If you teach players that Team Builder is bad, no one will use it when you fix it

MXXIV·Feb 3, 2015·58 votes·7,639 views

Did you try Internet Explorer any time recently? I doubt it. As a web developer I occasionally test sites in all browsers. IE has improved significantly and no longer suffers from grave deviations from the specification. I rarely see something rendered different than other browsers. But nobody uses it.

What does it tell us in general? If it has been now hour and half I've been trying to join a team builder game as a solo top fighter ( ), even though I got never kicked and I never left, I'll stop using this matching algorithm.

And others will stop too. And the less players use it, the more it sucks. Look at the graph again. The blue line. That's you.

But why am I posting it when blind queue takes 30 seconds on average? It's because I really support the team-builder idea. I'm tired of people arguing who said mid first. I'm tired of instalockers. Team builder is the right way in my opinion. But it must be completed to work.

Both matching and starting speed could be improved significantly with little effort. I'm not sure if all these ideas were posted, so please forgive any repetitive ones:

Allow user to pick multiple roles before queuing. First role than will be assigned.
Similarly, captains should be allowed to make patterns for roles. Such as tank/bruiser on top. Assasin/tank/buiser jungle.
I take this back. - Enable to report player who is "trolling" by picking invalid role/lane for their champion. Captains often do not kick these players because they don't want to wait another 30 minutes.
Dodging blind games renders you a penalty. That's for a reason! So similarly, introduce a limit for "Find another group". In ARAM, you also only have 2 rerolls. While the penalty shouldn't be as grave, there should be one for repetitive cancelling/leaving as it does harm gaming experience of others.

The last point is the most important. You can't never get totally ideal team. But apparently, many players don't hesitate to leave once they're in. And that causes more leaving until captain gives up and disbands the rest.

It's true that as a support I had no problems. But playing as support with strangers is not fun. All you get are insults, "u ks" hatespech when you accidentally hit somebody (unfortunately, that's the only 's flaw).

If you can't secure that the games start in 20 minutes top, withdraw the teambuilder and then announce a big remake when it's fixed. People will try it again and find it's better. But the deeper disappointment you build in them, the harder will be the comeback.

###More suggestions from bellow:

Allow 2 or 3 premade players to search for group. This will allow Support+ADC pairs and will speed up everything significantly - Originally posted by Mikal Pikal
I had an additional idea of IP rewarding players that pick the needed roles.
People make some good points against my 3. and 4. - read here and here
Indicate lack of captains/solo players and motivate players to switch other way around. I made this image as an idea: ##As captain: ##As soloist:
Originally posted by Rainbowgasm.

71 Comments

SmokingPuffinFeb 3, 201513 votes

It's true that as a support I had no problems. But playing as support with strangers is not fun. All you get are insults, "u ks" hatespech when you accidentally hit somebody (unfortunately, that's the only 's flaw).

If you can't secure that the games start in 20 minutes top, withdraw the teambuilder and then announce a big remake when it's fixed. People will try it again and find it's better. But the deeper disappointment you build in them, the harder will be the comeback.

This right here is the core problem. Support players have near zero incentive to play team builder. They can get support whenever they want in blind pick with 30 second queues. The result is that the system is always waiting for supports and has an ocean of solo lane players.

It's a classic problem, copied straight from WoW dungeon finder.

MXXIVFeb 3, 201511 votes

Maybe give IP bounties on most desired roles. Something like this:

BorblandFeb 3, 20152 votes

Great idea, makes the wait for a support a lot shorter.

INTER5TELLARFeb 3, 20156 votes

People have been hollering for this for ages. World of Warcraft implemented something similar for LFG (Looking For Group - an automated system to assemble players by role) for tanks and healers, which respectively are much like jg and support. People queuing for tanks/heals (when the demand called for it) would get bonus points (I can't remember...emblems or something) and a bag which had a wide assortment of RNG determined items, including mounts, items etc.

League could implement something like this.

Maybe instead of just IP boosting the volunteers, they could give a flat 50ip bonus, and a "mystery gift" which could be more IP (something like 25-35, probably - something like 75% chance), could be RP (a small quantity - 5-10RP. about 20% chance) or even a champ/skin (2.5% chance, each). I think at the mere prospect of getting a skin or champ most people would be chomping at the bit to queue as the "needed roles."

