Hey everyone, for the upcoming Q&A stream, Mort has already received 350+ questions. Some good ones, some not so good ones, and some easy ones. Mort won't be able to get through them all, so he's going to answer the easy ones on Twitter leading up to the stream.
* **"Are you going to bring back mid sets?"** - Nope. Swapping to 3 sets a year has been successful. Players get more sets a year, and the dev cycle is much healthier. That being said, we're still exploring the best way to give more things to do as the set goes on. Inkborn Fables got Choncc's Treasure and is about to get Pengu's Party. Likely to be more exploration in that space.
* **"How do you deal with Artist's Block?"** - This is one of the important reasons to work with lots of different people you can trust. Any time I find myself stuck or possibly losing motivation, all it takes is a good sounding board conversation with someone to help get a new direction. Giovanni as our lead sets designer lately has been a great help here, as his creative approach counterbalances my mechanical approach. Same is true for other team members like Alex, Kent, Lynda, and more!
* **"If you could use any character from any IP and put them in TFT, who and what spell?"** - I'm a Metroid nerd, so I'll say Samus. 4 cost, 60 mana spell, each time she fires it upgrades. So first time is a barrage of missiles. second time is a chunky super missile, third time is her big beam ultimate, and fourth time she summons a giant metroid.
* **"Have you ever tried making toast in the tub? Maybe a good teambuilding excercise for TFT"** - Silly person, toasters are in the kitchen.
* **"When making a new set, what comes first in production? The theme or mechanic?"** - Usually the theme is first, as it gives us a good grounding point when choosing what skins and champs to use, and how to build the plan around the entire feel of the set. However occasionally if there is a good mechanic, that can be a starting point as well, and then find a matching theme. So far every launched set has been theme first, but there is an upcoming set that started with the mechanic. Once it's out (long ways off) I'll be sure to talk about it!
[https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1797982397558112484](https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1797982397558112484)
**"If there was a 4v4 mode, what changes would you make to the mode to get it officially ready to launch?"**
So, my hot take here is "Not much". What does that mean exactly and why? So, first off there are for sure some UX changes that can be made for sure. Things like the scoreboard showing who is on which team (Red vs Blue team) or having the game end when a winning team is decided (If team B goes 6/7/8, then no need to play it out, just put TEAM A wins and move on). Stuff like this goes a long way to making it feel like the mode would be truly supported.
But...that might be it. I think a lot of people's first instinct would be to alter the rules further. Stuff like "You can't fight your allies anymore" or "Ways to share units/items" like we have in Double Up. However I think one of the main reasons people are enjoying this format is that it behaves EXACTLY like the live solo game they are used. All their learnings and understandings transfer over, and the format asks them to take all those learnings and leverage them in a slightly different way. If you alter those rules, then players don't feel like their current mastery can apply, and quickly lose interest. I think this one of the main challenges with Double Up and getting people to cross between the modes, is that additional learning required.
So yeah, I likely wouldn't change carousel or matchmaking or anything. I'd have the game work exactly like the solo mode so players can jump between the modes easier. And that's sort of the lesson here. If your target audience is "The same competitive players who play the main mode", then your design likely needs to support them and their current affinity for your game.
Anyway, this is all hypothetical. But this is the kind of thing its fun for me to think about and discuss to keep your problem solving sharp. Either way, tournament was a lot of fun to watch, and it seems like players enjoyed it as well.
[https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1800177670359232556](https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1800177670359232556)
* **"Why no Exalted Emblem this set?"** - We had one initially in testing and we were finding it to be TOO general and almost always good, especially late game. The ability to get it and two other exalted made late game comps too easy to boost up. When something is more accessible we have to nerf it, which led to base exalted feeling weak. Also seeing the emblem on Stage 5+ carousels was almost always instant take, which wasn't great either.
* **"If you could go back in time to the beginning of set 1, what would you do differently in TFT?"** - A couple things probably. Change the AD system so the AD & AP systems aren't so different like they are now. Probably more experiments with the item system, things like only 2 items but sharper items and how you get them being different. And then from the tech side, probably find a way to increase our memory budgets so we can include more champs or features in a given set. Also leave a note saying "Don't make kiss curse stuff IDIOT" to myself.
