Primary/Secondary Role Priority in Queue
I just have an idea that I'm curious what players think of:
What if instead of choosing a primary and a secondary role, players instead created a queue profile by distributing points among all five roles with a requirement to put at least one point in each role. The system can then match you based on your queue profile.
The reason I suggest such an idea is that the current system of primary/secondary & fill feels very limited in terms of how the system evaluates a player's personal preferences. Essentially, in the current system there are only three profiles: Fill, Primary/Secondary, and Primary/Fill
And it feels like players are forced to fit one of these cookie-cutter profiles that RIOT has determined are the most common profiles for players and the fewest number of profiles that will satisfy the majority of players. The problem is I've noticed that players use the Primary/Secondary profile almost exclusively when I've seen them queue. And I think the reason is that the majority of players actually have a couple of roles they don't want to play rather than a couple of roles that they do want to play. This is why the fill option just doesn't appeal to the vast majority of players. Another problem I've noticed is that when I select "fill" and queue up I almost invariably get the support role: it's as if I had selected support as my primary role. What this means it that a player's profile options only pretend to be what they say and the real profile options are:
Support/Fill, Primary/Secondary, and Support/Primary/Fill
So it becomes evident why players use the Primary/Secondary profile almost exclusively when queuing. Because any other profile is like telling the system that the player prefers to play the least desired role in the game almost exclusively.
The problem is two-fold: the system doesn't really understand player expectations when they choose a queue profile and the system doesn't demand enough variability in player queue profiles to make every queuing option meaningful.
So... players do weird things even when they use the Primary/Secondary option to queue. They will sometimes try to choose what they perceive to be the most popular role in the game (usually this is mid) as their secondary role even though they don't really prefer that role over other roles! They do this to increase their chances of getting the one role they do want.
TL;DR By allowing players to choose not to play the least popular roles, the system forces players to either main those roles or never play those roles. As a result, the "Fill" option become meaningless. So it might be better to have a system that allows players to prioritize roles without excluding roles.