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Restricting team builder to lvl 25+ is hateful

Map Of Woe··2 votes·654 views

While team builder was active for us sub-lvl 25 players I was using it to practice all of the different roles, depending on what I fancied each day or what I thought needed improving. Since its restriction to lvl 25+ players I'm stuck having to wade through the mess that is blind pick or draft.

Blind pick means that those that are fastest at picking a champ and locking it are the ones that get to play the most coveted roles (generally mid). Also, I've lost count of the number of times I've played on teams with three ap mids.

Draft pick isn't much better. Typically, I will have to go through 3 or 4 drafts before I get to play an actual game. Obviously, people are queue dodging because they haven't got the champion or position they want. It also means that, unless you're lucky enough to be first pick, you will not get the opportunity to play mid. Incidentally, my impression is that I do not get selected to be first pick anywhere near 20% of the time. How exactly are you choosing the order?

Both of these setups (for blind and draft) seem designed to encourage the worst, childish, tantrum-throwing bahviour as that's what is most likely to get you what you want. In my experience the more patient and reasonable players will just let such a person have whatever they're screaming for, not because it's fair or good but because it's easier.

Maybe this is what Riot have intended the experience for sub-lvl 25 players to be. I just have one final question then:

Riot, why you got to hate like that?

4 Comments

Zydin1 votes

While yes blind pick is complete chaos draft pick is exactly what you'll be facing in ranked play. It doesn't "encourage the worst, childish, tantrum-throwing bahviour" it's meant to add stability and ensure that a team gets the roles that it needs ( no 3 ap mids). It's simple first pick gets what he wants and it goes down hill.

By just playing team builder and always getting to play who and where you want is not preparing you for playing ranked games in any way at all, that in fact will encourage bad behavior because people are use to getting what ever role they want and not that they can't get it or they get stuck with one they didn't think to practice or the champ that they play the most gets banned they get upset and pissed off.

Oh and just to tell you mid isn't that special, i can normally get it even if i'm 3rd or 4th pick, most times all you have to do is ask nicely.

And just because there are 5 people being randomly selected for first pick doesn't mean that you will get it 20% of the time. It just means that every time you go into matchmaking you have a 1 in 5 chance to be selected to be first pick. (like putting 5 different colored marbles in a bag and randomly drawing one out, then putting it back in the bag and draw again, it's not guaranteeing that you will get first 20% of the time.)

Map Of Woe1 votes

Afraid I just fundamentally disagree about what behaviour is encouraged by the formats. Your experience may well be different to mine. I'm not lvl 30 yet afterall.

In draft pick it manifests as people queue dodging. Perhaps things would be improved if the penalties for dodging were increased. I appreciate that ranked is draft pick so it's good practice to play this format. It's just so frustrating to have to go through 3 or 4 drafts before you can get to actually play a game.

Also, not sure about your grasp of probabilities. Over time, if the selection is indeed random, you should be first pick 20% of the time with 5 people on a team. That's just simple maths.

Zydin1 votes

That is completely possible that our experiences are different. I don't remember exactly what the penalties for dodging are at lower levels but at 30 if i dodge a single game I'm stuck waiting 20+ mins before I can start up any other game, and if people keep dodging they do get bans or put into low priority queues.

I have a fairly decent grasp on probabilities, it's the fact that it is completely random that can cause the variations from being first pick 20% of the time. The number of games that it would take for the overall pattern of random selection to equalize it's self to having each pick position being selected roughly 20% can be a vary large number of games. It may take you a few hundred more games to reach that 20% first pick rate.

Also if you play draft pick with any friends, who ever started the game with be placed into the first pick position if any one on the premade team gets first pick. (A friend invites you to draft, you get selected as first pick but he gets it because he invited you, still counts towards your 20% average.)

Map Of Woe1 votes

I'm now wondering if there are any penalties below lvl 30 for queue dodging, as the people who seemed most likely to have dodged (as judged by what they said in chat) appeared in the next draft. Obviously, it's impossible to tell absolutely as you can't see what the other team is saying or even who they are. Seems unlikely that people would be dodging quite so often (even at my level) if they had to wait more than 20 mins when they do. Maybe that needs to be revisited.

Agree with you about needing to play plenty of games for probabilities to become apparent. You should expect a normal Gaussian distribution around 20% that is gradually revealed the more drafts you enter. Right now it seems like I've entered a lot of drafts but that may just reflect my frustration with so many of them not resulting in an actual game.

Haven't entered any drafts with friends yet so haven't observed that little wrinkle yet.

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