To help filter out people just rolling their mains in "less than successful" positions (e.g. "hurrdurr, I don't really wanna supp, so Ill get the bonus by playing riven!), Team Builder captains could select "preference" champions for each role that would assist the program after they spent X minutes without success looking for a specific role. E.g. - "8 minutes have elapsed since you began queue and you have seen 0 supports. Would you like to choose any preferences before the system offers rewards to those joining your team as a support?" and then they could select whoever they felt best fit the comp.

Team Builder in its current form is fantastic, but could use some polishing.

MXXIVFeb 3, 20155 votes

Team captains would then have a big responsibility to kick unwanted/fake supports. Further more, more demands would be laid on these positions as everybody would know that they are "being paid to play them".

Frankly, the bonuses you propose are too good and would generate too much miss behaviour. I was rather thinking about little bonus for those who have not 100% decided what role they want to play.

INTER5TELLARFeb 3, 20151 votes

I wasn't saying those were the exact bonuses. Those were merely ideas. I WoW the bag you got with "prizes" had like a 1% chance of a mount - I que'd for like 50 dungeons over the period of 2 weeks and never saw a mount in the bag. Not to mention, the reward isn't permanently available - it's only when there's a shortage of XXXXX role. The IP/RP quantities could be tweaked, etc.

I just think they need to either A. Give the rewards for needed roles or B. temporarily disable blind que.

If they did B, I think the number of "mid or feed" trolls and communication "oh crap 2 of us que'd jg" errors would vanish. People would see the enormous benefit of 100% of the time getting the lane/role they want at the minor cost of waiting in que for 60ish seconds - that is if they implemented B.

MXXIVFeb 4, 20153 votes

As I already said here, by wanting to disable blind queue, what you really want is to forbid someone elses way of playing to force him your way. That's how totality works.

Now democracy works the way I propose: You just make your way of playing better and people will go for it, voluntarily. Which is why I'm appeling that we improve the teambuilder to make it more popular.

ShinjusukeFeb 9, 20151 votes

And what's wrong with "forbidding someone else's way of playing?"

Team Builder is better than standard blind pick. Hands down, no logical argument to the contrary. It is an outright BETTER system.

Blind pick is LITERALLY team builder queue except with the added bullshit of the pre-game lobby, the most well-known zone of immaturity and hostility in the game.

If Team Builder forced draft mode, it'd be different. As it stands, team builder is a blind pick scenario. Blind pick doesn't not need to exist, offers nothing unavailable in team builder, and is worse is every respect.

Yeah, I'm "forcing people my way". I'd do it an instant. Just like I'd force the idiots who won't vaccinate their children because it's "their way" to do so in an instant. Rebellion against blatantly better choices purely to be an idiotic contrarian and can't figure it out yourself means you need forced to those better decisions, like a 4 year old needs forced to go to bed.

MXXIVFeb 9, 20151 votes

I also already explained this. No matter how you optimise teambuilder it will take significantly longer before you get into a game and before the game starts. By being thrown into a lobby in the blind queue, people are forced to split the roles somehow - teambuilder instead will always have to wait until someone voluntarily decides to play the roles. I doubt we'll ever push the game start under 10 minutes. Even when I played as support it took about these 8-10 minutes. And when I joined, everyone else have been already waiting for a long while.

So yes, there is a logical argument which is that sometimes I want to start NOW. Blind queue rarely takes over 6 minutes to start. So even if playing a support - maybe especially the support - the blind queue is more viable.

And I'd be pretty pissed if someone added 10 minutes of waiting to all my games.

GolthurnahlFeb 5, 20151 votes

The giving of the award could be contingent on whether the team won. I.E., if you pick support because there is a chance of free RP, skin, or champ, your team has to win in order for that to be possible. Other mechanics such as increased chance for good win rates could be added.

MXXIVFeb 5, 20151 votes

Good win rates? How do you imagine that would work?

RaptameiFeb 5, 20151 votes

{quoted}

The giving of the award could be contingent on whether the team won. I.E., if you pick support because there is a chance of free RP, skin, or champ, your team has to win in order for that to be possible. Other mechanics such as increased chance for good win rates could be added.

