Boards›Dev Corner

Let’s talk about dynamic queues and ranked play

RiotLyte·1/16/2016, 5:48:06 AM·1 votes·175,437 views

Hey everyone,

We’re seeing a lot of feedback for dynamic queues, so let’s take a moment to talk about what’s going right and wrong behind the scenes, and how we’re feeling about the current state of the queue. We saw what you saw. Scarra had some massive queue times--even worse than the old Ranked system. Pro teams were outfoxing teams made up of high skill solos and we’re seeing some awful matches at the Challenger level. We also ran into matchmaking and implementation issues. Beyond this, dynamic queue raises philosophical questions about what it means to be a ranked player in League of Legends, so we’re going to talk about that as well.

First, we failed to communicate that new champ select came with a brand new matchmaking system built to handle position selection as part of matchmaking. We tested on PBE and with simulated matchmaking for weeks, but there’s nothing quite like going live. We knew matchmaking would require tuning, which is why we launched this preliminary test during preseason and not the day the ranked season starts.

Implementing this system came with a number of matchmaking tuning issues and hardware failures, some of which have already been fixed. We’ll quickly run through them and how they impacted you:

  • The matchmaking feature ensuring premade teams were facing other premade teams was configured too loosely, and allowed premade teams to match against teams of solos too often.

  • Our new matching making system didn’t account for hardware failures and left players stranded in matchmaking with giant queue times.

  • The matchmaking feature that tried to reduce queue times for high-skill players was too aggressive, and matched pro-level players against Diamond players rather than other Master and Challenger players.

We are taking steps to address these issues. Specifically, we’ve adjusted how aggressively we match top-tier players and have started enforcing the premade matching rules more strictly. We are collecting data and will continue to adjust matchmaking every day until the season starts.

Now let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the philosophy behind ranked. Current competitive players use their ranked standing as a more pure expression of mechanical skill, game knowledge, and the ability to cooperate with solo or duo’d players. For those players, the ranked queue was doing its job by emphasizing individual playmaking over one’s ability to ‘make do’ with variable teammates. The expectation was that everyone else climbing the ranked ladder also dealt with the same variables with no exceptions. Dynamic queue changes this considerably, so why rock the boat?

Last year, we investigated why players didn’t play ranked, and a huge number said they didn’t want to abandon their friends to do it. In other words, there was a large subset of players who wanted to play competitively with friends on a ranked ladder, but lacked a great avenue to do so. We constantly talk about how League is a team game, and we want our core, competitive ladder to reflect that. The ranked queue might be synonymous with the term ‘solo queue’, but even a solo/duo queue rewards a player’s ability to work as a part or as the leader of a team. The goal was to hone in on that team-like atmosphere without hitting the tremendous commitment issues of ranked 5’s.

This lead us to the introduction of dynamic queues. We designed dynamic queues so the highest level of play relies on teamwork in addition to mechanics and clever application of encyclopedic knowledge. In other words, our vision for ranked is that it should be a more accurate reflection of teamwork, leadership, knowledge and skill.

But with all that laid out, the question is, “Is that the right vision for ranked League of Legends?”

We hear you on the impact dynamic queues have on the measurement of solo skill. We’re currently doing everything we can to make dynamic queues a great experience, and we always had back up plans for the 2016 ranked season. For now, we want to share some early data on how things are going, where we’re at with matchmaking, and how players have responded so far in surveys. We understand this is a philosophical issue in the long-run, but we want to bring some data into the conversation so everyone is working with some facts.

Keep in mind that the issues we’re addressing influenced this data, and we plan on revisiting them after a weekend’s worth can be evaluated:

  • On the topic of premades vs. solo queuers: We expected about 95% of premade 4s/5s to match up against other premades of that size, but we fell short at around 83.5%. We still expect this number to reach 95% after we tune matchmaking, and we’ll keep a close eye on this issue.

