Systems may change, but we’ll always be there for you.
It’s the patch before the mid-set and we’re focused on large quality of life system changes with upgrades to our item distribution and our Hero Augment distribution. Aside from those highly impactful changes, we’re really just making the way for the Glitched Out!! to go live, so expect a lighter than usual balance pass. Finally, we’re bringing team planner, a popular Mobile feature, to PC and have a note regarding 32 bit Client depreciation.
With all the system changes here, you may be excited to learn about even more system and mechanic changes coming in Glitched Out!!, well we’ve got you covered there as well… I mean here as well, wait no there, there works.
TL;DR: The way items are distributed to players has been adjusted with the goal of making it more even between players in a game, while still having unique variants per game.
WHY REWORK: Our loot distribution system was last updated with patch 9.18, during our launch set, alongside the introduction of Champion Duplicator (then called Neeko’s Help). This system has remained in place for a long time (8-ish sets), with only minor numerical adjustments. But with an increased understanding of systems, and a growing skill curve of the elite (and average) player, it’s become clear that the system is in need of an update to keep TFT as competitive as possible. So while many of these changes are made with the professional scene in mind, these are huge quality of life changes that will be felt across all ranks.
HOW: As in the old distribution system, items will still be randomly selected for the entire lobby, and players will all receive slightly different loot. However, the value of loot between players will now be more equitable to increase fairness, while maintaining a certain level of variance that keeps TFT adaptive. For example, if you have seven item components after Wolves, your opponents will have a similar number instead of finding themselves four components down. We’re also calculating the value of bonus orbs (orbs that contain gold and champs and stuff) by utility rather than number. Everyone in the lobby now gets approximately the same value of bonus orbs. If you get fewer items (which again, can only be by one or two max) you will be compensated with bonus orbs much more fairly than before.
Finally, we added one last quality of life change. You will always get a bonus orb on stage 1-2, so you should have enough gold to purchase your 1-3 shop and make more informed decisions in the early game. This should feel a lot better than getting your 6 gold right before the end of the PvE in stage 1-4.
TL;DR: We’re increasing the clarity, simplicity and accuracy of Hero Augment distribution to ensure you get the most out of your 4 Hero Augment rerolls.
WHY: When we launched the Hero Augment system, it was vague enough that its weaknesses weren’t super visible. But as we introduced the option of four rerolls, the cracks in the system became very apparent, causing a lot of player pain when things didn’t meet expectations. For example, why could you have Underground and never find a Samira Augment? So we’ve been digging into the system to improve it, and are going to be very clear on how the new version works.
HOW: We’ve already fixed some issues for how certain Augments were offered in 13.4. This included Samira’s support Augment and both of Sona's and Janna’s Augments. Now all Hero Augments are properly tagged with their traits so as to be offered as expected.
TAILORED AUGMENTS: Now for the new system. Stage 2-1 will still offer all random Hero Augments, but 3-2 and 4-2 are now tailored in a way that should make a lot more sense. First, the third slot will no longer offer only support Augments, which was causing carry Augments to be hard or even impossible to find. Next, Hero Augments will kind of work like Tome of Traits, where the more active traits you have, the less random Augments you’ll get (see the list below for more details). For this definition of active trait, everything counts. Threat, Ace, Arsenal, you name it. For example, having a Fiddlesticks and Aphelios on your board will count as three active traits.
As the last patch before our mid-set update, we’re shipping just a handful of changes overall, but they should all be impactful in shaking things up before Glitched Out!!
Brawler is getting some additional gains in the form of increased bonus HP at higher breakpoints.
Meanwhile, Underground heists are being adjusted across the board. They’ll be running off with less loot on average at earlier heist levels, and more at later levels. If you can pull off a level 7 heist, it’ll be well worth the effort.
Ashe’s focus has improved over the course of Monsters Attack! Her Ranger’s Focus lasts a whole second longer now!
En garde! Fiora is hitting harder at all star levels.
Nilah is seeing a reduction in heal power, especially at 2 & 3-star levels.
More like Aurelion Slow. He attacks a little faster now.
Janna’s Twister! gets power transferred from CC to damage, and Windy weather conditions slow down a bit.
Infinity Force is getting slightly less infinite through the removal of crit chance, and a bunch of Radiant Items are getting varying levels of polish to keep them radiant without being overwhelming.
On top of our changes to Hero Augment distribution covered earlier, we’re continuing to make some light adjustments to specific Hero Augments to bring them in line with competitive options.
Of course, heroes aren’t the only ones with Augments. Prismatic Emblem Augments have been a little too dominant since the last patch, so we’re reducing the items offered with those Emblems from full items to components to make them a less default option compared to other Prismatic Augments.
A staple for mobile players, Team Planner is finally coming to PC players around the world! As a reminder, filling your Team Planner with 5-costs will not increase your shop odds, but you can always hope.
Support for 32-bit Windows OS will be deprecated on April 4, 2023. After this date a 64-bit version of Windows will be required to play League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics. For more details, please see our minimum spec requirements.“What does this mean?”, “Do I need to do anything?!”
Well for those who are already on 64-bit operating systems and hardware (which is 99.9% of players) you won’t notice a difference when we stop supporting 32-bit and you won’t need to do anything. However, for those that are playing on a 32-bit operating system, starting in 13.7 you’ll start to get a message in the client telling you that the client may stop working in the future for you. We’re giving some time to message this heads up before we fully stop supporting 32-bit operating systems both in the patch notes and in the launcher, but in the future you’ll need to be playing on 64-bit capable hardware, and 64-bit operating systems in order to keep playing League.
Why is the team doing this?
As with other decisions we’ve made in the past like deprecating XP and Vista, continuing to release new content while maintaining older hardware requires significant investment both from a development and a testing standpoint. By removing some of these barriers, we can continue to push the boundaries of new features while delivering engaging player experiences. While we don’t have any direct targeted improvements to communicate to you just yet regarding this migration, it will be something that leads into our continued investments in the future of League & TFT.