And suddenly you get flamed for trying something new because your team wants the win RP.

RaptameiFeb 3, 201512 votes

{quoted}

This right here is the core problem. Support players have near zero incentive to play team builder. They can get support whenever they want in blind pick with 30 second queues. The result is that the system is always waiting for supports and has an ocean of solo lane players.

It's a classic problem, copied straight from WoW dungeon finder.

I play teambuilder as a support or jungler. It allows me to pick and choose my team at will, which blind pick does not.

In blind pick, you have to deal with 3 retards screaming they called mid first and possibly troll picking and definitely hating each other. In teambuilder this doesn't happen. You just have to be liberal with the "find other team" button and hit it whenever you don't like what you see (unviable picks, silence or anger in champ select).

AbodyHUN666Feb 3, 20156 votes

I do this a lot too, it feels good that other guys almost beg for me to stay and I can just pick the team I want. I think this is what it feels like to be a hot girl in a disco. xD

PhrixscreothFeb 4, 20152 votes

I'm thirding this, I will take a little bit longer que times for the oppertunity to get a team that isn't trying to kill each other. It's a completly worthy tradeoff.

All Hells FireFeb 4, 20152 votes

There's still disco? Groovy!

IzbizFeb 3, 20159 votes

{quoted}

Allow user to pick multiple roles before queuing. First role than will be assigned.

Similarly, captains should be allowed to make patterns for roles. Such as tank/bruiser on top. Assasin/tank/buiser jungle.

Enable to report player who is "trolling" by picking invalid role/lane for their champion. Captains often do not kick these players because they don't want to wait another 30 minutes.

Dodging blind games renders you a penalty. That's for a reason! So similarly, introduce a limit for "Find another group". In ARAM, you also only have 2 rerolls. While the penalty shouldn't be as grave, there should be one for repetitive cancelling/leaving as it does harm gaming experience of others.

Agreed
Agreed
Disagree. picking off-meta champs is kinda the point of Team Builder.
100% disagree. People joining a team and not liking the team have just as many rights to leave as the host kicking out someone. The point of Team Builder is to get YOUR ideal team, not just start a game.

Additionally, they don't need 3 different queues for normals. They need to get ride of blind pick if they hope to have success in Team Builder.

Teambuilder for casual
Draft for practicing for ranked

AMYS GRAVEFeb 3, 20155 votes

100% disagree. People joining a team and not liking the team have just as many rights to leave as the host kicking out someone. The point of Team Builder is to get YOUR ideal team, not just start a game.

this right here. if you have someone willing to play the unpopular roles then don't punish them by making it harder for them to find a team that they will enjoy playing with.

Mikal PikalFeb 3, 20159 votes

I usually don't have too much of a problem queueing for team builder solo, even with mid and top. Sure it often takes longer than draft or blind pick, but I get my role. My problem, and the reason I don't use TB that often, is when I am queueing with another person. We cannot search for an open game with 2 spots, we are forced to start a new team. Therefore, unless one or both of us takes support/jungle, it will take forever to find a game.

If there was one change I'd ask for is to allow a duo to search for an already created game.

MXXIVFeb 3, 20154 votes

I will add this above. I actually thought of this too when I was playing ADC+Support with my girlfriend. In the end we instead elected for Blind and I made sure I call really really fast.

Xx420n0sc0p3sxXFeb 3, 20156 votes

Firefox master-race! Not relevant? But really, I can't agree with all of your ideas but yea your right, people won't use it if they know it's bad, even when it gets better.

eyes wide shutFeb 3, 20152 votes

upvote cause firefox master race

TotalJerkFeb 3, 20152 votes

Formally, yeah. Firefox has gone to hell, lately. It's slower, leaks memory like a motherfucker, and there's opt-out advertisements that track your browsing history built into the new tab section.

MXXIVFeb 3, 20153 votes

As I firefox user and a programmer, I have not noticed any such thing. Maybe you had an adware installed?

Xx420n0sc0p3sxXFeb 3, 20152 votes

I haven't had any problems with it.

xJLx MCHammerFeb 3, 20154 votes

I don't use team builder

It sacrifices balanced match making for quick que. Games are never clos Either I go 10-2 in lane or 0-10 Either my team stomps or we get stomped It's always high ranked vs low ranked

It's so bad. My win rate plummeted to 20% playing it over 120 games.

