Riot, please wake up. If you want the game to last, listen to the players. Roles and queues.

(I also posted this on Reddit, but I expect it won't get too much attention, and I hope at least someone will read this and give it a thought)

First off, let me say that I love this game. I've played it for a long time and it means a lot to me. I guess that for that reason I feel very invested in what Riot is doing and how it affects the players as well as the future of this game. The issues at hand are not easy and I understand that there are no simple solutions. We all need to think long and hard on what can be done, and Riot should listen to our suggestions if they don't want this whole thing to spin out of control and drive everything into the ground.

So, I decided to get informed and watch the infamous round table video. I have a few views and ideas and I'd like to share them with the community. I hope you'll care enough to listen to them, even though I'm just a nobody.

Let’s start off with what Scarra said: “It’s awful. A matchmaking server should have a couple key things. So one, it should help me find skilled players around my level. Two, it should be quick, essentially the game should be relatively fast. I don’t want to be waiting in queue for upwards of 50 minutes, that I have done in this current system. And three, I should be able to play what I want to play. If I’m going to switch from solo queue to dynamic queue and they’re going to enforce roles, I should be able to enforce the role that I want to play. And I think that on all three levels, the matchmaking system has failed.”

And all the Riot employee were saying was “The way you framed it was pretty much perfect how the matchmaking works”, then goes off saying something else, a word salad basically confirming what Scarra said, but the conclusion is “You are right”, “It’s not perfect”, “We are looking into it”, “But we won’t actually do anything about it”.

This “round table” is a travesty. It creates an illusion of an open and constructive discussion, despite the fact that before the discussion even begins, Pwyff states flat-out: “We’re not bringing back solo queue”. So what is this then? The three stooges are just sitting there all fidgety and awkward, listening to criticism, taking a beating, with nothing valid or constructive to reply with except “Our data shows” and “We have been bad at communicating” and “We are working on improving the system”, and “The problem is”, and “Our goals are”, and “We kind of missed the ball”, and “Right now, matchmaking quality is legitimately not good”, and “We’re moving forward and addressing problems”, “We acknowledge”, “We can’t talk openly”, “We don’t have that answer yet”, and “I believe” all the while conceding that the system is bad and what they have managed to achieve so far is bad, like admitting that what they’re doing sucks negates the fact that it does indeed suck.

They are making a show of listening to criticism, it’s like they’re saying “Look! We are working together on this issue, we are listening to what the professional players and the community have to say”, even though the bottom line is, they still do what they want to do, and this display is nothing but a smokescreen to legitimize the already predetermined direction which they have opted for.

Unlike gbay, I’m not glad Riot did this, because it’s nothing but a show for the masses, with the implication that the guys who sat at that table are less likely to criticize them now because they feel like their opinion was acknowledged, even though it really wasn’t.

Here are the arguments they listed for dynamic queue:

Lower player harassment. Granted, a good thing, even though some would say not as important as competitive integrity. Also, it may not have as much to do with dynamic cue as with role selection, like they mentioned.

Teamwork now being what ranked is all about, as opposed to individual contribution. Again, not a bad thing per se, except that you are alienating a large percentage of players who cannot participate in that. Everyone can have individual contribution. Not everyone can rely on teamwork to climb, if they don’t have friends to play with or if they want to play with others.

Back to toxicity. They threw in words like engagement and fairness as being huge pro-dynamic factors, but never explained them. What do those two words mean? Wouldn’t you say that the old system was fairer?

“Toxicity” again. It is a buzzword they like to throw around to justify all of their actions it seems. Much like terrorism when used in politics.

Playing with friends being more fun and less angry – sure, assuming you are in a position to do that. If you are not, then you play with a group of people who are not your friends, but can make the experience way worse for you.

Again saying that the experience is way better for 5s, 4s and 3s, completely disregarding solo players.

Scarra is a genius, huge respect for him. His concluding remarks are just as insightful as what he said at the beginning: “The follow-up is going to be super important. You haven’t completely sold me. I’m not convinced. In a month, if what happens is, nothing changes and there’s no response, you guys have a problem.”

Their answer: “What I think we can do is better acknowledge when we’ve got a problem”. God! I just want to punch that guy in the face! What does that solve? What does it prove, except that you are a bunch of spineless, clueless, incompetent kids who go around saying “we’ve messed up”, “we know it sucks”, instead of fixing the issue, which is something a responsible, serious and professional group of people would have done?

Socrates said in his concluding remarks: “There is a hit we took to personal evaluation… But the meaning of ranked in LoL includes team play, and that’s the world we’re in. “ How about you give the players the choice? This shift from ‘personal evaluation’ to ‘teamplay’ makes absolutely no sense, it defeats the whole idea of ranked. It’s a ranked ladder, and everyone gets ranked individually, even if they attained that rank with a group of people. They won’t get ranked together with the people they played with! So, you have a ladder that reflects what looks like someone’s individual achievements, since they are individually ranked, even though the preferred way of getting that rank is through prioritizing teamwork and cooperation with other players!

The main goals of all the changes seem to be: shorter queue times, role selection and matchmaking fairness.

Here are the two solutions I suggest:

When it comes to fairness and dynamic queue, the most important thing is giving players a choice. If you are a solo player, you should have the option to queue up for 1. Only solo queue and 2. Solo queue and dynamic queue (so whichever pops up first is what you get, if your only goal is to find a game faster).

When it comes to role selection, I believe it should be limited to facilitate shorter queue times. I think that the system should first match together 10 similarly skilled players – that should be the first priority. Then the players rank all the roles based on preference from 1-5 (or 1-6 if you count fill). After that, and only after that, all the players should be automatically assigned a role and divided into two teams. When it’s 10 players to choose from, none of them should be forced into his/hers least favorite role. If you haven’t had a chance to play your main role in a couple of games, your priority goes up, so you are guaranteed to get that role. That way, all players should get to play their main role or secondary role quite often, and even though some players wouldn’t get what they wanted, there wouldn’t be as much toxicity as before because it would be the system deciding who plays what, instead of the players fighting over roles.

What does this achieve? Firstly, absolutely shorter queue times. Secondly, better matches, since the system will no longer pair up people from vastly different standings to speed up the long queues; it will instead find similarly-leveled people and put them together much faster. The only trade-off here is role-selection, which will still be available, if in a limited capacity, but still fair and objective.

The end result is absolute success in terms of queue times and matchmaking fairness, with somewhat reduced role selection compared to what we have now, but still way better than the old ranked system. 2.5 out of 3 goals in my opinion is way better than 0 out of 3 goals, which is what we have now.