jebus... so much new info, new client alpha, crafting... ranked going crazy... 

For any of you that haven't read up on some of the season 6 planned changes, one of them is to have dynamic queues for ranked.  Meaning, you can even have a total of 5 pals in what was originally ranked solo/duo queue.  To this, someone responded over on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/3rgb7x/hots_had_dynamic_queue_and_everyone_hated_it/

A few good points here - specifically there being a big potential problem for people going it alone and the potential abuse at the hands of 4 man premades.  For instance, if the 4 man is on voice chat, then they are less likely to communicate with their solo teammate.  Group mentality abuse (you are the solo guy and now an entire group of twats is dumping on you for X reason).  Making the game more fun is cool.  Making the game more fun for people that abuse others is less so.  Maybe rito would combat this with a higher feedback rating for folks group with a 4 man pre.  

If I'm completely honest, I still think solo/duo queue should become SOLO queue.  Let that queue indicate how you stack up vs other individual players.  Put that together with the new champ select process where you pick 2 roles and I think we have a really good system for measuring individual skill.  

I also think grouping as 5 will just skew MMing like it does in normals. Play 1 game with PDT in a normal.  Now imagine what happens in ranked... he's gold after all.  

Anyway, I'll roll w/ whatever rito decides to do, but I personally think this is a bad idea and think that if they are going this route, they should limit premades to no more than 3 so they don't have ff control automatically.  And if they are going this route, I wish they'd create two queues - 1 for SOLO queue, 1 for OMGFBBQ queue.  

Oh and the new champ select is now live on PBE.

Not really the biggest fan of the ranked queue changes either especially since I am very much the lone wolf type of player for ranked. Seems kind of silly but we will see how it works out.

Get good team that plows the opponents, group with whole team, steamroll all day?

moobeat posted vid of new champ select process - cool animations 

Worth noting that multiple people on the team are making the bans - 1 guy gets 1 pick, another gets another.  

There are also individual champ select timers.  Once bans are done, it still goes in the same rotation - team X gets first pick, the team 2 gets the next 2 picks.  Those next 2 picks each have a unique timer.  So, let's say my team has 2nd/3rd pick and I'm 3rd pick.  When its time for 2nd to pick, I can't do anything until they lock in.  Then I get a unique timer.  In short, you just don't pick at exactly the same time anymore.  

I'm leaning towards support/jungle as my 2 roles atm.  Might all change in preseason though.

Mid and support are my choices with top being a close third.

Yeah, might have to adjust if/when I play with 1-4 buddies with the new Ranked system.

This was addressed by Lyte.  

False reports are going to be a bannable offense so it wouldn't be a good idea for the foursome to bully the rando.  Also, reports made by the 4 man team only count as one.  So if four of us played Ranked and decided to all report the one extra guy, and he reported all of us... everyone just gets one report against them.

If they made SoloQ solo only, they would have to bump everyone like you and I and everyone else who played a significant amount of Ranked games as Duos over the previous seasons back down to Silver.  That way it would be fair to all the new Ranked players who have to get through Elo Hell going Solo every game because dudes like us wouldn't get our soft reset to Gold. 

But that would be a little silly.  I understand why Riot is going this route since it allows friends to play together more often.  Also might take away from some of the motivation for people to Elo Boost and stuff if they make Ranked more relaxed and fun. 

One solution to preserve the sanctity of Ranked would be to get a 'Lone Wolf' icon/border decoration/whatever if you play every game in a season Solo.

yeah, but I'm more thinking a lets see how this plays out.  Also, if there isn't notification, how do we know something was done.  Its def a bad feeling to know 4 people have reported you.   That happens even a few times and its a pretty huge turn off to going it solo.

DO IT.

Yes, please.  This would be completely awesome.  Wipe the queues.  Make everyone that needs to ride coattails earn their shit.  I've played enough solo games and I'm more than confident I easily fit in Plat.  I don't really lump myself in with the needs to duo to get there party even if you want to lump me in there. If you are feeling like that of yourself, then prove it to yourself and do it solo!  Meant a lot to me personally do earn my elo and so I did.  Pretty damn sure I'd make it back to plat playing 100% solo though.  For me, the real challenge would be putting in the time and work to see how high I could go in plat and if I could actually hit Diamond.  I really don't feel like I need to prove shit to show I earned plat as a solo player though.  