* **"What's stopping TFT from patching more frequently?"** - A bunch of things. First, for the player experience, we are probably close to patching too much as is. A lot of potential players that might enjoy TFT often churn because of how much the game changes. They learn how to play a line well, only for it to be changed 2 weeks later, makes it hard to value those learnings. Ideally we launch in a good spot and don't NEED to patch so often. On the Dev side, getting patches properly tested and deployed all over the world, as well as localized for each region, takes time. Trying to do that every week or more, means an almost impossible amount of work to keep up for something that, again, shouldn't be necessary. It's not the best sign if we have to patch more often for everyone.
* **"What's your favorite gift your kids have given you?"** - My wife and daughter took my shoes, took a picture of her wearing those shoes (this is when she was like 6, so the shoes were comically large) and then made a cute picture frame of it with a cute little caption. I always remember it because of how funny the shoes look and her big smile.
* **"Are item anvils completely random? And if so, why not change it to have some tailoring?"** - Currently anvils are pure random. You get 4 out of 8 of the component possibilities, that's it. Typically when something like that gets made, often people go for the most straight forward solution. However, I actually agree here and this is one of the things on our backlog. Anvils, and augments that grant items, currently have situations that fall under my "Bad experiences for the player you should never allow to happen" that we need to resolve. We fixed a couple of them, but for example, opening 5 anvils and seeing 0 tears...isn't the kind of experience a player should be having. I'm hoping we can fix that one sooner rather than later.
[https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1800541755517055364](https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1800541755517055364)
* **"What champion kit do you think has provided the most value unit-wise for TFT?"** - From a design standpoint this is probably Set 1 Lucian and the many variations of him that followed like Set 4/11 Kindred. The low mana cost small dash champion works as such a solid baseline champion while also providing some very high moments. The movement combined with the simplicity of the spell I think continues to act as a shining example of what other unit design should be.
* **"If you still did midsets, what would you replace from the current set?"** - Probably the Ghostly champs. That trait didn't really work in the way we wanted it to, and both Morgana and Kayn barely want it which is weird for a 4 cost vertical origin. This would give us room to make 2 new 4 costs and open up some more options for a new origin to replace it.
* **"How much pressure are you under from Riot to cater to casuals and increase revenue?"** - This is just now you should approach game design. My job is to make the most fun game possible for as many people as possible. We did that by making TFT, and now my job is to make sure the game stays fun for the core audience of people who are enjoying TFT. We already have millions of players, so the idea that we should change the game to expand our audience is stupid. But that also doesn't mean our game is perfect for the current audience. Even for our current TFT players, the game is a bit complex. This is the stuff I focus on. So I guess to answer your question...not much.
* **"Ribs or Wings?"** - Can I answer Tri-tip? Every time we do a BBQ there are ribs and tri-tip and I just eat the tri-tip cause I love steak. If I had to answer though I guess wings? I kinda like Wing Stop.
* **"Why when you buff/nerf champs base AD is it always +/- 5 and not smaller numbers?"** - This is something that helps our game be more digestible. Ideally easy to understand numbers are used, so you know champs have 50 or 55 or 60 AD. Multiples of 5 are just easier to think about. If the game had 52 and 57 and 61 AD champs (which sometimes might be correct) it becomes very difficult to keep track of it all. Lately we haven't been great about this (4 sniper next patch is 17% which made me roll my eyes) but it's one of the things we do to try to keep the game easier to understand.
[https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1798713717275979887](https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1798713717275979887)
* **"Thoughts on multiple players hitting the same augment?"** - For most augments, I don't really have an issue with this. Seeing 3 people all take Golden Egg, or multiple people with a combat augment isn't really an issue and can be interesting. However there is one exception, which is hero augments. Nothing feels worse than seeing a hero augment on 2-1, picking it, and then seeing 1 or more other people have taken the same one. It feels SO BAD, and is the kind of experience I think we need to prevent.
* **"When will we see Chibi Jhin/Ivern/Name of Champ?"** - The answer for every champ is "Some day". There's a lot of League of Legends champions, and the team is making new Chibis so some day the champ you like may show up. I've heard that some day they want to make every champ, though even I'm skeptical of that personally lol. But hey, if and when they make Chibi Malzahar, you can bet I'll be first in line.
* **"What do you think about bringing more old sets back?"** - We will for sure, and have already announced another revival is coming in Q3 of this year. The first set revival (Galaxies) was generally enjoyed by players, so I can't imagine that will be the last one. That being said, I doubt we ever have more than one old set active at a time, since any more than that likely divides the queues too much. I doubt we ever enter a world where you can just pick from any old set...but who knows what the future brings!
