I’ll give League auto chess a try.
Riot will release Teamfight Tactics on June 25, alongside patch 9.13. Players with a Public Beta Environment account can try the mode later this week. All Teamfight Tactics players will need the League of Legends launcher and a League of Legends account to play once the mode is live
Basically waiting for the Team Fight Tactics to drop on the 25th because I am actually cognizant of league items and champs so just overall less on-ramp due to familiarity. As many problems as Riot has as a developer/company they do manage to successfully make accessibility a big part of their product.
DotA Underlords is now in the iOS and Android app stores.
So I played some DotA Underlords over the past weekend. Tried on my phone but the screen is to small. Couldn’t get the game to download on my Kindle Fire would keep getting in-game download error. So I settled on the PC version which was fine.
Game is a fun time waster. All the stats on the DotA pieces and ‘alliance’ buffs are easily accessible. I prefer playing against bots. Because I have the option in having all the time in making my purchase and setup decisions.
Live play is fun though. I just feel way to rushed but since everyone else has just as much time. I haven’t totally gotten decimated. I end up finishing around the middle of the pack against live players.
I would probably do better if I knew when to drop an alliance and just move onto something else. The higher tier pieces don’t all seem worth it. The real trick seems to be being able to consistently upgrading your pieces and having a solid alliance going.
Basic how to win at AutoChess by Scott:
Health is just a resource. It doesn’t matter how much health you have unless you have 0.
Money is a resource, you have to get a lot of it so you can buy lots of expensive units, level up, and reroll. More money is more chance of winning.
You get money from win or lose streak, so pick one. If you roll high early game, spend more, level up, maintain that streak. If you got crap that’s going to lose, go open fort for awhile to guarantee losing (make sure you can still win neutral rounds).
Underlords specific strats: Interest is calculated when the fight begins. If there are units you want to buy to put in the field immediately, buy them when the shop rolls. If there are units you want to bench, wait. Buy them after the battle starts. Make sure when the battle starts your cash is at a multiple of 10. 5 is max interest though, so feel free to spend down to 50. You also can get 1 bonus gold for winning that will count for interest. So if you have 39 when the fight starts, and you win, you’ll get 4 interest. After the fight starts, fill your bench as much as possible. No reason not to. You can always just sell everything off before the start of the next fight.
In the early game, just get 2* units and some synergies so you have a team that isn’t complete crap.
In the late game, you need to have the best team. If you have the best team, you won’t lose, and won’t die, even if you only have 1hp left. In fact, having 1hp left is optimal because it means you used all your resources to maximum efficiency. The race car that crosses the finish line first and then falls apart.
To make an unbeatable team you need knowledge. You need to learn all the units, all their abilities, all the items, and which compositions are the strongest. You need to look at your final opponent and study their team to build a team that counters it. To gain this knowledge you need to read articles online, watch Twitch streamers who are pro, watch your opponents during games, see who wins, and see what units they are running.
For example, right now mages are OP and assassins are weak sauce. While you play the hand you are dealt in the early game, do not do that in the late game. You need to imagine the strongest team that beats your opponent(s) and force that build to happen. With the current patch you can probably force a mage comp every single game and you will basically guarantee top 3, probably 2 or 1 if you otherwise play properly.
Anyone else checking out teamfight tactics tonight? Should be live at some point today on the League Client launcher. I’ll report back my thoughts as an “auto-battler” noob.
Yes I will play it. I even installed the LoL launcher yesterday. However, the Bloodstained Curse is taking my attention away from all the other hot games right now. Also Mario Maker 2 comes out in 2 days.
The losing streak strategy is a lot more viable in Teamfight Tactics because when you reach the carousal, you get both the champion of your choice and/or a piece of gear that might be very helpful. Items in this game are a lot more common and streamlined as how they’ll help your teammate.
What I also forgot to mention is that there’s an item called a “Spatula” that you can combine with another item to give units an addition class. So your big buff knight can become an assassin and now has the ability to jump to the backline. Spatulas are harder to come by than other items but they can really give you more flexibility needed if you can’t reach the certain class bonuses.
My LoL Tag is Nukerjsr there so if anyone wants to do some of that, hit me up.
I will be doing that eventually.
For those just picking up LoL now for TFT, you’re going to have to play enough LoL to get to level 10.
I thought that was only during beta times and only in the Oceania and JP regions?
AFAIK that’s carrying over to the beta in NA and EUE/W.
(SL10 isn’t THAT hard to hit, maybe a small handful of games of LoL. Just play ARAMs.)
I can’t find the patch notes I read that had the info, but I will verify when I get home.
Apparently the queue times for TFT are a garbage fire. DotA Underlords is winning for me right now simply because it’s the easiest to pick up and actually get a game going. You push play, and a game starts.
That’s a shame. Was hoping to jump right in a match later tonight.
Yeah I played two TFT matches last night, The first queue was 8-9 minutes, second queue was over 20 minutes. The server demand was so high it was also affecting queue times for other gameplay modes like ARAM.
Hot Take: My experience was that TFT Beta essentially assumes you know exactly how to play an auto-battler. There are tool tips and right click menus but I had to dig and it took trial an error to realize that I needed to sell a champ to get the attached item off of them. Also I feel like some kind of general odds breakdown on # of champions in the pool would help me make informed choices. I have zero idea what the percentages are and I don’t end up fighting a human until a couple of drafts in (maybe thats a core auto-battler feature, but not one I took to). It may be a learning curve, but it felt like some of the worst aspects of an MTG style draft.
DotA Underlords is the only one that lets you move the items around between champs. The fact that TFT didn’t change that up is not a good sign.
Rito’s position on changing things has pretty much always been either “don’t” or “only with extreme consideration”.
Not to be a RITO apologist but I fully expect them to make some serious changes at the end of the beta period (may be even before then). Usually Riot gets criticized for making too many changes too often so here’s hoping it’ll be tweaked. Also they usually have all sorts of silly pop-ups for first time/low level players in different new game modes to teach them (all of the seasonal modes feature this) so I expect the lack of UI context to also eventually be patched if they dont drop it like a hot potato.
Also, I think being a noob I’m fine with it working that way but I definitely wasted draft/buy time in rounds trying to move items or hover and see what item combos became on champs where if it was better communicated I would have spent my time better. Also I felt like really hampered trying to create tier 3 champs despite spending a LOT of time fishing, but other players had them fairly early so I must be doing things wrong.
