League of Legends' "Team Builder" Lets You Queue as Your Preferred Role

[Steven Bogos]

League of Legends' "Team Builder" Lets You Queue as Your Preferred Role

Only like to play as an AD carry? Riot will soon be trialing a new system that lets players pre-select their roles.

"Solo mid or I feed." We've all encountered players like this in League of Legends, those guys that no matter what, will want to play a certain role, even if it's a detriment to the team. Well, this may be a thing of the past, as Riot will soon be trailing a new "Team Builder" system that allows players to pre-select their preferred roles. The system will allow players to pick positions (mid, top, bot, jungle), roles (tank, assassin, fighter, mage) and even specific champions, and Riot hopes it will foster experimentation in the community.

"How often have you logged on to League of Legends and thought, 'I just want to play Renekton today.' Or maybe you want to try a new strategy but can't find four friends to premade with. We're always asking how we can make the League of Legends experience better, and one thing that comes up a lot is how players want to feel like they're in control of their pre-game experience."

Team Builder is intended to bring players together that complement each other's expectations and intentions from the moment they enter the lobby. When everyone's aligned on who will be going where and playing what, the only thing left to figure out is how to dominate the opposition.

Team Builder will initially be a completely separate queue from every other League of Legends queue. "We're looking forward to feedback from players and will use that feedback to determine whether this type of Champion Select is a good fit for modes like Ranked Mode," said Riot, "But for now, we're focused on improving the Champion Select experience as an independent queue experiment."

Along with Team Builder, Riot will be rolling out a more advanced matchmaking system that "can dynamically account for your experience with a given role, position or champion."

Source: League of Legends Forums [http://forums.euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=13575345]

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[Jandau]

Oh this will be precious. It'll be like the MMO dungeon party finders, where tanks and healers get instant access to dungeons and damage dealers wait for hours. Likewise here, supports will probably get instaqueues, junglers and AD carries will wait a bit, while solo laners (top and mid) will have to wait around for an ice age. It's going to be magnificent!

 

[Sarge034]

Oh this will be precious. It'll be like the MMO dungeon party finders, where tanks and healers get instant access to dungeons and damage dealers wait for hours. Likewise here, supports will probably get instaqueues, junglers and AD carries will wait a bit, while solo laners (top and mid) will have to wait around for an ice age. It's going to be magnificent!

Damn ninjas are quick around here. I'm waiting for the griefers who queue as one thing but refuse to play that role. This is a good plan. Now let's see if it survives contact with the enemy.

 

[Vyress]

Oh this will be precious. It'll be like the MMO dungeon party finders, where tanks and healers get instant access to dungeons and damage dealers wait for hours. Likewise here, supports will probably get instaqueues, junglers and AD carries will wait a bit, while solo laners (top and mid) will have to wait around for an ice age. It's going to be magnificent!

The way I see it AD carries will get much faster queues than supports. I hardly ever see people calling adc as first choice - or even second - in champ select. And who could blame them, it's the most boring role out of the lot.

OT: it took a while but it's finally happening. I know for some people LoL is "srz bznz" and all that but just because there's a ranking system doesn't mean it can't be fun. And what's more fun than getting to play what you actually wanted to play as in the first place? And isn't that what games should be? Fun???

So yeah, I'm all for role queues or "Team Builder" as they call it now. Waiting 10 minutes and getting to play the role I wanted to play as just seems more fun and reasonable as opposed to having 1 minute queues and ending up with a role I am not that good at (in my case jungle) or a role that bores me (adc for me) for 30 minutes and more. And that goes for the other 4 teammates as well of course. Nothing sucks more than losing a game (or promo series) because someone in your team felt that she or he got stuck with their role in champ select and end up underperforming due to skill at the role, mood or just grieving.

 

[hazabaza1]

In before: "DOTA had it first"

But it doesn't.
This is actually a really fucking smart idea.

Though if League is anything like Dota, I can see supports and the like waiting a looooong time for each game.

 

[MrMixelPixel]

Well I'm looking forward to it. No longer will my 3-4 mans be ruined by one stubborn douche nozzel.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

YES YES YES AND MORE YES!! How can anyone be negative about this? Would you rather play a 20 minutes + game where you're in either a position you hate or can't play? Or one where your team mate keep calling keeps calling his team 'scrubs' because he was unresponsive in champ select and just another adc?

Or would you rather wait a little bit longer and play an actual GG?

 

[direkiller]

In before: "DOTA had it first"

But it doesn't.
This is actually a really fucking smart idea.

Though if League is anything like Dota, I can see supports and the like waiting a looooong time for each game.

Supports tend to be rather underplayed roll- even though they are a near required roll
So they will most likely insta que compared to the people who like to play mid,top,& ADC

 

[r0seyp0m]

Oh man, finally. I've been wanting and whining for a system like this for ages. The leavers and stubborn instalockers piss me off to no end.

I don't care if it means I have to wait a bit longer for queues.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

This will impact me in no manner whatsoever, as hardly anybody ever calls jungle anyway. The one benefit of maining jungle is that so few people actually want to take it from you. And playing Jarvan. I love Jarvan.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Fucking finally. Taking advice from Sky I see Riot.


Awesome now I can first pick, instalock Twisted Fate mid with slightly less WTFs from my team.

If we are talking about supports getting longer queues, surely it would be the other way around. Everyone picks mid so they all have to be fighting each other in queue times? The few people who want to support can just slip in quietly.

I like support dammit. See we pick Leona and go in at level 1. If they pick a decent carry to go with her that is, if I see another Vayne/Leona lane... hope you like waiting until level 6 earliest before you can go full Leona on people.

