Role Selection Suggestion

I know that something like this has been discussed many times on the forum - probably more than I could ever count, but I can't help wondering why something like this is not in the position-selection options. Currently (Season 9), players are given the choice of two roles - a primary and a secondary. From what I understand, the matchmaking system will spend a considerable amount of time searching for your primary, then a smaller amount of time searching for your secondary, and finally, if you have been waiting what is considered too long for a game, you will be filled into a position.

What I want to discuss is the option of selecting "Fill" as your primary. I know that some time ago there was an Ask Riot question that asked why players were not able to select a role they did NOT want to play, and a Rioter responded somewhere along the lines that there are too little support players for such an option to exist. (I believe this question was talking about selecting your primary and then selecting the role you absolutely do not want to get filled as.)

My question is this: If a player selects "Fill" as their primary, would it then be possible for them to select a "Do not want" role as their secondary?

Right now, we have a system that gives players the option to say, "I want this, but if not this, then this other thing." If fill is that "other thing," then the system will prioritize the primary and then just autofill them if matchmaking is taking too long. However, if a person picks "fill" as their primary, I believe that it would be okay for them to have a "do not want" secondary. This would not be the same as selecting a primary and then filling because the system would automatically fill them and then ask questions later. Meaning, the system would check for an opening and if it comes across a game that fits the "do not want" role then it will skip over it. The key difference here is that the system would not spend so much time looking for a specific role at the start because "fill" is your primary.

Here are the two key reasons why I think this could work:

1. Most people associate "fill" with "support" because they know that support is the least preferred, or mained, role in the game. So, when they pick fill, they are expecting their chances of playing support to be very high. This means that they are at least indifferent to playing support.

2. Although it could be argued that people could then just chose support as their "do not want" pick, I do believe that this would still be less of a problem for matchmaking because it is still picking from all other roles, making it easier to place someone in a game as soon as a match opens up.

3. Also, with this method, the system will be picking from 4 roles instead of 3. Let me explain.

   • When someone picks their primary and then their "do not want", it is essentially telling matchmaking: "I want this, but not this." So now matchmaking is picking from 4 roles, however, once matchmaking decides that the process is taking too long, you are now limited to 3 roles because matchmaking is no longer looking for your primary, and it was never looking for your "do not want."
   • If you were to pick fill as your primary and then pick a do not want, then matchmaking is always looking for 4 roles because there is no role to toss out after a certain time period.

Because I am not a game dev, or someone who knows a lot about the efforts of creating a matchmaking system for such a large player base, I could be easily overlooking a major problem with my suggestion. However, I wanted to open a discussion about this topic here, because I believe it is an idea that many of us can agree on implementing. I'd love to hear back from anyone that could explain why something like this could or could not be feasible!

See you in solo-queue! -MT