  • In terms of match quality in dynamic queues: We measure match quality by the difference in average skill between two opposing teams. Currently we’re seeing 92.8% of games are about equal to last season’s solo/duo queue (and overall matchmaking is better than Team Builder). Because of the issues we just fixed, we don’t have good data on the skill differentials between premade 4s/5s, but they’re on our watch list of things to track and fix, if necessary.

  • When we polled a random set of players across all of League of Legends the specific question: “I like that you are allowed to queue with any number of people to play ranked”, about 55% of players agreed, 20% were neutral, and 25% disagreed. We’re not saying this to sway opinions either way--it tells us the system is both polarizing, and broadly desired. We’ll check in on this statistic again next week.

  • For queue time (queue start to champ select), as measured during non-peak hours, we’re averaging three minute queues across all players, and about eight and a half minutes for Master+ players. This is also something we’ll be looking to improve over the weekend.

All that said, please keep testing dynamic queues through the weekend, and keep sharing your feedback. We’re going to be scouring the boards, and fixing issues as they come up. On Tuesday, 1/19, we’ll make a decision about the state of dynamic queues and share a plan for the 2016 ranked season launch.

EDIT ::: Corrected the survey results. They were actually sent to a random sample of the entire playerbase, not just players who played Dynamic Queues. Also, when you broke down the analysis to players who played Dynamic Queues or those who did not, the results were not significantly different.

691 Comments

Rilea1/16/2016, 6:00:24 AM163 votes

Thank you for your honesty regarding a controversial topic - one of the many reasons I love Riot as a company is their honesty and communication with the community

As a player who purely plays alone, I dislike dynamic queues - I like the idea of a ranked queue testing how you adapt from game to game with a new set of teammates - not how well you can synergise with a group of friends over a course of hundreds of games - in my opinion, that is what the Ranked 5v5 queue is for

I understand that Riot wants to facilitate the players that want to play ranked with friends, but don't have the a stable amount of friends to form a Ranked 5s team, but in doing so with Dyanmic queues, it feels as if exclusively solo players like myself are being forced to make friends and play with them (even if I don't like it or want to) else I am being severely hindered in game with factors outside of mechanical skill, game knowledge etc.

I truly believe the best solution is to have a seperate Ranked Dynamic and Ranked Solo/Duo queue, so both solo players and groups of players can play and enjoy ranked in the way they want to. I'm not sure if this is feasible, but it's just a suggestion

Nazzadan1/16/2016, 5:59:24 AM103 votes

People don't want to abandon their friends because sometimes your friends aren't close enough in rank to either have a fun ranked experience or you flat out can't play with them if the differential is too high, I don't know why that wasn't factored into the decision. Diamond players with gold friends that they want to pal around with in game don't want to play ranked because then they aren't playing with their friends. A gold 1 player might not want to play ranked with their silver 5 friend even though they technically could, it would be a bad experience for both of them.

Allowing 5 people of radically different skills between the 5th division of one tier and the 1st of the next one up is not a meaningful indicator of skill, and ruins the ranked experience.
The champ select system is decent though, my feedback is keep the new champion select but ditch the 3+ mades. There is a reason HotS did away with this, I used to play hots "solo queue" at a high level, and there were nights I experienced exactly what league players are experiencing now: getting crushed by players either in VOIP or established professional teams. Getting shitstomped by Cloud 9's team over and over wasn't fun in HotS, and it certainly isn't fun in League

iPuddingPie1/16/2016, 5:59:00 AM70 votes

make solo queue, a solo queue :C

DadVees41/16/2016, 7:41:41 AM66 votes

"Last year, we investigated why players didn’t play ranked, and a huge number said they didn’t want to abandon their friends to do it. In other words, there was a large subset of players who wanted to play competitively with friends on a ranked ladder, but lacked a great avenue to do so."

and now every solo player lacks a proper avenue to play solo well fucking done.