Draven/Leona though... LEVEL ONE! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Granted my new thing is support Lee Sin with my duo partner. Cuz Lee Sin can do anything and everything. Cuz he's the best character in the game Riot pls.

Jinx/Lee Sin works apparently. His ult is amazing if you play full Protect the Kog'Maw in fights.

 

[Schmeiser]

Oh this will be precious. It'll be like the MMO dungeon party finders, where tanks and healers get instant access to dungeons and damage dealers wait for hours. Likewise here, supports will probably get instaqueues, junglers and AD carries will wait a bit, while solo laners (top and mid) will have to wait around for an ice age. It's going to be magnificent!

The way I see it AD carries will get much faster queues than supports. I hardly ever see people calling adc as first choice - or even second - in champ select. And who could blame them, it's the most boring role out of the lot.

Good for me, adc is the most fun position in LOL (compared to the carry snooze fest in dota), i find top and jungle to be the most boring lanes. But i don't know about this it seems kinda dumb but then again lol has fixed lanes and positions so it could turn out great.

 

[Jaeke]

It was literally just yesterday that I said that this would be a cool feature.
I'm more than willing to wait for a few more minutes to guarantee a role I don't trust to other people.

 

[Quazimofo]

I'm not sure how to feel about this, because I've never had 4 friends who played league, and certainly never had that many people who took it casually enough to do what I like best about the game, silly team combinations. Having people pick their roles beforehand will make it damn near impossible to actually get the silly team combinations if people go in with a role, or even champion, pre-selected.

I fear that the queue-for-your-preferred-role thing will stagnate champion selections rather than encourage new tactics. I sincerely hope that they won't make the new thing mandatory, allowing classic random selection to remain for those suicidal few of us who like to take the risk of randoms for the chance of an excellent game. It's a painful risk (I've lost teamwork ribbons and friendliness ribbons for games where I a) stood up for someone getting shit all over by another on our same team or b) had a bad game where I couldn't land a skillshot to save my life and/or got killed more often than normal), but the rewards can be great (ever try thresh and blitz in a lane where both have excellent sportsmanship?)

Besides, when I want to play league I'd much rather not have long wait times. And sometimes I don't go in with a role to play in mind, so I prefer just hopping in and deciding in the pre-game selection.

Captcha: Honey mustard.
No captcha, this is nothing like honey mustard at all.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Is it just a slow news day today or is someone in the Escapist writing staff a huge LoL fan?

OT: As I've just started playing LoL, I can't really say whether or not this'll be a good idea or not, since I've had teammates with perfect communication so far (or, at the very least, didn't communicate enough to make much of a difference). I suppose some of the people that require that one extremely specific role will be satisfied, and there's really no way that this can really backfire.

As long as they don't take out Blind Pick, I really can't complain.

 

[DrOswald]

Is it just a slow news day today or is someone in the Escapist writing staff a huge LoL fan?

OT: As I've just started playing LoL, I can't really say whether or not this'll be a good idea or not, since I've had teammates with perfect communication so far (or, at the very least, didn't communicate enough to make much of a difference). I suppose some of the people that require that one extremely specific role will be satisfied, and there's really no way that this can really backfire.

As long as they don't take out Blind Pick, I really can't complain.

Lol is the most played game in the world, this is big news for League of Legends, and this is a gaming news website. There always seems to be someone talking about about how irrelevant LoL coverage is on but it is actually probably the most important game in the world. This isn't flashy news but it is important.

OT: Classic pick mode is still going to be around and something like this is desperately needed for ranked play. While I have heard concerns that this enforces the meta, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. A certain amount of rigidness in the meta is a good thing for an esport.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

It'll most definitely result in longer queue times for anyone not playing support, it also reinforces and validates an already stagnant metagame, further slowing down innovation as now we'll ~always~ see such and such champs going top, middle, jungle, and then the ADC and support bot. And considering only 60-something champions got picked or banned during the entirety of Worlds out of 114, you know there's a problem going on with the champion pool, their potential roles, and their validity as picks. Compare and contrast to Dota 2's TI3 tournament where only 10 heroes out of the 105 hero pool never got picked or banned.

 

[Schmeiser]

It'll most definitely result in longer queue times for anyone not playing support, it also reinforces and validates an already stagnant metagame, further slowing down innovation as now we'll ~always~ see such and such champs going top, middle, jungle, and then the ADC and support bot. And considering only 60-something champions got picked or banned during the entirety of Worlds out of 114, you know there's a problem going on with the champion pool, their potential roles, and their validity as picks. Compare and contrast to Dota 2's TI3 tournament where only 10 heroes out of the 105 hero pool never got picked or banned.

I agree pretty much with everything, the biggest shock coming from dota to LOL is that there are no melee carries. Wish they could somehow balance the whole game so you could play melee adc

 

[Rainboq]

It'll most definitely result in longer queue times for anyone not playing support, it also reinforces and validates an already stagnant metagame, further slowing down innovation as now we'll ~always~ see such and such champs going top, middle, jungle, and then the ADC and support bot. And considering only 60-something champions got picked or banned during the entirety of Worlds out of 114, you know there's a problem going on with the champion pool, their potential roles, and their validity as picks. Compare and contrast to Dota 2's TI3 tournament where only 10 heroes out of the 105 hero pool never got picked or banned.

I agree pretty much with everything, the biggest shock coming from dota to LOL is that there are no melee carries. Wish they could somehow balance the whole game so you could play melee adc

There are melee carrys. Jax and Master Yi come to mind, they just aren't super prevalent at certain levels of play. (Master Yi is pretty huge at low ELO because you need teamwork to beat him)