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New Queing system encouraging bad habits?

DeloricVI··2 votes·626 views

Now, the new queueing system definitely has many positives; don't misconstrue what I'm saying. If I want to play a champion, or role for practice, it's a lot easier to hone my skills as a mid or support or marksman when I want to, and feel like I need to practice without queueing up for 20 minutes just to get in a game with my role and champion. It also really changes up role disputes and arguing before game. Also, with everyone's intended pick being visible, there are far fewer chat posts like "I wanted to play Mundo, you banned him, I hate you, ff at 20 I'm feeding," etc, etc.

However, this system, I fear, is a breeding ground for bad habits, namely the habit of going into ranked knowing only one role. I know there's a secondary role that you have to select, but, in the 10 or so games I've played when queueing up for a specific role, I've always gotten my first pick. Whether it's mid, top, jungle, or support, I've gotten my first role every time. Even so, if you only know 2 roles that you pick every time, you aren't good at league of legends. You might be good at league of mid or league of jungle, but to actually be good at this game, you better know all roles. Now, you don't have to. I guess that there is huge overhead to new players, even after lv 30, but this is not the way to fix it; next thing you know, you'll have people making it to gold without knowing how to support properly. Not to mention support mains out there are a lot fewer than mains of any other kind, other than marksman.

I guess I should be excited that Riot has made it so I won't get people who are stuck in a role they can't play and subsequently ruin my solo queue games, or at least they'll be harder to come by. But you have to admit there is some overlap between the roles. This is a team game. You shouldn't support unless you've adc'd at least a few times or know how to adc, just because you're going to be trying to keep them alive, and maybe secure kills, and some supports don't know the value that farming holds to a lot of adc's, especially late game marksmen like Vayne. As a jungler, you should probably be well rounded in what roles you can play, so you know how to gank for melee champs, how to gank for a burst mage, how to gank bot or when would be most convenient for the adc and support. This game is a bit too complex to just play one part really really well, in my opinion.

Does anyone else feel like this system is a bit too focused a solution to role disputes in ranked, and needs some tweaking? I Feel like this may be alright in the short term, but lifts the barrier to entry a little too much, and players will suffer more in the long term, or with players that know all roles. This makes league even more frustrating, if this ends up happening, because players will have no idea why they would be failing... the game already does very little to let you know when you make a mistake as it is.

What does everyone think about this? Am I being fair? Accurate? Perhaps, misguided? I'm really interested to see if the community is as divided on t his issues as much as I am.

10 Comments

TeemoJenkins1 votes

Many champs can be played in more than one lane - playing Swain mid is the same as playing Swain top, but instead of roaming, I am instead a TP commando who will go in to save the day. In addition to that you have many ranged champs that will excel wherever they play. I've only played a dozen games in the new system and the only issue I've seen was someone had queue'd as Top, but then their duo queue encouraged them to take bot instead; it was a risk that they were trolling, but I took top lane and the game went fine.

People will get into their "main's" more easily - if anything I see this new system as guaranteeing the quality of groups and games in general will go up as you'll more often be up against the masters of their element versus that guy that had to take Mid, because the higher picks took his comfortable lanes.

DeloricVI1 votes

The problem with that is, I know of some players that play exclusively Tryndamere Top, and don't bother jungling with him, or Teemo mid and don't even try to learn other roles. I get having a main can lead to you being diverse, even if you don't go to the lane you usually do, but my main problem with this system is that, if it actually does encourage this 1 champ 1 role mentality, it will lead to a lot of frustration eventually.

Especially, if newer players have their mains, but then get good enough to make it to silver or gold (having a main of 1 champion can get you that far if you're good) but then they have this huge rift where they can't go forward until they start to learn more diverse champions, or learn more facets of the game, like objective control and champion mechanics and interactions. I guess it's less "lowering the barrier to entry," and more, "Moving the barrier to entry further down the way," but they're not smoothing it out... if you go 1 role 1 champ, then you're going to hit a skill wall eventually, where the enemy can be skilled enough to not only counter you, but because they have more game knowledge and a wider champion pool, it's highly likely you can get outplayed. If you have, say, 5000 games on Katarina, but your enemy laner has 1000 games on each Veigar, Katarina, Malzahar, Fizz, and Karthus, the player with a more diverse understanding of mid will be much more likely to succeed, as well as more likely to be able to counter the 1 champ 1 role guy.

My point is also to think about the change a bit more closely, which I'm glad to see that a lot of people are. A lot of my friends think that this change is only good, and can't lead to anything bad down the line, an d I like encouraging people to rethink and even reaffirm their position in the presence of contrary arguments :)

Jileti1 votes

Wait you mean bad habits like people banning champions that people have selected as "intended"

DeloricVI1 votes

Yes, you will have trolls that do this. But this is not a habit; trolls will always ban a champion if you call them out, or will find another way to ruin your day. As you may imagine, showing intended champion is a double-edged sword. It could be a tool for trolls, but so can Tahm Kench's ability to swallow an allied champion and project them forward quite a distance. Same goes for Anivia's wall or Trundle's Pilar of Ice.

