#Too Much RNG Is Hurting Player Agency.

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thorn zinc
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First of all I want to start off by saying I do like that we got a lot of new regions to make each game feel a bit more unique. But I feel some of the regions are way too RNG heavy and do more harm than good. A big part of what makes an autochess game good is agency, which means a player’s ability to make meaningful choices that influence outcomes. It is about feeling like your decisions matter and that you are responsible for success or failure, not randomness or being forced down a fixed path. With the new regions introduced in this patch, we are headed in the opposite direction, and I will explain why.

A lot of the new ones introduced rely heavily on RNG and there is not much you can do to affect that RNG, while others lock you into a specific composition really early in the game. We already have weapons that decrease flexibility a lot, and now we also have these new regions.

We can take the region where you start with a random emblem as an example. You are basically locked into what you can play by round round 3, and it is very RNG heavy. If you are in a good lobby and get a bad emblem, you are probably playing for places 4 to 8, while if you get a good emblem, you are likely aiming for places 1 to 4. Knowing your result this early can be very demotivating, especially if it is on the lower side.

Now that I have explained the issue, let us dive into what effect this can have on a player.

Humans are naturally wired to seek control over their environment. When we play games, we are not just looking for fun. We want experiences where our choices truly matter. We want to influence outcomes through our actions and feel rewarded for the time, skill, and effort we invest. When our efforts lead to good results, we feel satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. It is also important to feel that with practice we are getting better, which is a rewarding and motivating feeling. These feelings are crucial in deciding whether someone keeps playing or eventually gets bored and moves on.

What happens if there is too much RNG?

There is something called learned helplessness, which means if players keep losing for reasons outside their control, they can develop a psychological state where they stop trying, believing that effort does not matter. Once players feel that the game is not responsive to their decisions, they disengage emotionally. They either quit or play passively, just rolling the dice. This was a bit how people felt with the revenant meta.

People naturally try to explain outcomes. Why did I win? Why did I lose?
If players attribute a win to luck, it does not feel as good and can even feel hollow.
If they lose due to bad luck, they feel frustrated, especially if they believe they played well.

So what can we do to make the game feel like it has the right amount of RNG, because good RNG is still very important.

At the moment, we are getting way too many emblems. Emblems should be something you get once in a while, making it really fun and exciting to play around with them, not something you get every single game, sometimes even up to three emblems. Two should probably be the maximum you can get, and it should not happen often at all.

One emblem could appear about every 3rd - 5th game, while two emblems might show up around every 20th- 25th game or so. That way, players would feel more excited when they get emblems, and the game would not be so focused on building broken four trait compositions. In turn, it would make the game more flexible. Yes, it is fun to build special four trait builds, but if it happens every game, it is not special anymore and the fun factor will decline faster with time.

The regions that have a lot of emblems need to be reworked. We need to remove emblems from the carousel because those are purely RNG dependent and can totally change the outcome of the game. As a player, you do not have any influence at all.

Here are the regions I think need to be fixed 👇

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(1) Abyssal Basin
In the mire's reflection, your path becomes clear — players start with a random Composite Imprint. This one is by far the worst one. First of all, you get locked into something you have to play at 2-1 and then you have to hope you get a matching weapon on top of that. It is also super RNG heavy where if you get a bad emblem in a good lobby you are probably bottom 4 and if you get a good one you are top 4. This region needs to be removed it's just bad game design.

(2) Crystal Shores
Time warps within the crystalline mists. Illuvials from draft rounds are replaced with their Stage 2 versions. This makes the game a total RNG fiesta from the first carousel. It makes players want to lose and punishes you too much if you winstreak. It also drains too many Illuvials from the pool, which turns the game into a mid-game roll down and a hope that you hit before anyone else. A solution here would be to set the units in the carousel to a fixed amount. For example, the first carousel could have 3 tier 3 Stage 2 units, 2 tier 2 Stage 2 units, and 3 tier 1 Stage 2 units. The next carousel could have 2 tier 4 Stage 2 units, 2 tier 3 Stage 2 units, 2 tier 2 Stage 2 units, and 2 tier 1 Stage 2 units. The idea is to spread them out more so the pool does not get drained as fast and it wouldn't make it as unfair if you where to winstreak.

(4) Sanctum Mesa
Rewards vigilance. Receive 3 XP each PvP round that the Ranger survives. Too snowbally. Solution: lower XP to 2 and it's fine.

