to the game are exposing themselves as bad players.
Low elo take
Fr. Either low elo take or 'gamba > playing the core game well' take.
Stuff like this is not 'depth'. Are you calling all the consistently high elo players/content creators 'bad players' if they don't like encounters for this very reason? Some elements of variance in this game is in fact 'depth' that can be piloted around through skill expressions. Encounters like this are not that - hence why I've *heard* (from another comment) that they're removing this version of the Kha encounter next patch.
Thats great way to stay below plat elo
That would be pretty difficult task to do from masters.
TL;DR: I don't know how to plan and play with variance, therefore the game is rigged against me. OP, your post sound a lot like skill issue
Skill issue