The actual problem with autofill.

Axtrous··4 votes·663 views

No, this isn't really a rant, more of a, lets say educational POV on this topic. So, we're all aware of how much getting autofilled sucks, and how it even preemptively tells you while you queue up, that you're in danger of said autofill. Autofill can mean you get anyrole that hasn't been queued for, but 95% of the time, it's the role that everyone seems to find to be useless, being support. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the system. But, it appears 90% of the playerbase does. I swear half the board is whining and complaining about it, even when we had a similar system to this prior, where you had a 1/5 chance to be last pick, which ultimately meant support. Taken, that's a lot better of a chance to NOT get support than playing 2 games after you get autofilled, regarding the fact that remakes count as one of the 2. So, theoretically, you can play support, then have 2 remakes after, then get queued for autofill again. Lame right?

Addressing the issue It seems that autofill is doing the complete opposite of what it was designed to do. To get us into games faster, right? Yes, the queue times are faster, but the games are just awful now. My ranked games have been nothing but corrupt, having people in champion select saying "i'm not going support" and locks Draven in. This happens more often than not, and i'm sure a lot of you can agree. Just to point this out, this isn't the scenario like the Nunu bot with smite thing. People do this without the teams consent, which is another reason this needs to be addressed. I remember a point in time where autofill only existed in higher elo, I believe it was Diamond+, which is understandable regarding the massive queue times. But you HAVE to factor this into play, more than 77% of the entire playerbase is in Silver or Bronze. I really don't understand it is necessary to add this feature in lower elo when the playerbase is so high.

5 Comments

Dethflash5 votes

I agree with you on the majority. Yeah autofill has improved queue time, but at what cost? Greatly increased chance to get trolled, someone dodging champion all the time, and autofill protected being comoletely wasted on a remake game. Im only silver 1, but the past month it has taken me (no exaggeration here) 5+ champion selects every time to get into one game, to add lemon juice to the burn, i get the role i queue up for the first 4 or 5 times but the 5th or 6th champion select when finally no one dodges, i get autofilled after having the role i wanted for 5 champion selects before. So now adding up all the time from when i first press the Find a Match button to when i get into the game loading screen, it easily has taken 15+ minutes. So for me personally autofill has slaughtered queue health, because before (ive been playing since season 4) i had always only waited 4 or 5 minutes and im totally cool wth that, but now im getting thrown in and out of champion select so many times that it takes an extra 10 minutes just to get into a game. I dont mind autofill to much, its the problems it causes that starts to piss me off and riot claims its helping when its clearly only helping higher elo players like diamond and above

DrCyanide2 votes

Silver 3 here, queuing Mid/ADC, only been auto filled twice out of 47 Solo/Duo games, and not at all in 23 Flex games (also playing alone).

2/70 = 3% of games getting auto filled, while queuing for what's universally considered the most popular role.

I rarely see dodged either, but I tend not to stay queued up if someone does dodge, after a bad experience in Season 5 where someone used picks before the dodge to influence who they'd ban (seemed unfair to me, so I denied the possibility). My queue time was about 2 minutes last night.

So from where I stand, Auto Fill seems to be working as intended. I really don't understand the hate, when statistically I should be seeing the problem more than anyone.

Kulthor1 votes

And then you got the other 99% where autofill is CONSTANT issue. Just because you're lucky enough to not get spoiled with this lovely system, doesn't mean it's working as intended. It's kinda hard to bullshit the topic, when 80% of the fucking boards are cluttered with "autofill is x".

DrCyanide2 votes

OK then, what are your personal stats with Auto Fill?

The problem I see with most Auto Fill complaints is a lack of data. I've seen people complain about how "Auto Fill is an Auto-Loss", when they literally had a higher win rate being Auto Filled than they did on their main two positions.

The bias around Auto Fill seems worse than Auto Fill itself. That's what made me keep track, so I could see exactly what was going on. I expect anyone trying to carry on an actual discussion about Auto Fill is a problem to have data backing up their claim, more than "people are talking about it".

Dethflash2 votes

{quoted}

Silver 3 here, queuing Mid/ADC, only been auto filled twice out of 47 Solo/Duo games, and not at all in 23 Flex games (also playing alone).

2/70 = 3% of games getting auto filled, while queuing for what's universally considered the most popular role.

I rarely see dodged either, but I tend not to stay queued up if someone does dodge, after a bad experience in Season 5 where someone used picks before the dodge to influence who they'd ban (seemed unfair to me, so I denied the possibility). My queue time was about 2 minutes last night.

So from where I stand, Auto Fill seems to be working as intended. I really don't understand the hate, when statistically I should be seeing the problem more than anyone.

You my good sir, have be greatly blessed. I get autofilled 1/3 of all games, id would be willing to bet that if autofill protected didnt exist i would get autofilled even more than only 1/3 of the time

More from Gameplay

More by Axtrous