Boards›Gameplay

Lack of True Competitiveness in Ranked Play

Llama··3 votes·473 views

@Riot

So I have auto-fill activated right now.

I queue up for ranked as 1. Mid 2. Jungle. I've now gotten jungle 3 times in a row. I do not want to play anything but mid in ranked, mid is MY position. I am a mid laner, not a jungler, nor any other role.

First off, why is my auto-fill STILL activated after I play a game of my off role? The choice is there for players to select positions, but not how many? At least auto-fill protect a player for their primary role after playing their secondary choice...

If I'm filled into any other role but mid lane, 1. That game is now a waste of my time because I do not aspire to master any other role, and 2. it just puts me at a disadvantage in a competitive environment, why on earth would I or any other player who sincerely wants to win go through with playing that game?

So, I will not stop dodging my auto-filled games in ranked (which many others do, and pretty much every high elo coach recommends clients do who want to climb) as I'm playing ranked solely for competition's sake, to improve as a player, to win games, and to climb **as a mid laner. **

I totally understand the queue health thing, but how could you prioritize getting into games faster over the competitiveness of the game ** itself.** ESPECIALLY when 99% of your truly competitive players would CHOOSE to wait longer to get into a game provided they get their one main role. That's worse decision making than flashing into baron pit to try to 1v5 as an 0/10/0 Soraka jungle.

In my opinion, the long term negatives that come with prioritizing your precious queue times over ranked play competitiveness are:

  1. Poorer performance of players (due to being filled)
  2. Lacking competitiveness (games often based on luck; # of autofilled players vs. # of main role players)
  3. Frustration due to poor performance or having a teammate who is playing poorly (due to being filled); increased toxicity
  4. Toxicity spreads to other players in game and spreads a worse overall experience to others
  5. Eventual decline in queue health due to consistent dodging (as the world realizes that even 10lp/30min timer dodges have no effect on mmr whatsoever, so you should pretty much never not dodge filled role games - just make a smurf and queue up again right away)

If you fill me support, you might as well pick my champion for me too because I'm most likely going 0/5 before 10mins in ranked regardless. And that's just realism, I don't practice support, I'm not a support player! Pick two positions for normals, sure. Casual players are playing for fun so if they don't get their strongest role it's not the end of the world, but for ranked? Even if players want to choose a main and offrole to get into games faster, by all means, but give us the option to wait longer to get our main role.

This season, who wins and loses seems to be pretty much based on whoever's team has more or less offrole/autofilled players on their team.

Do you try out for kicker or quarterback? Center or goalie? Point guard or power forward? Or both? Does the coach force you, as a receiver, to suddenly be a linebacker at game time?

Is ranked play supposed to be competitive or not?

If not, I'm out. But I need an answer because there are clearly conflicting principles in your philosophy behind ranked play matchmaking.

Llama

P.S. While you're at it, please stop players from first-timing champions in ranked, make mastery 5 a minimum requirement to pick that champ in ranked or something. I'm sick of my Janna one-trick support being filled top lane, first timing gnar, and then going 0/10 because they're against a 600 game Irelia one-trick, it's actually a joke. First timing a champ in ranked is essentially inting and therefore should be bannable (if ranked is supposed to be competitive, that is).

10 Comments

Sëtíer2 votes

I know this is like 10 months old but I full-heratedly agree with you @llama. Ive been debating weather or not to quit LoL altogether. it used to be so good. simple. runes were easy. Now every single AA and every damage that is dealt or given has 10000 factors and I cant do the math. whos to say there is not a million buggs(which there are).

Jamaree1 votes

Because queue times would balloon out of control if autofill wasn't a thing.

Edit: As for the mastery thing, no one is gonna wanna play a champion in normals for mastery 5 for a niche pick.

