Fluffy Gamers

Riot unveils plans to introduce a Team Builder tool to League of Legends

One problem that frequently pops up in League of Legends matchmaking system, is that during normal matchmaking players immediately spam the chat with their preferred role once a match has been found, and if they don’t get their own way, they often resort to ‘trolling.’ This can be highly frustrating if all you are looking to do is play a normal match and don’t necessarily mind which role you are playing. Indeed, one thing that often escapes these dim witted individuals is that playing different roles and champions often, increases your knowledge and skill at the game and is an invaluable part of becoming better. Another point they often miss is that League of Legends is a team-game and that if everyone just helped each other instead of selfishly pursuing their own goals, they stand a much higher chance of succeeding against their opponent. These rather obvious points aside, the spamming of roles and subsequent inevitable flaming, is a major contributor to the verbal abuse that occurs in the game; something that Riot nobly and rightfully aims minimize.

With this is mind, it’s great news to hear that they have come up with a way of dealing with this problem (or, more specifically, the problem of those people who simply have to have it their own way.) The proposed solution is something called the Team Builder. This upcoming tool will enable players to select, upfront, exactly which champion and role they desire to play, what sort of strategy they have in mind, and then endeavour to match them with players whom presumably find this agreeable.  So, all is well with the world, those players who insist on playing their one and only role or champion, will be given a place to go; after all the tool, Riot says, will be optional. A good thing too, because presumably this proposed system of meta matchmaking will bring with it more substantial queue times. The flip side of that argument of course is that a lot of time usually wasted on dodged matches or those ruined by trolls, can now happily be avoided.

Will it enforce the meta?

In their forum post, Riot addressed several concerns players might have about this proposed system. Chief among them was the ideal that this tool will enforce the standard meta game. This appears to be somewhat answered by the fact that the tool itself will allow players to formulate various discrepant lane assignments, if they feel like testing non conformist tactics for a change. If, for some bizarre reason, a player feels like running with three champions mid and one bot and top, the Team Builder tool apparently gives players the means to set this up and agree on it in advance. How well that actually works in practice remains to be seen, naturally.

Goodbye Trolls?

How well this tool works in terms of queue times and the meta game is one issue. However, perhaps the main benefit of the League of Legends Team Builder won’t be felt by those who use it, but by those who do not use it. In other words, by giving players who refuse to play anything but their desired role and champion an avenue to do that, their presence will be significantly diminished in the normal queue. This of course remains to be seen; but if it turns out to work as proposed, Riot might just have come up with the best means yet enacted to reduce the flame wars that occur in League of Legends. Time will tell!

Tim has had enough of League of Legends and it’s terrible community and has decided to completely uninstall the game. In this video he gives his thoughts on the subject.

Whether they troll, flame, afk, or generally just rage all over the place, the majority of random people we’ve encountered while playing League of Legends, have generally speaking been the slime of the gaming community.

Here are our thoughts about the terrible League of Legends community.

The League of Legends surrender button needs to die. One of the things we’ve noticed an awful lot of since we began playing League of Legends, is the tendency for people in random groups to want to press the surrender button once they have died a handful of times. That’s right, even as early as twenty minutes into a game (the earliest you can press the surrender button in a League of Legends match), players are opting to surrender because they believe the game to be a lost cause. It’s not all doom and gloom for those of us with a bit more of a sporting approach to the game, as the surrender button does come down to a vote in League of Legends, a vote which you can control if you are playing with a friend as it only takes two ‘no’ votes to overrule the surrender.

The funny thing about all this is that in many cases, the games people are wanting to surrender, could easily be won turned around with a bit of teamwork and skill. Instead, what tends to happen, is that players start crying like little girls about the fact that they cannot believe you don’t want to surrender; in other words, channelling their energy into very much the wrong direction, a direction that honestly just ends up with them looking like a big crybaby who has thrown his toys out of the pram. If nothing else, this is highly amusing and provides a good bit of background entertainment while you concentrate on defending your base against the rampaging enemy team.

