Am I the only one that still misses team builder?
When dynamic queue first came out, I tried really hard to keep an open mind about it. I wanted to like it, but weeks on I'm struggling to see anything that it does better than it's predecessors.
First off, it's slow. I know Riot's addressing this, but 30 seconds to declare your pick feels like a very long time for something that often has very little effect on team communication (We've all had lobbies where everyone declares, then just sits for 25 seconds without a word being said.) The fancy animations add seconds to the counter as well - the flashy map popup when you first find a group, to the champion portraits appearing and shattering during the ban phase all adds time to the experience. Finally, we have the issue of how hovering bans will now get you kicked from the lobby. While I understand this is a temporary problem, it's still a fundamental (and wholly unnecessary) change to the way picks and bans have always worked, and it's understandable that many players will take some time to adjust. All of this adds up to create a queue time that is 5-10 minutes long at best. Heck, in some scenarios, I've had to wait almost half an hour for a ranked game. An outlying number perhaps, but still incredibly frustrating.
My second issue is that it's actually less flexible than teambuilder. Say you and your friend want to make a wombo-combo team, so you pick Orianna and Malphite. Before, you could sit in teambuilder and wait for just the right champions to join your game to compliment that combo. Granted it might take a little longer, but if you wanted that perfect combo, you could get it. Now in dynamic queue, you could pick Ori and Malph, but if someone decides to pick Janna, Xin, or any other champ that ruins that combo of yours, there's nothing you can do to stop them.
Lastly, and this one's my main problem with dynamic queue: You're no longer guaranteed to get the role you want. You pick two roles you're happy to play, and granted, you're guaranteed to get one of those, but some champions can only be played in one role, or one lane. You wanna play Veigar? Too bad, mid's a highly contested pick, and since you have to pick another role as your second preference, looks like you're stuck playing ADC again. No longer can you sit down and say "I really want to play Nasus today", and spend the next three hours playing only that champion. Heck, you'll be lucky if you get your first role in half your games, unless you're playing ADC or support.
As I said, I want to like dynamic queue, but the fact that I've essentially been forced into it with the removal of teambuilder gives me a negative impression right off the bat. I also don't understand why it was implimented in the first place - I don't recall there being a great deal of complaints about the old system, why fix what isn't broken? Anyway, in order to make this a discussion, not a rant, I'd like to hear your opinions on the matter.
- What do you feel dynamic queue does differently/better than all the queueing systems we had previously?
- What do you feel are the system's shortfalls? Or, if you like the new system, how have you overcome it's flaws?
- Do you think the removal of teambuilder was a necessary one, or do you think that and dynamic queue could have existed in harmony? (Teambuilder replacing blind pick, dynamic queue replacing draft, for example).
- And lastly, do you think the implementation of dynamic queue was necessary?