(4) Reactive Bluffs
Draft Rounds grant only Legendary Augments. Once again, too RNG heavy. You pretty much should always lose the first carousel and maybe even second. It also turns the game into building 1-2 hyper carries and hope you get good items. Solution: change it to first or first two carousels only because then everyone can make a choice if they want to lose for it or not.

(5) Crystal Shores
The shores' chaotic energy transmutes the forgotten — after Draft Rounds, all unused Components transform into random Completed Augments. Too much RNG. You basically have to transform them or you get behind too much, then it's up to RNG to decide how good your items are with nothing you can affect. This one should be removed.

(5) Shardbluff
The ancient shards save their greatest gifts for last — at the start of round 25, receive 3 random Legendary Augments. Same thing again, just pure RNG that you can't affect and can either make you win or lose the game. Solution: at round 25 get a legendary item crate

minor lintel
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Ye the feeling is 100% correct, the game just gets more and more rng over player with every patch.
1-2 emblems on carousel with the rest being components just swings a 40 minute game and can just steal it from the guy who would've won otherwise. Why don't the first 2 players unlock at the same time? why would 1st with a few hp ahead have to wait 15 second for no reason at all also?

On the legendary items side i personally don't mind them, they're way more manageable and less of a swing than composites.

The 2-1 emblem is a complete joke, why don't we just flip coins for where each player should finish that game and save everyone 40 minutes?
The crystal shores stage 2 units carousel map would be fine if you didn't have someone get 3 gold worth and someone 9 just a few rounds in, but the unit pool's not big enough for that.

If the game told you when you got a composite emblem it would be a lot better and a lot less frustrating, a huge part of the bad feelings coming from them are them just coming at shit times and you not expecting it, or the contrary you play the whole game expecting one and 30 rounds in you're still waiting.

Also related to the RNG/game forcing you instead of letting you play the game: the weapon system is too narrow, you get locked on 2-2 most of the games, and if your shops don't match you just hate the game, the rerolls on the 1st weapon augment pick are too late, i think this would be dramatically improved if you just banked the weapon rerolls somewhere maybe like a consumable and you could pop it at any time during the game.
Imo there was more real player agency in the game before weapons were even introduced, now pivoting is basically fantasy.

modest bane
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@lofty talon

surreal cedar
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I fully agree with the immense RNG with the named regions. With weapon choices, carousel shenanigans, Shop RNG, we already have enough RNG factors. Some of these region effects take that way over the top.

I would personally also vote to remove composite augments fully from carousel too regardless of the region. It can be extremely frustrating to get a match flipped due to a carousel composite and vice versa, if I would need to „sacrifice“ my optimal pick because I need to deny the other player receiving the composite chip even if it is completely useless for me.

lofty talon
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Thank you very much @thorn zinc for the well explained thread and opening the debate.

Let's keep the discussion going. We will be reading all the feedback and will take action if we see fit. 👍🏻

lethal pelican
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I agree, RNG is fun as long as we have control over it or maybe if the uncontrollable RNG is exceptional
There is a way to make the game fun for both casual and hardcore players with controllable RNG

coral pulsar
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yup, too much rng. Also there is no such thing as controlled or uncontrolled rng

lethal pelican
coral pulsar
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makes sense

past imp
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Especially in a game with cash prizes. People need to feel like the work they put in to achieve their high skill level is rewarded and not be destroyed by a random roll of technological dice.

feral portal
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Short answer: in TFT you usually get 0 emblems in a game, 1 emblem occasionally, and 2+ is rare. That’s much closer to what Slickz is asking for (1 every 3–5 games; 2 every 20–25) than to “you see 1–3 every game.”

Why that’s the case in TFT (quick receipts):

Spatulas on carousel are rare and contested. The Stage 2-4 and 4-4 carousels only have a spatula about 25% of the time—and there’s just one spatula for the whole lobby, so an individual player’s odds are low.
Tacter - Time to Win

Tomes are gated. Tome of Traits only comes from certain augments or (rare) golden orbs, so you don’t see them every game.
League of Legends Wiki

Augment paths limit how often Tome shows up. Prismatic augment rounds (where Ancient Archives/Tome is even eligible) occur only some of the time (e.g., ~10–20% depending on stage), and Tome is just one option among many prismatic augments.
metatft.com

Recent systems didn’t flood the game with Emblems. Riot even removed the dedicated Golden Spatula carousel; there is an occasional Tome Carousel encounter, but overall emblem access stays controlled.
Teamfight Tactics

Net: TFT keeps emblems as a treat, not a baseline. If Illuvium lobbies are regularly seeing 1–3 emblems per player per game, that’s far higher than TFT’s typical experience.