What I'm talking about (now that I've thought about it) is how people are saying that it lowers the barrier to entry with ranked, but really it just moves the wall further down the rankings. Eventually, the players that have more game knowledge will likely be a lot better than the others. For instance, if you were playing Katarina your whole career, but your enemy has a good understanding more more champions and more roles, they have more options to counter pick you, they have more experience to work better with their teammates, and they have much better odds of success.

Poop Jelly1 votes

I think Teambuilder builds this "one champion, one role" habit. Dynamic Queue actually provides possibilities of getting 1 of the 2(or fill) roles. Players have to prepare the role they're picked for. If anything I feel like this new system actually provides a system in comparison of Draft/Blind/TB that encourages players to prepare for multiple roles instead of one.

Edit: The system encourages, but players' behaviors aren't guaranteed if you face selfish players that just wanted one role and ignored all forms of communication.

DeloricVI1 votes

True. My argument is only that these "Selfish players" always getting their way will be encouraged to play that way, instead of like before, where you could be last pick on any given game and be forced to fill... it was interesting, in that it discouraged that behavior as every time was a gamble of if you would get your role or not. This ensures that you won't be totally helpless or uninformed later on... you at least have some surface understanding of a few roles and champions. Like I said in another response, this is more about thinking about the feature more closely... this is less like eliminating the barrier to entry, and more moving it to late silver/early gold instead of where it is now... there's some work to be done to get out of bronze, but now with guaranteed roles it's a lot easier.

Calabok1 votes

You cannot stop 1 champ 1 role.

DeloricVI1 votes

There is no stopping it, but there are ways to discourage people from doing it... because it won't be viable forever.

xBushx1 votes

I see some of your points...most of which are human dependent...a game can't cause habits, habits are created people are habitual!

However, put this into perspective with another team game.

Let's say Hockey, the goalie needs to know the gist of the other positions...However would never be expected to play that position.

Why should ranked, the place where you go to test your skills be any different, you should play what your best at....Imagine if a professional goalie and center switched positions for a game??

Also would you say that Crosby is a bad player because he doesn't play goalie...see the logic makes no sense...

Any thoughts??

DeloricVI1 votes

League of Legends is different, especially at a professional level. Hockey or other real-life sports don't require as much knowledge, or things change too much to gain knowledge about them. If you're playing, say, soccer, the other team's forward will not always kick the exact same distance each time; he can improve his shot, improve his endurance, have an off day and not kick as hard. League of Legends, however, is a set in stone game. You can generally expect most champions to do the same thing in a similar way. At a certain level of AP, Teemo's blinding dart will do x damage, every time, for certain, and will always have the same cast range. It will always hit, and always blind. Teemo has a set kit of moves, that do not change. He can't decide to do something out of the norm like carry a shroom on his head to prevent you from engaging on him for fear of setting off the trap. Meanwhile, in the real world, players can do a number of different things. There are some things that are illegal, however, there are near indefinite different ways a player can act or respond. You could argue the varying levels of how important the player is (i.e. standing behind a mushroom that the enemy knows about to keep them at bay) but that's beside the point.

Since champions can be learned, and their specific abilities and cooldowns are more or less predictable, that means there is a lot to learn about the game before you "know" how to do something. I also have no doubt, in terms of your analogy, the more a goalie plays different positions, the more game knowledge he will have that may be applicable to his job. He may learn how a player would trick the goalie, and be better prepared for such a move, or he may get a better understanding of what goes into passing the puck between players. This benefit is even better in league of legends, where rules are much more solid. A lot of champions also have little things you may not know about their skills. For instance, did you know that Sion's ultimate can damage towers? Did you know that you can occasionally bank if off of walls to make sharper turns? Did you know that it has a small pull effect when landed, similar to Oriana's ult on a much smaller scale? Did you know That his ultimate can be activated early, in the case of a miss? All of these questions show varying levels of how well you know a champion, from a reasonably good understanding to basic understanding or observation.

This is what separates Gold from Challenger. The better you can predict your opponent's moves and plan ahead, the more successful you will be, and the less likely you are to make mistakes. You will be better off as a jungler when ganking for, say, a lane composed of Lulu and Jinx if you've played both of those champions many times, is my argument. That's another thing; the summoner is the one improving, not the champion. Crosby will always be Crosby; Crosby will never suddenly show up as Wayne Gretzky, or have the option to learn Wayne Gretzky's skills or moves so closely as you would be able to learn Annie's skills even though you're, say, a Malazhar main.

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