All that said, I'm obviously really passionate about having a true solo queue - even more so if its true solo queue with folks getting to play their main role 90% of the time.  I'd like to be able to say at some point that I am a diamond support.  That doesn't mean I'm a diamond mid, ofc.  Or a diamond jack of all trades.  My real end game would be to rate people by role and then by champion in that role.  That's kind of crazy thinking, tbh, but that's the type of crap I care about.  Who is the best regulus in DG?  Who is the best spirit Oak?  Etc.  I just think TRUE solo queue gets us closer to stats like that instead of some horseshit 4 peeps queue up in ranked and carry this shit support up.  Or imagine a karls that hits diamond. You probably don't want him to ADC, but having him jungle is great.  He's not a D level adc.  That's where the rating system fails.  I just think it could be alot better and this is a silly step completely in the opposite direction.  

Realistically, I don't think they can create the 2 queues.  For instance, consider pacovs magical world where there is a SINGLE SOLO queue and a OMFBBQ anything else queue.  You have a 4 man premade.  Would a solo person choose to queue up for that "dynamic queue" instead of going and playing solo queue?  If he only choose solo queue, the what must the queue times be like in the dynamic queue where 4 man pre's are waiting for 1 guy to show up.  It could work, but if it was a SOLO queue and a max of 3 peeps queue in the OMGFBBQ queue.

Oh and new meta - cow top poppy, pacov mid donger.  GG (forget about mord)

Not insinuating you're not a Platinum caliber player.  You earned your border and sorry if it came across like I thought you didn't.

I thought that Duoing was fun for you.  You like to call shots, you like to talk in games, and you like to play with pals.  I thought that's mostly why you Duo'd so often when playing Ranked, not just that you find people you have synergy with and can climb up to where you belong faster.

You've expressed burn out with the process of getting as high as you can in Ranked because of getting bad luck in promos and being placed in Silver in the past, so I wouldn't think having to slog your way up again without a Hunnybadger to talk to while you play (and possibly expedite the climb) would be appealing.

So yeah, I'm just a little confused why one of the most social people in this game that I know is upset that Riot is trying to make Ranked a more social experience.

Heh - next name change will be social pacov with strong opinions about true ranked solo queue - I hear you can use up to 100 characters in season 6.  Jokes aside, I've always been kind of weird in how I socialize.  I talk too much and too often in some settings and more often than not would actually rather not play with anyone for a bit (remember my whole offline mode thing from awhile back - I didn't figure that out to socialize )  

Anyway, the ranked thing is just a personal thing that I've always been on about.  I like to feel like i earned whatever in ranked.  For instance, if I earned plat last season in solo queue without Herculean effort, I don't really care if I duo or not to get the same stupid standing from season to season.  Personally, duo queueing to plat (eg if I never made it there solo) would mean less to me.  Same logic would apply for me personally if I made it gold via our ranked 5's team.  I'm alot more interested in my solo performance if I'm really making an effort.  And again, even more specific in that I'm a plat support and possibly a plat jungler, but not a plat mid/top.  I think that would be the best sort of ranked match making - where I'm up against something that is not only plat, but is plat in the role they are playing.  BUT - rito don't really care, so if they go through with this change, then I'll either have to adjust my pov or decide not to give a fug.  I'm not really looking down on you if you duo'd a bunch, though.  I think this queue idea is a bad one, though.  Could be everything goes swell and folks just get used to it despite initial smeh feelings.  

Or perhaps let me change the tone.  Do folks agree with me that a ranked system that evaluates elo by role would be better?  Eg you could be a plat Support but only a gold Mid, etc?  Does that sound appealing?  MMing could be tweaked as well so my plat ass doesn't have to go up against a plat mid if I had to fill like back in the day.

I had the same reservations you did when I first heard about it but am now drinking Dr. Lyte's Koolaid.

