pacov's League of Legends general discussion thread

on Jul 20, 2015

Q:This might not be your department, but how do you think Ranked Team Builder is going to affect the total average MMR of the entire community? At first glance I would think it would raise the average MMR since almost everyone will be playing their "main" roles. Or does the system work differently?

This is a very mathematical question, so pardon the nuance. Right now, because you have no control of what positions you get in Ranked Draft, you can have a "Primary" position but might be forced to play the other positions in some games. This means that your MMR is actually a weighted average of what positions you've actually played, and these weights might be different for every player depending on what positions they prefer to play. So, a Support Main might have a more accurate MMR that represents their true underlying skill level because they get Support in 90% of their matches. However, a Mid Main might have higher variance on their MMR because they only get Mid in 60% of their matches.

A:With Team Builder Draft, we're giving players more control over what positions they get in Ranked Draft. So, instead of having a probability of getting 1 of 5 positions, you have a probability of getting 1 of 2 specified positions so there's lower variance in the system. If you think through this math, it means that the variance of the population is going to go down, but MMRs should not increase globally on average; after all, it's a zero sum game (if you win MMR, someone is losing it). If you think through this more abstractly, players are technically not more skilled after we introduce the system, the system just has more accuracy when measuring player skill now. Over the first few weeks, players who had low variance will probably have the same MMR. Players who had high variance will most likely see moderate to large drops (or increases) in MMR and this new MMR will be a better reflection of their underlying skill levels.

1967

on Jul 20, 2015

People who can play all roles competently will be negatively impacted since being well rounded probably helped them climb to where they are currently. That's the boat I feel I'm in.

Being good at an unpopular role like Support is an advantage for you and I. When this new version of Team Builder goes live, we will no longer be occasionally facing last picks who have been forced into the role and don't have a clue how to play it. When we Support, we will now be playing other Support specialists every game.

Hopefully being able to specialize in less roles offsets that for you, but I think it might be a little naive to only see how the new system will positively impact you. Your opponents will benefit from the changes as well.

Since we know that it isn't being released this year, it'll be released during Preseason "at the earliest". If you avoid ranked during preseason, that means you have until January or February until you have to work with the new system. This means that you have, at least, 6 months to choose two "main" roles, and practice them. i figure that should be plenty of time to learn those roles. In addition, there are already ways to facilitate that: you can play Normal Teambuilder.

There's also other levers that Riot can use to make the system more palatable to "fillers":

1. MMR reset or placement matches may be different this season. i generally assume that most resets benefit people with "solo lane mains", but that's not 100% certain.

2. You may get a very slight MMR "handicap" or slightly boosted LP gains if you queue as "fill"

3. At the very least, if you queue as "fill" you'll experience much faster queue times. If you're able to keep up a similar win rate, faster queues -> more games -> more LP. Going 1-1 generally results in a net gain of 8 LP, right? Think of it as playing Face Hunter up to Rank 5...

4. In actual fact, "fill" isn't playing each role equally as often. Both you and pacov play mid much less than your other roles. Is that just because of Cow and me? Probably not. It also depends how many duo queues use the system. If lots of duos play, then you might see your "fill" mostly actually playing jungle/top.

5. Some people are going to queue Support with... non-support ideas. Just because they want the shorter queue time (i've got 75 minutes to play! Not enough time to queue as mid, but support i can play...). You probably won't be facing Lemonation EVERY game. Inb4 GDM.

1968

on Jul 20, 2015

awuffleablehedgie

I'm not currently concerned about how this change will effect what League I'm in and am not planning on adjusting how I play too much for it. My initial reaction was initially poor months ago. Seemed like Riot was pandering to those that watch LCS or 'One Trick Pony' streamers and think "If only I could just play my main role all the time like they do. Then I could make it to ______!"

Now I just see Ranked Teambuilder as a positive change for the population overall and am stoked they're doing it. I'll just continue to play what is fun for me and think that I'll be just fine next season doing that.

awuffleablehedgie

In actual fact, "fill" isn't playing each role equally as often. Both you and pacov play mid much less than your other roles. Is that just because of Cow and me? Probably not. It also depends how many duo queues use the system. If lots of duos play, then you might see your "fill" mostly actually playing jungle/top.

It's a little cause of you and Cow and Gotnades and ShadowKunt are better Mids who enjoy playing it. And the fact that I really enjoy going bot with Sharpie as my Support. And the LoL Babies just want to play Leona or ARAMs nowadays so I've been playing ADC a lot.

When I'm 'stuck' with the role, I feel I have just as much a chance of carrying my team than losing the game for them.

But I do see your point, but feel that there is just too much 'diminishing returns' when it comes to specialization in this game. Learning all roles and having a champ or two in each to play competently doesn't take much time and is very much worth putting the effort to do.

awuffleablehedgie

You probably won't be facing Lemonation EVERY game. Inb4 GDM.

No, but whatever people's motivation for playing Support with Ranked Rolebuilder, they will be better at the role than people currently being forced into the role. And even if they don't play the role conventionally, they will be better players who dropped in MMR so will be just as effective in their own way

What you won't have is the fifth pick "Mid or feed. Fine, I'll go Nid Support. You guys brought this on yourself." on the other team who then flames his team while stealing their kills. That being a thing of the past is going to be a disadvantage for all of us who play competent Supports and embrace the spirit of the role.

1969

on Jul 21, 2015

server maintenance announced - patch going out wed morning - includes new HUD. Per rito:

"We’re planning on rolling the HUD update over to live with patch 5.14. We’ll target non-ranked queues first to make sure nothing goes boom, then, if we’re ship-shape, add the update to ranked a few days later. "

Guessing we'll see the new hud very soon.

1970

on Jul 21, 2015

Also, if you haven't even glanced at the new game mode items, you should take a look... its.. pretty in depth - http://www.surrenderat20.net/p/514-pbe-cycle.html - scroll WAY to the bottom and then up to find

awuffleablehedgie

You probably won't be facing Lemonation EVERY game. Inb4 GDM.

I do and that's why I run GDM.

Thundercles

reply 1968

What you won't have is the fifth pick "Mid or feed.

We did some draft tonight and just had last pick decide they wanted to jungle also. Which left me supporting for no one. I rolled with it, but yeah - when shit like that ends, yay!

1971

on Jul 21, 2015

This from Lyte's Teambuilder Draft QnA:

"When selecting 2 positions, you can choose one as your Primary, and one as your Secondary. We're working on ways where if you get your Secondary position too often, we'll try to make sure you get your Primary position a few times. At this time we're not allowing players to just select 1 position, even if they understand it would have longer queue times."

I should like work for Riot or something.

pacov

reply 1965

Q:So - no ranked team builder draft this season. Can we expect to see UNRANKED team builder draft this season?

A:We'd like to do a beta of Unranked Team Builder Draft sometime this year, we just don't to disrupt the current ranked season.

What's the highlight for?

1972

on Jul 22, 2015

Expect going in to be really frustrated with the new hud for your 1st game at least. I was anyway. Eyes so used to looking for things in certain places.

1973

psychoak

on Jul 22, 2015

The new hud is bland, horribly bland. It's terribly for quickly drawing information from.

1974

on Jul 23, 2015

psychoak

reply 1973

The new hud is bland, horribly bland. It's terribly for quickly drawing information from.

True. I'm still getting used to it and it takes a split second longer to push the icon to stroke myself off on how much AP I have.

But I love being able to see the whole map so much now that all the 'clutter' has been consolidated. Also really like the new Tab function where you can move everyone around and be able to compare how the lanes are doing with their CS at a glance.

1975

on Jul 23, 2015

i need to figure out how to make my health bar bright gold again \: keep losing myself

Also i think it's *really funny* how mad people get about the items being on the left. Like, Rito, everyone knows items go on the left!!!!! That's how every culture ever puts its items!!!!! You dumb asses this is so stupid!!!!

Like, items being on the right/left is no better/worse... It's a completely arbitrary thing. The only justification for the left is "that its always been there"... or something. But they want to keep the bottom-left corners free, and items on the right aren't any worse once you're used to it.

1976

on Jul 23, 2015

oh, and that one guy who got upvoted a ton on some random whine thread talking about how he was a "UI Expert" and mentioning that Riot should be using "HTML5" in their game client so that "Everything" can be customizable.

Yeah, let's put a freaking web-browser in our C++ game client. That's a really efficient use of CPU, memory AND programmer resources!

1977

Krazikarl

on Jul 23, 2015

"YOU SHOULD USE HTML5" is what all the cool kids are saying right now. Get with the program. It doesn't matter if it makes sense or not.

1978

on Jul 23, 2015

Oh god, don't get me started about how much i'm sick of MongoDB \:

i am assuming that is NOT what wolframalpha is using

1979

on Jul 23, 2015

Only problem I have is that they're only using the UI for Normals and have the old style for Ranked. It's hard to get used to one when it keeps switching on you. But I'm sure they need to test it out first so whatever.

1980