Llama1 votes

The problem is, there isn't really an alternative (again, assuming ranked is supposed to be competitive - which it isn't if people are playing anything but their strongest roles). You can't force people into a position other than their main role in say a platinum elo game and expect them to perform their off role at the same platinum level, it just doesn't work. You're going to lose that game 9 times out of 10 against a main role player. And players should never be forced into a mental space where they don't think they can carry the game on their own (being in a uncomfortable/foreign role) and just hope the main role players carry them. That's extremely clunky and adds so much unnecessary, un-enjoyable game and queue time to one's progression and development as a player.

Not saying "my teams fault, better jg wins, no ganks, feeder top xd," just that it simply isn't a competitive environment unless everyone is playing to the best of their ability in each match (aka their main role and tight champ pool).

@Mastery thing - again like, the philosophy should just be "too bad," like you just don't know the champion well enough if you haven't played games on it, period. So you shouldn't be allowed to play it in serious games.

Edit: "No one is gonna wanna..." like tough. If you don't want to put the time into these things, you shouldn't being playing ranked, because you don't care enough. I guess that's my point, there needs to be a much clearer difference between ranked play and casual play, there's too many casual players in ranked who aren't actually competing. A "niche pick" of a champion you haven't played is choosing to go in not knowing your matchups, your optimal build paths, power spikes, your champion's job in the game, how it fits into team compositions, etc.

Jamaree1 votes

{quoted}

The problem is, there isn't really an alternative (again, assuming ranked is supposed to be competitive - which it isn't if people are playing anything but their strongest roles). You can't force people into a position other than their main role in say a platinum elo game and expect them to perform their off role at the same platinum level, it just doesn't work. You're going to lose that game 9 times out of 10 against a main role player. And players should never be forced into a mental space where they don't think they can carry the game on their own (being in a uncomfortable/foreign role) and just hope the main role players carry them. That's extremely clunky and adds so much unnecessary, un-enjoyable game and queue time to one's progression and development as a player.

Indeed, it isn't the most competitive option, but it either this or longer queue times which people will also complain about. People want fast queues while also getting the role they want without having to set up a team, what people don't realize is just how impossible that is. People don't like playing support, and because of that, queue times would bloat, we saw this before the autofill system, queue times nearly doubled in all elos, and in challenger, don't even get me started. In a dream world, we would have an even break between players playing all roles, but that isn't the case so it falls down to longer queue times for more accurate role selection or vice versa, you get one or the other. YOU might be ok with the former, but best believe the moment the other one comes around, people change their tune real quick.

@Mastery thing - again like, the philosophy should just be "too bad," like you just don't know the champion well enough if you haven't played games on it, period. So you shouldn't be allowed to play it in serious games.

So even though I know a champion in and out but don't play them enough to hit mastery 5, I shouldn't be allowed to play them when the time arises?

Llama1 votes

Again though, I'm just talking ranked, if people are complaining about queue times they're probably just casual players playing for fun and thus should not be in ranked queues anyway (except like challenger streamers who obviously have audiences to entertain and don't want to have too much idle time - and like I said, just give them the option to choose multiple roles if they want, so they can queue faster if they choose). Every player who has climbed knows it's most efficient to master one role, and usually one champ (/the less the better), so you can focus on learning the game itself and not on mechanics. People not liking to play support is a bronze/silver thing, which really isn't even competitive play yet, lol.

No offense but you don't know the champion in and out if you don't have mastery 5 on them, I would actually say even at 7 you most likely still don't know the champ in and out. Mastery 5 is only like what 20 games..? Less? You're just starting to learn the champ at that stage, still far from suitable for competitive ranked play imo, but at least it would be a limit related to a little experience. You know the champion in and out after hundreds of games.

Jamaree1 votes

{quoted}

Again though, I'm just talking ranked, if people are complaining about queue times they're probably just casual players playing for fun and thus should not be in ranked queues anyway (except like challenger streamers who obviously have audiences to entertain and don't want to have too much idle time - and like I said, just give them the option to choose multiple roles if they want, so they can queue faster if they choose). Every player who has climbed knows it's most efficient to master one role, and usually one champ (/the less the better), so you can focus on learning the game itself and not on mechanics. People not liking to play support is a bronze/silver thing, which really isn't even competitive play yet, lol.