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/11/red-post-collection-warding-you-ranked.html#more

Here's one of the quotes that helped turn around my perspective:  "We upgraded the matchmaking system to pair similar group comps together. It is possible that it might be harder to rank up in a premade group than as a solo because you'll be consistently exposed to crazier, and more competitive strategies."

There is quite a bit of dopeness to consider with the new system.  More teamwork in Ranked games and such, less bullshit that poor Karl ran into when he made his last minute run for Plat.  Maybe.  We'll see.

But think about it this way: Solo Purist Pacov and Teamwork Makes The Dreamwork Thunder both play Ranked next season, you with only going in solo and while try and play with as many friends as possible each game.

For arguments sake let's say having a Dynamic Ranked group of 3-5 is a huge advantage over being Solo.  Well... they're going to try very hard to match my premade against another premade of equal skill and size so where's the advantage I get if they manage to pull that off?

You'll be in 1/4 groups or 1/1/1/1/1 or 1/1/3 or whatever against the exact same composition so where is the disadvantage?  Why is going Solo harder than having a premade five man team in this scenario?

This of course all hinges on Riot's goal of having Matchmaking place Dynamic teams go against other teams of the same size '95%' of the time.  If that doesn't work out, then having lots of good friends will be a big advantage in Ranked.

Re:  Adjusting MMR based on specific roles

No.

Current Teambuilder Matchmaking is absolutely horrendous and any attempt to borrow from it's handicapping system would be a very bad idea.  If you want to play Mid in Ranked, get good at Mid in Normals.  Getting beat by better players is the way to get good at a role, specially Mid or Top.  The new system will be in place so you'll get to practice the role most times that you queue up for a Normal Draft game.

So here's what this means.

If you consistently play as a well organized team, you will move up faster.

If you consistently play as a poorly organized team, you will move slower.

If you play solo, there will be EVEN MORE randomness and its going to take even longer to converge to your true rank.  If you get the solo role in the 1+4 vs 1+4 matchup, the match will largely be decided by how well coordinated the two groups of 4 are.  In other words, you have less control over the game than if it was 1+1+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1.  So its more random and your winrate will be closer to 50%.

Remember: Riot likes this.  They want it to take longer for you to converge to your true rank, because the longer this convergence takes, the more ranked games you play.  The metric they use for "success" based on their posts is # of ranked games played.

The point of ranked in League of Legends is to win League of Legends games.

The point of the rankings system is to measure (eventually) how effective people are at winning League of Legends games.

The fact that some people do it differently (different roles, champions) is not relevant.

That's all that matters - winning and losing.  Trying to prove other esoteric points is just silliness.  I mean, when I watch Faker do well with Ryze mid which helps SKT win, I don't think "This Faker guy is really good at mid Ryze, but what I really need to know how good his jungle Shyvanna is".  Nobody cares if Faker's jungle Shyvanna is better than Hai's.  What we care is that Faker is a better overall player and SKT is a better overall team.

Disagreed.  Somewhat.  I think it will depend on an individual players strengths and weaknesses and I think yours make you biased.

You'll do great with the new system IMO.  You'll thrive with more organized teams whether you are part of them or join up.  Now a mechanically gifted Mid/Top/ADC player who thrives in the current system by steamrolling his lane and carrying games so hard his team can't fuck it up for him will be sad with the lack of disorganization to take advantage of.  Organized teams will be able to take him down easier or better yet help keep him from getting out of control to begin with instead of just bitching and crying "Waaaaaahhh!  Who fed the Lucian?!  Waaaaaahhhh!"

If you play solo you're playing against other solos.  If you play with a group, you're playing against other groups.  Which one is more advantageous depends on an individual players skillset and mindset.

Not everyone playing with premades will have an advantage climbing when they're playing against other premades.  Some people will thrive in teams and others will do worse.  It all depends and it will vary from player to player and team to team.  And game to game!  Think about our Ranked Team.  Sometimes we work well together, bring each other up, communicate well, etc.  Other games we distract each other, argue about calls non stop, and tilt each other.