Sacrificing game quality for queue time is not okay

Fattei ·Jan 17, 2017·138 votes·3,735 views

~~Everyone is sick of getting auto-filled support, and not knowing how to play support.~~ Everyone is sick of their bot lane feeding, because their support does not know how to play support. It is horrible to lose games before they even start.

Riot could save this problem in several ways

Remove auto-fill
Remove auto-fill and give LP bonuses to supports
Make support fun (They seem to be paying more attention to supports already anyway)

An Idea, create a summoner spell for supports, making sure it would be trash if taken in any other role, and have items that you cannot buy without said spell, similar to smite. This would allow strong support items without the risk of other roles building them, (Example: people buying redemption on tank junglers) and lead to interesting strategies and could make supports more important in the meta.

I think that there are very few people who would rather have shorter queue times than lost games

EDIT: As many of you are eager to say, "just play decent in all roles" or "learn to play support", that is not the main issue, at least for me. I play a decent support, of the times i have gone support in ranked, as of right now, I have won 50% of them. I cannot control the skill level of my auto-filled yasuo one-trick support beyond my own skill level and me getting placed with them, and I cannot control whether they know how to play support or not.

Also, for the higher ELO folks, I'm sure queue times are already a pain in the butt, and I'm also sure you all can play support well so you don't need to worry about it, and would rather keep auto-fill. If what I just said is true, then by all means riot can enable auto-fill for higher ELO, if that would be the most beneficial towards them.

As AngusBoomPants says, "My queue has never hit 10 minutes, and I pick top/mid. 2 lanes that have so many people in them. You know when my time in queue hits 10 minutes? When people dodge because they're auto-filled." I mention this because its a very valid point. Auto-fill causes people to dodge which creates longer queue times. Which goes against what it was originally designed for.

100 Comments

MrHaZeYoJan 17, 201717 votes

Everyone should be able to play every role at least somewhat effectively. Take it as a learning experience.

I seriously have no problem with auto-fill. I've been auto-filled maybe four times in the last 100 games or more. I also know how to play support as I come from a time where you didn't get to pick your two favorite roles and had to do what was left for you to play. "auto-fill" has basically always been around, we just have the privilege of picking which roles we'd rather play now.

Also keep in mind, just because you only see people complaining about auto-fill doesn't mean the majority would rather have it removed to wait a extra 3-5mins (longer in high ellos) to play. People who dislike things tend to be the ones speaking out, while people who enjoy or are neutral tend to keep quiet cause they're happy.

SolidariusJan 17, 20179 votes

your right there was a time where you had to type "top pref" and had to fight over which lanes ect ect

and I am sure you could play support decently just like I can, but I can also tell you with 100% certainty that my top "skill" is at an S+ rating while my support "skill" is around a B-C, when you match a S+ support vs an average support you get a shitty lane, which also effects your ADC.

There is a reason people have a main role.

That is the reason people are complain... When I destroy someone in top lane I am thinking that they got autofilled there, theres no way a top main dies 5 times in 5min, Its a cs lane, every top lane player knows this.

My main issue with this game and auto fill is that it is requiring people to learn and master more than 2 roles, which I think is bullshit and most people don't even have time to master 2 roles nor do they want 2.

I agree that everyone should be able to play every role at least somewhat effectively... but I ask you... do you think that they should they be forced to master more than 2 roles?

some of us like being one tricks :P

Sraeg2013Jan 17, 20175 votes

Some people can't realize this simple fact.

Most people have that one role they are great at - hell, maybe two - and the rest.

Just as getting A+ on every subject in school is impossible for most people, so is being good at every role in a game.

ZialeskaJan 17, 20175 votes

No one is asking you to be great at the role you were filled as, just asking you to have basic understanding of that role and to not feed like its your day job XD

BastionKrossJan 17, 20173 votes

That's still unreasonable. If you're a top/ADC main and you get auto filled as mid, your team now has a distinct disadvantage since your midlaner is playing an off-role and their mid laner is playing his main. You might not think this is a huge issue (play passive, hug tower, blah blah blah), but there's a lot more to winning that just not dying. If the enemy laner out farms you by a significant margin, or roams while you're busy dry humping the tower, or even decides to just tower dive and kill you at level 6 because towers are made of paper, that's a huge hit to your team's chances of winning.

And guess what? It gets worse at higher elos. It's no secret that one of the most efficient and easiest ways to climb is to be a one trick pony. Or at the very least have small handful of tricks that don't encompass all roles.

Let's say you're a diamond top/ADC, but you're only a gold level mid. What happens when you get auto filled mid against a diamond mid main?

Spread those cheeks, because if you fight it's just going to be more painful.

And that's not fair. Matchmaking shouldn't be a game of "Which team's autofilled player fucks up the least?" Everyone should be at their best in ranked matches, and that doesn't happen with auto fill.

Yes, you can trade. Yes, you can dodge. Yes, you can win when your top lane is 1/9 against a Gangplank whose already bought two items. But those aren't solutions. They're bandaids. Temporary fixes.

But we used to call our roles in champ select! It used to be a lot worse than this!

So what? It's better now than it used to be, but it's still far from acceptable. That's like support mains saying that people shouldn't complain about how terrible the role is right now because it used to be worse. Just because something is better now doesn't mean you stop improving it; and it sure as hell doesn't mean it's in a good place by sheer virtue of being better than it was.

Auto fill being always on isn't doing the game's health or it's players many favors. Queue times are shorter, but games are shittier. Not a great trade.

ElikainJan 17, 20173 votes

Or people just went limp and started to complain about every minute thing, wanting perfection in their games without actually improving themselves or getting worse? That's a more plausible conclusion then to say "it used to be worse but i still can't play". If it used to be worse and that state didn't generate nearly enough complaints as now, how can a better state still be perceived equally as bad?

Because every player has their own expectations and expects of Riot to address them individually? Or is it because Riot can't rework a champion a day?

The bottom line is if you had to play in a worse environment and you took it like a champ, don't complain about an environment that's definitely better to play in than before. It may not be ideal but expecting it to be ideal is going to end up as a big disappointment to you. And no, not complaining does not mean shutting up and playing what you're given. One thing is to voice a concern or criticize something, the other thing is when a person actively goes out of their way to shittalk on the forums, how one autofill game is responsible for their Sand 10 rank.

MrHaZeYoJan 17, 20171 votes

I basically play just Mid and Jungle. I'm good at those roles, I can handle my own more times then not. Doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't know how to Top, ADC, or Support decently. I feel like If I'm a gold Mid/JG I should at least be a Silver in the other three roles, which I am.

Shit I was watching Sneaky the other night, you know C9's ADC, he had to go top vs Ray, was funny AF to watch. He didn't do so hot but he knew what to do at a pretty high level.

The better you get at the game, the better your knowledge is and a lot of the time that carries over from role to role. I may not play Fiora vs Gnar often top but that doesn't stop me from doing it or succeeding at it. Just off of Playing Fiora before and playing agasn't or with Gnars.

I don't think its much to ask of you to support once every 10 games, besides the more you do it, the better you get. Also when you support for a good ADC its actually kinda fun.

QuephaJan 17, 20171 votes

{quoted}

some of us like being one tricks :P

So then the extra wins you get in your main roles should more than make up for the times you get autofilled, phone it in, and pray you get carried.

If you are a plat mid, but a bronze in every other lane, you don't actually deserve plat in solo queue. You would deserve Plat in flex queue if you had a full team of players who let you mid every game, but that means you're playing in a mode that calls for a different skillset from solo queue. (i.e. the ability to organize a team both in and out of game)

Sraeg2013Jan 17, 20172 votes

I also come from the time where "auto-fill" was permanent and ironically I played only 1 out of 100 games as support on average. Bah, in season 4 I didn't play a single game as support.

In the last week alone I played support 3 times and dodged another 3. Together that's already 20% of all support games I played beginning in January 2013 until December 2015. In a week.

NichtHurzJan 17, 20171 votes

Why should I learn support? If there is one role I absolutely despise and hate to play it's support. I love every single support main for being one, but I myself really really really hate supporting. I've tried to find a support I like, I've tried to play it and do well...sometimes I do well, most of the time I don't and even when I win the game or play good...I'm pissed off the whole game and just hope for it to end as soon as possible. It's neither good for my team nor me to play support, since I'm so annoyed once I have to do so that my performance is just horrendous and the only thing I'm waiting for is to be able to surrender or just get some Nexus killed...