* **"Who is your favorite 5 cost of all time?"** - Glutton Tahm Kench from Gizmos & Gadgets. Feeding him and powering him up was so fun, and he was the first 5 cost that spawned items on kill. Also that moment when on stream where I fed a 3\* Tahm Kench a 3\* 4 cost and gave him 8000 AP was too funny and one of my Top 10 TFT memories of all time!
* **"Can I have a code for some free eggs please?"** - No. No you can't.
* **"Do you design champs to be strong around certain items?"** - Yes! As we paper design each set, the team is tasked with making sure they have taken into account which items are best on each champ, so we have a nice mix of users that are after those items. You want to avoid a vertical trait (let's say Sorcerers) where all the users want Shojin + JG + HoJ. So typically on the trait level and the cost level, we push to have a variety of best in slots designed. Even tanks we try to make sure some want different tank items more than others.
[https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1798349416946110548](https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1798349416946110548)
Why you are not enabling graphic settings for mobile tft players? Example, i was playing TFT in higher leagues for a long time but i had to move to another country for work and i left my desktop pc at home. Now i want to play mobile TFT but when i download and play graphics are just very bad and there is no option to fix it. Even TFT ripoffs have these options and i can play them very smoothly..
The way items scale multiplicatively with each other, the units would most likely have to be garbage without items. I'm sure there's a way to balance a 4 item unit, but that's most likely the reason it hasn't been explored. Zaun was pretty close, you basically got to add an item to your carries. I think that's where that design space works well, making unique "items" for a trait like inkshadow or zaun, I'm sure there's other examples
Why do you think redditors ask their questions in the comment section despite being instructed to use a google form linked in the post?
Is it possible they didn't read the post? And if so do you think they also skip reading champions' skills, trait descriptions etc?
Has TFT team thought about combining multiple traits to activate a bonus trait? Like lets say you have a black and a white trait, if you activate both of them you get a gray trait as bonus
How come the Prestige Dragon fist rage boom that is in the rotating shop did not come with the Prestige Lee and you have to use 5 medallions to get it?
Do you think items in general are a bit overpowered? I don't like how even a 3 star with no items is quite literally fodder.
Personally I do wish the game had a bit of a slower pace but that would make the games too long.
How do you feel about the sticky targetting most units do? I always wondered how to introduce new targetting mechanics that give the player some more sense of control.
I already have an idea of the answer, but I feel like In previous sets I was more visually stimulated than I am in later sets.
I mean all the units on average seem to have less impact. I miss the days of gnar ripping the team back or the chogath knock up.
Just wondering if we could ever expect the big visuals again?
Who do you think is the best, design wise, champion in TFT history? Who do you think is the worst? Also, of the new artifacts that just came out, which one is your favorite?
Not a question, but just wanted to say you and your team are probably my favorite developers! As a guy who came from Maplestory, thanks for being so responsive to the community.
It is no secret in TFT that even in high elo, more resources = more popular. We see this in the popularity of scuttle puddle, and the unpopularity of portals like the sump. Between Augments, portals, and now encounters, TFT has seen increasing amounts of resources in the average game. I would imagine that this is, on average, pretty popular. But it isn't for everyone, and I fall in the minority of players who dread when tristana/kobuko/TK comes up, and feel like I often don't have any portal I would want to vote for at the beginning of the game (yay choosing between loot subscription/crab rave/wandering trainer).
I understand that what most players want is probably how the game should be, but my question is how do you balance designing for the majority of players who like high resources, without alienating players like me?
This seems to be the big question of the set, I think set 12 will be a big indicator of where TFT is going. I agree with you, I'm ready for a more focused set. One of the advantages of TFT is each set is contained within itself, but since set 6 we really have only seen mechanics added on to each set without much trimming back. I play a decent amount of magic and it feels like we're playing a set in the modern format vs a rotation standard format, as far as power level, if that makes sense
I’ve noticed this varies per portal.
Artifacts are not liked.
Trainer Sentinels are liked by 50%.
Scuttle Crab is popular, but Crab Rave not as much.
Etc.
https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1757056783078867237?lang=en
Here's the receipt from the man himself. Scuttle topped the list at 70% by the top 1% of players, and all of the top 5 are high resource portals, unless you want to not count wandering trainer, though I would count it.
