Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening,

If you don't play Random 5v5 in Draft Mode-Summoners Rift, this post does not apply to you.

I don't really read the forums and this would be my first post. I've been playing League of Legends for a good year or so now and am currently dedicating myself to raising my ELO as high as I can, while failing miserably at it. But that's not what I'm going on about, what I want to draw attention too is the complete lack of a good system for calling/picking roles.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need to have this discussion because teams would just work together and everyone would be satisfied with what role they got. But as anyone who has spent time in ELO hell will tell you, that doesn't happen. In the past few days I've been in over ten games where someone has taken the role of another player, whether it be because they were higher in pick order or because they called it first. It's not just in ranked, it's in normal mode too and it needs to be stopped or at least safe-guarded against.

In the Champion Selection screen, players will generally pick roles that they feel they are best at. The problem is that whenever you join a queue, players will flip-flop between the two current systems of getting a role that will better help them get their preferred role regardless of what another player may want. These players will throw out a line close too "It's in the Summoners Code!" and/or tell the player whose role they are taking to "Get over it" or something similar.

For reference:

Call Order: The player who calls the role first is the player who gets the role.

Pick Order: The first player gets to pick the role they want, then the second, then the third, etc.

The Summoners Code makes no direct reference to which one is better and before you go raging on me saying that "Pick Order is directly mentioned!" I have to throw out that so is Call Order.

Quote:

Support Your Team

“[Teamwork] is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”-Andrew Carnegie

While we all carry a diverse set of individual ambitions and expectations into a game of League of Legends, once we hit the Field we’re a part of a team. For better or worse, our fates are intertwined with that of our teammates. Once the game gets into full swing, you have to make a choice between being a positive force for your team, or contributing to your own demise.

Being a good team player begins at champion select. Be open minded when considering the needs of your team. If you’re the last one to pick, try to fill a niche in your team that hasn’t already been filled. If everyone’s picked and something stands out as a deficiency in your team composition, try asking for another player to fill the gap, or change roles to embrace that responsibility yourself. Remember, that by taking on a role you don’t normally play, you’ll learn more about unfamiliar champions and increase your own skill level.

Once you get in game, try to keep an open line of communication. Warn your teammates if someone is missing from your lane, or if something is placing them in immediate danger. If they’re not paying attention to chat you can always try pinging the map. Just remember that one ping is enough! Also, remember that you have to be there to contribute, so don’t leave the game or go AFK! Encourage players who are having trouble, and congratulate those who are playing well. And most of all, if you’re having a bad game don’t take it out on your team!

The bolded section is what I'm referring too. The second sentence is an obvious reference to Pick Order. But every other sentence in the bolded part references to Call Order. Now overall it says to work with your team so that everyone is happy, but as I've stated before... Well that happens less often than what anyone would like to believe.

So too outline everything, the problems currently are:

1. A lack of a definite system for picking roles in Draft Mode leads to players abusing the system to better suit their needs while screwing over other players.
2. This leads to players in games refusing to work together, resulting in bad teamwork, a bad experience and most likely a loss.

In my opinion, Riot needs to step in and make a decision. While I've heard tales of the possibility of queuing up for specific roles being implemented sometime in the far future, until that happens we need an actual system for picking.

What I've found that works is as follows:

5v5 Normal Draft: Call Order
5v5 Ranked Draft: Pick Order

But other people may have differing strategies that they feel when implemented will work to better teamwork among randoms.

I'm opening this thread to discuss the possibilities of either having Riot step in and make a statement regarding this problem or having some other kind of system implemented that would make champion select less of a headache for all involved. I'm fine with either way, but something needs to be done.

Roles should never be a hard-coded part of the client.

The meta is stale enough as it is without the option to declare a kill-lane bot, a top/bot switch, and so on.

However, while POSITIONS are somewhat flexible... In reality, the roles have NEVER truly changed; and there's only a handful of positions ever invented. The formation meta that's changed has only been which of those is picked for what.

