The low-down on the "Solo-Queue" Fiasco

#1 - Feb. 7, 2013, 4:44 p.m.

JPeters dropped by Gasmask’s stream a bit ago and explained the details of the system they’re implementing. He said he’ll be posting about it more in-depth shortly, but I’d like to toss it out as fast as possible. These forums are on fiyah.

Anyways, in the proposed system (the one they’re working on) the premade and solo players ARE combined, however, the way the matchmaking works means that you will be extremely unlikely to see them matched up against each other.

The queues will be based off of team composition. If you queue 5 players, it searches for a team consisting of 5 players with a close MMR.

The main takeaway is that your group composition and MMR dictate your opponents.

If you queue 4 players together with 1 random, it will look for a team that queued with 4 players together and 1 random, with similar MMR.

If you queue 3 players together with 2 random, it will look for a team that queued with 3 players together and 2 random, with similar MMR.

If you queue 2 players together with 3 random, it will look for a team that queued with 2 players together and 3 random, with similar MMR.

Most importantly, if you queue solo, it will match you with 4 other solo players, and then search for another team made up of 4 other solo players.

They said in the SOTG that they’re going to use this system initially and will revisit it if need be in the future. The SOTG should make more sense with this information made a bit more clear. Hope this makes you guys feel a little better.

Look out for a red post on it!

JonathanSharp

#10 - Feb. 7, 2013, 5:08 p.m.

Jon’s summation is a pretty good approximation of the general goals we have for this. We’d like to devise a system that allows good solo queuing while also helping to form teams and build the playerbase. The system Jon outlined means that most solo queue players are usually fighting against other solo queues, and only go “up” to 2 and 3 man queue’s when their bracket is empty. Same thing with 5 man teams – they will usually fight other 5 man teams.

With this system, it also means that we couldn’t track solo queue rating vs group rating. This is a drawback we know about.

We’re not entirely opposed to a solo queue system, it just comes with many pros and cons, and we’re being careful to make sure we do what’s best for the player base and growing the game (both for new/casual players, and hardcore players).

As with everything else we’re doing, we’re looking to do the best thing for the game – if something’s not working, we will fix it if it’s better for the game to do so.

JonathanSharp

#15 - Feb. 7, 2013, 5:24 p.m.

As others have said, splitting the queue’s entirely can be bad. But it also means solo’s always play solos, and teams always play teams.

There are pro/cons to both options. We’re watching your debates/points and in the end, we will try to make the best system for the game’s health.

JonPeters

#70 - Feb. 8, 2013, 8:08 a.m.

I don’t really think it is a matter of right vs wrong. Separating the queues is technology we haven’t developed. Bracketing them so that when you queue you play as 5s,4s,3s,2s,solo you tend to queue vs those is something we are working towards because its part of a robust single system. It also is the version that solves everything except the edge cases without fragmenting the player base and creating long wait times in certain brackets. This is why this is the right system for the game RIGHT NOW.

It isn’t that the points Teldo, et al. make are invalid they are just more valid for a more mature game like LoL, a game which has been out 3 years longer than we have.