MrHaZeYoJan 17, 20174 votes

Why should you learn Science? Cause it's something you need to know. You can't truly know how league works without knowing every role. Knowing how to do every role will make you ultimately better at the game.

NichtHurzJan 17, 20171 votes

I basically know my job as a support, I've also played quite a lot of support in Season 3, but I just can't enjoy it as long as I don't have several premades with voice chat on my team. This is not about learning something, this is about me just being unable to enjoy this role, it doesn't matter if I do well or if do everything right, it doesn't change anything about me not enjoying this role.

For me it is as if you wanna play a calm and chill round of golf, strolling over the green and just hitting some balls, but end up in a MMA cage fight...even if I'd win the fight, I didn't want to fight in the first place and against a real MMA fighter I'm most likely gonna be beaten up pretty badly.

MrHaZeYoJan 18, 20172 votes

Well, To each there own lol, I do like the metaphor but, personally i'd rather have auto fill so I don't wait 10mins for a game at 3am.

Fattei Jan 17, 20171 votes

Giving up before the game even starts because you got support is part of the problem. I would suggest you not do this.

NichtHurzJan 17, 20171 votes

It's just...I'm not really giving up, I'm just getting super demotivated because I feel like I'm wasting my time. I do play support ocassionally when I'm playing premades, but that's just a whole different thing. Supporting in solo queue for me is like I wanna go play golf and suddenly end up in a mma fight. Supporting and any other role are just completely different things for me...

WoonStruckJan 17, 20178 votes

I think you mean sacrificing game quality for improved queue times. Title is misleading.

Alternatively, could be "Trading game quality for queue time"

Should hurry and edit before title is locked in.

Fattei Jan 17, 20176 votes

{quoted}

I think you mean sacrificing game quality for improved queue times. Title is misleading.

Alternatively, could be "Trading game quality for queue time"

Should hurry and edit before title is locked in.

good guy right here, my proofreading ability increases 900% after i hit post

WoonStruckJan 17, 20175 votes

Don't want to see a post that's true get downvoted just because the title's misleading lol.

I'd rather wait 10 minutes for a queue and have a 50 minute game than what we have right now.

I wish they'd close the MMR gap again as well. 200-300 MMR differences are not okay, especially at lower divisions. It used to be you'd get people within 1 or 2 tiers of you ONLY with how generally close MMR was.

Gregor GysiJan 17, 20178 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fattei ,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Nauyv7pT,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-01-17T06:28:09.880+0000)

Remove auto-fill

Will not happen because Riot and many other people disliked having 10 minute queue times.

Remove auto-fill and give LP bonuses to supports

Won't happen for obvious reasons.

Make support fun (They seem to be paying more attention to supports already anyway)

The ideal solution, do you have a proposal?

I think that there are very few people who would rather have shorter queue times than lost games

Overall both teams will have autofilled supports - except for support mains of course, so it's kinda similiar to #2 actually.

Fattei Jan 17, 20172 votes

Yes, thinking about it I do have a proposal. Create a summoner spell for supports, making sure it would be trash if taken in any other role, and have items that you cannot buy without said spell, similar to smite. This would allow strong support items without the risk of other roles building them, (redemption on tank junglers) and lead to interesting strategies and could make supports more important in the meta.

KidfluffyJan 17, 20172 votes

I love this idea. I am one of the few in the world who enjoy playing support and i think this would really help others jump into the role.

sirwaterflesJan 17, 20176 votes

Just learn a support. There are tons with all kinds of different gameplay from tanks to enchanters to mages. I say autofill has improved quallity a lot. You got your primary role almost all the time now and on the rare occasion that you do get autofilled its only support half the time and even then if you ask nicely people will often switch with you. This alone is enough for me to go ahead with autofill but it also reduced my quequetime by 50 to 75 procent depending on the time of day. I see nothing but advantages.

