ARAM ... a few suggestions to ponder

Tyr Ahn Nee·12/8/2014, 7:57:25 PM·2 votes·827 views
  1. Get Rid of the Time Penalty for Dodging an ARAM match.

its really silly to have this. Why? because its ARAM. In the spirit of ARAM, sure, if I roll Zac I'll play him. If I play 4 to 5 matches of ARAM everyday and I roll Zac at least once a day, the third time I roll him I am (and have) going to start DODGING. And because its supposedly random, something like this will happen (and has happened) from time to time. Why force me to go play Hearthstone just because I don't want to play Zac for the 7th time in 4 days??? And since everyone has a few champs that they don't want to play over and over again, for whatever reason, it doesn't make sense to have a "Time Penalty" which does nothing but prevent a player from playing for a short period of time.

  1. Impose an IP cost per ARAM Dodge. An IP cost (Not a Punishment) makes far more sense than a "time penalty." An IP Cost per Dodge would allow players to Dodge all they want, and still play (because the Time Penalty has been removed.) But, at the same time an IP Cost per dodge will cause players to carefully weight the benefits and costs of a Dodge, and over time will reduce the number of dodges.

In the data that I have collected on over 500 games of ARAM, more than 1/3 of ARAM match-ups are Abandoned because at least one player was dissatisfied with the champ that they rolled. 1 out of every three games is abandoned. This says a lot about how players perceive this game mode. Don't ignore the players obvious sentiments about this mode. They do not wish to play undesirable champs or champs that they are not good with, and would rather take the current Time Penalty.

  1. Make ARAM an UNLOCKABLE Game Mode. You must have 20 champs on your account (not including the freebies) before ARAM Unlocks for you. This will deal a good blow to ARAM-Accounts, but probably won't solve that problem entirely, as All ADC accounts, or ALL Mage accounts are possible.

  2. Personal Champ Ban List (for accounts with over 50 champs)

Another No-Brainer. Instead of Banning Zac, and Cho'gath and Evelynn for all 10 players, allow me to Ban them from my possible Rolls. If a specific Champ that I absolutely detest comes up in 2 random rolls, I can revamp my Ban list and prevent them from coming up over and over and over again until I'm dodging every game I queue up for.

 These are my suggestions.
 Hopefully, RIOT will take them into consideration and begin implementing them ASAP.

 POST SCRIPT:   
 (when's the last time you've seen a "Post Script"???)   It just occured to me, someone might say that getting rid of the Time Penalty and imposing an IP Cost would lead to ADAT  instead of ARAM.   (ADAT = All Dodge All the Time.)  I don't think this would be a problem, because the current system used by Riot reduces the Player pool by 1 for each dodge while that player serves his Time Penalty.    If the Time Penalty is eliminated, the player pool would not be reduced, and essentially, the IP Cost would simply give players another option besides the 2 Free Re-rolls.  Thus, if you ran out of Re-Rolls you'd be able to use IP.
 As a matter of fact, I think that having two seperate IP Costs (One IP Cost for a Re-roll and one IP Cost for a Dodge, where the cost of a Dodge was twice the cost of a re-roll) might go along way toward improving the situation as well as player satisfaction with this game mode.

4 Comments

FDru12/8/2014, 8:37:32 PM1 votes

Making dodging an IP penalty only is essentially making dodging penalty-free. ARAM accounts that already have all the champs they want pretty much get a free pass to dodge anytime they feel like it. If the penalty doesn't affect all players equally, or even doesn't effect some players at all it's not a good one.

Then you say removing the time penalty will keep players in queue, but then suggest making ARAM a locked game mode. Those ideas kind of contradict eachother.

Anyway, I think it's more important to bring fairness than to kill ARAM accounts (besides, pretty sure most ARAM accounts have more than 20 champs, otherwise free week champs come up way too often). So a champ ban list for owning a lot of champs makes the most sense. Also, way harsher dodge penalties but I don't know what they could do that wouldn't be too hard on players that occasionally disconnect (especially with the shitty client).

Jeddite12/8/2014, 10:22:03 PM1 votes

The dodge penalty is fine as is. There is no reason why ARAM needs different dodge penalties than every other non-ranked mode. Your suggestion is just as poorly thought-out as the ARAM Bronze League's ludicrous suggestions like perma-banning accounts if they dodge more than 2 in 48 hours (looking at you, plazmadj).

Requiring a minimum number of champions to play ARAM sounds good in theory (and even I support the basic idea -- across multiple threads on the old forums). However, all that really accomplishes is setting a barrier to entry for new players. If a player wants to create a smurf account (which is not a problem, no matter how many tears the ARAM Bronze League sheds), setting a minimum of 20 of champions won't stop anybody. Increasing the minimum from 20 to 30 won't deter somebody devoted to making an ARAM account.

Unlocking all champions won't solve anything (and will only cause more queue-dodging). Smurf accounts aren't a problem, and there's no objective definition of what a smurf account is. (If you asked some of the ARAM Bronze League, you'd think any account with Sona, Fiddlesticks, and Caitlyn is automatically a "smurf".) There's no way objective way to determine if an account with 30 champions unlocked is a horrible, terrible, omg-what-a-cheater ARAM smurf, or just somebody who likes playing mid and bot lanes in Summoner's Rift (and there's nothing wrong with that anyway).

No. What ARAM needs (and all it has ever needed) is to offer bans, so captains have the option of preventing anyone from getting an overpowered/annoying champion (e.g. Sona). Riot isn't going to perma-ban champions from Howling Abyss; ARAM is not URF. In addition, the (pre)Season-5 itemization changes will help ameliorate (but not fully "fix") some of the "ranged v. melee" balance issues. Chalice is still very good, but it's been mercifully nerfed. Riot just needs to remove the passive global mana regen buff -- it is not necessary, and what little good it does for melee champions is completely overshadowed by how much benefit mages/support get out of it.

Bresn12/8/2014, 10:43:27 PM1 votes

Personally. I feel like 4/5 melee or 4/5 ranged matches are the worst teams so if Rito can prevent the RNG thing from choosing Ahri Ziggs Lux Caitlyn Karthus or Darius Garen Rengar Tryndamere Amumu in the same team...

life is good.

Deustheproducer12/10/2014, 2:45:52 AM1 votes
  1. Get Rid of the Time Penalty for Dodging an ARAM match.

its really silly to have this. Why? because its ARAM. In the spirit of ARAM, sure, if I roll Zac I'll play him. If I play 4 to 5 matches of ARAM everyday and I roll Zac at least once a day, the third time I roll him I am (and have) going to start DODGING. And because its supposedly random, something like this will happen (and has happened) from time to time. Why force me to go play Hearthstone just because I don't want to play Zac for the 7th time in 4 days??? And since everyone has a few champs that they don't want to play over and over again, for whatever reason, it doesn't make sense to have a "Time Penalty" which does nothing but prevent a player from playing for a short period of time.

No. I love ARAM. It's my favourite mode to play and the dodgers make queing up an ordeal every time. I cannot tell you how many times I finally got a champ I like and someone would leave. As soon as you click to find match you know what you are signing up for. That's the fun of ARAM that it is a gamble every time, and also forces you to play champs you dont like/arent good with. Because of ARAM, I learned that I love Veigar and love playing him. I learned that in the right comp Alistar is OP. I learned that Corki wasn't useless, and was very fun to play.

Giving people the option to dodge every time, will do two things.

1st. It will take away the Random in ARAM.

2nd. You think que times are terrible now because of dodgers? People will then have the freedom to leave any lobby for any reason (and they sure will). Basically good luck ever queuing for a match again.