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"what is bottlenecking" What the bigger implication actually is...

Tychusfindlay919··2 votes·712 views

So a thread with the quotation above has grown in popularity. What does it do? It explains a pretty simple phenomenon in which a single necessary component within a system slows down the entire system because said component is supplied in a much smaller quantity than the other components.

IN regards to the queue system, the limiting component is support. It's not unknown to the community that support is the least attractive role in the damn game.

Why? It's a role based around glorifying everyone around you but not yourself.

I can't claim to know a viable solution in regards to making support more attractive. Hell, if you asked me, I would eliminate support entirely and create 4 lanes or just have teams of 4.

I look at a game like CS:GO where there is no support, everyone is a carry, and yet there is still that team factor that makes it a team game. Why can't league be like that? Support is a shit role for most league players and the fact that it serves as the main limiting component that riot has to work around by introducing this dastardly "autofill" shows that.

16 Comments

MatthewRT22 votes

a good or bad support can determine if your team wins or loses, when i blind hook the rengar mid ult so he doesn't steal the infernal I get mad props but correct lantern placement and tanking the enemy with top while i cc the damage dealers is what leads me victory

Yours truly, a Thresh main

Tychusfindlay9191 votes

{quoted}

a good or bad support can determine if your team wins or loses, when i blind hook the rengar mid ult so he doesn't steal the infernal I get mad props but correct lantern placement and tanking the enemy with top while i cc the damage dealers is what leads me victory

Yours truly, a Thresh main

Which is irrelevant to the OP, which is stating that statistically speaking, most people despise playing the support role, which is why the much hated "autofill" came about to keep queue times low.

MatthewRT21 votes

Autofill is on for everyone now even the support mains, i get filled into jg and top more than i actually get support and then AFTER we get in game they complain about getting support because they qued as mid/top or jg/top and im like Rito plz [zombie-brand-facepalm]

Dynamiku Entry2 votes

I agree, I like how you're trying to address a real issue and some random thresh main shows up and thinks its all about him. Support pride/ignorance.

MatthewRT21 votes

It's not an issue it's just that only some people can main a role where you get next to no credit for great plays and get all of the blame when someone dies and you are in the vicinity.

We just need to go back a few seasons where pick order determined your role in ranked and stop all of this fill bs

Dynamiku Entry1 votes

How bliss is your ignorance?

ShaolinToilet1 votes

Why do you hate support players

Dynamiku Entry1 votes

I enjoy support players as much as I enjoy supporting, which is independant of how much I enjoy playing the support champions. I can entirely dislike someone, their opinion, and their ego, without deterimenting my appreciation for the role or champ.

BastionKross2 votes

Ideally, the best solution would be to make support a more popular role so that it no longer is a bottleneck and everyone's happy. Just exactly how to accomplish that is the million dollar question.

Removing the support role from the game entirely would indeed solve the problem. It would make life (and queue times) much easier for the other four roles, but completely remove a portion of the playerbase. You could argue that that portion of the playerbase isn't nearly as large as the other roles and that it can be alienated without a major drop in players, but we can't know that for sure without Riot's numbers.

Riot has shown that they can make those "Sacrifice the few for the good of the many" decisions (RIP Dominion), but only as a last resort. I think Riot is willing to give the support role some more love after they gather the data from the free support weeks we're in now; but they know they have to start taking action soon as the bottlenecking that support is doing is starting to choke too much. Auto fill is not a solution, it's a symptom.

Tychusfindlay9191 votes

{quoted}

Ideally, the best solution would be to make support a more popular role so that it no longer is a bottleneck and everyone's happy. Just exactly how to accomplish that is the million dollar question.

Removing the support role from the game entirely would indeed solve the problem. It would make life (and queue times) much easier for the other four roles, but completely remove a portion of the playerbase. You could argue that that portion of the playerbase isn't nearly as large as the other roles and that it can be alienated without a major drop in players, but we can't know that for sure without Riot's numbers.

Riot has shown that they can make those "Sacrifice the few for the good of the many" decisions (RIP Dominion), but only as a last resort. I think Riot is willing to give the support role some more love after they gather the data from the free support weeks we're in now; but they know they have to start taking action soon as the bottlenecking that support is doing is starting to choke too much. Auto fill is not a solution, it's a symptom.