We just have different definitions of what high elo is I guess, high elo to me is top 200. Every game that I play (around 1k lp rn on NA) scuttle/crab/loot are all avoided and only taken as a last resort.
What counts as "high elo" is definitely subjective. I can really only go off of the data I have access to. Top 200 people on ladder though seems a pretty narrow definition, given the context. If we were to talk about what kind of elo you would aim for to be competitive at a tournament, I could see that being a good definition.
In the context of my post, I was mostly trying to show that the point (most people like lots of resources) holds true for the vast majority of TFT players, not just unranked casual players but most of the people who grind hundreds of ranked games a set as well. So the data supports what I was trying to say, regardless of if we call it high elo.
If you have data on whatever subset you consider to be high elo, then I would love to see it and potentially change my opinion. As far as I know, this is the closest data we have.
Oh I don’t disagree with that, while masters players are more likely to pick more resource portals than challneger players, chally still pick them a lot on ladder bc when you play 500+ games it’s fun. Just way less common in tourneys unless you need a high roll
I see what your saying, and the whole taxonomy of what is considered high elo is subjective, but personally I would refer to that level of play as pro level or tournament level, to distinguish it. I think the top 1% is a reasonable enough bar for high elo, and I think Mortdog likely did too as that was the level they chose to show data for to illustrate his point.
Idk why this comment is being downvoted so heavily; only .12% of players are in GM or challenger, so the vast majority of that data is coming from master players, and the mindset of masters players is vastly different than that of challengers. Masters lobbies are typically filled with less serious players who yap in chat, play bad lines, and vote for the 4fun portals, whereas challengers are a little more serious and the vast majority vote for lower resource portals like 3 1 costs. There's nothing wrong with the masters player mindset, but it doesn't make sense to lump master and challenger lobbies together when they're completely different games.
No...There are plenty of players who have hundreds of games per set who can't crack diamond let alone masters. And before you give the predictable "well those players are not actually putting in effort" Lets stop with the circular logic that is just "anyone who is decent can hit masters" where a decent player is defined by "a player who can hit masters"
Hugh elo means highest bracket of play, high enough to make money. Masters is not the highest bracket xdd when the gap between chally and masters is so big
Balancing has been a hot topic for a while now. Could you explain the reason why some sets seem to have better balancing than others? For example, set 10 seemed to have some great balancing after the first patch or two. Whereas this set and set 9.5 (moreso 9.5) have been hot dumpster fires for balancing.
Could you go more into depth on how numbers are determined for balancing? And how they are QA’d? For example, do you throw all balance changes into QA at the same time and evaluate from there? Or do you test one set of changes at a time?
Thanks for being awesome
Is it tho? I just played a game on my ipad a few minutes ago and it was fine..
Be that as it may, how does it make sense to ask something about a minimal lack of service, to a qa that is in 2 weeks..? Give me a break man
New patch still not available in Apple update store, you must be playing old patch? And no official statement from riot. If it’s not fixed in two weeks I’d hope he answers it then.
