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Why is Blind Pick still part of the new player experience?

Eeyore·11/16/2019, 8:18:57 AM·13 votes·8,950 views

So a couple of my colleagues at work have all just started playing League of Legends together and they invited me to play when they found I already played. They don't like Draft Pick because most players at their level all have access to the same champions - meaning who they want to play has a high chance of either being picked or banned, regardless of who that is. However, I had completely forgotten how much of a trash fire Blind Pick is.

You've got

  • Players fighting over whether or not "pick order" or "call order" has the priority for determining who gets to play what they want
  • Players who have no idea what's going on being expected to pick champions that are good at their assigned positions, regardless of whether or not they have any champions for that position or whether or not they even wanted to play that position
  • Players who only have experience on literally one or two champions not getting to play those champions, or not realizing why those champions won't work in any position
  • People who instalock due to either not caring about the above, or because they aren't aware about the above and are just picking the champion they want to play oblivious to everyone else.

I'm genuinely surprised that this game retains new players when Blind Pick is their introductory experience.

How about:

You select your position and champion, and then queue up. Matchmaking builds you a team. Matchmaking could even build yours and the enemies' team at the same time and attempt to make it "fair" - such as not matching ranged versus melee top.

Then, just add bonus experience for positions that are in-demand. Alternatively/additionally, add a Flexible option that allows matchmaking to find you a team and then you can pick your champion to fit the available space. If there's no Flexible option - you could go straight from Match Found to the game (like TFT). However, Flexible would necessitate a short champion select.

22 Comments

ZT Xperimentor11/16/2019, 1:29:20 PM7 votes

Teambuilder should've replaced blindpick, riot claimed it tripled queue times but didn't show such statistics, if anything it improved community morale because it was much easier to group up with like-minded players.

R0ses R Red11/16/2019, 9:20:41 AM7 votes

yea. it doesnt help that blind pick incites sooooooooo much toxicity over positions. new players dont even have a grasp on positions, so imagine being flamed over it.

Sukishoo11/17/2019, 5:26:47 PM3 votes

They should have trashed blind pick and used team builder. It'd still be blind but at least it imo was a mode balanced setup

ClaireRedfield11/16/2019, 11:54:56 PM2 votes

Rare times I go into blind I auto lock my champion and play it where ever a spot is open. The only reason to play it is to avoid bans and practice your champion in a hostile environment. (including but not limited to....being a shitty jungler but doing it anyway, having no gold income as a support and still trying to push the limits of your champs kit)

I wouldn't want to see it go but it's kind of a weird thing to force new players into.

Cutie Girlfriend11/17/2019, 7:35:59 AM2 votes

New Player Experience needs a completer rework. Every time i have to make a new account, i'm forced into this BS Tutorial, the two parts of it are exactly the same (first you play a Summoner Rift game vs bots, then... you again play a Summoner Rift vs bots, but THIS time you're expected to buy things in Shop. Not like you couldn't buy in the first game, but...). Then, again, this abhorrent Blind Pick, when you can't even pick your runes or summoner spells. You can't even pick flash for some weird reason. And nobody in your team can pick Smite, so even if someone wanted to go Jungle, they can't. Some people randomly decide to go Jungle without a smite, and some people get super tilted when playing double top or double mid. Half of the players are smurfs, sometimes even from high diamond, and half are completely new, doing random stuff, like diving me as 4 at level 1 without creeps (easy quadra). This is as bad as it could get.

hhaavviikk11/16/2019, 6:04:29 PM2 votes

I love blind pick because you can get into a game so quickly.

holystack11/16/2019, 7:15:02 PM2 votes

So kinda like Hots's quickmatch option, basically?

Jamaise11/17/2019, 9:21:34 PM2 votes

Played a game where some guy chose Darius and called bot and he got flamed for it because he ended up feeding. It was pretty sad to see since he was clearly fairly new at the game. I just let him know typically Darius is used in top lane and you want to used ranged champs bot or Supp champs. I'm fairly new myself but I catch on to games quickly, this game is a bit complex though so people should have some patience and understanding when dealing with newer players, especially in blind pick. Like why are you going to blind pick expecting to play with players at your skill level if you are an experienced player. I would think experienced player would be in ranked or something. Anyways I always advise newer player to play a ton of games with AI first because blind pick can be pretty toxic.

Colte11/18/2019, 4:50:51 AM2 votes

last time i played blind pick everyone was far worse than normal draft, is it still the same?

Eeyore11/19/2019, 8:34:29 AM2 votes

{quoted}

last time i played blind pick everyone was far worse than normal draft, is it still the same?

Yes.

{quoted}

Why wouldn't it be? Why would a new player care about what lane or role they are playing? Seems to me more of a smurf issue than anything else

They don't care - that's the point. Blind Pick imposes a need to care on new players who don't even understand what's going on. It would be better for new players if they could just queue up as the champion they want to play, based on who they enjoyed in the tutorial/AI games.

{quoted}

Anyways I always advise newer player to play a ton of games with AI first because blind pick can be pretty toxic.

So far they've had no issue with the game mechanically and thoroughly didn't enjoy bot games. AI is trash for anything other than learning a champion's mechanics. It doesn't prepare you for where your champion should lane - bot games have duo top, for example, and the second top laner is very often a support champion.

{quoted}

Playing a game, the only thing that matters is having fun. People should be able to play any champion on any role without getting flamed for it. Of course, this only applies to blind pick. If I see you going yuumi jungle you bet im gonna make sure you get 9x in post game lobby.

People should be able to queue up and play who they want - agreed. So why not have a queue type where you queue up to play what you want, rather than only having a 20% chance that you call it first.

Lauchmelder11/19/2019, 10:22:01 AM1 votes

{quoted}

  • Players fighting over whether or not "pick order" or "call order" has the priority for determining who gets to play what they want

They should just make blind pick similar to draft in a sense that you have no bans and don't see the enemy picks but it's still an clear pick order. Because that's how it works. It's pick order over call order, always has been. "Call order" only applies if the person that has the right to the called role based on pick order agrees to it.

ZephyrDrake11/17/2019, 9:27:48 PM1 votes

Why wouldn't it be? Why would a new player care about what lane or role they are playing? Seems to me more of a smurf issue than anything else

Naalith11/17/2019, 7:12:38 AM1 votes

I haven't heard of people fighting over pick order or call order in blind pick since season 1, not sure what that's about. I have about 11,000 games in the mode as well, it's my favorite queue, and everyone pretty much knows call order as the only way to pick.

Not saying the experience couldn't be better though. In preseason 8 on PBE Riot made it so you would have to select positions to queue up for Blind Pick. The client would tell everyone what the positions of their teammates are, then everyone would pick on both sides without a ban phase just like the way the system works right now. Only issue with that system is that it would be harder to get new champions in their correct role, I already have mastery 7 Senna and it only took me a couple days because of the ease of calling support and locking Senna.

toby mcteague11/17/2019, 5:23:01 PM1 votes

Playing a game, the only thing that matters is having fun. People should be able to play any champion on any role without getting flamed for it. Of course, this only applies to blind pick. If I see you going yuumi jungle you bet im gonna make sure you get 9x in post game lobby.

Mihalikb11/16/2019, 1:32:17 PM1 votes

Blind pick needs to be replaced by matched normals, and there should be an option for normals that are completely random in elo.