Riot Devs: Worry about Permabans Screws Up New Ban System

Read the headlines as yet another major headline breaks.

The title pretty much says it all. Instead of worrying about why certain champs would be permabanned, Riot, in their infinite wisdom, focused instead on "why is this champ always banned? We should fix that and allow them to be played". Here's the problem with that line of thinking. It took over every discussion it seemed, and continued to do so as no one seemed to want to respond to community feedback about the horrible idea this was.

The very real chance that bans would be duplicated, you could end up with only 5 bans, or the possibly that someone doesn't ban seems to be lower on your proprieties list than it seems the vast majority of your players. I see just horrible gameplay decision after horrible decision being made with this and why it seems no one wants to, or can't, defend it, tells me something.

If a champ has the risk of being permabanned, then it isn't a call to forced them into play, it is a call, to try and figure out why they are permabanned. Presently only is on my list. Why? Because he is broken. Plain and simple. He is a "hypercarry" that has a strong early, mid, and late game. Literally there is no way to shut him down once he gets two items. Champs like , , , , and a couple others will probably see high ban rates, but they can be stopped. Mostly. However, Yasuo is just so broken, he won't be seen ever.

I'll post something separate about that, but back to the issue of permabanning champs.

When I read that article on the whole system, I saw a lot of tech talk that was not only confusing, but horribly defended what was going on. Again the focus was on permabanning not ensuring that teams could actually draft successfully. The only thing I consistently saw defending the system was "reduction of permabans", "faster into game", and "risk of 5 bans or duplicate bans is low".

First "reduction of permabans" is one incredibly stupid reason to focus on, and one thing that you can't defend. Again look at what the community is saying about why they are so overpowered or broken. Just listen for once and stop ignoring the central issue. This being used as an excuse for the new system proves that there wasn't a lot of listening going on, or a lot of ignoring going on. Whichever sounds nicer. It also proves that listening isn't a priority because the amount of backlash that has been seen would normally be an indicator to stop and figure things out, but clearly that hasn't been factored into the decision making process. Clearly it was just "do this and push it out and if they don't like it who cares". Prove me wrong.

"Faster into game" is something that I saw a lot but the community seemed to have an answer that no one considered. Reduction of timers. Honestly how and why this simple solution wasn't considered, thought of, or even responded to, will forever remain a mystery.

"Risk of 5 band or duplicate bans is low". Yeah, not as low as you all think. This represents another disconnect. Honestly there will be a lot of duplicate bans, and the simple fact that you allow duplicate or no bans, as a trade off for reduction or elimination of permabanning will result in two things.

1. Increase in trolls who won't ban anything and screw the rest of the team. This will then cause a higher number of dodges and longer queue times as people want ten bans.
2. A high likely hood of duplicate bans. The fact that you even considered that it would be possible and ignored it shows that you didn't take feedback or listen to anything the community has said. The top ranked comment on the announcement article and many of the other top comments, proves that. No one wants to feel like a ban is wasted and that is exactly what you decided as ok, as a tradeoff for forcing champs that no one wants to play down our throats.

Honestly, I doubt a dev will read this, but I will pose 6 simple questions that I posted elsewhere in an attempt to allow them to respond. So here it goes.

1: What was the single highest issue with choosing a 10 ban system for ranked queue? 2: What were all of the major issues/concerns with choosing a 10 ban system for ranked queue? 3: Did anyone making these decisions actually read comments, and multiple comments, on the Nexus and News Announcement articles? 4: Was there any Q&A on this or any beta testing? 5: Was there even an option to allow community feedback before the final decision was made or was it "here is it, take it or quit"? 6: Was there even a discussion to allow and see community feedback before implementation that might change the system?