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RIP Teambuilder or Riot: 1 Step forward, 2 Steps back

Science Fiction·1/15/2016, 2:19:50 AM·16 votes·1,327 views

I love(d) Teambuilder.

Until the changes implemented today, I had not que'd up for a "normal" in quite some time. I honestly cannot understand Riot's actions as to why it had to go.

  1. Teambuilder gave you the opportunity to specify exactly what it was you wanted to play. In doing so, you could devote your time to improving on a certain role or trying out a new jungler. You would most certainly be able to get a feel for how a champion lanes against other champions if you "spammed" said champion, encountering a plethora of matchups.

  2. For the part of the community that may not be focused on flashy ranks or high KDAs, Teambuilder was the best option for leveling up a champion's mastery, or for earning those role specific icons.

  3. The argument that you couldn't build, or often had ridiculous team comps in TB is not a fault of system, but a fault of the accusing player. You wanna practice your Yasuo ? Build your own team with a malphite jungle or someone who can compliment your ult. You joined into a Teemo adc game? No problem just hit the option to put you back into the search. No one was holding a gun to your head telling you that now you were in the lobby, you were required to play with that Morgana jungle.

  4. The portion of the community that flames players for only playing one role. It's obvious that Riot is heavily invested in their LCS scene, which oh by the way...showcases players who ONLY play one role. I know there are pros who have switched roles over time, but you don't see doublelift saying "ahh I think I'll jungle this match." If the pentacle of your game focuses on players who religiously play one role, then why would we knock the average joe for trying to be the best he can be at that role? Your point is invalid. As a disclaimer, I am not defending the type of player who trolls if they do not get their role. It is the cost of doing ranked, if you play you must be able to perform at all positions.

  5. Que times. I won't sugarcoat it and say I never waited ages to find a game. I would estimate that the average time from hitting find match to joining a lobby was roughly 2 minutes, followed by a 0-5 minute wait depending on the players already waiting. It was worth the wait every single game to play exactly what I wanted though, and would of endured even longer times to experience the same thing.

  6. The quality of TB gameplay. In TB, there was a wide spectrum as to what type of player you would get on your team. Yes, maybe you got the summoner trying out Rumble for the first time, but you would also receive a Jinx main who was so in love with a champion and had put in the work to become beyond proficient. It all evened out in the end. Overall, I enjoyed playing with summoners who despite their proficiency in a selected role and champ, were generally pleasant because they were playing what they wanted to play.

just a few things that make me wonder why Riot had to disable it. I don't doubt the new system implemented for champ select will have it's perks, but find it ridiculous that a good thing had to be disabled to go with it. I have seen a great deal of support for TB since riot announced it's departure, and one could only hope they get the message. ( They won't.)

17 Comments

Penguin Eclipse1/15/2016, 2:23:16 AM6 votes

I found the team builder crowd to be the nicest of all the queues. Very few ragers. Very few trolls. Quite often people were willing to make small-talk while waiting in queue. Truly a major blow to the game for those of us who don't give a shit about ranked or competitive play anymore and just want to play the champion we want, when we want, without any hassle.

Jorencice1/15/2016, 2:23:27 AM4 votes

They are adding it to blind pick with no ban phase.

I mean cmon you get the role you want like 90% of the time. It's just a better TB for every person except the people that only play a single champion.

Also as for your pro example I know a challenger who has played with many different pros and they often are not playing their main "role"

ChoNuff1/15/2016, 5:52:58 AM3 votes

Thinking about quitting league over this. Unnecessary to remove teambuilder. Was a really good queue method.

ThatH1N11/15/2016, 4:26:17 AM2 votes

Please bring back team builder.

Deáth by Snu Snu1/18/2016, 7:56:17 PM2 votes

I've played a couple games of the new que and honestly, I hate it. I absolutely hate it. I've experienced almost no problems with Teambuilder. Now you're going to tell me I can't play the role I enjoy, and that my champ might be banned? That is ridiculous. I play lol because its fun, and having the game TELL YOU what role you can or can't play or what champ you can or can't play is not fun, its cancerous. It's not much better even in Blind Pick where its your lane or feed :/

PDE5 Inhibitors1/15/2016, 2:21:28 AM2 votes

I just don't like how they took away SoloQ :/

So I can def feel your pain on them also taking away teambuilder.