I agree, it does feel a little crazy atm, and it's super important for us to keep a balance between Pro players who feel like they have agency, and guys like me who aren't pro (but usually beat everyone when I try) who played a game yesterday with two Aegis chips, giving me 4 mud and 4 aegis. That is the shit that keeps me coming back. It was so much fun. But, that happened a few times yesterday which is obviously just way way too much. My point: RNG makes it much more exciting for a casual player, less fun for Pros because it reduces their skill. We need to remember that almost everyone with an opinion in here right now is looking to compete in the IPL. So it's super important when giving feedback as a pro to also recognise that building the player base is the number one thing, that allows us to keep building on the IPL prizemoney, the sponsorship deals we're doing to boost prize pools,. and to allow us to keep refreshing and adding content.

I do agree, but would ask we do keep our core goals in mind also.

lunar goblet
# thorn zinc First of all I want to start off by saying I do like that we got a lot of new re...

When I first got a 4 composite synergy when they initially upped the emblems amount it was the most fun I ever had in the game.

However I agree that since it happens so often now, I definitely don't see it as the same 'big moment' anymore. It's not really an exciting outcome.

I like that we have a guaranteed composite on round 27 in all games but I'd be fine with leaving it at that. U need to play well enough to survive until then, then U can try and get your final god mode.

verbal briar
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For me, Gauntlet is a boring game.
But when I manage to create a 3-stage raid boss with 3 perfect augmentations, it becomes a bit more fun.

If I get destroyed by such a raid boss, though, I don’t really mind.

verbal briar
# thorn zinc (1) Abyssal Basin In the mire's reflection, your path becomes clear — players st...

Out of this whole list, the location that annoys me the most is number 2.

I believe that a location’s effect should be a small twist in the gameplay, not something that completely changes it. But this location changes the rules of the game. I don’t like playing through a loss streak, yet the game forces me to do it.

I vote for removing this effect (Stage 2 in the carousel).

By the way, this location is completely broken in Leviathan mode.
@lofty talon , maybe instead of spending time fixing this location, it would be easier to just remove it if people don’t like it? That way, you save time on repairs.

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@thorn zinc I don’t know how to vote correctly — for or against.

I love having lots of augments and creating raid bosses, so that’s a reason to vote against.
I hate location number 2 on your list, so that’s a reason to vote for.

So I’ll just abstain from voting and leave only my comment.

lofty talon
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Hey guys, we have gone over the feedback and these are the decisions we have agreed so far:

  1. Players start with a random Composite Imprint
  • Solution: Delay receiving the Composite Imprint until a later round (when the tailoring system is available), starting at round 15+.
  1. Carousels with Stage 2 units
  • In this one, we would like to know which solution you prefer: 1st Carousel / 1st and 2nd Carousel / Remove the region completely.
  1. Receive 3 XP each PvP round won
  • In this one, we would like to know which solution you prefer: Set it down to 2 XP / Remove the region completely.
  1. Carousels grant only Legendary Augments
  • Solution: Restrict Legendary Augments to the first Carousel only.
  1. After Carousel rounds, unused components transform into full augments
  • Solution: Remove this mechanic.
  1. At the start of round 25, players receive 3 random Legendary Augments
  • Solution: Replace with a Legendary Augment Crate at round 25. This allows players to choose 1 augment from 4 options, rather than being forced into 3 random ones.
verbal briar
lofty talon
minor lintel
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1️⃣ We already have the 11+25, what's the point of having both, at the same time if u still wanna keep it solution is good. On that note if you change tailoring from 100% guaranteed the game becomes insanely frustrating.
2️⃣ 1st carousel, no 4,5 costs.
3️⃣ Remove.
4️⃣ Good.
5️⃣ Good .
6️⃣ Good.

Also the 100% heal brightlands doesn't work properly all the time, if you can't fix it just disable or remove it.
Also please remove random composite emblems spawning on a carousel with rest all components it's just handing a win to someone who would've lost otherwise and robbing the other guy.

surreal cedar
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  1. Good
  2. I would remove it completely because it makes you go for a lose streak and „punishes“ you for winning which is very dumb.
  3. remove
  4. Good
  5. Remove
  6. Good
minor lintel
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The thing on 2. is that it's actually good agency enough in the sense that some comps would rather take a 1 drop from the carousel so you can now make the choice to have an easier winstreak and not even be punished.

minor lintel
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Is there really a region that gives 3 XP btw cuz i haven't seen it once in 200 games? or are we talking about the 3 gold per round one, cuz that one's fine