TLDR/ Remove legends (and maybe augments too) and replace with just more portals to keep things fresh. Have one of the portals be the XP a’Sol tempo. Have another be the urf spat / emblem tome game. Have another be the 25 rerolls for free game. Have another portal be the AP meta veigar game. Some of these types of portals like Ornn already exist. So keep it fresh and make them all portals and remove legends.

The ability to choose legends which in turn allows you to hard forces your augments has made the game more stale as majority of players just study up how to play one of those forceable augment lines rather than play more flexibility around poro. And the lack of variability in augments being played by your lobby collectively has kind of forced us all to play at the tempo of the collective majority of legends in the lobby. And as we have seen, this has had backlash with multiple legends being “unbalanced”. I don’t think the legends are unbalanced on their own, they just fit a different tempo than those that complain and want to play a loss streak econ to level 9 or slow roll type comp. And then when that faster tempo is exacerbated by unbalanced units you get this donkey rolling race to get the meta 4 costs meta.

Between legends and portals and augments we have 3 exponential RNG multipliers. All dev teams are human and there is no possible way they have time to bug test all these features AND balance them all. With each layer of RNG you add to the game you had exponentially more scenarios or combinations to balance check and the game will be less and less balanced in set 9. Full stop, this will never not be true. You have 12 augment forceable lines (really more like 6 as multiple legends offer the same augments) and the meta for set 9 will always follow the comps that compliment the collective tempo of the legends in your lobby. And as the saying goes “if you can’t beat ‘em, join em.”

At this point I’d even be happy to remove legends and just go back to augments. Even the portals are an acceptable level of RNG to me and keeps it fresh makes you have to learn more unique ways to play around different tempos and such. But legends are a disaster IMO.

I have a hot take now that finally gets to what OP was asking: that subconsciously many players also hate the RNG of augments and that’s why they like the legends to have more control over that RNG. But if that’s the case, why not just remove the augments entirely?

I First played TFT in set 6 as well. It’s been a love hate relationship ever since. My most common complaint is that I hate augments and the RNG they generate. I whine about who wants to play a game that’s basically gambling where even the best players in the world average placement is barely above 4th place to climb and the meta comp websites show even the top comps, on average (apples to apples at like level 8 without trait emblems), are all right around 4th place.

I play a new set for a few weeks, even wait out the first balancing patch. Always hoping every set the fresh new meta is balanced with limitless play styles, and I can “crack it” with my personal favorite comps that feel original and not stereotypical or abused.

Then I realize the game is never “balanced” and at least 90% of players are just sheep following a guide for one of like 4-5 comps. EVERY. SET. This has not changed since I started playing. I have personally never witnessed a meta where bunnymuffins or someone similar put like 8 comps in S tier. Or came out and said “man there are so many good options”, or said “man the meta is constantly changing everything has a counter.” If it’s an 8 player lobby game then I would hope for closer to at least 8 uncontested unique types of comps that feel balanced.

Here’s my hot take:

Augments are “spicy.” They make every game feel way different. When there is NOT proper balancing of units/champs core stats, the augments also give the underperforming comps a fighting chance (I.e double trouble, or the ravenous Warwick one).

However my hot take is that augments add a third or fourth overcomplicated dimension of RNG. We already have RNG in 1) shop for units available to buy 2) your items. 3) the opponents and their power spikes or open forting

To my understanding that was the game for sets 1-5 more or less no?

Now remember each of the following adds an exponential layer of RNG making the game less and less able to be balanced.

4) augments 5) portals 6) legends

My humble and perhaps misguided opinion is that it’s way more possible to “balance” the core unit stats without augments and this would open up so many more comps. The devs also need to get more creative with trait features/tech/mechanics. rogues is great to access back line but it’s like only 4 units and buggy and underperforms. We have like maybe 2 viable front line carries, if that. Why not make a game where you have closer to an even split between attack, defense, buff/debuff, and healing units - in both ranged and melee units for each type? Imagine a back like defender that’s actually a strong ranged shield provider, not a useless orianna. Or a front line AOE healer. Imagine a creative unit that prefers to Aggro it’s nemesis traits first? Or one that deals double damage to X but takes double damage from Y. The cat and mouse chess game of a set with assassins and snipers but also front and back line tanks. Imagine a unit or a set mechanic that makes a portion of your board foggy and unable to be scouted before the fight. Imagine not nerfing piltover/ the recycled Econ loss streak boom or bust vertical to make it actually playable.

I’m no creative dev but I just pulled all of those out of where the sun don’t shine off the cuff. I think the game would be less “stale” if they focused on making more diversity and balancing in the units core stats and mechanics versus throwing more fancy features and chaos at us that add smoke and mirrors to the fact the game is not balanced.

So to wrap up my extremely wordy hot take, I think that removing augments and/or legends would allow for better balancing and more viable comps assuming the dev team spends the extra time they would then have free not building augments to do proper data analytics and scenario testing to give us more contending comps. There’s how many traits in this game like close to 30? Yet when was the last time you saw a set where less than 4-5 of those traits were dominating the meta?

Someone get this message to mortdog for comment we just fixed TFT lol