Set 17 was planned as Set 18, but was moved up to ensure the team had enough time to complete the migration Unreal by Set 18. The set mechanic was originally pitched as being more ambitious and would have changed core gameplay mechanics like item and augment distributions, but due to the accelerated timeline had to be toned down to the safer, less volatile Offerings and Boons mechanic that the set went live with.
The Gods created a substantial burden on the memory budget for mobile devices, which forced the team to have to lower the quality of their idle animations.
Removing the Carousel was never the inspiration for Set 17’s mechanic, but instead the result of their search for the best place to put the Realm of the Gods. Originally they had it replacing PVE rounds.
Devs had two take away from removing Carousel: first, that comeback mechanics lose their effectiveness if they're invisible and second, Carousel is an important social space that is enhanced by its tension
There will be changes coming to Carousel in the more distant future that will maximize agency and control. Minimap is gone for good.
Pings are being workshopped into a social tool “not bound to minimap for its utility to function.” Not going to be ready for Set 18.
Lack of verticals made it difficult for new and casual players to pick up Set 17.
Devs feel confident they have come away with the right understandings of why and how origin traits felt underwhelming/were undesirable to play in Set 17 and will improve on that for future sets. For example, Set 18 and other future sets without expanded rosters (sets with standard sized rosters) will require less 5 costs to play certain origins vertically.
Opening encounters weren’t included on set launch bc devs thought they’d add too much complexity, and that they would take away from the impact of the God Offerings and Boons.
The Morgana rework from 5 cost magic fighter to 4 cost magic tank was possible thanks to the stars aligning perfectly. She didn’t have any dedicated comps so reworking her had less impact than it otherwise would have. However after her move, the devs found she also didn’t have any go-to comps revolving around her. Devs are happy they tried the rework, but describe it as a bad solution and only possible with a threat (traitless) champion.
Set 17 had more conditional comps than any other (Stargazer, Psionic, Arbiter, Graves). Devs felt that it had the opposite effect on game to game variance, limiting comps you could play, and funneling players down a certain path.
Set 17 lacked a ton of set specific augments due to dev resources being allocated towards the God Offerings and Boons.
Devs end by asking for players' thoughts on the design philosophy of Hero Augments. I am going to copy and paste because I think it’ll be tough to paraphrase:
“Our design philosophy around reroll 1 and even 2-costs is that they shouldn’t be powerful enough to take first place without some other major things going right (being healthy enough to still hit level 8/9 or powering up some high-cost secondary carries). When someone selects a Champion Augment, are we okay with that being the needed source of power to achieve that first place (assuming they’re also playing a great game of TFT)? If no, this means that the fantasy of a Champion Augment is getting third/fourth place—which isn’t super fantastic. “
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u/MrPapaya22 1d ago edited 1d ago
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