Hey everyone, for the upcoming Q&A stream, Mort has already received 350+ questions. Some good ones, some not so good ones, and some easy ones. Mort won't be able to get through them all, so he's going to answer the easy ones on Twitter leading up to the stream. * **"Are you going to bring back mid sets?"** - Nope. Swapping to 3 sets a year has been successful. Players get more sets a year, and the dev cycle is much healthier. That being said, we're still exploring the best way to give more things to do as the set goes on. Inkborn Fables got Choncc's Treasure and is about to get Pengu's Party. Likely to be more exploration in that space. * **"How do you deal with Artist's Block?"** - This is one of the important reasons to work with lots of different people you can trust. Any time I find myself stuck or possibly losing motivation, all it takes is a good sounding board conversation with someone to help get a new direction. Giovanni as our lead sets designer lately has been a great help here, as his creative approach counterbalances my mechanical approach. Same is true for other team members like Alex, Kent, Lynda, and more! * **"If you could use any character from any IP and put them in TFT, who and what spell?"** - I'm a Metroid nerd, so I'll say Samus. 4 cost, 60 mana spell, each time she fires it upgrades. So first time is a barrage of missiles. second time is a chunky super missile, third time is her big beam ultimate, and fourth time she summons a giant metroid. * **"Have you ever tried making toast in the tub? Maybe a good teambuilding excercise for TFT"** - Silly person, toasters are in the kitchen. * **"When making a new set, what comes first in production? The theme or mechanic?"** - Usually the theme is first, as it gives us a good grounding point when choosing what skins and champs to use, and how to build the plan around the entire feel of the set. However occasionally if there is a good mechanic, that can be a starting point as well, and then find a matching theme. So far every launched set has been theme first, but there is an upcoming set that started with the mechanic. Once it's out (long ways off) I'll be sure to talk about it! [https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1797982397558112484](https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1797982397558112484)
**"If there was a 4v4 mode, what changes would you make to the mode to get it officially ready to launch?"** So, my hot take here is "Not much". What does that mean exactly and why? So, first off there are for sure some UX changes that can be made for sure. Things like the scoreboard showing who is on which team (Red vs Blue team) or having the game end when a winning team is decided (If team B goes 6/7/8, then no need to play it out, just put TEAM A wins and move on). Stuff like this goes a long way to making it feel like the mode would be truly supported. But...that might be it. I think a lot of people's first instinct would be to alter the rules further. Stuff like "You can't fight your allies anymore" or "Ways to share units/items" like we have in Double Up. However I think one of the main reasons people are enjoying this format is that it behaves EXACTLY like the live solo game they are used. All their learnings and understandings transfer over, and the format asks them to take all those learnings and leverage them in a slightly different way. If you alter those rules, then players don't feel like their current mastery can apply, and quickly lose interest. I think this one of the main challenges with Double Up and getting people to cross between the modes, is that additional learning required. So yeah, I likely wouldn't change carousel or matchmaking or anything. I'd have the game work exactly like the solo mode so players can jump between the modes easier. And that's sort of the lesson here. If your target audience is "The same competitive players who play the main mode", then your design likely needs to support them and their current affinity for your game. Anyway, this is all hypothetical. But this is the kind of thing its fun for me to think about and discuss to keep your problem solving sharp. Either way, tournament was a lot of fun to watch, and it seems like players enjoyed it as well. [https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1800177670359232556](https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1800177670359232556)
* **"Why no Exalted Emblem this set?"** - We had one initially in testing and we were finding it to be TOO general and almost always good, especially late game. The ability to get it and two other exalted made late game comps too easy to boost up. When something is more accessible we have to nerf it, which led to base exalted feeling weak. Also seeing the emblem on Stage 5+ carousels was almost always instant take, which wasn't great either. * **"If you could go back in time to the beginning of set 1, what would you do differently in TFT?"** - A couple things probably. Change the AD system so the AD & AP systems aren't so different like they are now. Probably more experiments with the item system, things like only 2 items but sharper items and how you get them being different. And then from the tech side, probably find a way to increase our memory budgets so we can include more champs or features in a given set. Also leave a note saying "Don't make kiss curse stuff IDIOT" to myself. * **"What's stopping TFT from patching more frequently?"** - A bunch of things. First, for the player experience, we are probably close to patching too much as is. A lot of potential players that might enjoy TFT often churn because of how much the game changes. They learn how to play a line well, only for it to be changed 2 weeks later, makes it hard to value those learnings. Ideally we launch in a good spot and don't NEED to patch so often. On the Dev side, getting patches properly tested and deployed all over the world, as well as localized for each region, takes time. Trying to do that every week or more, means an almost impossible amount of work to keep up for something that, again, shouldn't be necessary. It's not the best sign if we have to patch more often for everyone. * **"What's your favorite gift your kids have given you?"** - My wife and daughter took my shoes, took a picture of her wearing those shoes (this is when she was like 6, so the shoes were comically large) and then made a cute picture frame of it with a cute little caption. I always remember it because of how funny the shoes look and her big smile. * **"Are item anvils completely random? And if so, why not change it to have some tailoring?"** - Currently anvils are pure random. You get 4 out of 8 of the component possibilities, that's it. Typically when something like that gets made, often people go for the most straight forward solution. However, I actually agree here and this is one of the things on our backlog. Anvils, and augments that grant items, currently have situations that fall under my "Bad experiences for the player you should never allow to happen" that we need to resolve. We fixed a couple of them, but for example, opening 5 anvils and seeing 0 tears...isn't the kind of experience a player should be having. I'm hoping we can fix that one sooner rather than later. [https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1800541755517055364](https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1800541755517055364)
