Last week, Riot Games introduced Team Builder to League of Legends in 48-hour increments. Four regional servers have already received access to the Team Builder feature, with six more to go.
Team Builder is Riot’s take on a new Champion Select, and it’s intended to bring players together that are like-minded and compliment each other’s intentions when they enter the lobby. The feature removes the pressure of there being a 60-second ticking timer and still gives players the flexibility to figure what they want to do and find other players that synergize with what they want to do.
Riot designed Team Builder so it would allow for players to pick their roles, their positions and their champions before even interacting with another player. The feature also allows for like-minded players to get together and play to win, to try out new strategies, or to try out a new champion.
Detailed in a forum post on the official League of Legends website, one of the developers at Riot Games outlined a couple of things that the studio would like to improve upon with Team Builder, namely communication and player intention. In Champion Select, you have to choose your champion and agree upon your role and position before the lobby’s timer runs out. Riot recognises that under this time constraint it is difficult to come to an agreement, and so did not include a timer in Team Builder.
Whilst Team Builder is live, Riot will be monitoring and collecting matchmaking data on every champion, position and role. This is so the studio can work on a smarter matchmaking system for Team Builder that can dynamically take into account your experience with your given role, position and / or champion.
Team Builder is currently live in the BR and NA regional servers, and will get 48-hours of the feature each. Over the course of the rest of this week, and potentially a little into the next, the rest of the regional servers will get their share of Team Builder. The next in line are the OCE and KR regional servers, followed by the LAS and LAN regional servers.