F u team builder

MXXIVFeb 3, 20157 votes

I think you wanted to say it other way around. Because team builder teams are more likely balanced, but queue is definitely not quick.

SmokingPuffinFeb 3, 20155 votes

Team builder games are much less balanced. You can see diamond and silver players in the same game. It isn't a useful mode for competitive play.

MXXIVFeb 3, 20155 votes

Oh... you meant balanced by skill. I misunderstood you, sorry.

Em0SceneStabrFeb 3, 20154 votes

Wait what? Are you trying to say that when you go into Solo Que you win more??..... I've noticed that people that use Teambuilder seem to be less childish and can take/give useful advice. I find that in Solo que When i ping "DANGER" when we have no towers and there invading the enemies jungle everyone starts yelling at me to go contract some disease or that my mother is involved in prostitution.

I prefer team builder because it's nicer people but the wait times are usually ridiculous.

RainbowgasmFeb 3, 20153 votes

The problem I have with rewarding people more IP for playing the most in demand roles is that... I have over 50 000 that I'm not spending, many people have more. A lot of people will continue to crowd the middle lane and top since there is no reason to care about IP.

One thing I would like to see is some sort of indicator that there are either too many, or not enough captains. That might speed queues up a bit if players aren't being held up by a bad host to guest ratio.

MXXIVFeb 4, 20152 votes

Just a question: with all that IP, don't mid lanes bore you already? :) I'm sure that with such experience you can pick any lane or role. Most people who hunt ADC/mid roles aren't so experienced.

As of captain/soloist ratio: Another great idea - I will add it to the list above.

PapaShongo53Feb 3, 20152 votes

I agree with you 100%

When team builder was first released I loved the idea. At first it was great, only a few minutes to get a game going.

I haven't played it in a long time, I try to use it every once in awhile but the que times are so ridiculous that I'd rather play the call position and insta lock game in blind.

RaptameiFeb 3, 20152 votes

[deleted]

MXXIVFeb 3, 20156 votes

For fun, blind pick is fastest and most viable. Nothing will beat the time that you need to start a game. Your last point about reports shows that you didn't think about large numbers. This feature would generate lot of additional work and slow down game start.

And please do not call support a trash role. It's fun in a premade game.

RaptameiFeb 3, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Did you try Internet Explorer any time recently? I doubt it. As a web developer I occasionally test sites in all browsers. IE has improved significantly and no longer suffers from grave deviations from the specification. I rarely see something rendered different than other browsers. But nobody uses it.

The answer is in the other line - mobile usage. Chrome is dominant on mobile devices while WP8 and RT are sad jokes. People don't switch from IE, they switch from their legacy desktop to tablets and phones. I was stuck with WP8 for 2 weeks and mobile IE11 was such depressing shit that I got rid of it asap. Pulls up desktop sites instead of mobile sites, doesn't care about webkit standards, etc.

The other answer is that MS orphaned Windows XP and told people to get another browser and fuck themselves.

Drunk RummateFeb 3, 20152 votes

I disagree with a ton of your statements. What you think would be improvements I believe would be huge steps backwards. Limiting a person's ability to "find another group" would get them stuck on a team they don't like, which is entirely against a primary purpose for team builder to begin with.

Similarly, reporting people for 'trolling' with a champion position is an easy way to limit diversity and/or fun comps. And where better to try these than in team builder?

I do agree that there are ways we can improve queue times, but I'm not sure I agree with any of your suggestions. I would much prefer incentives, or at least suggestions to play 'needed' roles. For example: If team builder could keep a tally of roles that are currently heavily searched for (hint: support/jungle) and then promise 50 extra IP at the end of that game for filling the role, that would seriously improve the queue times.

I do think allowing and requesting for multiple roles should be allowed. Especially in edge cases - not sure why Leona is listed as a tank when people clearly want her in bottom, but if you choose "Support" for bottom and Leona picks "Tank" then it will never find her.

