Source
r/leagueoflegends•
Quazz

Issues with autofill

Obviously a topic that a lot of people have spoken about before, but since Riot seems to refuse to acknowledge it, I figured we'd give it another roll.

Autofill is a cool concept in theory where it will reduce your queue timer so you find games faster.

Unfortunately, in practice here are some of the things that go wrong:

  1. You are queueing mid/jgl and your duo partner is queueing top/mid. Autofill triggers and you get top and your partner gets jgl. This doesn't even make any sense whatsoever. Why not just assign the secondary roles? You'd still have a game without this nonsense. Obviously the same thing happens without duo, you just won't be aware of it.

  2. Queue timers aren't actually shorter when you get autofilled. I sit in queue waiting for 3 minutes (typical midlane queue) and then get autofilled to support (which if I queued for, would have gotten me an insta queue). If it's going to autofill me anyway, why do I need to wait 3 minutes as if I'm getting my main role only to get trolled into another role?

  3. Randomness of autofill. This kind of weaves in with other points and is multi-facetted: First of, you obviously don't know what role you're getting to get. That's kind of inherit to how autofill functions and can't be helped. However, some roles don't really translate well (eg top/mid/adc/sup to jgl) and will function proportionally worse. Secondly, you don't know WHEN you're going to get autofilled. If I know ahead of time the game might autofill me, then I could pick another role to queue that I would prefer instead of getting filled to something I never play.

  4. Autofill protected. Ironically autofill protected makes all of these problems even worse. Not only are queue times obviously impacted by this concept (flying in the face of what autofill was supposed to resolve), but it simultaneously also means that it's impossible for you to get a certain role in a certain "queue match", which is what causes a lot of the issues previously mentioned.

  5. It goes against what ranked play should be about. Sure, getting better at the game overall will help you in any role. But you can't expect a mid main to perform as well in the jungle or as toplaner as their main role. The whole goal is supposed to be improvement and learning and autofill is basically analogous to your coach randomly assigning your position on the field in football before the game despite you having no experience (OR INTEREST) in that position at all.

All in all, I think autofill is the biggest failure in regards to game quality and even queue times aren't greatly improved since the skill range (especially at really high elo) seems massive for queues anyway, guaranteeing a match without requiring autofill.

The only way to improve the quality of solo queue and reduce frustration in regards to autofill is to quite simply remove it. I'd rather wait 4 minutes for a queue and get my role than 3 minutes and get autofilled and then have to go through 30 minutes of feeling like shit because I don't know how to play the role effectively enough to help my team win in a reasonable fashion.

I'd love to know your thoughts on autofill. Does anyone like autofill? Do you disagree with some of my points? Any other comments about it?

Thank you

Posted Jul 26, 2019, 10:47 AM UTC

013
PurpleCyborg28•

Without it, the other half of players would just whine about long queue times. I guess the compromise would be an option for you to rank your roles in order of preference. Say a laner that cant jungle, he could just rank it in order as top-mid-bot-supp-jgl. If your first role isnt available, it chooses your second role. If that still doesnt work, it chooses the third, and so on.

Another would be to have an option to choose 1 role you absolutely cant play and you wont be assigned that role in any instance. The tradeoff is that you cant choose your role, but at least Im being sure Im never gonna get autofilled to jungle.

5
Schog•

Another would be to have an option to choose 1 role you absolutely cant play and you wont be assigned that role in any instance. The tradeoff is that you cant choose your role, but at least Im being sure Im never gonna get autofilled to jungle.

Thats something that was concidered but wouldnt really work. In the Ask Riot QandA "Ranked and More Ranked" someone asked " Why cant we choose a role we don't want to play?"

This was their response:

Over the years, we’ve experimented with a couple of alternative position select systems, including one where you could “veto” a position. Essentially, it ended up sucking because everyone chose to veto Support, which lowered matchmaking quality and increased queue times dramatically.

