why is Team Builder so unpopular?

Worst Mid Ever·Apr 10, 2015·23 votes·4,591 views

People were asking for something like Team Builder, where people could play their main role constantly to practice for ranked without having to fight people in normal champ select, for years before it was released. Despite this, for some reason it died almost instantly after release, and when I queue for a normal I still get people "calling" a role and then trolling or afking if someone else locks it. Is there some technical error with the matchmaking? The last time I played I was only getting matched with silvers, despite my normal MMR matching me with mostly plats and diamonds, that was last season though.

58 Comments

RenailleApr 10, 201536 votes

Team builder isn't unpopular. Support and jungle are.

OddysseasApr 10, 20152 votes

True you just said exactly the same thing as i did!

MeesterMooApr 10, 201518 votes

Team Builder is unpopular? I find a perfect game with no trolls (usually) in about 5-7 minutes max. I almost always go TB. What's bad about it? You can grab a few friends, form your comp, and then play. Is there something I'm missing?

CubedJusticeApr 10, 20152 votes

In fairness, that's minutes more than most other queues.

MeesterMooApr 10, 20152 votes

Max*

Worst Mid EverApr 11, 20151 votes

its a minimum 20 minute wait even for support on OCE during the most active times (6-8pm)

Matthias9119Apr 11, 20151 votes

I don't know about OCE - you know you're posting on NA, right?

If you're support or jungle in NA, TB queues are almost instant. Top/Mid can be a bit of wait, especially at odd times or high MMR.

DestínumApr 11, 20152 votes

No, this is not NA. These are the boards shared between NA, OCE and EU.

Left Hook LarryApr 11, 20151 votes

You just answered your own question

JamareeApr 10, 201514 votes

People don't like waiting.

junglerboy16Apr 11, 20151 votes

Basically this.

Its the same reason I don't play Dominion or TT. Both are fun alternatives to SR, but the queue times are horrendous (well, that and the bots).

SìelApr 11, 20152 votes

{quoted}

People don't like waiting.

It's true http://stuffpoint.com/harry-potter/image/52955-harry-potter-i-dont-like-to-be-kept-waiting.gif

SmknWdlApr 10, 201510 votes

I never even play normal anymore... too toxic. Team builder for life

Ariel the CruelApr 10, 20153 votes

Blind pick is still decent.

Draft on the other hand . . . The influx of ranked rejects is apparent in many games.

lB2kGRlc8yApr 14, 20151 votes

Blind pick is decent so long as the teams are comprised of safe picks. Any debatable picks or people who can't face the no risk high reward champions will often end up making the game miserable for the team with the least derpy champs., Least thats my experience.

TarynApr 10, 20159 votes

I love Teambuilder. Like 95% of my matches nowadays are with Teambuilder (the rest being ranked and ARAM). Nothing is better than being able to spam my favorite champion and role all day with no risk of someone else calling the role before me.

NorthernDruidApr 10, 20158 votes

It never caught steam, so que times are long, so people aren't interested, so it doesn't catch steam, etc.

There's also probably a sizeable portion of summoners out there, who would be more interested if they didn't have to lock in a specific champion way in advance, or could que up for multiple roles at once.

junglerboy16Apr 11, 20151 votes

That would help a lot. One of the worst things is getting accepted by a leader who is clueless about team comps, and you're left with something like Corki top, Graves jungle, Rengar mid, Trundle support, and TwistedFate ADC. Not having to lock in a single champ (but rather be able to say, "I'll play X, Y, or Z champ in this role") would still allow a captain a degree of choice in what goes into their team, while allowing the individual player more options to better help their team comp.

ZarxisApr 10, 20152 votes

Queue times can be fairly long when you play things that aren't LC$ viable. I remember practicing mid Zilean recently; it took me over 15 minutes to get into a match. When Bard first came out, it took me over half an hour. Also, not having bans is absolutely horrible. Why bother playing any champion that isn't overtly strong if you know you're extremely likely to be put against a team of the strongest current champions? Don't get me wrong; I hate Draft Pick (I don't want to talk about Blind -shudders-). 6 bans aren't enough, people don't follow pick order, trolls can't be reported before a match starts, it doesn't make sense that one person on each team gets to do all of the bans, etc.