SpongebobIsLifeJan 17, 20172 votes

The role is simply unfun.

sirwaterflesJan 17, 20171 votes

A lot of people (including me) think otherwise. I used to not like toplane and adc but then i found some toplaners i like and now its my main role. Adc i still dont really like but if i get it and nobody wants to trade i suck it up take the one adc i wont feed with tell my team not to expect to much and just play and sometimes it works out and sometime it doesnt but hec game is still fun.

SpongebobIsLifeJan 17, 20173 votes

I'm just saying, there's a reason why it's the least popular role. Many people find it unfun and if your teammates suck welp you're out of luck fam, it's not really a climbing role.

ZialeskaJan 17, 20175 votes

If you don't know how to play at least one champ in every role please don't play ranked :D there are plenty of champions that can play mid/supp or top/supp. Find someone who can fill more then one spot.

I find more people lose because supports are babies and don't want to build vision for there team. Not because they don't know how to play support.

General Esdeath Jan 17, 20172 votes

Said this a hundred times and I'll say it a hundred more. Even if I know how to play each role, if it's not my usual I'm gonna get outperformed by the enemy.

ZialeskaJan 18, 20171 votes

possibly, but the enemy might also not really know what tf they are doing XD

General Esdeath Jan 18, 20172 votes

That's the true clown fiesta

vampirekid13Jan 17, 20175 votes

as a support main thats spent the vast majority of season 2-6 being told how supports are luggage and any moron can be a support im really enjoying seeing the QQ of "OMG RITO I DONT KNOW HOW TO SUPPORT IM BAD AT IT PLS NO MORE AUTOFILL RITO I DONT HAVE SUPPORT CHAMPS RITO PLS" from the same forum that called me useless/luggage/carried for the vast majority of 4 seasons.

Fattei Jan 17, 20171 votes

If you think " I play a decent support, of the times i have gone support in ranked, as of right now, I have won 50% of them." says "OMG RITO I DONT KNOW HOW TO SUPPORT IM BAD AT IT PLS NO MORE AUTOFILL RITO I DONT HAVE SUPPORT CHAMPS RITO PLS" you might have some serious dyslexia.

vampirekid13Jan 17, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fattei ,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Nauyv7pT,comment-id=001a0000,timestamp=2017-01-17T22:22:02.461+0000)

If you think " I play a decent support, of the times i have gone support in ranked, as of right now, I have won 50% of them." says "OMG RITO I DONT KNOW HOW TO SUPPORT IM BAD AT IT PLS NO MORE AUTOFILL RITO I DONT HAVE SUPPORT CHAMPS RITO PLS" you might have some serious dyslexia.

oh god no, i wasnt referring to you, i was referring to the forum in general. from season 2 to season 5/6 supports have been relentlessly been mocked and called useless, carried, boosted, etc.

now that everyone has to play it everyone is freaking out and all of a sudden support is hard. now im not referring to you, i can link you to hundreds of threads just in the last week that say exactly what i said above. WORD FOR WORD.

and i just find it very very entertaining in general. i hope they keep autofill for the whole season just so i can feed off of these peoples tears. im sorry if you're not one of them and are just collateral damage. but thats collateral damage im willing to accept.

Fattei Jan 17, 20172 votes

Right now I am laughing at the poor adc mains without thinking of trying to help, so i can see how you feel the same about auto-fill. :^)

SociopathFriendJan 17, 20174 votes

I'm just gonna point out that "Being a one-trick player" is not something I think is particularly good for the game or the players. I'm a Support main, I accept that others don't like playing Support, or Mid, or ADC, or whatever other role you may have.

But you should be able to at least pass at them. I main Support but I can play any other given role. Will I play as well as someone who mains it? Maybe, or maybe not. But I can try and because I'm fairly familiar with the roles I even do well quite a bit of the time. Remember that just because someone "mains" a role does not, in any way, mean they must be better at it than someone who doesn't main the role.

NichtHurzJan 17, 20173 votes

For high elo autofill is actually even worse. A friend of mine who's Master/Challenger just had a horrible LP loss over 15 games. He's a jungle main and had 7 jungle games and 8 off-role/autofill games. He's won 5 out of the 7 jungle games and 1 out of 8 off-role games. As an absolute jungle main autofill is horrible for him to play with.

