My 2 cents on dynamic queue. How Dynamic Q hurts support role and 2 role selection, and ways to fix.

Hey everyone!

I guess most of you have seen this piece already. I just want to address some of the issues of Dynamic Q.

I think the biggest factor in the equation is the Support role, and the second most important problem is the role selection.

Historically the support role has not been a preferred one, mainly because of the belief that it's harder to carry from this position and because it is seen as a non that significant one. That however is only partially true. While for the most part each of the other roles has generally a bigger impact, I guess most of you have found out that a good support can in-fact tip the balance in favour of your team.

What happened to the role when the Dynamic Queue got released though? Since it is a less preferred role, anyone that dares to put it in his role selection was essentially forced to play it almost exclusively. And that further affected the role, and Dynamic Queue in-turn.

Lets have me for example. I've started as an ADC main, having played about 800 games on Vayne, most of which competitive. As time passed, I've learned how to play Top, and later support. After I made a smurf in order to learn to Mid and Jungle efficiently, I picked up the mid lane as well, and I'm on the way of becoming a decent jungler for my elo as well.

I for one, appear to be very good at supporting - always being in the right place at the right time, helping my team to win the game. In fact, the first time I achieved gold, I've just played support for about 20 games, and swept through silver 1 and gold 5, hitting gold 4 in 2-3 days.

Nowdays, though, I don't put support as a role, as it is almost entirely forced to play it. I just don't want to play as a support every game. I want to play Mid, and Top, and ADC as well - something that gets taken away if I dare to put support as a preferred role.

In this case, even if I am good at supporting, I wont be selecting it, which further tips the balance towards less supports in the waiting list. Dynamic queue, often forces players that are good at supporting, to chose another role, just because it restricts them way too much. That hurts both the support role in terms of popularity, and Dynamic Queue in terms of quality and efficiency.

The other thing is the overall role selection. It essentially forces you to pick just two roles. If I had the choice of picking 3 or 4 roles, I would be gladly putting support on the list. That way, I could still be getting the support role, but I have a chance of getting Mid, Adc, and Top, which lowers the chance of actually getting support, and it gives me more variety and freedom. I sincerely believe, that just by adding this option, will make Dynamic queue way more balanced.

Lets put aside the support role for a second, and discuss further faults in the 2 role selection limit.

The 2 role selection limit actually hurts competitive play as well on its own. Being able to chose only 2 roles, basically enforces people against trying out any other role. If you can pick only 2 roles, why would anyone ever bother learning more roles? It doesn't make sense! If you can play mid and top for example, that will be the only thing you would ever need to advance. Not saying that that is entirely bad, as some players would actually enjoy this, but for other players, especially new ones, it severely limits their motivation of learning other roles and finding new talents.

Al that being said, I truly believe, that just by introducing more wiggle room in role selection, would benefit Dynamic Queue time, effectiveness, and will help the player-base expand their knowledge and talent, while keeping their motivation to learn intact.

As a parting note, I would like to propose 2 other features for the Dynamic queue.

In the video, the guys were talking they had this "knobs" they can turn up and down. I would suggest having two knobs that could be actually available to the player-base. The first one, should indicate the players personal desire on how likely would be to get a role they've selected. For example if we had the 3 or 4 role selection, if I put Mid, Adc and Support, I would like to be able to set it as 40% mid, 35% support, and 25% ADC for example. That way, players could have more control on what they are playing. Of course, there should be some limitations for not putting more than 80% on a role if you've selected 2, Or for no less than 15% if you've selected 3, etc.

The second knob would be "how much I would like the get matched with opponents of different skill level"? You can have that on 0%, or I for example would like to put it between 5-10 percent. I have no problem playing against better player, and frankly, I quite enjoy playing against more skilful players, as I find it out an easier way to improve. Again, some restriction should take place, in order not to get bronze vs Challenger players or similar discrepancies. I'd assume 10% max would be fine.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Dynamic Queue faults, and my theoretical proposals on how to resolve those.

Peace out,

Daniellizard