If Team Builder had bans and some sort of way to prevent the constant kicking for trying to play unpopular champions (or even strong champions in an unconventional role/position), I might never use Draft Pick again (except for Ranked... Until Riot adds Team Builder to Ranked).

DengedenApr 10, 20152 votes

Support and jungle sometimes take forever to find and then we have the retarded "we need this champ/class or we lose" mentality. That's the 2 main reasons I can think of.

BastionKrossApr 10, 20152 votes

Back on the old GD board, the idea of something like teambuilder would be brought up once in a while, and the conversation would always end up looking like this:

Summoner1: Dudes, we need a mode where you can just queue up for a role, so there's no more fighting! Summoner2: That wouldn't be very popular, the queue times would be longer. 1: They wouldn't be THAT much longer! 2: Oh yeah? How long do you think it would take to find an unpopular role like support? 1: Like three minutes, at most. 2: Your delirious optimism is both envious and frightening.

And look where we are. Summoner2 should have quit his dayjob and became a psychic. Then again, you didn't need the powers of Nostradamus to see that there were always going to be roles where you'd have a serious shortage. It doesn't matter how many players join teambuilder. I'm willing to bet that for every 20 players that use TB right now, you get 11 mids, 4 tops, 3 ADCs, and 1 jungler and support each. Until the roles themselves are balanced for player appeal, teambuilder will never work without extra incentives for unpopular roles. (I.E. double IP gain for supports and junglers as long as they're unpopular)

PL55Apr 10, 20152 votes

Probably because if you want to play mid or top you need to wait 5 minutes or so to just find a team, maybe a little more to get that team completed. Every other role takes around 10 seconds to find a team.

IcyPepperApr 10, 20152 votes

if you want to play mid or top

Considering those are the only two roles you named, this is the reason. Every time I queue up for teambuilder, the team captain is always mid/top with the other role filled. Takes forever to find the other three.

SociopathFriendApr 10, 20152 votes

Mostly I think it's the queue time.

Stark6000Apr 10, 20152 votes

who wants to play a position with less gold less power and more ward responsibility?

hardly anyone.

Back in this game's infancy i stated that they needed to find a way to get supports greater strengths besides just CC. Because if they don't scale with gold they will be there to just assist other champions who have ACTUAL damage or tanking potential.

gr8jobApr 11, 20151 votes

Zyra would like to have a word with you.

MAZZ1M0Apr 12, 20151 votes

As someone who uses her for support, your budget and support priorities won't let you dish out the damage like an AP carry. You'll do noticeable damage if you're winning lane, sure, but Zyra's still most useful for her zoning, root, and knockup. item 3092 item 3274 item 2049 item 3165 vs. item 3285 item 3089 item 3157 item 3255

Synx7Apr 10, 20152 votes

TB it is. Too bad "Find another team" button its way too much spammed , hence the waiting times.

GaleWinUnleashedApr 11, 20152 votes

Team Builder isn't popular because Team Builder isn't popular. It's a self-feeding thing. I'd like to see what would happen if Blind Pick was disabled for a while.

Worst Mid EverApr 11, 20151 votes

i made a thread about disabling Blind Pick for a week so that people would try it out and it got 50+ downvotes, then they released URF soon after which totally killed it

MalganaApr 10, 20151 votes

30 min wait times aren't a good thing. Everyone just picks the most popular roles and you're left to wait forever for the non-popular ones, just like in WoW.

The reason this doesn't work in League is because you don't have quests and other junk to do while you wait like you do in WoW.

DrProfVibeCheckApr 10, 20151 votes

What I do is use team builder when I feel like practicing a certain role or if I want to go supp or jg. I use blind pick if I don't care where I go. I usually just "fill". Point is, there is a time to use both.

