The full written critique can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRfYv7_YqlNzC2D1yx8ueRXuYUUxX4sRxB257ebgipL6qfCLJuRiiMu4f0BP9_2oeYUarVyuhUiMyEY/pub

The critique is based on my experience with Teamfight Tactics, though with my limited experience with Auto Chess and Underlords, I believe many of the points should be able to be applied to the genre as a whole.

Background

The idea of an Auto-battler, where the player makes strategic and tactical team composition decisions while the actions of the the team is automated, has always really appealed to me. I tried a few different auto battlers when they were first releasing, but with the skill floor being fairly high, I never really stuck with playing any.

Recently, a couple of my friends decided to start playing Teamfight Tactics, and by playing with them I final put ample time into the genre. After around 40 hours of game time, I was fairly disappointed with the experience it was providing. Given that I have a background in interactive experience development, I thought I'd make something of this experience and write my thoughts in the critique linked above.

Major Points in Critique

• Many novel and interesting parts of game play, become of lesser importance the more experienced a player is, particularly:
  • Despite presenting itself as a game about creating a team of characters, other, more generic resource management is just as or more prevalent in the game
• Many small inconsequential decisions as well as limited UI functionality, make a lot of the game feel like "busy work" (reorganizing resources, scanning shop options, etc...)