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ARAM Champ Select Dodgers: The Worst Breed Of Toilet Slime.

Tiestalita·10/19/2014, 7:31:20 PM·9 votes·2,342 views

Yeah, I'm talking to you - the one who dodges champ select unless you have a good champion and team comp.

Oh, what's that? You don't like the random nature of ARAM?

Don't play it!!!

If you only enjoy playing specific champions, play ANY other game mode. The ONLY game mode which you're NOT able to choose a specific champion is ARAM. Thus, the ONLY reason one should dodge a game during champ select in ARAM is for a personal emergency, your called into work, a friend arrived at your house unexpectedly, etc.

Otherwise, the penalty for dodging during champ select in ARAM should be much more strict.

May I suggest a 8-12 hour suspension from ARAM matches upon doing so?

Those who needed to dodge for legitimate reasons won't complain because they're not playing league anyway. Those who dodge because their little babies are encouraged to play a game mode they're more suited for.

Why am I stirring up all this fuss?

I play a lot of ARAM and have played for a long time. I've come to find it common - not random - that more and more games have stacked teams. Otherwise, someone dodges until they're on a stacked team, or at least a well balanced team. Since this happens on both sides, ARAM games are FAR FROM RANDOM! All too often there is one stacked team (with the folks who dodge until they're satisfied) vs. a random team comp (with folks who use the built in re-roll feature to make the best of a crappy hand) and due to the engrained poke-oriented play style ARAM has evolved into, the random team gets STOMPED. Most people think "well, if both teams were stronger we'd have a more fair fight" - WRONG! That's Ranked Mode! In fact, you can even ban champs to ensure there is a fair match-up.

I'm all for being on a shorthanded team, I simply want to see more ARAM games with TWO shorthanded teams! That's so rare nowadays.

ARAM is all about totally whack team comps smashing it out against each other. The best ARAM's I've ever played were 5 bruisers/tanks vs. 5 bruisers/tanks! The battles were LONG and EPIC! None of this ranged AP/AD carry spamming pokes and shredding everything. ARAM has become Poke To Win. Nonsensical Garbage!

Oh but what about when the enemy team has a ton of poke and you lack range and a good engage? I donno, co-ordinate a 5 flash engage! THAT is what ARAM is all about - the random crazy stuff you'll never see in ranked! Players are being groomed into a awful play style which doesn't transfer into 3's or 5's.

PS - I meant no offense to the toilet mold slime in the title of this post. Considering mold slime has the capabilities of mapping a route network more efficiently than our greatest engineers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwKuFREOgmo.

17 Comments

Earl Eulrich10/20/2014, 1:31:03 PM6 votes

It would be quite simply to solve actually:

  • If someone dodges the Queue he´ll just get the same Champ he had when he joins the next Aram, so you just can´t dodge away from a Champion, ever
  • Enable all Champions for everyone on Aram to shut down the "Aram-Accounts"
Dr Jarjarbinks10/19/2014, 10:03:39 PM3 votes

I agree the penalty for dodging should be steeper but not that steep that quickly. There is a post on here I left yesterday where the lobby failed to load on my client and I "dodged" because I had to restart the client. I left a polite bug report while I waited the 15 minute penalty. If it had been a 12 hour penalty I would have LOST MY SH@T

FDru10/20/2014, 9:58:27 AM3 votes

ARAM is run by smurf accounts. It's like you said, there's almost never 2 sub-par team comps, just one getting completely rolled by the stacked team. Riot needs to do something about the inherent flaws with champ select in the mode, then we can worry about harsher dodge penalties.

Poorly Dressed10/19/2014, 7:37:29 PM3 votes

It gets even worse if the enemy poke team has Sona/Soraka on top to negate all damage you do to poke teams! If you can't really really hard engage on them nonstop you will lose a very one sided boring and frustrating game! I'm playing ARAM only myself and i know how you feel. My champion pool is also really big compared to all the Lux,Morgana,Sona,Varus spammer :/ Sometimes you get a random bruiser/tank team that really initiates well and it's a joy to crush the pokers really hard but it's so rare that the frustration is overwhelming. It almost makes you wanna dodge too to avoid being poked to death 24/7.

TL;DR: I agree, punish the dodgers like really really hard

Velivolo10/21/2014, 6:46:09 PM2 votes

If ARAM's unlocked every single character for you to be able to roll, a lot of people would quit playing ARAM's altogether. I know I would. I don't even have 20 champs, which leaves in excess of 80 I have no idea how to play. So I'd be playing a champion I knew basically nothing about 80% of the time. That sounds like a freaking awful game mode.

Abyssphere3/15/2015, 6:45:53 PM1 votes

The only champ I think should have dodges allowed for is Evelynn.

But given the way ARAM is right now (smurfs almost guaranteeing a stupid enemy team) it can be really disheartening to get someone who you almost know means a lost game. You should be OK with the randomness of the game mode but it's hard to be when you know there's a good chance your enemy isn't playing by the same rules.

Wydiwyg3/15/2015, 6:59:45 PM1 votes

I really don't know which game you're all playing or if this a NA-only thing, but I play ARAM a lot and basically never encounter particularly stacked teams, ARAM-only accounts with nothing but the finest ARAM champs and people don't dodge any more often than in other modes.

The constant threads on these boards make it seem like ARAM is basically unbearable, but I really can't confirm any of this. Maybe I'm just very lucky, I don't know, but from my perspective, ARAM is just fine as it is.

Junkο10/20/2014, 1:25:33 PM1 votes

The only time i dodge in ARAM is if i get a pure melee champion that is completely useless for most of the game(like Singed) and REALLY don't feel like playing it.