KeevalroyApr 10, 20151 votes

"Cuz muh time iz importunt! I don't want to wait in queue for a few minutes because I have the attention span of a squirrel and expect all my games to be instant pop."

stuffinstuffApr 10, 20151 votes

I commenly use tb for things that my friends don't like (jungle shen Shen summoner 11 )and I'm still aparently "not a good jungler" even though I have a okay match history with him

Toa of DeathApr 10, 20151 votes

It baffles my mind as well. It's the best way to practice any new champs you want to try and, for the most part, there's a lot less toxic trolls than in Ranked or Draft Pick.

GhostOfShrimpmasApr 10, 20151 votes

I haven't gone in a normal queue once since Team Builder hit. I'd rather wait ten minutes to get a team and play a fun game than have to waste 20 minutes bored and losing because I got stuck as support.

RoyaiChaosApr 11, 20151 votes

Might be a good idea to mention you're on the OCE server.

BiffoloApr 11, 20151 votes

Being a support main I would have no problem finding queue times, so that isn't always the issue. 1. The draft format is more like ranked, so will give me better chances to improve at the game (which is what im looking for) 2. No mirror matches.

Old Man TeetoApr 11, 20151 votes

As a support/jungle main.

Team builder has the least teamwork I've ever seen so I avoid it if it's not with at least a 4 man premade.

VreivaiApr 11, 20151 votes

Queue time, and the matchmaking is a joke.

"Matchmaking adjustment active, cool, maybe I won't be pulling highly ranked players since this is literally the first time I've used this champion at all outside of a bot game."

3/5 of the enemy team are Platinum+ on champions they main.

Virgin RayApr 11, 20151 votes

Well unless RIOT can make playing support and jungle more fun and rewarding than maybe it will become more popular?

MAZZ1M0Apr 12, 20151 votes

Simple, stop nerfing all the junglers and supports and don't rework the popular ones unless they're causing problems.

Virgin RayApr 14, 20151 votes

That too, I mean playing support is really fun, but you have to rely very very heavily on the adc to do well. Otherwise you would be weak and useless to the team. Jungling monsters hurt a lot, and a lot of the junglers are getting nerfed, so it's hard to roam everywhere when everyone is asking for a gank.

Big Bang BobApr 11, 20151 votes

Not sure how it got here, but it's stuck in some strange loop.

People don't play it because it takes long, but it take long because people don't play it.

HellioningApr 12, 20151 votes

People who play the popular roles (solo lanes) don't want to wait for however long it'll take to search for a support/jungler/whatever. People who play the unpopular roles have no reason to use it because they're basically guaranteed their favorite role in any random blind/draft.

So you get the people who care about teamcomp, which tends to be people who play with friends in normals anyway (and thus don't need to use it) or people who play ranked.

DrackolusApr 12, 20151 votes

I use teambuilder pretty much exclusively, for the primary purpose of avoiding "top or feed." Also lets me pick my role... ya 'know, like teambuilder is supposed to. I'd rather play with people patient enough to wait 10 minutes for a match anyway. Maybe that's why I experience so few ragers.

indomitable1Apr 14, 20151 votes

The team lobby where players call roles is toxic. The real question is why isn't that permanently disabled so the queue times on team builder go down.

IxlinApr 15, 20151 votes

As has been mentioned by several other people, the reason I generally avoid TB lately is the rampant game jumping. To say that it's frustrating to sit with two other patient people for fifteen minutes, while we watch an endless stream of people join, look at everyone else's choices, and leave. Or leave because the game isn't full yet. And it will drag on like that, seemingly endlessly sometimes.

I think the best thing they could do to revitalize team builder is limit your number of clicks on that Find A New Game button. Or even make them earn them by playing, like rerolls in ARAM.

MrJBravoAug 20, 20151 votes

riot needs to put a limit to how many times you can back out of a group, team builder was meant to be able to play the role you want not hang out in the queue to wait for a perfect team, the problem is once you get the long awaited support, they decide they don't like the team and back out. Riot should implement punishments for constant backing out as it feels that people are just trolling