Riot Makes Teamfight Tactics A Permanent Mode In League Of Legends
The Auto Chess craze is in full swing and Riot Games wasted no time capitalizing on the subgenre's popularity. The developer released Teamfight Tactics, its surprisingly polished auto-battler mode for League of Legends, on June 26. Met with overwhelming praise, Riot today announced that Teamfight Tactics is here to stay.
"TFT doesn't share the usual long-term mode trait of being similar to SR, but it's not a spin on core League gameplay either," the League of Legends team revealed. "One of our main goals behind TFT was to make a mode you could play for a long time, which meant it was really important to create variant experiences and high moments. In other words, you should always have something new to try or chase after, and it should feel exciting to do so."
Riot plans to support Teamfight Tactics with frequent updates, new champions, and ranked seasons. The next patch hits the Public Beta Environment today, introducing Camille, Jayce, Jinx, and Vi to the mix. The new Hextech origin will also debut, affecting the extra bonuses the four new champions will receive throughout the game. A 2/4 bonus, Hextech disables a corresponding number of random items on the enemy board when combat starts.
This decision kicks off Riot's new game modes strategy, which will focus on supporting existing long-term modes and discovering new concepts for modes with high replayability. URF, League's most popular alternative mode to-date, will return in some form later this year.
Nexus Blitz, Riot's first attempt at an always-on, long-term mode, has proven a mixed bag, with players typically losing steam and returning to Summoner's Rift within a few weeks of availability. The team still considers it a strong offering and plans to bring it back a couple times a year for limited runs.
The Modes Team started expirementing with ARAM during annual Bilgewater events, trying out a variety of adjustments that have proven an overall success. Faced with this, they plan to balance ARAM every few updates with bigger changes unfolding about once a year.
For more information about Riot's plans for modes in League of Legends, check out today's developer update on the official League of Legends website.