Long story short, the whole "we shouldn't hard-core the meta in" is a BS argument; it assumes that the only way to code in something that'd reference the metagame would invariably have to rely on the European Meta. (the Top-Mid-ADC+S-Jungle setup)

But when you boil it down, there's only 7 possible positions to take: #1 Top, #2 Top, Mid, #1 Bot, #2 Bot, Jungle, and Roamer. (I'm leaving out ARAM because it's essentially a separate game mode that never seriously comes up outside custom games) Whatever your meta, it's just a matter of what positions you have, as exactly what role goes where don't change it much:

• A strong example is who's the jungler. Some junglers are tanks (Amumu) while there's also Assassins (Shaco), Fighter/Bruiser (Shyvana), Support (Nunu), Mage/AP Carry (Fiddlesticks), or even "melee AD carry." (Gangplank) No matter which you went with, you're still in the "European Meta."
• Similarly, it doesn't make as HUGE a difference whether the mid is an AP Carry (aka "mage") or AD Carry; after all, no one already bats an eye between the difference of an unarguable AP Carry (like Ryze) going mid and an AP-based assassin (like Katarina, Fizz, or Kassadin) going mid. And to say nothing of all the "AP carry/Assassin" types who've got the range AND some assassin ability (Ahri, Twisted Fate, LeBlanc) as well as those who're considered viable supports. (like Zyra and Morgana)
• As for the carry lane (regardless of where it is) it's pretty straightforward: there will be the primary carry, and the support. In a "kill lane" with two carries, (or a carry with an otherwise offensive champ like a fighter) one will be the one doing the farming, and the other will STILL act as a "support." So, it can just be generically labeled: #1 and #2.
• Top/bottom really don't change regardless of if you flip it, or even mirror it. (such as a second AD+support top or other crazy combinations)

• Two top, one mid, two bottom. ("double top" meta)
• One top, one mid, two bottom, one jungle. ("European" meta)
• Two top, one mid, one bottom, one jungle. ("Flipped European" meta)
• One top, one mid, one bottom, one jungle, one roamer. ("Taipei" meta)

A red should step in on this... it's a persistent issue and it's not going away.

Tank / Healer / DPS started out as a community created meta in raiding in WoW and guess what, it stuck, now you queue into those roles.

My Solution: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/....php?t=2881286
I know you guys are really set on this "select roles" trip, but it cannot, and must not happen.

There are more than 7 "roles"

Riot has 12 "attributes", 9 of which could be conceived as "roles", but really the 12 comes in a multitude of combinations which makes champions viable in a multitude of roles.

Then we add in this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by ACGIFT Two top, one mid, two bottom. ("double top" meta) One top, one mid, two bottom, one jungle. ("European" meta) Two top, one mid, one bottom, one jungle. ("Flipped European" meta) One top, one mid, one bottom, one jungle, one roamer. ("Taipei" meta)

Riot definately needs to voice their opinion on this. I have always believed that strong communication is what leads a team to victory, and that teams need to talk about roles before picking. Giving priority to someone who randomly gets placed in a specific order is ridiculous, and undermines communication itself. Four other members of the team can be communicating on roles, and one member who refuses to communciate can ruin a game before it starts. Ironically it is now the communicating players that get punished, as one of them will have to eat a dodge timer to not suffer for 20 minutes.

I despise the idea of adding any kind of role-queue to the game, for a number of reasons:

1. Team compositions are now essentially chosen by the matchmaker instead of by players.
2. Role queues are a prime target for trolls who, say, choose ADC and then pick a mid.
3. Role queues will not assure that a person is good at their role, nor does it ensure that they will work with our team composition.
4. Regardless of what you argue, it DOES stagnate the meta because now you're limited to having 1 jungler, 1 mid, 1-2 tops, etc. See point #1.
5. LF1M support please.

So basically a role-queueing system would solve little to nothing while at the same time introducing new issues into the game which don't need to exist.

Also, it's pick order in draft, call order in blind. Draft ranks pick order by ELO, so why exactly should someone at a lower ELO feel entitled to a position they "called" over a player whose ELO is higher AND picks before them anyway?

Really, the solution is: Don't be a jerk. Ask for a role, don't call a role. Discuss with the people in champ select, and if it works out that two people want the same thing, I dunno, take it to a vote. Or just Q dodge and deal with it.

Riot shouldn't have to force you to be polite.

Call order is more accurate than pick order. The elo system is messed up, so having higher elo than your teammates means nothing when you can carry your team with a lower elo than theirs.