High ELO is currently unplayable. Please undo new champion select/dynamic queue.
Hey guys, SSBM Hax here. I made a Reddit account just to voice my opinion on the new champ select/dynamic queue, which has rendered the game borderline unplayable at high ELO. I know I represent a small fraction of the playerbase and that your experiences so far may be different, but I hope you hear me out. To me/many other high ELO players, this decision is bar none the biggest disaster in League history. Some of the problems I list are exclusive to high ELO; others aren't.
Matchmaking
The new queue system has greatly widened the ELO range of players people can be queue'd with. Presumably, this is to compensate for the fact that the game now searches for people in their preferred roles, and reduce queue times.
To give you an idea about skill deferentials: ~200 LP is a massive skill gap. Now picture 400 LP Masters players getting queued with Diamond 2's and 3's, which is what has been happening. This is not an enjoyable experience for anyone in these games.
Queue times
They have shot up astronomically. I just queue'd for 35 minutes only to get a game against 3 D1's and 2 D2's (I'm 360 LP). My queue used to take on average 7 to 10 minutes. At worst, 20 minutes. 35 minutes is unheard of for 360 LP.
Getting your preferred role
Despite this being a focal point of these changes, I'm finding that the chance of getting your primary role has marginally, if at all, increased. In the past, you had the chance of being higher pick than someone else who wanted the same role as you. I'm not going to do the math, but whatever the chance of this was, it felt roughly the same as the chance you're forced to play your secondary role now.
The only way the preferred role system ever should have been implemented is to be able to queue for one role only and be guaranteed that role. Even if queue times were longer as a result, the "rate" of time spent getting your role would surely go up. As it is now, you don't even get your primary role a lot of the time. This aspect of champion select is a complete failure.
The notion that League is a team game
At high ELO, this doesn't work out nearly as well as Riot would have liked. Many people, like myself, are solo queue warriors; not everyone is on a LCS or Challenger team. I don't have any interest of joining one, either; I play this game for fun. The fact that people like me are able to get queue'd against teams like CLG or TSM playing with voice comms is completely ridiculous. While this isn't likely, it can happen.
Forcing this notion onto people isn't fair, as some people don't have any interest in playing on a team. It plays out even worse at high ELO, where the player pool is small. Say queue'ing in groups of 3+ became the standard. Tons of people would be left out. Some people literally wouldn't have teams to consistently queue with; a popularity contest-esque effect would arise. Being able to queue solo needs to be not only a viable, but encouraged option.
Being locked off from playing with certain people
While the possibility of queue'ing solo and playing against pro teams is there, like I said, it isn't likely. If said teams were to consistently queue as a group, I would rarely ever get to see them. When I do get to play against them, it would be in an unfair environment (them on a team with comms). This would effectively take the best players in the region out of the solo queue player pool. That is a real tragedy. A ton of the fun/excitement of high ELO solo queue is being able to play with people who are very good at this game and play it for a living. This system has the potential to divide the player pool in two.
The legitimacy/illegitimacy of people's ELO's
Duo queue is the maximum amount of people you should be able to queue with in a PvP mode that isn't ranked 5's for the sake of a less skilled player not being carried up the ladder. Once you allow for a third person, combinations like mid/jungle, top/jungle, or adc/support can easily boost a third person's ELO. The ladder has no legitimacy under this system.
Aesthetic/Functionality of new champion select
I find it ridiculous. The aesthetics are an overblown attempt at making things look modern. Things used to be much more clearly laid out and easier to read.
The 30 seconds at the beginning where you pick your preferred champion is a waste of time. Your "preferred" champion often becomes an illogical pick once you see the enemy's team comp.
Making people dodge if they fail to click Lock In is unnecessary. If they chose a champion, they are clearly not AFK. Locking in is a good option to have for the sake of speeding up the rotation/getting into game faster, but it should not force a dodge if you fail to click it.
Making 3 separate people do bans is a nice attempt at being democratic, but is not a good idea. "Gameplans" for bans are very important, and these gameplans have a chance of being ruined by having multiple people do the bans. Here's an example. Soraka, Trundle, and Tahm Kench are the 3 supports seeing bans right now. As of late in high ELO, I've been seeing Soraka and Trundle banned more often than Tahm Kench. I typically do not ban Tahm Kench unless Soraka and Trundle have already been banned, as that leaves him up as the only "OP" support pick. Lines of logic like this have a tendency of being broken under the new system, which leads to people flaming each other over not banning certain champions.
Making the 3 last picks do bans is a bad idea as well. In a recent champion select, I was first pick and got my primary role of mid. Someone else who had queue'd with mid as their primary ended up getting their secondary. Knowing that I'm a TF one trick pony, they banned TF and made me dodge.
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Overall, these changes have ruined League for me. I'm writing this post after queue'ing 35 minutes for a game where I didn't even get my primary role and played vs D1's/D2's. The jungler was nice enough to swap roles with me and let me mid because he knew me. Still, to wait that long to not even get your primary and play against a team 300 MMR lower than yours is insane. We lost because a bunch of us trolled out of disgust for the new system. I've decided that I will not be playing ranked anymore as a solo if things aren't reverted; it is unplayable. I've talked to a bunch of friends about this matter and the distaste is unanimous.
The old system may not have been perfect, but it was fine. The only change I would have made would be to make people reportable within champion select. I think that is necessary to counteract champion select terrorism, which I feel was a goal of this new system.
