ARAM Team Balancing

ABagOfRice·Jul 20, 2017·3 votes·1,387 views

It seems to me that the ARAM game mode selects a random champion for each player without any algorithm to keep the teams balanced. I would like to suggest a simple idea which would help to solve the issue of wildly unbalanced teams. Just before the game starts, both teams should be able to see the enemy's champions and vote on an enemy champion to force a reroll. Forcing five rerolls is not necessary but being able to force one enemy to reroll will greatly increase the chances of a more balanced game.

Variants of this idea could include a minimum number of votes, to ignore the situations where teammates don't vote.

11 Comments

mkynerJul 20, 20172 votes

How about merging it with your own reroll option?

To start with, in Champion Selection, you can see your team's Champions and the enemy Champions.

Everyone gets one "reroll" per ARAM game. No more building up points until your next one is available. You just get one. But you can do one of several things with it...

Reroll your own Champion, much like it is now. (Done at any time)
Select an Enemy Champion and force it to reroll. (Done at any time before the 15 second mark)
Select an allied Champion to offer a reroll. (Ally can decline; done at any time)

This gives the teams some options for how to allocate their rerolls on both themselves and the Enemy.

Trades would work as normal.

Edit: my main concern with your plan is that it adds more time to the pregame phase, which is already long enough. I like your idea for forcing rerolls, but I think it would need to be incorporated into existing pregame structure.

ABagOfRiceJul 20, 20172 votes

This seems like a much better idea. In addition to solving the issue mentioned in the original post it also solves the much lesser, albeit common, problem of rerolling for a teammate only to find out that your teammate doesn't have the champion you were allocated.

I can't help but think that, if everyone gets a reroll every game, this would cause much commotion before the start of a game. Imagine a scenario where your teammate changes an enemy's champion only for the enemy to reroll, then your other ally could change that enemy's champion again only for their ally to reroll for them and it'll go on until all 10 have been used.

So building on your idea I think it would be sensible to put some kind of limit on a reroll being used on the same person more than once or something similar.

mkynerJul 20, 20171 votes

Conflicting rerolls on the enemy champions would be an issue. How about a delay from when you select an Enemy to reroll, to when the reroll is actually executed?

Say I select an enemy Lux to reroll. Then, for our team, we see a red box around Lux with "mkyner forcing reroll". The box sits there for 2 or 3 seconds, during which time no one else on our team can try to force Lux to reroll. Then the reroll occurs.*

So if two people picked Lux to reroll at the same time, the first one would force the reroll, while the second reroll attempt would be blocked and therefore not wasted. Maybe make it so only one Enemy reroll can be occurring at a time.

You are certainly right that there could be some chaotic rerolling streaks before the game starts, but I'm not sure that's bad. Forcing a few seconds delay between rerolls on the same player would keep things from moving too fast for people to understand.

*I'm just throwing out another option at this point: during that 2 or 3 seconds, the Enemy could see the box two, and know that Lux is about to be rerolled. They would then have the option to use one of their rerolls to block a reroll attempt. This is almost like bidding - how many of your rerolls will you expend to get rid of that Lux? How many will the Enemy expend to keep her? A team that loses such a bidding war in pregame might be looking for vengeance in the actual ARAM game!

Another way to go about this: say that each player can only be rerolled by the Enemy once. That would put a limit on how much chaos you can inflict on a specific person. (Personally, I like the other way better - if the enemy rerolls a person two or three times, he's probably going to be pretty eager to rip them apart during the game.)

Sir FuzziJul 20, 20172 votes

The only change I've wanted in ARAM is a 'highest bidders ban list,' where the consistently high-winrate champs cycle through a 'free week' style ban rotation. While this would basically permaban some picks from ARAM at face value, internal limiters are not out of the question. My other proposed change is double the champion roster for free week in ARAM consisting of lowest performers in every role. That way, people with 'ARAM accounts' don't get their favoured pick every time and have to learn Udyr or Mordekaiser, or get rocked. This will also guarantee a level of diversity in comps.

The problem with making ARAM anything less than 'random' is that you ruin what the game mode is about. It really isn't about balance or balanced comps. It's about improvisation, adaptation and teamwork as a whole (rather than individual carries). The randomness

I just don't want this to become a version of ARAM where everyone ends up with picks they dodge.

One reroll on an enemy isn't a bad idea. Nor is Mkyner's idea of one reroll you can spend any way. But;

A) 1 reroll is not going to save you against a busted comp. Nothing but a busted comp will. Leona, Sona, Caitlyn, Jhin and Fiddlesticks has a far higher chance of winning than a team that is even so lacking as having no ADC (and good picks otherwise).

B) Rerolling enemy champions will increase dodges. I repeat, rerolling enemy champions will increase dodging. I come from an era of 5+ minutes' load time, and god-knows-what for boot time. My patience is unaffected really, but it seems to be a huge point of contention for others.

C) You will never play popular picks again unless your allies have one. Then, your comp is probably busted and see A), but imagine you're losing again.

Given the nature of things, I'd say maybe the whole team votes on where the team's one reroll goes. Then,

But the current fluid design allows the relatively quick queue times to persist. If we start to alter it, we might kill ARAM's popularity overnight.

Like I started with, the only change I've wanted is to expand on the champ selection so there's more overall parity. I think a 'Russian Roulette' kind of ARAM where there's one reroll teamwide and it can be used on either side sounds like an RGM, but I'm also not opposed to the idea of fudging an enemy's team. It adds the kind of chaotic balance I want from ARAM, even for people with 'ARAM accounts.'

I just repeat, if you reroll on the enemy team, you will increase the chances of dodging. That implementation will cause that effect, I guarantee it.

ABagOfRiceJul 20, 20171 votes

You do make some good points , I agree that any of the ideas suggested on this thread will increase the chances of dodging but I think something must be done. As I mentioned in another comment this idea of an additional ARAM rotation or ban list could also solve the issue but it seems like a bigger ask than allowing us to just reroll an enemy champion. The reroll could also have a timer on it to keep the initial load up time low.

JavelinJoeJul 20, 20171 votes

Interesting option, but first I would make ARAM work with the games champion pool, not the player's so that they could not simply just be forced onto another OP with only a slim chance of getting one of the FotW champs.

ABagOfRiceJul 20, 20171 votes

Yeah I would like that too, but I just don't know how likely that would be. I figured asking for one reroll may have a better chance of success.

hhaavviikkJul 20, 20171 votes

no, that would just exists to rob the fun from someone and will never be implemented.

how about we just make all champions F2P in ARAM, solves the problem of ARAM accounts

Sir FuzziJul 20, 20171 votes

Three words: so much dodging.

As I own all but five or six champs I don't care about, I know it won't affect me or players like me. But the people it's designed to affect will be affected indeed, and will be dodging (after bum rolls) left and right to ensure they never have to play champs they'd otherwise never play. Just like... you know, they already do.

I'm neither for nor against this idea at this point as it seems to have caught on. I'm just saying, it will increase dodging. (to which I am also largely ambivalent)

ABagOfRiceJul 20, 20171 votes

I'm not sure how likely it is that we will be able to play any and all champions if we don't own them, it seems like a big ask. I mean an increased champion pool will definitely solve the problem but I figured one forced reroll would be a simpler solution.