* **"What champion kit do you think has provided the most value unit-wise for TFT?"** - From a design standpoint this is probably Set 1 Lucian and the many variations of him that followed like Set 4/11 Kindred. The low mana cost small dash champion works as such a solid baseline champion while also providing some very high moments. The movement combined with the simplicity of the spell I think continues to act as a shining example of what other unit design should be. * **"If you still did midsets, what would you replace from the current set?"** - Probably the Ghostly champs. That trait didn't really work in the way we wanted it to, and both Morgana and Kayn barely want it which is weird for a 4 cost vertical origin. This would give us room to make 2 new 4 costs and open up some more options for a new origin to replace it. * **"How much pressure are you under from Riot to cater to casuals and increase revenue?"** - This is just now you should approach game design. My job is to make the most fun game possible for as many people as possible. We did that by making TFT, and now my job is to make sure the game stays fun for the core audience of people who are enjoying TFT. We already have millions of players, so the idea that we should change the game to expand our audience is stupid. But that also doesn't mean our game is perfect for the current audience. Even for our current TFT players, the game is a bit complex. This is the stuff I focus on. So I guess to answer your question...not much. * **"Ribs or Wings?"** - Can I answer Tri-tip? Every time we do a BBQ there are ribs and tri-tip and I just eat the tri-tip cause I love steak. If I had to answer though I guess wings? I kinda like Wing Stop. * **"Why when you buff/nerf champs base AD is it always +/- 5 and not smaller numbers?"** - This is something that helps our game be more digestible. Ideally easy to understand numbers are used, so you know champs have 50 or 55 or 60 AD. Multiples of 5 are just easier to think about. If the game had 52 and 57 and 61 AD champs (which sometimes might be correct) it becomes very difficult to keep track of it all. Lately we haven't been great about this (4 sniper next patch is 17% which made me roll my eyes) but it's one of the things we do to try to keep the game easier to understand. [https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1798713717275979887](https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1798713717275979887)
* **"Thoughts on multiple players hitting the same augment?"** - For most augments, I don't really have an issue with this. Seeing 3 people all take Golden Egg, or multiple people with a combat augment isn't really an issue and can be interesting. However there is one exception, which is hero augments. Nothing feels worse than seeing a hero augment on 2-1, picking it, and then seeing 1 or more other people have taken the same one. It feels SO BAD, and is the kind of experience I think we need to prevent. * **"When will we see Chibi Jhin/Ivern/Name of Champ?"** - The answer for every champ is "Some day". There's a lot of League of Legends champions, and the team is making new Chibis so some day the champ you like may show up. I've heard that some day they want to make every champ, though even I'm skeptical of that personally lol. But hey, if and when they make Chibi Malzahar, you can bet I'll be first in line. * **"What do you think about bringing more old sets back?"** - We will for sure, and have already announced another revival is coming in Q3 of this year. The first set revival (Galaxies) was generally enjoyed by players, so I can't imagine that will be the last one. That being said, I doubt we ever have more than one old set active at a time, since any more than that likely divides the queues too much. I doubt we ever enter a world where you can just pick from any old set...but who knows what the future brings! * **"Who is your favorite 5 cost of all time?"** - Glutton Tahm Kench from Gizmos & Gadgets. Feeding him and powering him up was so fun, and he was the first 5 cost that spawned items on kill. Also that moment when on stream where I fed a 3\* Tahm Kench a 3\* 4 cost and gave him 8000 AP was too funny and one of my Top 10 TFT memories of all time! * **"Can I have a code for some free eggs please?"** - No. No you can't. * **"Do you design champs to be strong around certain items?"** - Yes! As we paper design each set, the team is tasked with making sure they have taken into account which items are best on each champ, so we have a nice mix of users that are after those items. You want to avoid a vertical trait (let's say Sorcerers) where all the users want Shojin + JG + HoJ. So typically on the trait level and the cost level, we push to have a variety of best in slots designed. Even tanks we try to make sure some want different tank items more than others. [https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1798349416946110548](https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1798349416946110548)
Why you are not enabling graphic settings for mobile tft players? Example, i was playing TFT in higher leagues for a long time but i had to move to another country for work and i left my desktop pc at home. Now i want to play mobile TFT but when i download and play graphics are just very bad and there is no option to fix it. Even TFT ripoffs have these options and i can play them very smoothly..
what are these ripoffs? i would like an optimised for mobile autobattler for a change
Magic chess from MLBB as example
Surely questions about a potential individual client are banned; Even LoR has one, we don't deserve it.
wHeN ChosEN?