CelestiaTheDryad1/16/2016, 7:45:54 AM64 votes

{quoted}

  • On the topic of premades vs. solo queuers: We expected about 95% of premade 4s/5s to match up against other premades of that size, but we fell short at around 83.5%. We still expect this number to reach 95% after we tune matchmaking, and we'll keep a close eye on this issue.

Why is 100% such a problem? Why is it even a discussion for it to not be 100%? Even at 95%, that's still 1/20 games that are essentially free wins for people that play as 5-person premades. Assuming balanced games elsewhere, that's plenty to climb the ladder. And for the singletons that get stomped by the 5-man, it's the worst feeling in the game. You're losing horribly in the queue that's supposed to be tailored to your skill level, and it's not even your fault. It's the queue system giving you a great big finger.

I'm guessing the logic for the 95% is that it will even out over a lot of games with people playing in various premade sizes. But that's working under the assumption that people play in various premade sizes. I prefer, and have always preferred, to play ranked alone. This is because I used ranked solo queue to determine my personal skill level compared to everyone else.

I played about 250 ranked games last season, and roughly 15 of those were duo games. And those 15 were only because my friends pressured me into them. On the other hand, I have a friend who's only ranked games are ranked teams, and 5 man queues are the only type he feels like playing. In the new system, he and I are matched on the same ladder. Because of this 95% practice, his rank will be inflated by an amount and mine deflated by an amount simply because of matchmaking.

Which builds into my next point. Ranked queue no longer functions as a measure of individual skill. It was foggy enough with duo queue's ridiculous restrictions (gold V to plat I, really? the differences between those rankings are like night and day). But with the 3-5 man premades there's simply nothing left. The simple fact is that variable party makeups destroy the value of the ranking system.

Say there's two players, Player 1 and Player 2. P1 only plays by himself and is matched against other solo players. P2 plays only with friends in 5s and is only matched against other 5s. They should, hopefully, never get matched with each other. The players they play against belong to two different groups. However, they are both ranked on the same ladder as having Gold 3 skill. Their ratings are not comparable and should not be listed as so. Their ratings just means that they're skilled "in some way".

I imagine the problem will be even worse in the highest levels, since at the top of mechanical play, the players who play in a group have an advantage that cannot be matched in terms of rating. If TSM goes strolling in dynamic queue, the only people to stop them are other LCS teams doing the same. It becomes impossible to prove yourself as a single player.

Furthermore, your reasoning for this is so that "you are allowed to queue with any number of people to play ranked". There were already ranked teams that allowed you to queue as 5. Solo/duo queue let you queue ranked as 1 or 2 people. So this whole system is rocking the boat for the sole purpose of letting people queue as 3 or 4 people. I don't get that decision at all. And don't give me any of that crap about "the tremendous commitment issues of ranked 5s", the only reason that might not exist in dynamic queue is because people are getting compared against people not playing in premades, and issue I've already pointed out. You can start and join as many ranked teams as you want so the results don't matter. The only reason it feels more serious is because you know it's team vs team rather than group of people vs group of people, which is what premades in dynamic queue should feel like anyway.

What i'd suggest is Solo queue, 2/3s queue, and teams. I understand that this won't happen because of "splitting the playerbase" issues, but it needs to be realized that the people queuing as 5 man premades will already be separated from the people in 2 or 3 person queues and people going solo. Or at least should be for the reasons I've outlined. Riot is simply trying to cram too many styles of play into one ladder and queue.

OiwinBushDid9111/16/2016, 7:28:14 AM47 votes

Heres a notion i dont understand:

Lyte says the reason we added dynamic que is because we learned that players dont want to play ranked because they dont want to abandon their friends. I dont think this justifies throwing everything off balance in order to get some people to try ranked. First of all why does it matter? Do people have to play ranked to enjoy the game more? Whats the incentive to make more people play ranked? why not let them play what they want to play and who they want to play it with? whats the difference in terms of gaming experience between playing with your friends on normal or ranked?

