Hi there. So I like to hammer out a few ARAMs as a warm up or to finish off an evening, and I find it really discouraging to play sometimes when a player refuses to play healer or tank. I think its more often then not that this happens to me during an evening (once 3 times in a row ). This wouldn’t be so bad, if I couldn’t bet large sums of cash on the odds of the enemy team still drafting one. Also, I do feel bad when it happens to the enemy team, because I know some jerk just said “nah, I’d rather lose then heal”.
I suggest the draft process should be as follows:
A) All of the players choices should be random heros be of the same role.
B) Both teams have the same number of players assigned to each role.
Although some players might not like the idea of having to play tank for example, and team comp variation would suffer, it would at least prevent the regular occurrence of 1 player wrecking a game for 9 players (4 of them especially) before the match had even began. I’m not saying that every game has to have the same set of roles either. One ARAM might be Tank, Bruiser, 2 Assassins, and a healer, while the next game could be Bruiser, 2Assassin, 2 healers.
Sometimes teams win even though they didn’t draft healer/tank, but I feel we could all agree that typically not drafting these important roles knowing the enemy can/will, makes for a bad match. I genuinely believe that this would make for a much better ARAM experience, and hope others agree or share their thoughts and ideas on the issue.
What makes for a bad match for me is people micromanaging a mode called “ALL RANDOM”. Then all game it’s just b-rate chirps from some teenager.
Leave it alone. If you wanna draft, draft. If you want a full comp you probably gotta bring friends. If you’re willing to throw your comp to the wind then maybe ARAM is good but really, if you get bent when the comp isn’t to specifications, you shouldn’t be in the ‘random’ mode to begin with.
You absolutely do not need to conform to standard compositions in ARAM.
In my experience, you can generally drop either the healer or tank role and be perfectly fine. Dropping both can work if you otherwise have powerful picks.
High intensity fighting puts a lot of pressure on healer CDs and mana, and when coupled with reduced death timers and less importance on map control and soaking, the healer role drops out of ‘mandatory’ status.
Generally, someone who is not a good healer in ARAM will contribute more with a hero and class they know, particularly when we are talking about more difficult healers like Ana, Tyrande, and Alexstraza.
This. I’ve played it more than SL in the last few months, and I absolutely adore the craziness of three Deathwings vs four Thralls, or 4 healers and an assassin vs 5 bruisers and so on.
I don’t care who wins or loses the ARAM. It has no MMR, no rank points, no consequences. The funny comps themselves are a source of entertainment.
Draft modes exist for balanced comps. ARAM is for fun. The random hero selection in ARAM is not a real draft.
Depends on the definition of fun. I don’t find it unfun if 3 Garrosh players throw me from one side of the map to the other. Losing the match has no consequences and it’s fun to watch.
Enforcing meta comps in ARAM would take away a lot of the uniqueness of the mode.
This is a mode where you originally had a ~1% chance to even roll 10 copies of the same hero. It was never meant to be deadly serious.
I’ll air the discussion, it’s just that it’ll boil down to the grody caramelized substance that is “people on the internet on the whole are generally unwilling to be beholden to strangers.” Unfortunately, nobody’s figured out the solution (though dissertations on toxicity are beginning to surface more and more), and until we do all we can really do is killem with kindness. Be nice, be positive and most of all when you get players with bad attitudes-- be silent.
As to the comp quality of ARAM, all I can ask is role matching. If I get Raynor, Butcher, Uther then an opponent on their team should have ranged assassin, melee assassin, healer as picks. If it already does then good, if not it should.
i completely agree that it SUCKS when someone doesn’t pick tank or healer,
but also i’d hate it if someone who’s never healed before
(or is super bad at it) is chosen by the aram gods to be our healer,
when someone else who is good at healing is chosen by the aram gods to just dps.
if i have one of the healers that i know i’m good with i’ll usually auto pick them
so someone else with a healer (who might not be good with them) can pick something else.
i feel like being left tank/healerless doesn’t happen often enough to risk making things worse
by forcing people into roles that their team mates are willing to do better!
I know it kinda sucks when some guy micro manages you, and just mouths you off because you didn’t draft the team he likes. Probably not a lot of people would disagree XD. I have 0 problem with breaking away from meta drafts, and clowning around, but to some degree part of the social contract of joining a queue (even for ARAM) is that you will try to help your team win. Yes, some teams win when presented with tank/healer and they elect not to draft them, but I would pose the argument that not drafting them when they are an option is often as detrimental to the team as dropping/inting. Could we at least agree that there are a certain number of “non-games” that occur because of peoples refusal to draft something to help their team? We might just have differing opinions of how frequently this happens, but I truly fell it happens.
So as far as missing the wild and crazy comps that can occur, It would probably decrease in frequency, but it wouldn’t be gone. For example it would still be entirely possible for a team to have 3 bruiser roles, and there being 3 Deathwings among their picks.
As for a player not knowing the role they are assigned, I’m okay with that. I’m personally fine with my team mate having no clue what they are doing on a hero. That’s part of the ARAM format. I only ask that they try. Apparently, others have had a very different experience then me, but I would WAY rather someone play a sub par stukov than their lvl 200 Valla, because even a really good Valla is unlikely to be enough to overcome the “healing diff” between the teams. Am I just right out to lunch on this one XD?
Sure. I’ll bite. I agree, I love having three random heroes picked for me and a shaky game. It’s a lot of fun, in hypothesis. But the theory is flawed and that is where the outcome usually suffers for me.
For instance, getting teams that chose all ranged assassins and demolish because they have enough range and CC to effectively punish a mixed team, but that’s at least player choice and (probably) not represented by their hero options.
But, when one player is given three choices: two healers and a bruiser, while the rest of the team is given no tank, bruiser, or healer options; and, additionally, the opposite team is provided with either a double tank or double healer+tank option then you are running into problems with game design which makes All Random actually not All Random, just kinda Random but in an unbalanced way.
(On a side note, I really miss the brawl games where everyone was given only one hero choice, like 10 murkys just bubbling and spewing gunk; or all jaina).
I think the original post means: FIX THE MATCHMAKER. But more politely.
Totally agree. But. I do this too. And when I do, I tell my team in the pick screen that I cannot or will not play certain heroes. For instance, I’m a horrible WM, just can never get the hang of her. Also, I boycott Mei, Qhira, and Chromie because they’re disgustingly OP. Even if I’m the only tank, I will not play Mei. I’d rather lose fairly than stomp unfairly. But again, communicate. Don’t just stay surly and silent. Some of my best player interactions have been dumb choices that were vocalized (typealized…) in pick screen regardless of outcome.
). This wouldn’t be so bad, if I couldn’t bet large sums of cash on the odds of the enemy team still drafting one. Also, I do feel bad when it happens to the enemy team, because I know some jerk just said “nah, I’d rather lose then heal”.