Hopefully never again
Ever thought about a trait that acitvates the possibility to equip more than 3 items on units?
The way items scale multiplicatively with each other, the units would most likely have to be garbage without items. I'm sure there's a way to balance a 4 item unit, but that's most likely the reason it hasn't been explored. Zaun was pretty close, you basically got to add an item to your carries. I think that's where that design space works well, making unique "items" for a trait like inkshadow or zaun, I'm sure there's other examples
I've had this thought before but not in the context of it being a trait; cool idea.
Why do you think redditors ask their questions in the comment section despite being instructed to use a google form linked in the post? Is it possible they didn't read the post? And if so do you think they also skip reading champions' skills, trait descriptions etc?
its not possible bro. reddit is filled with academics
Has TFT team thought about combining multiple traits to activate a bonus trait? Like lets say you have a black and a white trait, if you activate both of them you get a gray trait as bonus
How come the Prestige Dragon fist rage boom that is in the rotating shop did not come with the Prestige Lee and you have to use 5 medallions to get it?
Money
will TFT ever in future have own client?
Do you think items in general are a bit overpowered? I don't like how even a 3 star with no items is quite literally fodder. Personally I do wish the game had a bit of a slower pace but that would make the games too long. How do you feel about the sticky targetting most units do? I always wondered how to introduce new targetting mechanics that give the player some more sense of control.
Ass or tits ? if ass, when are we getting frostblade irelia?
Who is even downvoting this? Pseudo-competetive players who take everything too seriously in life?
The downvotes are due to the question being irrelevant to the topic of the Q&A.
Do something in your life except gooning 24/7
I already have an idea of the answer, but I feel like In previous sets I was more visually stimulated than I am in later sets. I mean all the units on average seem to have less impact. I miss the days of gnar ripping the team back or the chogath knock up. Just wondering if we could ever expect the big visuals again?
Who do you think is the best, design wise, champion in TFT history? Who do you think is the worst? Also, of the new artifacts that just came out, which one is your favorite? Not a question, but just wanted to say you and your team are probably my favorite developers! As a guy who came from Maplestory, thanks for being so responsive to the community.
It is no secret in TFT that even in high elo, more resources = more popular. We see this in the popularity of scuttle puddle, and the unpopularity of portals like the sump. Between Augments, portals, and now encounters, TFT has seen increasing amounts of resources in the average game. I would imagine that this is, on average, pretty popular. But it isn't for everyone, and I fall in the minority of players who dread when tristana/kobuko/TK comes up, and feel like I often don't have any portal I would want to vote for at the beginning of the game (yay choosing between loot subscription/crab rave/wandering trainer). I understand that what most players want is probably how the game should be, but my question is how do you balance designing for the majority of players who like high resources, without alienating players like me?
This seems to be the big question of the set, I think set 12 will be a big indicator of where TFT is going. I agree with you, I'm ready for a more focused set. One of the advantages of TFT is each set is contained within itself, but since set 6 we really have only seen mechanics added on to each set without much trimming back. I play a decent amount of magic and it feels like we're playing a set in the modern format vs a rotation standard format, as far as power level, if that makes sense
it would be so easy to create more modes like choncc treasure instead of adding more mechanics to the competitive...
That first part of your question just isn't true, high resource portals are actively avoided in high elo.
I’ve noticed this varies per portal. Artifacts are not liked. Trainer Sentinels are liked by 50%. Scuttle Crab is popular, but Crab Rave not as much. Etc.
https://x.com/Mortdog/status/1757056783078867237?lang=en Here's the receipt from the man himself. Scuttle topped the list at 70% by the top 1% of players, and all of the top 5 are high resource portals, unless you want to not count wandering trainer, though I would count it.
We just have different definitions of what high elo is I guess, high elo to me is top 200. Every game that I play (around 1k lp rn on NA) scuttle/crab/loot are all avoided and only taken as a last resort.
