Sort of like the honor ribbons, but the reward is a high-positivity queue?

I actually disagree. I think that the fear and concern that players have around role and champ select stems from a very natural place of wanting to do their best and have the team do their best.

Let's look at the typical situation. I drop into champ select with the firm knowledge of being awesome at my favorite role or champion but with zero knowledge of how good anyone else is at the other roles. If I have a known, high, level of confidence in my ability but zero knowledge of another player's ability, how much confidence and trust do I have in them taking it over me?

That thought process is usually where this behavior stems from. This is why we need to find strong and healthy ways for the game to smooth these situations out.

How can we help people feel more confident and build trust with their teammates pre-game so that players don't feel the pressure that can lead to negative outbursts? This is the sort of discussions Lyte and I have been having a lot here at the office.

I like the idea of being able to queue with a position in mind, but with a caveat: Queue by lane you want to be in rather than by meta standards (because it would reinforce the meta) and by preference rather than only one role. Alternatively, queueing up by tags rather than meta-based role (mage, tank, carry, etc.)

Riot, I think you should make it very clear that Pick order is to be favored over call order. This should be enforced. That way if people don't like their position, they cannot blame the team.

Chance is neutral and thus cannot be blamed. If they don't like their position, tough. They dodge or play something else.


To do this you need pre-game chat to be revealed in the tribunal.

WoW dungeon finder = 10min+ waiting queues.
But if you're all patient people, which, let's admit, you're not, it could work.

dungeon finder

no fun queuing up with 4 other people who all want to play mid as well, and nobody can jungle or support very well....

With a dungeon finder you would get a person for each roll in every game. Of course Top, Mid, ADC will always wait longer in the queue due those roles being more popular, but that would basically be the tradeoff for choosing to play a popular role.

Okay. I am sure this is not going to be a cure all for draft pick. The truth is trolls are trolls are trolls and there will always be times where someone is unwilling to cooperate with the team.

I have an idea I think could help the whole pick order/call order problem. It has a lot to do with what Griftrix has stated in recent posts.

I also believe that better communication is the key to have a more enjoyable and less trolled-filled champion select.

My suggestion to make better communication a bigger priority is to introduce a "strategy phase" that happens AFTER champion bans and BEFORE champion picks. The phase could last anywhere from 30 seconds to a whole minute or potentially longer.

I for one would not mind have an extra minute and half or so to talk with and communicate with my team before people start picking champions. Minute and a half to long? I don't think so.

When I play ranked most of the time I will offer to fill any role. I will usually state that I prefer jungle or ADC but I feel I can play every role in the current meta rather well.

Even with my willingness to fill (I play support a lot) there are still times where my team does not communicate enough and bad situations happen (two supports, all AP champs, not enough CC on team). Is this because we were not actively attempting to communicate? No. Is this because once champion bans are done that first pick INSTANLY has a count down saying pick a champ or be randomized? Yes.

Whenever I happen to be first pick not only do I feel the pressure in banning champions but as soon as the bans are done I have to pick-or-die. At this point most of the chat has been on which champions we want to ban and the typical "MID OR AFK". So now I have my short period of time to try and talk with the team as much as possible and try to figure out what role is needed. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I do not.

Inevitability there are time where 3 of the other four people have chimed in., my timer is running low and I have to pick between to roles. The fourth guy has been quiet and have to make a choice. I choose to go jungle instead of support and the instant I lock that jungle Nocturne the last pick who has not said a word all caps "I CANNOT PLAY SUPPORT".

If I had that extra minute or so before champ select to ask everyone what role they want and encourage communication I think it would be a MAJOR step in the right direction

Also having more time to communicate before playing a game with 3-4 random people you have never played with before would encourage more non-meta team play and strange choices that you usually only see in 5v5 team games.

For example we have extra time to talk and decide just for the heck of it we are going to run three mid and confuse the enemy. If we had extra time to discuss and plan this and everyone agrees it could be a valid strategy choice.

If we did not have time to discuss and just went crazy and three of the five decided to go mid then the other two are likely gonna freak out and scream reports and feed and all sorts of non-fun stuff.

I would totally be fine with having even up to three minutes before champion picks to discuss strategy. In my opinion that is WAY better than frantically burning through picks and getting more trolls/miscommunication that is going to cause the next 20 minutes minimum be a total nightmare.

tl;dr: I think having up to three minutes after champion bans and before champion picks would encourage communication and encourage non-meta games that would overall reduce trolls and increase fun in draft/ranked pick.

What do yall think?

#1 can and will be abused. Duo-queues will have a huge influence on matchmaking if it goes through, and I think I read that 86% of all ranked games contain a duo-queue.

In regards to the idea of a "wow dungeon finder system", I have a couple of of arguments against it. First, an issue I have with the current wow dungeon finder system in the game is the time discrepancy between dps, healer, and tank. If you're a rogue and sign up for the dungeon finder, you can expect 17 minute wait times. Tanks click the button and get in. Healers wait 2-3 minutes. Would this same thing happen, with top and mid being in the dps, jungle being in tank (new players don't like jungling) and support/adc being the healer?
With my first argument being more of practicality argument, my second is more of an ideological one. By reinforcing the need for there to be a top laner, mid laner, jungler, adc, and support, it does kind of hurt any meta change that may occur, and also pigeonholes certain champions to certain roles. The day may come where we have adc solo lanes, double brusier bot lanes, or mid/support lanes. Who knows, the meta shifts and that's the fun thing. However, if we implement the need for certain roles, we definitely slow down, if not altogether stop this shift. Plus this is more of a hunch, but once you lay out certain roles, I feel like players will even more strongly associate certain champions to these roles, and even more experimentation will be stifled.
Alas, this is just my two cents, hopefully it'll help ya Lyte

WoW dungeon finder WOULD be the way to go if it didn't enforce the meta. My biggest problem is that I will never ever play support, I would literally rather turn my computer off and stare at a black screen fo rthe same period of time. I almost never solo queue because there's a non zero chance the team will try and force me to support.

Jungle is almost as bad as of the end of season2, and this seas. Jungle and support are also always the roles shoved down peoples throats, so in addition to anything that can be done to make champ select better, a huge part of the problem is that there are two roles that can essentially only be filled/played in such a way that the majority of the player base does not want to. Basically ensuring that 2ish people per match are screwed.