I feel like riot is trying to attach people to the ranked system but they are going about it in a completely wrong way, sort of like their stance on sandbox mode. Let people play what they want and who they want to with. If people want to play ranked with friends, well suprise, thats what ranked 5s is for. Maybe add dynamic que to the ranked team category instead so people can play ranked 4s /3 for their ranked team, rather than their individual elo. that would have been a much better plan. Was the ranked system in need of some changes? yes. Are these changes the answer? no, in fact they made things much much worst

Atonrah1/16/2016, 6:25:00 AM41 votes

Solo queue player here!

I enjoy and prefer playing league of legends solo; I DO NOT want to be the guy tagged on to a 4+1 v 4+1 constantly.

As for the queue times; you're lying. I'm a gold player and am seeing 20+ minute queue times where before it was less than a minute.

Nobody asked for ranked SOLO queue to be changed. If people wanted to 5v5 they had the option. If people wanted to solo queue they had the option. If you want to introduce dynamic queue as another option be my guest; but don't incorporate this garbage into solo queue.

Delete this system and never think about using it ever again. EVER.

Packerfan5041/16/2016, 6:23:17 AM41 votes

Wish they would actually release the data, or create more balanced questions for when they asked.

FOR EXAMPLE: If instead of asking “I like that you are allowed to queue with any number of people to play ranked”

you should have asked “I like that you are allowed to queue with any number of people to play ranked in the same queue as Solo-queue."

When you load the question in your favor, of course people will agree.

FURTHERMORE:

If you polled people ALREADY IN THE DYNAMIC QUE, and they are testing Dynamic Queue, then they are almost certainly queuing up with friends, and will then support it.

You literally polled a group of people that was already in the system.

LijKAVlmS41/16/2016, 7:50:21 AM38 votes

As a solo/duo player for a long time, this would stop me from playing ranked completely. I see absolutely no point in carrying on solo or duo when people can match up with 5 people, have communication through skype and completely dominate and easily climb through the ranks. Why should i play solo queue at all when i'd be able to gather up a 5 man team and stomp my way through the rank, while people will be putting up playing solo and having potentially other solo players or even have to face a 2-3-4-5 man team. This will devalue all ranks and make it considerably harder for solo queue players, this is the reason why dynamic queue should 100% be a seperate queue. This is the most stupid thing i have seen come into league, while my opinion might be swayed because i have no desire to play 5 man solo queue, if i did i would just play ranked 5's. Please, please, don't let this go through, i don't want to see another one of my favourite games die from stupid decisions like this.

Commando Yi1/16/2016, 7:57:56 AM37 votes

Last year, we investigated why players didn’t play ranked, and a huge number said they didn’t want to abandon their friends to do it. In other words, there was a large subset of players who wanted to play competitively with friends on a ranked ladder, but lacked a great avenue to do so.

Do you not see that the EXACT demographic you targetted for this question is one that is NOT INTERESTED in competitive play?

And they did have an avenue to do so. I used it myself. I played with my friends and coworkers on the 5v5 ranked teams mode that existed. And if we wanted to play as 3 we had twisted treeline available to us.

Guardman1/16/2016, 6:05:08 AM35 votes

Is there any plans to improve the experience for players that want to play solo, because this system is pretty focused on encouraging playing with friends.

One of the things I liked about old solo queue was that it didn't have many premades and you didn't need to chat to play. With my speech impediment and inability to focus on other things while talking, playing with friends became tedious and less fun than playing alone because I could either talk or play, but couldn't do both. Eventually I just stopped playing with friends because of this.

Jiggedy1/16/2016, 7:08:40 AM28 votes

Dyanmic Queue has given me 0 motivation to attempt to climb the ladder. I am a D1/Masters player with high aspirations to compete semi-professionally, and Dynamic Queue is making my progress and hard work void. What's the point of grinding out solo queue and improving when some other mediocre player who has really skilled friends can get to the same rating that I get to without nearly being the same skill level.

Riot is constantly pushing LCS and esports in general. By implementing Dynamic Queue, you are making it harder for talent to emerge from the solo queue ladder. If Dynamic Queue has been released from the beginning of league, Faker would have never been discovered. Faker playing solo would have never been able to climb to the top of the ladder trying to play by himself vs other professional Korean teams playing as 5.

I really hope that Riot re-evaluates Dynamic Queue, either removing it completely or modifying it to give solo/duo players more incentive.

SkuxNZ1/16/2016, 8:05:44 AM28 votes

As a solo-only player, this is a terrible decision.

The cornerstone of competitive play in any sport is its guarantee of consistency. This is why rules are codified across leagues, and why playing fields are standard sizes around the world. This reduces the number of variables and makes play focused on player skill as closely as possible.

The same goes for a ranking system. In order to correctly gauge your skill level, you must be consistently matched against players close to your skill level in enough matches to determine your place.

Dynamic queue disrupts this paradigm by introducing wildly variable possibilities. You may get a trio on your team with voice chat communication and completely stomp an opposing team of individuals, or you could be on the same team as a 4-person group who want to play for fun and not take ranked seriously, while the other 4-person group of Platinum smurfs destroys you.

In these situations I have an insignificant impact on the game's outcome simply due to playing with and against groups. It's no longer about my skill, but the lottery of the groups I get matched with. There's no way to get a bearing on where I should be because my opponents are of wildly differing skill levels.

How is this fair? How is this consistent? How could this possibly be used as a system to determine skill when the playing field is literally uneven?

Commando Yi1/16/2016, 7:39:13 AM27 votes

now that i think of it this could be the start of the death of the pro scene as older players retire and there's no one to replace them because dynamic queue outright discourages competetiveness

the reason the people who don't play ranked don't play ranked is that they aren't competitive they enjoy the game playing normals alone or with friends, there is no need to accommodate them by removing solo queue when they can already play normals with friends

i think you're severely underestimating how much dynamic queue undermines the competitive aspect of league

xXSpaceUnic0rnXx1/16/2016, 8:19:13 AM25 votes

Lyte, you're the one who was saying that vocal chat in game will raise harassement and toxicity without even trying to test it on LoL.

But with the Dynamic Queue you give to premade, the possibility to outplay any solo player, not with something in the game, but with something outside, you are giving an edge to people in a competitive environment.

Look at you differents concurrent :

  • CSGO : Dynamic Queue in Ranked but Voice Chat for everyone, premade don't have an advantage over solo player.

  • Dota 2 : 3 differents Ladder : Solo (1 player) => Solo Elo/MMR, Party (2 and 3 players) => Party Elo/MMR and you can play with any friend, you have a different ELO that Solo and Team (5 players). As you can see, there is no 4+1 or 3+1+1, because again, giving an advantage in normal isn't a problem, in the end there is no Ladder, but giving an advantage in a competitive mode isn't logical and fair at all.

HOTS : Was using Dynamic Queue, all the community was against, they changed it and take exemple on you and 2 days ago they annonced that they will do something quasi-similar in normal game.

No one want to be the solo player with 4 premade, because the solo players knows that their decision will not be taken in consideration during the game.

Seriously, think about it, the moment a premade take a decision with vocal and do it the solo players will not have one second to say something, because the team will already be on the move.

Instead of being one of the Actor of the game, solo player will become just an Extra, following the hero and his friend on their adventure.

Careful Steps1/16/2016, 7:36:48 AM22 votes

Since the idea isn't going to scrapped regardless of feedback, I'd just like to offer an alternative to the current system. It's pretty well agreed upon (by Riot's previous stance included) that ranked 5s and soloqueue are fundamentally different systems of play. The meta is different, the champion picks are different, the coordination and teamwork are different, the level of individual impact vs team cohesion is different. The only thing that is the same is the map. Why not have a separate ranking ladder for soloqueuers vs people who engage in dynamic queue if you MUST implement this system no matter what?