RivetAce1/15/2016, 2:27:35 AM2 votes

I did like teambuilder, but there were two faults.

  1. You couldn't build a team-comp at all. Not talking Yasuo comp, I'm talking poke, engage, split, etc. To get better at the game you have to take this into account, and as teambuilder was designed to improve ranked queues (all about higher level play) this is a problem. The best you could do was wait until someone came along who fit your team comp. Which brings me to 2.

  2. Since it was designed to be a prototype for ranked, it had this problem - you couldn't react to the other team's choices with the format. Teambuilder could never stay if it was headed to ranked.

Riot's new queues solve these problems. Admittedly, it was nice to always get the role I wanted, but the queue times were long and there was no flexibility. Perhaps Riot could've kept Teambuilder in for normal queues, but it would've seen even longer queues as less and less people used it in favor of the original or newest queue.

saihLfVQ341/15/2016, 2:57:04 AM2 votes

  1. You can still technically play the champ you want, they might get banned, but you always have a dodge. And if you want to practice someone in a specific role, that is changed now, but you can still play them in a different lane, lets say you play sion, queue up for top or jungle.

  2. Role specific icons were disabled anyways, and at the time, champion mastery was practically useless.

  3. Some people don't want to wait the long queue times to find a Malphite, and some people just don't have friends that will play TB.

  4. Professional players specialize in one role in the LCS. If they are playing SoloQ, they will say Mid pref, but they know how to play the other 4 roles, very effectively also, so they know how their team mates can win lane and stuffs.

  5. From personal experience, I always had to queue up as the roles that people were looking for to find a game in under 5 minutes, otherwise it went to 10-15.

  6. The same could be said for the new Dynamic Queues.

I am not trying to say that TB was bad, I found it fun, I am just trying to justify why it is leaving, and maybe help you understand what Riot was thinking when they did this.

ThrashCaptain1/20/2016, 4:15:25 PM1 votes

For anyone saying "its now teambuilder, but better". This is absolutely wrong. One of the biggest flaws of non-TB has always been queue dodging. In non-TB, if someone leaves, everyone gets kicked back and its starts over. I've only played the new draft-pick a couple times and it seems that they just replace the leaver, but they still go back and don't leave a chat open for the team.

On the reverse side, I can't tell you how many times before teambuilder was a thing that I got stuck with some ridiculous team comp or an off-meta pick that I did not want to deal with. I'm not saying "you should never break the meta". I'm saying I should not have to deal with your experimental choice if I don't want to. As for the ridiculous team comps, I hate it when I try to support and there is, lets say, a yasuo mid, riven top, and udyr jg. Do you see what is wrong there? No AP. That is a terrible idea. That happens to me regularly. With teambuilder, I would simply point out their lack of AP in their comp, then leave for a team that I would enjoy playing with. Now, if I don't like the group I get matched with, I have to dodge and face growing penalties before I can re-queue. Or I can play a 20-40 minute match I will not enjoy.

Let me tell you about the second match I played in the new draft pick. My friend and I had just won a match and that was my first time with the new draft pick. My friend did quite well with an AP Varus mid in that match. We queued up for another he got mid again. He typed that he was going to go AP Varus. One of the other players did not approve, but instead of dodging, he banned varus.

This all goes to show that this new mode, while fancy and pretty, is ultimately much, much worse than teambuilder. I believe it to be better for Ranked play, but I do not play Ranked. I have no interest in it.

Riot needs to realize that people LOVE options. Stop taking away options. Let champs like yi and poppy have ap build options. Let us play all the crazy and wonderful game modes when we want, not just when you decide its OK. And most of all give us some more maps! Four is far too little. It seems like most MOBAs have more than that on release!

/rant