A Proposed solution to the New Champ Select role Issue
So as many of you are well aware, there's a bit of disrepency in how certain roles affect your chances at getting your primary role in the new champ select. Primarily regarding what happens when you let support be a part of your criteria, and how disproportionately choosing things like secondary support or Fill will end up placing you in the support role. There are a number of you who want to add an exclusionary criteria, but i feel there's a more elegant solution to this issue that won't make it so people can stop feeling ham-fisted into a secondary role, while still making sure that the queue can run (more or less) fluidly.
Plain and simple, I propose that when we receive the Accept/Decline for a queue, it tells us what we are queue'd as. So for instance before i hit accept, if i ran Bot/Support as my options, then when the Accept/Decline option shows up, it would say Team found (Support) or something along the lines, letting me get in the mental state for supporting, or alternatively allowing me to decline the match if i feel like i've been playing too much support, or just if I don't feel like playing support but don't have a penchant for the other roles.
This said, there would be some obvious issues regarding the number of declines we'd get as a result of letting people ham-fist their way to the role they want a monopoly on. One proposed solution i have for that is to take a page from the retired Team builder program, and have the queue system not just select 10 players and hope they all accept, but to arrange teams and if someone declines a position, then hold that spot for someone who would accept. This way we get the benefit of secondary roles for fleshing out the queue, but we also don't have to be jammed into a particular role every game simply because we made it an option.
As a support main i don't mind playing the role constantly, but I do fear that whenever i feel in the mood to not play support, then I have to get rid of a role I am comfortable with as an option at all because any role i try to pick otherwise will grant me the role i'm tired of playing. While i want to learn more roles, and gain my proficiency in them, having my comfort zone in my options ends up constraining my potential to practice an off-lane, even if i tell the system i'd like something more than support.
As far as Queue times go, Secondaries did a great measure in expediting the champ select process, , but so long as you create a way for people to opt out of support as an option, longer queue times are just going to happen. Hopefully, a Role check could help people out when it comes to the trade-offs between waiting longer for your roll, and getting into a game with a role you're just fine with playing. Anywho, what do you guys think? Would a Role-check before you accept a game help make the new C-S less infuriating? If not, what would you do (aside exclusion). 