It is, you aren't wrong, I'm saying that people aren't willing to deal with longer queue times over more accurate role, and the moment autofill gets removed, you are gonna have inverse post talking about how bad the queue times are.

No offense but you don't know the champion in and out if you don't have mastery 5 on them, I would actually say even at 7 you most likely still don't know the champ in and out. Mastery 5 is only like what 20 games..? Less? You're just starting to learn the champ at that stage, still far from suitable for competitive ranked play imo, but at least it would be a limit related to a little experience. You know the champion in and out after hundreds of games.

I have played Nasus for a long time, I know his ins and outs, I only play ranked, I feel he isn't that strong with him at all times, thus I don't play him, he is mastery four for me. I shouldn't be allowed to even when it is most optimal.

haaaaaaalp2 votes

That is kind of bullshit given the current ranked distribution of players. The most popular role is mid lane with 24% of players as primary and the least popular is support with 16% selecting as primary. Lets say that riot theoretically developed a ranked system where everyone only had to select 1 role and there was no autofill. This would mean that support players would constantly be playing games while mid players would rotate and play two out of every three. The queue times in this situation would be half of average game duration plus pick/ban and loading phase.

Looking at league of graphs, game durations are ranging from 24-28 minutes. Pick/ban is 4 minutes if everyone takes their sweet time and loading adds another 2-4 minutes. This means that if ranked was set up to be everyone selected 1 role and there was no autofill, queue times would be 16 minutes for mid and significantly shorter for every other role.

Now add to the equation that every player is selecting two roles, not one, in ranked and the system can put each player in either of the two roles depending on what position needs to be filled. The second most popular role is bot lane 22%. Lets say that if out of all non support players, only 2% picked support as their secondary. You are all of a sudden looking at 8 minute queue times without autofill.

Jamaree1 votes

{quoted}

That is kind of bullshit given the current ranked distribution of players. The most popular role is mid lane with 24% of players as primary and the least popular is support with 16% selecting as primary. Lets say that riot theoretically developed a ranked system where everyone only had to select 1 role and there was no autofill. This would mean that support players would constantly be playing games while mid players would rotate and play two out of every three. The queue times in this situation would be half of average game duration plus pick/ban and loading phase.

Looking at league of graphs, game durations are ranging from 24-28 minutes. Pick/ban is 4 minutes if everyone takes their sweet time and loading adds another 2-4 minutes. This means that if ranked was set up to be everyone selected 1 role and there was no autofill, queue times would be 16 minutes for mid and significantly shorter for every other role.

Now add to the equation that every player is selecting two roles, not one, in ranked and the system can put each player in either of the two roles depending on what position needs to be filled. The second most popular role is bot lane 22%. Lets say that if out of all non support players, only 2% picked support as their secondary. You are all of a sudden looking at 8 minute queue times without autofill.

Exactly, people don't want to wait 8 minutes to play a game, and this is only at low elo, I don't even want to imagine the high elo queues.

haaaaaaalp1 votes

{quoted}

Exactly, people don't want to wait 8 minutes to play a game, and this is only at low elo, I don't even want to imagine the high elo queues.

Where do you get that idea from? I'm sure people would gladly wait a few minutes more if it meant no autofill.

At the very least, autofill should be optional. If your theory is correct and most people don't want to wait for it, then making autofill optional will allow the handful of players who are willing to wait the option to wait without adversely effecting everyone else.

KlydeFrog1 votes

shocker, no one wants to play supp, then comes jungle. are your mad. also supp is the easiest role to play in the game you dont cs or anything and are basically a ward bot, if you can mid you can supp, take the same champ and just go bot with them

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes