A bug in the League of Legends autofill system led modifications to impact ranked queues one patch early
Riot intends to make more adjustments to the queue function in LoL patch 12.18, which will be released later this month.
The autofill tool in League of Legends is debatable. While it is useful for shortening queue times, players dislike loading into a rated game in an unfamiliar position.
The Support role has been largely protected from this through the protection, with Riot ensuring players one of their chosen positions if they have previously played a game in the role.
That is about to change, as players discovered autofill protection for supports was disabled as part of LoL patch 12.17 – without any notification in the patch notes. Riot acknowledged that this was a valid modification that was issued early due to a problem, and that further improvements will be available later in League patch 12.18.
According to a comment from dev Auberaun in a Reddit post:
“We have changes to autofill protection planned for 12.18, this part going out a little early on its own is a bug.”
While some players were upset by the move, the dev said that autofill is a crucial component of the ranked experience to reduce waiting times. However, the modifications go well beyond what fans can see right now.
“Autofill needs to exist for reasonable queue times unfortunately. There are some recent under-the-hood improvements we’ve made to team role parity and planned work for hostage taking I hope to be able to talk about soon.”
Riot sought to tweak this feature earlier this year in order to ensure each side had a similar number of filled players.
But what specific about autofill isn’t given, but, players should expect a distinct rated experience to conclude your Season 12 experience.