If you don't wish to separate the ladders, why not add the ranked 3s and 5s ladders to the same ladder as dynamic/soloqueue? You think soloqueue and ranked 5s "dynamic queue" are essentially the same in the current build, so why not take this one step further? For years you've acknowledged ranked 5s, ranked 3, and soloqueue are all completely queues that REQUIRE different ladders. If you wish to change your stance now, I expect ranked 5s and ranked 3s players to be put on the same ladder as dynamic cancer. However, the easier and better solution would be to separate the ladders of dynamic queue players and true solo players.

stochastic421/16/2016, 9:45:12 AM20 votes

One obvious question I haven't seen asked is why is Riot so concerned with getting these players who 'don't want to leave their friends behind' to play ranked. Why not just let them play normals with their friends? Normal games are already like ranked using a MMR system to balance games, the only difference is that they are kept out of ranked play because premade teams vs solo queue is unbalanced. I feel like this is a case of Riot staff growing too big and looking to fix something that isn't broken.

The matchmaking feature that tried to reduce queue times for high-skill players was too aggressive, and matched pro-level players against Diamond players rather than other Master and Challenger players.

This is just amateur. All it would take is a few lines of code to check if there is a massive discrepancy before validating the potential match. You know thousands of your core players are going to be watching these pros too. It's embarrassing.

Another changed behavior is how timing out with a champion selected now causes you to dodge. A completely necessary change that is wasting thousands of hours of our time. I have played this game for years, and so far my three longest queue times have been in the two days since this was released. I have had multiple games take over 10 matches to finally start one. I've seen the same with multiple streamers. Meteos waited 36 minutes to get a game and then finally he made the same mistake and just waited for the hovered champ to lock in.

All that said, please keep testing dynamic queues through the weekend, and keep sharing your feedback.

I acknowledge that it's preseason but you are talking about it like this is the PBE.

League is the largest game in the world, you make over a billion dollars a year, get your act together.

FLABREZU1/16/2016, 5:56:12 AM19 votes

What plans are there to improve the actual champion select itself? Issues like the ridiculous amount of time given for ban phase, the inability to see your list of champions when it isn't your pick (you can't even check to see if you have a champion for the purpose of trading), the functionally inferior list of champions once it does show up (only being able to see 20 champions at once instead of 40 on the old champ select), and the annoying ambient sounds when you're in queue that you can only disable by disabling all sound effects in the client.

Vatler1/16/2016, 6:03:21 AM18 votes

Why not make dynamic queue a different queue? Leave yoloq alone. There is a reason HOTS did away with it and a reason ranked in CS:GO isn't as rewarding as soloq is in lol.

OneSmoothDude1/16/2016, 8:53:57 AM18 votes

What I would like you to do, Lyte, is explain why they don't want to include a true "solo queue," where it is nothing but five solos playing against five other solos. There has been such a large outcry, surely you must know this.

Presumably, this is because you want groups of 4 to be able to play, and there would be too few solo players to fill in the gaps because they would probably all go solo, right?

If so, this leads me to a couple of questions.

  1. What percentage of people are playing solo now compared to the percentage that are in groups? 1a) Is this percentage too small to have their wishes be considered? Why or why not?

  2. Will there actually be a shortage of people going solo in dynamic queue, if a solo queue is implemented? (Yes, no projections will match actually implementing the change live, etc. Give your best educated guess.) 2a) If yes, would it not be an option to perhaps give some incentive for solo players to sign up for dynamic queue to fix this shortage? (I could think of a few different reward systems, but I'm not arrogant enough to presume that I would know better than the whole of Riot would.)