Autofill was introduced as a last resort way of ensuring people don’t sit in queue for a ridiculously long time. We try to avoid autofilling you if we can, but the design challenge here is striking a balance between you getting to pick your position, not having infinite queue times, and getting fair matches. Currently, the only way autofill wouldn’t be necessary is if each position had an equal amount of demand—20% of players—literally all the time. This is a tricky thing to get right, but we’re going to continue looking for ways to get you the position you want and make every game feel winnable.

Source: https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2019/02/ask-riot-ranked-and-more-ranked/

2
BenoxLP:fiora:•

Why no one likes support? I am support main, and I really like it!

1
-Puffin-•

Ok, we get rid of auto fill and we go back to the Wild West where we don’t pick roles.

5
meldsher:eufnc: :jhin; R gIvEs SuStAiN ;talon; :zed:•

Queue timers aren't actually shorter when you get autofilled. I sit in queue waiting for 3 minutes (typical midlane queue) and then get autofilled to support (which if I queued for, would have gotten me an insta queue). If it's going to autofill me anyway, why do I need to wait 3 minutes as if I'm getting my main role only to get trolled into another role?

Because the game isn't specifically looking to autofill you. I may not know how this system works, but my wildest guess is that it's looking for games where you'd get your role. If the system finds a game where only one role is missing after some queue time, it throws you into that game as you get autofilled. If you would've queued for that role, the system would look for games with that empty role and you'd get it instantly.

3
QuazzOP:eufnc::eug2:•

I understand that it technically works that way, my main complaint is that my queue timer isn't actually any better than if I were to queue for that role (which I may be able to play) specifically.

There is no indicator or estimation for whether or not you're "in danger" of getting autofilled, it just sort of happens and fuck you, you're now stuck with it.

But even better is when you get autofilled, someone dodges instantly in lobby, you instantly requeue and you're suddenly magically not autofilled.

Almost as if autofill was pretty pointless to begin with.

It obviously means it now DID find a match where I could get my role, but my point is that the queue timer hasn't dramatically been altered while it did secure my role...

0
Voeglein•

That's because someone else, who was previously not autofilled, gets autofilled, or someone joined the queue filling the role in the meantime. Also, the person who left, if they weren't autofilled, won't be queued up again for a while, removing someone who potentially queued for your (or someone else's) mainrole.

You're only looking at your perspective, and not considering the overall state of the queue. But yeah, if you can just leave queue if someone dodges by declining or cancelling, and get matched within a regular queue time, that's basically just double queue timers to find a game in your main or secondary role (assuming everyone does that and fewer people are autofilled overall).

3
RustyJusty7:yasuo:•

The biggest issue with it is that it exists.

1
Blue_5ive:leona::thresh: help im bad•

Its confusing that everyone was so against positional matchmaking, and now everyone is against autofill lol.

1
Fotbollskille123:eufnc:MorphinTime:eu:•

Never thought id argue side by side with a yasuo main.

0
florsmit•

I've gotten autofilled more than I've gotten my secondary role, I don't really like how the system is implemented the way it is, but I can understand why a system like this is in place.

1
Delachruz•

I'm not as upset about the thing as I used to be, since from personal experience, you relatively rarely get autofilled to support these days, which was my main beef since I do not under any circumstances ever want to play on the bot lane without being premade.

I still think the system is not a good idea for the kind of game LoL is. I feel like you are heavily encouraged, especially in Ranked, to have a relatively small Champion pool, focus on 2 roles at most and try to get good at those. They idea that sometimes you can just get a role you're not prepared for, or are just straight up not good at is insanity for ranked queue. And you can REALLY tell when somebody got autofilled, the worst offenders usually being Junglers and Supports. Frequently they will pick a Champion that isn't meant for the role in question, or they have no idea what they're doing.

Can't even blame them, the only Support I like playing is Pyke, and he will be either banned or picked by the enemy.

0
FanofConcepts•

Personally I think people should be able to play every role as long as they play an easy champion for the auto filled role, yeah the system is flawed but its a needed one. Me personally I just play elise mid/top or even support if i get auto filled :P

-1