MXXIVFeb 3, 20153 votes

Only if a ton represents 50%. But I'm not so sure about the second two points as I was before. Definitelly the reporting for trolling was a bad idea according to what you say. I take it back. I will not delete it though, so that the discussion still makes sense.

The Queen ViperFeb 3, 20152 votes

There's a simple solution to reduce the queue times: Delete "blind pick"... there, done.

VesarixxFeb 3, 20152 votes

Iève been suggesting a fill option for team builder for a while now, would really help queue times.

Guy Fox TeemoFeb 3, 20152 votes

Great Idea, though im EXTREMLLY against 3. And sorta 4. The 3rd one just ENFORCES the meta and Riot most certainly does not want to do that. The entire point they made teambuilder is so you could play what you wanted when you wanted. (And to sorta help the insta locking and trolling in blind pick).

The 4th one kinda FORCES you to play a certain comp. If the captain wanted to do all 5 mid and got 3 other players to do it. Obviously MOST people wouldn't want to do it and would leave. Teambuilers suppose to let you play what you want, and how you want it. Though you could be a captain, for some people that takes to long.

I for one suggest they COMPLETELY remove blind pick. This would significantly reduce the wait times in teambuilder and obviously you'd get to play the role you want and what team comp if you were a captain. I only ever play blind pick if im bored and want to play a quick game and not have to wait a 3min queue to get into a team or 10mins to make a team as a captain. If blind pick was removed Teambuilder would have much shorter waittimes as everyone would be using it, when they do normals. (Besides normal Draft pick which I find almost pointless in my opinion). I see no reason in keeping blind pick as most of the time its just a place for trolls and insta lockers.

MXXIVFeb 4, 20152 votes

Don't thought blind pick. People who like it shouldn't be forced to play teambuilder. You have very totalitarian thinking when you want to forbid something for your own profit.

indomitable1Feb 5, 20152 votes

The problem with Teambuilder is they built it as if it supposed to be a practice mode that is different then ranked, when really what they needed was not a separate mode but was to take some of these ideas and make the ranked matching better. The way the pick and ban phase works even in the LCS is not all that great in the first place. It should be more like first you pick the champions then the enemy has a chance to ban and make you switch to a backup.

2pudge1cupFeb 3, 20151 votes

I don't like #3... The whole "report for trolling" thing is very very dicey. I mean I'm sure everyone has that champ role that's outside of the norm that they play well. If a captain can report them for said slot then before the game even starts and then they get locked out of team builder you'll get less people even playing. There's just way too much gray area with what constitutes a troll pick and what can be justified.

The rest of the suggestions are okay. There definitely needs to be a multiple option deal (and if someone wants to play 1 thing they can just not pick other options).

MXXIVFeb 4, 20153 votes

I already wrote that I take it back, because you guys are right about that. Didn't anybody notice?

Em0SceneStabrFeb 5, 20151 votes

I know what you mean but i tend to play Sona mid and Ahri Adc so this is how i look at it, If you pick someone to do a role that they shouldn't be doing and you contribute to your team losing then you constitute as a troll. Unless you've practice whatever your doing in a custom game and know it can work. (Example: Don't try to play a game with people and lockin Nami Jungle unless you know some kind of way to play her jungle)....... PS: Nami jungle doesn't work, ahri can barely solo Blue buff at lvl 6 :'3

Killer X 12Feb 4, 20151 votes

Its kinda sad. I play TB when i'm trying now new champs because i know that dumb adjustment thing will put me against scrubs. Its nice for me, but i know i just made another person who'll complain about how bad the match making is.

Edit: Of course sometimes i play champs i have a lot of games with in TB, just to make sure i get the role...but thats what its for lol

Unlimited GinFeb 5, 20151 votes

Great ideas. I love Team Builder, honestly, but then again, I duo with a buddy and I'm usually support. It did always surprise me how easy it is for supports to soloqueue and bail when they see a team. It happens too much, and the penalty needs to be harder.

I've had a better experience supporting with strangers, but yeah, every once in a while, you get Charles Manson as your ADC and then your life goes down the toilet for 20 minutes.

Still.... I'm not switching to Explorer.

RaptameiFeb 5, 20151 votes

How about when you join, you can only leave or start the game after 30 seconds?

This stops people from instantly leaving instead of waiting for the last guy to join 10 sec later.