Wonderful response.

BastionKross1 votes

For a hypothetical situation, let's assume that Riot does throw their arms up, cries defeat, and deletes the support role. What does that mean for support champs?

Naturally, Riot would have to rebalance them for other roles. It would be several class updates (support mages to midlane, support tanks to top/jungle, bard being... jungle?, etc.) that would take Riot a very long time to accomplish. Because Riot is Riot, and Riot is slow.

So now Riot has chased away players that liked the support role and chased away players that liked support champions. You'd almost have to rebalance the supports before the role is deleted (taking way too long to solve the bottleneck) or at the same time (which is a lot of work for one or two patches) to avoid alienating players that liked support champs but weren't attached to the support role. That would soften the blow of the support mains leaving.

Deleting the support role is the easy part, dealing with the champions who no longer have a home would be difficult. That being said, it could still be the easier of the options on the table.

Zero Skill Tank1 votes

Yeah, lets remove 3 or 4 entire playstyles in the game, completely rebalance all the rest of the classes, because some kids can't stand playing anything else than Yasuo once in a while.

Rite, lez do dat.

whycantibethree1 votes

People are just too stupid to realize you can get almost as much AP on some supports with the blue support item as you can from farming mid at lower levels.

I don't really see whats so different from playing support karma/velkoz/brand rather than mid of those champs.

Talisid1 votes

As a former support main, I'll give my 2 cents.

  1. Weak communication. As much as a dread the level of BM and flaming that would occur, adding voice chat to the game it would at least make duo lanes a lot more coordinated. Attempting to get your lane-mate to coordinate with you in solo queue is very frustrating.

  2. Sightstone Tax. Sightstone is an item that, if at least one person on your team doesn't build it you will probably lose. Why is it always the support who has to buy it? Because for anybody else in the game it would set their build back too much and they'd lose lane. Its an 800 gold tax item that is only bought on the role who has the least ability to gain gold. IMO it is clearly time for Riot to buff the Yellow Trinket and remove sightstone so that supports can spend their gold on items that they actually want instead of what they are required to buy.

Tsugaga1 votes

Support wasn't even really a thing until people realized that utility champs could sacrifice gold/exp to boost the other 4 teammates. I'm sure everyone has played a 4v5 game, and probably everyone has won that 4v5 or come close. Why? Because gold/exp is concentrated into 4 champs and not 5, and sometimes a 5th wheel as just an added weight which keeps the team of 5 individually weaker and lower level. This has been the norm for a very long time now and hasn't changed, there's still a teammate in every single game who sacrifices gold/exp to boost the others (mainly the marksman) and uses their limited gold for more utility.

Just examine the attempts to play a "kill lane" bot, when usually some bruiser like Panth/Lee/Xin goes bot with the marksman. It happens, and works at times, but its rarity shows that concentrating gold into carries wins games.

Honestly, I believe the problem with support is a lack of respect. Support is treated like the bitch of a team, along with the jungler, but support usually more so. Supports are expected to do all the hard work around the whole map such as warding/clearing while staying with their team and peeling/shielding/healing, all while having the least gold on the team. Riot needs to do more to teach players to respect support, and teach people how to ward. Warding was changed from a support job to the job of a whole team when they set ward limits per champ, but players are cheap/lazy and yell at supports with no gold to buy sight stone and control wards. Everyone can buy a control ward, players just use them stupidly so they believe it's a waste. Using control wards in the most walked bushes for example, like the side bushes of mid lane, is a bad idea if you want your ward to last more than a minute.

G4LLOWSC4L1BR4TR1 votes

{quoted} I can't claim to know a viable solution in regards to making support more attractive. Hell, if you asked me, I would eliminate support entirely and create 4 lanes or just have teams of 4.

The problem with deleting support as a role is that there are a lot of people who genuinely enjoy the role, and if you delete it I can say with relative confidence that I'd probably just up and quit the game. Just because most people don't enjoy the role doesn't mean nobody does.

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