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Inherent problems with autofill and potential compromises

Unnamed Player3·5/8/2017, 2:25:23 AM·3 votes·577 views

Hello everyone, wood 5 void ninja Kassadin player here, I'll assume you'll all know the feeling of autofill. Personally, I don't mind having to play support or jungle 1 in every 5 games or so, but I am frustrated by the fact that this system exists. However, there are more inherent problems than being forced to play a role you don't want; the problems of autofill are much more complex than that.

  1. It is a funsucker Now, this is just my opinion, but I play the game for fun. I play ranked, yes, but it's a video game, which is designed to make the players HAVE FUN. This may be very debatable, but I find games to be a lot less fun autofilled. When I queue mid and top, I want to enter a game playing mid or top. Not even riot can tell me that I'll have more fun playing support when I queued for mid and top. If I want to play support for fun (which I do occasionally), I made that choice, so it's on me. Not when I'm forced onto it (or jungle)

  2. It creates a negative atmosphere I know almost all of us had the experience of a otherwise normal player asking "I can't support can I mid or top? (and then using threats or stronger phrases I would rather not repeat if they get denied)" or "I'm not going support this game", or seeing someone ban your champion out of spite when you refuse a lane swap. All of this adds to a very negative atmosphere in the team before the game even begins. Even if solved peacefully, if you refuse a lane swap to someone autofilled, you will at least to some extent feel autofilled (at least I do)

  3. It distorts matchmaking Most players get to their ranks playing their two primary roles. I got to wood 5 playing Kassadin and Malphite, and that is the level that my rating reflects. If I am forced to play a support role, then my support skill level won't be nearly as high as my void ninja skill level. If you're filled jungle and another is filled sup, and you're matched against a dedicated LeeSin and Blitzcrank main, the chances of your team losing is much higher

  4. It causes tilt Just by knowing that you're assigned a role you didn't want, even if you don't mind, will tilt you to some extent. It certainly tilts me to know that I wanted to play mid, I queued to play mid, and I get support. I usually just say "psh the autofill strikes back" and play, but it does linger in my mind and causes tilt (very minimal, but tilt nonetheless).

Now I know autofill is necessary to reduce queue times since the introduction of ranked flex (whether or not flex should be removed is something for another day), so realistically it may be hard to remove this altogether. There are, however, several realistic solutions that can be taken that I'm not sure riot has considered

  1. Increase queue times before you're autofilled Let the queue go past 7-10 minutes before forcing you onto a different position. Honestly, so many people say that they would wait longer for their role than 1-2 minutes for support or jungle. This argument is perfectly valid, and autofill should respect that. Sometimes I feel like 'shorter queue times' is just riot's excuse to autofill more players (just my opinion)

  2. Give INCENTIVES for filling Give players rewards for playing a role they don't want to. For instance, give the player an extra key fragment if they get autofilled or play the most unpopular role (obviously support). If that's unfeasible, give them a IP boost for that game or 2-3 games. If you don't want support mains to capitalise on this heavily (which I would personally reward them for taking on the support burden but basing this on riot's financial standpoint), reset this reward system every 4 games, the amount of time it takes for autofill protection to wear off. All of these are viable ways to get the average non-support main player to play support - to get just enough IP to buy another champion, or to get that extra key fragment.

I'm pretty sure Riot won't read this, but autofill just really frustrates me, especially when I'm put in a game where I don't do as well in a role I'm not good at.

tl;dr: There are many innate problems with autofill and I think it should be fixed since removal is difficult. Some obvious ways of fixing is increasing queue times before being filled, or giving incentives to fill or play support.

3 Comments

Ben Sharpio5/8/2017, 2:34:28 AM3 votes

Autofill is a disaster and once you get into champ select and you see that more than 1 person is autofilled the game is practically over.

Apocyliptic5/8/2017, 2:37:04 PM1 votes

I don't believe Autofill helps anything.

Ever since that damn system was implemented, the amount of dodges pre-game increased for everyone I've talked to has incresaed by about 500%. I'm sure if someone did a case study on their old que times with the new system and their new que times with autofill enabled, they'd find there is little to no difference.

What Autofill DOES do for me though, is make me lose games. Me, I'm a top lane main. I get my role almost every single game. My teammates? Not so much.

I lost 6 games in a row the other day, all with an absolutely horrible player on my team, feeding his mind out. In Diamond 4, D3 elo, if you have someone like this, it's pretty much a lost game. So, instead of just getting mad, I decided to do some research. I quickly found out that every single one of those feeding animals on my team were autofilled into a role they never played, nor asked to play, against a team that was all in their main role. It distorts the gameplay and gives the one team an unfair advantage.