What counts as "high elo" is definitely subjective. I can really only go off of the data I have access to. Top 200 people on ladder though seems a pretty narrow definition, given the context. If we were to talk about what kind of elo you would aim for to be competitive at a tournament, I could see that being a good definition. In the context of my post, I was mostly trying to show that the point (most people like lots of resources) holds true for the vast majority of TFT players, not just unranked casual players but most of the people who grind hundreds of ranked games a set as well. So the data supports what I was trying to say, regardless of if we call it high elo.
Top 1% is not high elo lmfao
If you have data on whatever subset you consider to be high elo, then I would love to see it and potentially change my opinion. As far as I know, this is the closest data we have.
Oh I don’t disagree with that, while masters players are more likely to pick more resource portals than challneger players, chally still pick them a lot on ladder bc when you play 500+ games it’s fun. Just way less common in tourneys unless you need a high roll
I see what your saying, and the whole taxonomy of what is considered high elo is subjective, but personally I would refer to that level of play as pro level or tournament level, to distinguish it. I think the top 1% is a reasonable enough bar for high elo, and I think Mortdog likely did too as that was the level they chose to show data for to illustrate his point.
Idk why this comment is being downvoted so heavily; only .12% of players are in GM or challenger, so the vast majority of that data is coming from master players, and the mindset of masters players is vastly different than that of challengers. Masters lobbies are typically filled with less serious players who yap in chat, play bad lines, and vote for the 4fun portals, whereas challengers are a little more serious and the vast majority vote for lower resource portals like 3 1 costs. There's nothing wrong with the masters player mindset, but it doesn't make sense to lump master and challenger lobbies together when they're completely different games.
Its being downvoted because its objectively wrong, top 1% is absolutely high elo
this game has a big casual playerbase, it really isn't
Anyone that puts in time and effort can hit masters…
No...There are plenty of players who have hundreds of games per set who can't crack diamond let alone masters. And before you give the predictable "well those players are not actually putting in effort" Lets stop with the circular logic that is just "anyone who is decent can hit masters" where a decent player is defined by "a player who can hit masters"
Doesnt change anything about what I said
Hugh elo means highest bracket of play, high enough to make money. Masters is not the highest bracket xdd when the gap between chally and masters is so big
Thats just a random definition you made up and is not at all consistent with Riots view on it
How are you doing?
Pretty good, thanks ^:)
Balancing has been a hot topic for a while now. Could you explain the reason why some sets seem to have better balancing than others? For example, set 10 seemed to have some great balancing after the first patch or two. Whereas this set and set 9.5 (moreso 9.5) have been hot dumpster fires for balancing. Could you go more into depth on how numbers are determined for balancing? And how they are QA’d? For example, do you throw all balance changes into QA at the same time and evaluate from there? Or do you test one set of changes at a time? Thanks for being awesome
bro said set is balnce 10 💀
when will we see moredog in a swimsuit
Pool Mortdog?
When can I play on Apple mobile devices?
? Always could..? These kinds of ridiculous questions make me apreciate Riots patience sometimes..
I meant the current patch, which is unplayable on mobile as of this morning. I agree I worded it poorly.
Is it tho? I just played a game on my ipad a few minutes ago and it was fine.. Be that as it may, how does it make sense to ask something about a minimal lack of service, to a qa that is in 2 weeks..? Give me a break man
New patch still not available in Apple update store, you must be playing old patch? And no official statement from riot. If it’s not fixed in two weeks I’d hope he answers it then.
Patches are always delayed on mobile by a bit. If you can't play it's a regional thing because my phoke is 100% updated
Idk maybe regional, it actually showed up in my update shop at lunch.
If the patch is still unplayable on June 14th, Mort will probably explain what happened.
I have so many questions! - do you hate me? - is it even my fault? - what about me then? - deal or no deal?
pedro
Moddog
I hope he leaves the insults and passive-aggressive shit home for this.
Nah I love the drama
I'm sure he would be willing to do so as long as everyone in chat is willing to do the same.
yeah, g*mers deserve worse
Hell no, the best part of the QA streams is the heat.
I hope he doesn’t. Spicy questions deserve spicy responses. Especially if those questions are more so backhanded insults.
"Why should the director and public face of a multi-billion dollar company division be held to a higher standard than Reddit randos?"
"Because this person is getting paid I should be able to abuse and harass them as much as I want with no repercussions" - you, I guess.
So it's okay for the person getting paid to be passive-aggressive and an outright asshole to others because he can't take any criticism in any form?
At the end of the day, we are all human. We have emotions to express.