  3. You mention that you want premade 4s/5s to match up 95% of the time (which is much too small a percentage, btw). What about other team makeup percentages? E.g. 1v1+1+3, 2v1+1+1+1+1, 3+1+1v3+2, etc. etc. 3a) Will you be keeping all other makeups as loosely arranged as you are with 4s/5s?

tl;dr--Lyte, please explain with data why there cannot be a true solo queue alongside the dynamic queue.

Thank you for your transparency. Keep it up.

Sailor Mint1/16/2016, 6:08:30 AM16 votes

I think the biggest thing is that competitive solo players and social players who want to play with friends may have different goals. For that reason, instead of forcing both groups to share the same goals, why not offer different rewards for each of them? I'm sure we can reward semi-competitive Normal games (i.e.: Premade Normal Draft) with some interesting rewards (i.e.: party rewards, hextech crafting).

In my opinion, the odds of having 2-4 others friends, in your skill range, playing all required roles at a ranked-acceptable level seems very low.

Lucifer1/16/2016, 6:02:35 AM16 votes

I feel like if you want to queue with 4-5 people, then that's why team ranked exists. It would be a better compromise to give a tri-queue option I guess. As it stands though, I have no intention of playing ranked. It's pretty ass to be the solo person against a group of 3-5 and with a group of 3-4. Also I have to wonder how big your polling population was. I never received such a survey, and neither did any of my friends who play ranked. Did you only survey mostly people who don't play ranked? I'm not sure that's fair.

Every other MOBA that has tried this was not successful, and I don't see why League would be any different. The response to dynamic queue has been overwhelmingly negative, both on Reddit and on the boards. This is especially true when you get to more competitive levels of play. https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/40zxst/okay_the_sheer_terror_inflicted_by_the_queue/

My other huge concern is people who main support and another role. If I put support as my secondary choice, I'm almost always stuck getting it. This is OK sometimes, but it's currently unbalanced due to how few people are willing to be put in that role.

Lord Dristan1/16/2016, 8:00:17 AM16 votes

I have serious issues with the fact that this has replaced teambuilder. Teambuilder was what got me to come back to league and it's pretty much all that my wife and I play. The ability to say "I want to play this champion, in this role with this person" was invaluable. Especially in the case of new or returning players who aren't entirely comfortable with their skills.

Not to mention the fact that it allowed a fairly safe, laid-back environment for experimentation. If I really wanted to try that weird top pick I could queue up, get placed in a group say "hey guys I'm trying this, we cool?" and either continue with that group or find a new one.

I don't want to participate in a draft every time I play, I want to queue in as support and be tossed into a team that's looking for one. I can't even imagine how daunting this new system has to be for a new player.

Fix the matchmaking system, yes. I'm sure that would solve ranked player's problems. This is arguably a much better draft experience for those who want it. Leave casual players out of it.

Lufty1/16/2016, 5:53:58 AM15 votes

Queue start isn't the problem its the fact that dodges seem to be happening at least twice or three times the rate as before and I can scarcely get a game in 20 minutes time. Thats why queues are taking ages and it really makes playing feel like a chore.

BigTheTank1/16/2016, 6:04:56 AM15 votes

Heres my perspective as a player and lover of the game

Obviously, people want to play with any amount of friends, and that's great. But on the other hand, a lot of us just want to solo or duo q without worrying about getting paired with a team of 4 with us being left out to dry. Now I'm not a game designer so I don't know how easy it is, but why can't both be implemented

You can have the Ranked/Normal Dynamic Queue and add in a Ranked/Normal Solo or Duo queue. This solves problems for both parties. Dynamic queue players have the option that they want, and solo players have the option that we want. As rare as it might be, us solo players dont want to risk being paired up with 4 guys who are a team. Thats just my perspective

Silvonius1/16/2016, 6:51:44 AM14 votes

Dynamic queue completely sucks the fun out of ranked for me. I spent last game getting constantly gang-banged in lane by an obvious pre-made who were voice coordinating 3 and 4 man ganks and tower dives. Then, even though we were only 3 kills down and almost even in objectives my team surrendered at 20 because I guess the 4 premade on my team decided they didnt feel like playing anymore. Any way you look at it, the solo players on a team with pre-mades are getting shafted.

