Riot shares what they've learned from Cyber City and what insights they're bringing to the new set—K.O. Coliseum.
/Cyber City Reflections
We're just one more patch away from saying goodbye to Cyber City and saying hello to K.O. Coliseum! Riot has released a /dev article exploring just what went right and what went wrong in Cyber City, so let's delve into their learnings together.
/Positives
Set Mechanic: Hacks
Overall, Riot was very pleased with the Hacks mechanic, with one caveat. While the best-performing Hacks were pretty much perfect, there were several underwhelming or uninteresting Hacks present in the set from start to finish. Ideally, the team would've liked time to iron out the kinks of the mechanic and ensure that these underperforming Hacks were improved or removed.
Many of the Hacks followed the formula of "choose A or B," which isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, as long as both A and B were equally valid. However, in many cases, it seemed like one choice was obviously superior. There should be, Riot concluded, an element of a puzzle or strategic decision.
Five-Cost Variety & Novelty
Cyber City had a terrific set of 5-cost units. Each unit felt fresh and had some absolutely game-changing mechanics. With Renekton, the team took the core of the "Hunger for Power" Anomaly from Into the Arcane and turned it into a champion with a satisfying ability. Aurora, Garen, Zac, and Urgot were similar successes.
Riot did say that Kobuko, Samira, and Viego were a bit underwhelming. Kobuko was a bit overcooked, and it took a bit too long for some much-needed changes to make the unit distinct and desirable. Samira didn't stand out next to the other 5-costs, while Viego was kept a bit too underpowered to make up for his built-in summon.
Success of Remix Rumble: Revival
Remix Rumble was a fan favourite set, so it makes perfect sense that the Revival of the set did just as well. The Revival brought over the biggest increase in playership of any TFT set Revival to date, especially in China.
The changes made to the set were overall quite positive. Riot wanted to ensure that the set didn't fall into the trap of "I have to hit a three-star 4 and 5 cost and win" and was a bit more versatile than that. Shared unit bags were brought back and received very well.
/Negatives
Loot Distribution Issues
With the inclusion of Hacks, and various other mechanics that have become evergreen in TFT, Riot noticed that in some games in Cyber City, there was an absolute inflation of loot. This can make some comps too powerful and also invalidate certain compositions that previously required players to work hard to attain a great amount of specific items.
Riot admitted that they overcorrected the issue, leading to a similar but inverted problem where games simply didn't have enough loot. After a couple of patches, things equalised, but item distribution and variance in item distribution has been flagged as a concern for future sets. In the future, Riot is looking to lower the variance in item distribution, to make the game more consistent and more competitive.
Reprints
One of the biggest negatives of the city was the high volume of reprints. These are units that were essentially reprinted versions of themselves from previous sets. There were several such units in Cyber City, and several Traits themselves, such as Bruiser, Vanguard, and Marksman, returned after appearing in recent sets as well.
The purpose of these reprints was to make it a bit easier for players to adjust to a new set. Riot had anticipated a large number of players would start playing Teamfight Tactics during the Into The Arcane set, and they had hoped these players would stick around for Cyber City. So, to make adjusting to a new set easier, they chose to include these reprints. However, in retrospect, the team wasn't happy with their decision, as it greatly diminished the set's sense of novelty.
Reprints are not totally new. Certain traits do reappear frequently because they help form accessible tank and carry archetypes. But Cyber City just took that a little bit too far.
Item Revamp
In Patch 14.5, a few items were overhauled with great success. Overall, the goal of the changes was not to totally change how an item functioned or why they were initially crafted. This meant that even players who weren't totally aware of the change weren't completely blindsighted in the game itself.
That said, Riot has realized that they did need to do a better job of communicating the changes in advance as well as their intentions with the changes. In particular, player feedback regarding the change of Guinsoo's Rageblade—a beloved and staple item for carries—was largely negative. Changing a fan favourite item is always difficult, and Riot has said they'll take steps to make sure players understand the "why" behind major changes going forward.
/More to Come
New Items
Riot has also said that more item changes are coming. Patch 14.5 was just the start of a larger revamp coming to nearly every item in Teamfight Tactics with K.O. Coliseum. Not all items will be changing and they will not change their core function. The items will receive small adjustments to allow them to better fulfill their role and to make sense within TFT's new system.
Prismatic Traits
TFT has had the same approach to Prismatic Traits for quite a while now. Players need to hit a +2 or a +3 of a specific trait, which was intentionally balanced to be a very difficult goal. However, once hit, these players gained a massive power spike—often enough to simply win the game. These moments have become a bit too accessible at times, with the combination of Emblems, Trainer Golems, and hacks.
With K.O. Coliseum, the team is intending to forge a new path. The way Prismatics activate will change and move away from simply just collecting Emblems. Stay tuned to see just what this new approach will be!
