New Champ Select - brilliant philosophy, poor implementation

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly-

The Good: -No more teammates (or you) getting stuck with a role/champ they simply do not know and which does not match their ELO in their preferred roles -That's it. That's an amazing thing, but that is about all that was done right. This was one of the best changes to League in ages, but the interface needs a huge overhaul.

The Bad: -Game appears to prioritize fast matches over preferred role - IE if I queue as Support and Mid (respectively the least and most popular queue options) how do I EVER get mid? There are a million people queueing with Mid as their top choice, and putting a second-choice Fill as mid seems a waste of resources since it delays those Mids or forces their second choice. This may just be a back-end prioritization tweak. -Sounds are much louder in the champ select screen than in game. My audio is tuned for in-game and when I'm in champ select it's like being front row at an AC/DC concert, but in an awful way. -Sounds are too similar - there is insufficient audio cue to come back from AFK while -Can't hover over selected champs to see their name - for newish players who can't recognize every portrait but want to do a few quick minutes of research on what they are facing, they won't know who they are facing. -Lost ability to click for more information on the champ - in blind pick you could click a champ and pull up their info screen and see their abilities and animations and stats. This was huge for new players, but now it is completely gone. This loss of functionality over the last system is a step backward.

The Ugly: -The interface is unacceptably slow and inefficient. So SO SO SO slow.
-The first champ-preference screen is a waste of 30 seconds. That should be an option during the ban phase to save time. -35s Countdown after picking is a waste. We already spent four or five minutes in this screen able to update our stuff. We don't need 35 more seconds. -3 people banning 30 seconds each is too slow and cumbersome. One person. Bam, bam, bam. 20s each ban. -LOCK INS ARE STUPID. Read Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein - the "default" matters, and the "default" shouldn't be dodging after you already clicked to take the game. People are AFK in this phase for a good reason - it takes WAY too long and if they already picked a preferred champ, they should lock into that rather than dodging. The fact that not locking in bans also causes dodges makes NO sense and is just crazy - ban whatever champ is highlighted when time runs. -AFK's are everywhere - watch pro streams. People are literally playing OTHER GAMES like Path of Exile in champ select because it takes unreasonable amounts of time. -Slow game finding - due to the problems above, a lot of people AFK while game finding (including me while I type this, since it is 10 minutes into my game search with two dodges mid-champ select phase) many dodges (I assume most are inadvertent due to failure to lock in/afk during ban phase) it can sometimes take longer to find a game than to play one. I am sure there are internal metrics on this, but it's bad. And insanely frustrating.

I'm so happy with this design shift, it is a huge step forward for League. But the rush to get this out for 2016 season instead of 2017 leaves a lot of interface room for improvement and steamlining. I hope it gets updated!

<3

Whisk