Team Builder takes forever

I'm still playing League of Legends, but Team The Eschaton is on an indefinite hiatus. Nick is too busy for now and I haven't been playing Ranked games at all, hence the lack of Going for the Gold updates. Landing in Bronze V for the beginning of the season has probably only played a minor part here. I wouldn't be playing much Ranked even if I'd landed in Silver. I said I'm still playing League of Legends, but really, I'm pursuing other interests for now, so I haven't even been getting one game in per day, which is almost a record low of inactivity for me. Mostly, I've been getting first win of the day against bots.

I was looking for advice when I landed in Bronze V, and the only person who offered any told me that I should start trying to climb the ladder right away, rather than taking a break. I guess I rejected that advice, although in other circumstances it may have been good advice and may have worked out. I'm not giving up, but I'm also not actively working on this right now. I play League of Legends for three different reasons, and even though they're mutually compatible, they're almost never simultaneously aligned. My reasons:

1. For fun.
2. As a social experience if I have friends that play, generally chatting with them on Skype while we play, sometimes about things that have nothing to do with the game.
3. When I'm really into it. That is, playing the game becomes an end unto itself and I'm focused on improving my skills and picking up wins.

I don't play marathon sessions of the game when #1 is my reason for playing. It gets to tedious after several hours. But when #2 is in play, it's a different story and I've played all day in some extreme cases. It's #3 that I try to bring to Ranked games. It's also #3 that takes the most investment of my time. The marathon sessions that #2 sometimes brings about are not a regularly scheduled event, and were mostly something I did last year, generally on weekends and maybe sometimes once a month, but usually not so much. When I've been into the game, though, I've played a few games, gone and done something else, then come back to do it again several times in a day, often for several days straight. All of those hours add up. #1 can happen alongside #2 or #3, and on rare occasions all three converge. Lately, it's been all about #1 for me. And I forgot this for a while, but bot games can actually be really good for that. There's virtually no stress involved and I still get to experience the same sort of game that I expect when I sit down to play League of Legends.

It's not that I'm burned out. Not at all. It's that I've had other priorities. Beta-testing The Elder Scrolls Online, something that cut into time I'd normally have spent partially on League of Legends, reminded me of the cool things I wanted to do in Skyrim. So I started playing Skyrim more again. I also got some Magic cards for Christmas and bought myself some more in January, and I've been more focused on Magic lately, even though I don't have a playgroup. More importantly, I've had to step up my job search. After however many months it's been, I've received exactly one rejection letter and heard nothing whatsoever regarding other jobs I've applied for. It's frustrating, but I have to keep at it. Finally, the biggest contributor of all has been that I've gotten more addicted to reading fiction again. A lot of the times when I might have played League of Legends, I've been reading a book instead. Given all this, when I do think I'd like to play a match or two, it's usually co-op games because I just want to have fun and don't care about improving my skills (they're rusty) or advancing my rank.

I haven't given up on PvP matches, but I have cut back on them. Actually, despite being rusty, most of my Normal games have gone quite well. And today, I checked out the Beta version of Team Builder that's available (until tomorrow morning). As the title says, it takes forever. But it did get me doing something I haven't been doing lately: I played three Normal games today. I've long thought League of Legends needs something like Team Builder, but I'm not convinced they're taking the right approach for it. The main problem in my sampling of the system is that, well, it takes forever.

Blind pick and draft pick modes have their own issues. Team Builder potentially addresses some of the issues in Blind pick, but at too steep a cost. I don't want to pick a champion, lock in, and then have some moron type, "mid" into the chat and whine about having called it. That's annoying, but how much am I willing to pay to avoid it? Is the answer ten minutes? Fifteen? I don't think it would be. And that's, apparently, what Team Builder demands. While the team is being set up, I can't leave my computer to do other things. I have to be ready because I might get kicked or the team might get assembled and I'll need to click a button. So I have to sit at my computer the whole time, waiting. Oh, and I'm not exaggerating. I tried Team Builder three times today and I think all three had wait times over ten minutes. That's too long. And this was Beta testing, so the mode had novelty. That won't sustain itself. If the mode goes live like this, people will lose interest and the wait times will become even longer, which will cause even more loss of interest and the whole thing spiral out of control.

I did win all three games, so that was nice. I got fed in all three, actually, first as Karthus, then as Kassadin, then finally as Karthus again. I joined games for the first two, but opted to initiate team-building myself for the last one. It occurs to me that having those two things as separate options for solo queue players is just weird. There are ways to make it so that this isn't the case. Anyway, despite my reservations and annoyance at the ridiculous wait times, I'm hopeful. And the reason for this is quite weird, but to state why it's weird, I need to explain something else first...

When people ask me what role I want, I'm quick to defer or fill. "Oh, I can play any role," I tell them. I say that I don't really care. And I think I mean it. After all, I have practice in every role. I'm adaptable. I'd rather have other people on the team take the roles they're best at than be greedy and make them play where they might do worse. Maybe in some sense I think I'm being magnanimous about this. In reality, I do know that not all roles are equal for me...

•  I have less practice as a solo top and I have few champions that I can play adequately in that role. I tend to get too isolated from the overall flow of the game if I go solo top. There are also some champions I'm not comfortable laning against up there.
• I'm too conservative as a jungler and tend to fall behind. I'm not the worst jungler, but it's never been my strong suit. I prefer to lane and only jungle if I have to.
• I have a very methodical approach to playing as an ADC, and sometimes it takes too long to reach fruition. If the game is one where my playing passively will work out, then that's fine, but not every game is like that and I sometimes think that my passive play is making things hard on my lane partner.
• When I support, I feel like I'm relying on my teammates to do what I think they should do. I've made great plays as a support and it's cool when that happens, but I've also gotten really frustrated when my lane partner made a stupid move and fed. Coordinating in a duo lane isn't my favorite way to play the game anyway.
• I have some mid champions that I'm very experienced with, and I almost always hold my own in mid.

Even though I'll say I can fill, even when asked directly about what role I want, it's apparently the case that if you give me a set of buttons and say, "You will get this role" that I'll happily click mid and take my favorite lane. I avoid telling people that I would rather mid than take whatever lane it is that needs filled, but put the button in front of me and I'll click it and like it. So, because of my own personal neurosis, I really hope that Team Builder works out.