@lyte . i think i have a amazing captains idea that will greatly reduce toxicity

lyte i believe a big problem with dynamic Q and "people wanting to play with their friends" as you put it, is that in reality peoples friends are likely very far apart in skill. and people dont yet realize how unfun it is to play in a competitive environment with "friends" when they are very different from you in skill

people have fun with friends in normals because its normals. but once you add ELO to it, and once you have it being competitive where your enemies are mega tryharding, well it stops being rainbows and unicorns at that point. it becomes competitive, and in a competitive world skill is a thing. people who are in different skill levels should not be playing in the same ranked games it is bound to lower the quality of the game.

also lyte. theres another big problem with dynamic Q. and it is this

people who gain rank from grouping with friends will ultimately ruin the game experience when they start playing solo

why? because the skills needed to achieve a solo queue elo are not only greatly different from getting that elo with a premade team, but those skills are also, ill just say it, those skills are massively more impressive.

if someone gets a elo by grouping with friends, he will have a miserable experience once he fires up solo queue because he will find out the truth, he was carried by his friends and his real solo queue elo is lower than where he is. he will get stomped and stomped until he reaches his true elo. and the people who have to play with him will not enjoy it

that is one of the biggest problems of dynamic Q, riot. the fact that skill does exist in this game, and friends normally are not around the same skill level

now riot. to my solutions and ideas! i think if you put in voice communication properly, you can create the "fun, less toxic" environment you were aiming for without needing people to even queue with friends

i love the idea of voice communication and i think it would massively increase the entertainment value of the game. but as you say you think people will be toxic in it. but i think with my captains idea it would greatly reduce peoples desire to be toxic

here is my captain system. to improve the effectiveness / enjoyability of voice communication. it is basically just a easy way for people to determine the leader.

here is how my captain idea and system would work

1. in ranked champ select, every person (who opts in) has their winrate over last 20 games shown to their team. its a simple number near their name showing if they have, say, a 60% winrate over their last 20 games. this data lets players know who they want to vote as captain. if someone has less than 20 games or 10 captain games, the winrate still shows. also for captains winrate it will show as a number like "6/10" meaning you won 6 out of 10 captains games. or "0/2" meaning you won 0 out of 2 captains games. if you have no captain games, the winrate says "0/0". the captains winrate in champ select only shows last 10 captains games. but i guess players could also have a overall captains winrate in their profile that they could use as either an ego boost (lets be honest thats mainly what it is) or to let them know how good of a shotcaller they are for teams who are trying to find good shotcallers in masters/challenger

2. as a general rule, i am pretty sure the player on the team with the highest winrate in his last 20 games is probably the strongest person on the team and the best candidate on the team that people should trust to be leader. or someone with a high captains winrate

3. in champ select, everyone has a button next to their name to be clicked for a team captain vote. everyone in champ select has 1 captain vote and can click that button to vote for someone if they want that person to be captain. they can vote for them self too

4. if someone gets 3 captain votes in champ select. a chat message appears in the champ select chat and says "meteos has been voted team captain. 3 teammates have expressed faith in meteos leadership ability. it is highly advised that everyone follows meteos shotcalling in game if you want to win. a team with 5 people following a captains leadership likely has a higher chance to win compared to a team with anarchy and no leadership. also in game a no confidence vote will be available. if 3 teammates vote no confidence in meteos then a message will appear showing that the team has lost faith in meteos as captain. at that point the team can use voicechat to pick a new captain or simply try to win without one "

5. a little icon appears near captainsname that only his allies can see in game, that indicates he is captain. dont want the enemy jungler camping your teams captain

6. and thats it. pretty simple. let players easily pick a captain for their game.

7. ingame there will be a vote at any time where you can type "/nc" in chat as a no confidence vote in your captain. at that point a VERY DIFFERENT FROM SURRENDER white looking box will appear (like the surrender box. but it looks very different so people know its a no confidence vote. possibly this box should appear on the left side of the screen to make it more obvious that its a no confidence vote and not a surrender vote) that says "a no confidence vote has been started to remove your captain. have you lost faith in meteos leadership ability. yes or no"

8. if 3 people on team vote "yes" to no confidence in meteos, then he stops being captain and a message appears and says "the team has lost faith in meteos as a leader. meteos is no longer captain. either use voice chat to decide a new captain. or try to win without one. goodluck and godspeed"

9. after a captain has been removed through no confidence vote, a new one cannot be created. just use voicechat to decide a new one, or try to win without one

10. if 3 people on team vote "no" to no confidence in meteos (and not voting counts as a no) , a message appears and says "the team still has faith in meteos. he is still captain. it is highly advised that everyone follows meteos leadership. no one is forcing you to, but if you want to win, its probably the best idea. goodluck and godspeed"

11. oh and yes , meteos himself can vote no in the no confidence vote too. everyone (even the captains) can vote in the original champ select votes and the no confidence votes. because as long as 3 people on a team have faith in ONE PERSONS leadership, then that person should probably be leader since 3 out of 5 team members trust one persons leadership over everyone else on the team

12. oh and i think this would be good too. in champ select there should be 2 percentages near someones name. a "winrate over last 20 games" percentage. and a "captains winrate" which is "winrate over the last 10 games you have been voted captain" percentage. so people will see useful information for them to decide who to vote as leader. you will get to see someones "captain winrate" and someones game winrate over their last 20 games too

13. because these captain and game winrates are personal information that could make people feel insecure and make people feel judged, this captain system should probably only exist in ranked. ranked is highly competitive, and sure it allows one to be judged (someone might feel insecure about a low winrate being shown in champ select) but at the same time for people who are highly competitive, this information would probably be accepted and liked overall since it provides leadership in game.

14. actually i have a solution to number 13 . make it so people only have their winrates displayed in champ select if they OPT-IN as they queue. make a button you click next to queue launch that says "display your winrate and captains winrate to your team in champ select. this is done if you desire to be captain and wish to gain your teammates confidence"

15. captains winrate records all games where the team voted you captain in champ select. even if you are removed through no confidence, the win and loss still counts to your winrate

16. oh final thing. the button to vote for someone to be captain only appears for people who are displaying their winrates. if someone does not want to display their winrates, then that means they dont want to be voted captain, so the button to vote for that person will not exist. this is to prevent people from accidentally voting and making someone captain who doesnt want to be captain. if you dont want to be captain, then dont display your winrate.

and boom. that sounds like a good system . in champ select people will only be displaying their winrates if they desire and want to be captain. and then once inside champ select, the team can do their captain votes and pick a captain as i described above

also i believe with this captain system the amount of toxic behavior in ranked will greatly reduce. i play dota alot and toxic people in voicechat are very rare in dota. its alot more easy to be nice to someone when you hear their voice, compared to typing to them