The problem with giving a big penalty for ARAM is that it would need to be applied to other maps too(ARAM already has bigger penalty than every other map, 15 min from dodge 1 instead of 5 then 10 then 15 and on). Especially the 8+ hours penalty.

Don't like the fact that you are last pick? Then don't play draft. Don't like the fact that enemy team picked a champ that you wanted to play? Don't play draft. Don't like instacalling and instalocking your role every game? Don't play blind.

Also what if the person who dodged had to go and didn't want the game to be unfair? 8-12 hours is pretty unfair for somebody who decided he will dodge instead of risking the chance of the game being a 4v5?

Also people won't dodge AT ALL if an 8-12 hours penalty takes place. Sounds good? They will go AFK instead which in turn makes the game way worse than if you simply waited 2-3 dodges for a fair 5v5 game.

Jeddite10/20/2014, 3:07:15 PM1 votes

It's actually NOT "quite simple to solve". Oh, sure, it seems that way if you re-hash the same terrible ideas that nobody puts any thought into (by also putting no thought into them when re-suggesting them).

Here's why you can't just "quite simply" force a player to continue to be assigned the same champion when they dodge: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/summoners-rift/6LrOs9HH-improving-the-aram-experience-minimize-incentive-to-queue-dodge?comment=0001

Second terrible idea that you clearly put no thought into: when it comes to "OMG DODGING DODGERS WHO DODGE OMG OMG", ARAM smurfs are less likely to dodge than non-smurfs. Why? Because an ARAM smurf is statistically more likely to roll a "favored" champion than an unfavored champion. And, by extension, has a greater probability of re-rolling an unfavored champion into a favored champion. So the non-solution from the helmet-kid brigade is to significantly increase the pool of "unfavored" champions (by unlocking all champions) for all players. And these same helmet-kids think that by doing some, SOMEHOW (they never can explain how) that will result in less queue-dodging overall -- when everybody has to worry about rolling a champion they don't own/know how to play, or a champion they flat-out do not want to play.

But yeah, "quite simply" when you put zero critical thinking into your regurgitated non-ideas. Unless, of course, your intention is to create huge incentives for people to AFK in games when assigned a weak or unfamiliar champion. Then the same helmet-kids will be in here furrowing their brows with "ZOMG AFKING IN ARAM IS OUT OF CONTROL RITO PLZ FIX" threads because they do not understand the concept of unintended consequences. And while players who chronically AFK in ARAM games may eventually be suspended/banned by LeaverBuster, an AFK player in a game is far more unenjoyable than queue-dodging.

Lowenherz3/15/2015, 7:44:39 AM1 votes

I'm going to suggest something that is not a punishment but an improvement for the non-dodging ARAM players. And no I did not put a lot of thought into this just a suggestion that people can pick apart to get closer to something of a solution. All of the posts have stated in some way or form the drawbacks of a penalty based "incentive" which is an oxymoron at best. So I thought about it the reverse.

Why don't we reward people who really play ARAM by the rules by allowing them to press a "reserve" button on their randomly rolled champ if they like it. This way the next game they play, if they don't get to play it due to some asshole dodger, they are assured that their current champion, that they had the good fortune of getting, WILL be played.

I thought of this as the "forcing a champ someone doesn't want to play on that individual" approach does create AFK tendencies as stated. But if you can reserve a champ you truly lucked on and didn't cheat to get, it is only fair you get to play it FOR SURE. Besides, who ever AFK'd because they are going to play a champ they like? This way the dodger gets punished the way they do now without PUNISHING THE GOOD ARAMers.

I think that's the major problem here; that dodgers get punished but legitimate ARAMers are also punished by losing their lucky roll and then getting a really humdrum champ the very next game where, for some reason the planets align and a cosmic force says "FUCK YOU", and no one dodges. This kind of pattern causes even the most patient of gamers to dodge as well. There's only so much time someone can try to do something they truly do not enjoy based on crushed hopes and expectations, as their "start game" counter reaches 5 only to be greeted by the queue again.

My issue isn't playing a randomized tank 10 times in a row (happened the other day), It's that it's statistically like winning the lottery in concept, but happens all the time because the random rolls in between that reward you, get skewed when it is dodged. And yes here I did do my math, a lottery in Ontario has 6 slots to pick from 49 different numbers, while someone like me who has 70 or more champs unlocked with 7 tank characters, and gets tanks 10 times in a row, has to get the equivalent of 10 lottery numbers out of 70 different numbers WHERE THE NUMBERS CAN REPEAT. See how statistically unlikely this event is? Yet it has happened to more than just a few hundred people.

I understand this will probably be a nightmare to code or make workable in the backend of the program, but if there is a way to code a reserve function and if Riot has enough Hard Drive or whatever memory stores to allow for this command, this should solve the "skew" of random champs.

What happens if multiple people reserve the same champ? I'm pretty sure there are already programs that are designed to match games based on existing variable conditions ("N" IF presence of "Y" ELSE "Y"). Will this create longer queues? Yes, but not as much as one would think due to the fact that there will be a large pool of players that are willing to play what they randomly got (even more so if they know this system is in place and their turn will eventually come with all the fairness that comes from truly random selection).

So maybe it's a pipe dream, but please pick it apart and get closer to a working incentive program. I feel this is the best solution (given that coding and programming this kind of smart system isn't too taxing/advanced for the current technology or resources).

4nth0l0gy3/15/2015, 7:47:55 AM1 votes

If Riot would just open the entire champion pool to all players in ARAM, this would be less of a problem. As it is, everyone expects everyone to get good ARAM champs always, so they fear playing the "not good" ones. It's a bad mentality, and I don't approve of dodging, but I understand the frustration.