Remove the League of Legends Surrender Button?

This is all too frequent. It’s actually so frequent that the amusing crying show these people put on is getting a bit boring. We also sort of think the League of Legends surrender button takes a lot of fun out of the game for all parties involved. It’s frustrating when you are on the winning side and the enemy team just decides to surrender, because you are enjoying the game and then suddenly it’s called off because your opponents don’t have the sportsmanship to stick with the game. Can you imagine a football match where England is winning against Brazil 6 – 0 (no, me neither, but stick with me) and Brazil just suddenly walks off the pitch, because losing so badly is causing them to cry so badly that the pitch is in danger of flooding?

Quitting is just downright uncompetitive. So it’s actually quite puzzling as to why Riot decided the game needed it. Personally, we think that the League of Legends surrender button needs to die a horrible death. What about you? Let us know what you think.

Join us for more epic fails as we drag ourselves through yet another terrible round of League of Legends noob style. In this game Tim picked Tristana for AD Carry and was joined by Protospect supporting with Singed. Robski took Olaf and generally flapped about a bit failing in every possible direction. While Rentaka took top with Kayle, but then, apparently, didn’t take top. The one random player in our team, Lux, was simply AFK for the entire game, which made things a bit more difficult for us, on top of all the failing we were doing ourselves. All in all this was a terrible match, filled with many humorous quips, destined to provide hours of enjoyment to our viewers. I particularly enjoyed the part where I boldly leapt into the fray and killed Pantheon while everyone else cowered behind the turrets like the mere mortals they are.

Join the League of Legends Noob Squad!

As always, we invite people to come and join us in our League of Legends noob escepades. Feel free to add us if you are playing on the EU servers, and we will more than happily play a few rounds with you. Although, to be honest, I can’t for the life of me imagine why you would want to do that. We are so bad!

Once again there is a LOL Replay file available for this match, which can be found here: http://www.leaguereplays.com/replays/match/2923609/

So it was that Tim and Rob decided to dive into a late night League of Legends match. We used this opportunity to share some of our thoughts about this very successful DOTA (Defense of the Ancients) clone, which we have been enjoying a great deal since we began playing it a couple of months ago. Check out the match in the video to see what the game is all about. It’s a pretty long and gripping match which looked like it could go either way all the way through.

The Game

We’ve really enjoyed getting into League of Legends. The developers, Riot, have done an excellent job of balancing so many champions (a quick glance at the store shows that there are dozens available). We also really approve of their handling of the free-to-play model. There’s no pay-to-win scenario, which is always a concern when a game is built largely upon micro-transactions. The products available for real cash are pretty nice too. The skins for sale on the store are really detailed and clearly have a lot of work put into them, which is nice to see.

We like the gameplay of League of Legends. It’s been said Riot have given the game a more pvp oriented slant, compared to other DOTA clones, which give slightly more emphasis to the the killing of npc mobs or ‘creeps.’ The interface in particular is very slick and clean, easy to understand. The game is now very polished.

League of Legends Players

There’s lots to enjoy in League of Legends. We particularly love the fact that the game, like pretty much all DOTA clones, is very skill driven. However, one problem we’ve observed, as relatively new players, is that this kind of competitive skill driven game attracts a fair few unpleasant personalities. If you are playing without a fully pre-made team, you should expect to be playing alongside players who will very much flame and hurl abusive comments into the chat, if things start going badly. We think this is mostly attributable to the fact that the game itself, by it’s very design, does not encourage honourable play. The most effective way to succeed in League of Legends, is indeed to use whatever underhanded tactics you can in order to overpower your opponent. If that involves going two versus one, or even three against one, you do it. That kind of competitive game is always going to attract a certain kind of player who seems to love nothing more than to rage against people, sadly.

The best thing one can do when faced with these kinds of people (who, by the way often seem to be less-than-perfect when it comes to their own performance), is simply ignore them. Trying to talk to people like that is about as productive as smashing your face against a brick wall. In other words, it’s a total waste of time.