JustARivenMainJan 17, 20172 votes

I found that Team Builder was the best for normals, waiting 5 minutes but everyone - Literally everyone getting their champs and lanes, was so perfect.

But this ranked system is far better than the pick order chooses first one.

Corrupt BlissJan 17, 20173 votes

Naw team builder was horrible IMO. If you played an off meta champ or didn't have "THE PERFECT PICK" you could find yourself waiting 20+ minutes. RIP DONGER ADC.

Dominick DestineJan 17, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Corrupt Bliss,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Nauyv7pT,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2017-01-17T13:49:27.712+0000)

Naw team builder was horrible IMO. If you played an off meta champ or didn't have "THE PERFECT PICK" you could find yourself waiting 20+ minutes. RIP DONGER ADC.

People DIDN'T want trolls on their team?! Shock Gasp

Glory ln DeathJan 17, 20173 votes

It was actually way easier to find games as an off-meta player in Team Builder than it was even in Blind Pick. People were much more accepting of unusual picks in Team Builder.

Plus, it was usually a more enjoyable game, since you wouldn't get flamed for an off-meta pick, like you would during the few games others didn't dodge in Blind.

KaiokoJan 17, 20172 votes

I agree with what you're saying however you don't exactly go through a solution for the problem. Here's the 3 things you've suggested.

1.) Remove Auto-Fill - Can't be done if we are going to keep dynamic and solo queue as the population is too split up to ensure even remotely decent queue times. We had 10+ mins queue times in dynamic alone you would AT LEAST double that now.

2.) Give an LP Bonus to Supports - You're going to encourage the behavior of not being a proper support with this. People will purposefully queue for support then not actually support to be able to climb faster. It'll also just make your ranking even less representative of your skill level than it is currently.

3.) Make supports fun - Like you've stated they are working on it with the new items and allowing supports to have a greater impact on the game. The question becomes how to make that even better, because this is really the ideal solution to the problem.

AMYS GRAVEJan 17, 20171 votes

Like you've stated they are working on it with the new items and allowing supports to have a greater impact on the game.

Well they took away our only lane control tool item 3512 so it looks like they don't give a fuck about the problem.

KaiokoJan 17, 20173 votes

{quoted}

Well they took away our only lane control tool so it looks like they don't give a fuck about the problem.

The biggest abusers of that weren't supports by far.

KotexJan 17, 20171 votes

If you play alot of ADC, you should by extension know how to support.

rtbf221651412Jan 17, 20173 votes

{quoted}

If you play alot of ADC, you should by extension know how to support.

Idk. I've seen a lot of stupid plays being in bronze by adc's.

SpecterVonBarenJan 17, 20171 votes

No... no you shouldn't.... Just because they're both in the same lane doesn't mean they are at all like each other.

KotexJan 18, 20172 votes

{quoted}

No... no you shouldn't.... Just because they're both in the same lane doesn't mean they are at all like each other.

Maybe to someone that doesn't use their brain and absorb knowledge, but if you are an ADC, and you know what your support needs to be doing for you, it doesn't take a genius to keep that in mind when youre playing support and vice versa.

It is a symbiotic role ADC and support. Thats what it's made to be. If youre an adc main and come time to play support youre copping out with "I don't know how to support" you shouldn't be playing bot lane because you've got bigger problems.

I main adc. And by my own principal support as well.

SpecterVonBarenJan 18, 20171 votes

Just because you know what your support or ADC needs to do for you doesn't mean they will do it, nor does it mean you can play the other role well. I'm a support main and I'm not that good at ADC and I despise the role because of the lack of agency and always having a target on my head.

What I do as support is nothing like what I'm expected to do as ADC.

KotexJan 18, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Just because you know what your support or ADC needs to do for you doesn't mean they will do it, nor does it mean you can play the other role well. I'm a support main and I'm not that good at ADC and I despise the role because of the lack of agency and always having a target on my head.

What I do as support is nothing like what I'm expected to do as ADC.

Well i guess im sorry that you are too focused on having your way that youre too busy to pay attention to such obvious things like the symbiosis between bot lane duos.