On top of that, there will be people who only play with friends but will be ranked on the same ladder as me and other solo players. That doesn't make any sense and it de-values the value of someone's individual rank.

Solo queue should be solo only, I don't think they should even allow duo queue. And they need to bring team builder back because team builder was the only way to guarantee getting a specific champion whenever I felt like trying a specific champ and role.

If they bring back solo queue (I could live with duo as well lol), remove dynamic queue and allow the option to pick only a primary role without needing to choose a secondary I'd be happy. I don't think the more casual players who play with friends a lot understand just how different the dynamic queue feels to people who are hardcore into solo-queue and earning their solo rank.

If they're making their final decision about dynamic queue on tuesday then I guess that's when I'll decide whether to quit this game or not after 3000 hours of gameplay. I know that seems a bit dramatic but League is my favorite game and something that I've spent many hours a day on for years, and it's sad to see it ruined like this.

Oscolot1/16/2016, 3:08:43 PM14 votes

My situation is similar to many other people in this thread. My friends and I play League together almost every night. I am diamond and my friends range from Silver to Plat V. I love competing, but I also enjoy playing with my friends. I should like dynamic queue, right? Well I don't, and here's why:

Normals give me plenty of opportunity to play with my friends. Ranked solo gives me the opportunity to compete with other players, try as hard as I can, and improve. It also gives me a place to prove my skill/dedication compared to other competitive players.

Enter dynamic queue. I will still play normals with my friends because I cannot queue with them for ranked (I wouldn't even if I could). When I want to play ranked I have two options - I can either continue to play by myself, which puts me at a disadvantage, or I can find 4 other people to play with to make the most of the system. If I choose to play by myself, my personal achievements will be compared to other people who chose to play as a group of 5. Even if I never have to play a game against a group (5% of the time I will) I still am compared against them in the ladder. Even if I do decide to play ranked with a group, it no longer is a gauge of my personal skill. Either way this new system makes my ranking meaningless. It is either inflated by the fact that I played with a group, or it loses meaning when compared to the inflated rankings of other players who did queue as a group.

I guess the question at the end of the day is if every aspect of league needs to be inclusive to every league player. Say 10 people are at a party. 6 of them are playing go fish and having a great time. The other 4 are playing a very competitive game of poker, but also having a great time. The host of the party wants everyone to play together, so they decide that they're going to take away one deck of cards. Now all 10 people are playing go fish together, and some of them are still having a great time, but some of them are not enjoying the party as much as they were before. Sure, they're playing with the group, but they didn't choose this, and they were having more fun before.

This is how I see dynamic queue. It does not give me more ways to play, it give me less. Instead of adding to my overall experience playing League of Legends, it removes one way I had to enjoy the game.

PsycloneJoker1/16/2016, 12:20:52 PM14 votes

Here is how I feel about dynamic queue: it's a flawed system that can absolutely never be polished enough to make it not awful.

It's flawed at high elo, so all of your streamers will be in queue forever for a match of terrible quality. This makes your game look awful, and should frankly be embarrassing. Are you really going to throw your biggest advertising tool down the drain because you like the idea of friends playing ranked together?

It's flawed for solo queue people. You're basically telling people that solo queue, "You're playing LoL wrong, get 4 friends or go to hell kiddo." I solo queue in ranked because it's a test of MY skill, not a test of how good my friends are. I only play with friends in normals for that reason.

It's flawed in a ranked system because ranked will mean nothing with this queue. Ranked is not a test of how good my friends are at carrying me. If this system is released this ranked season you're going to see people that have been silver for years suddenly be gold or plat if they have good friends. How do you think this is going to effect those ranks when these people decide to solo queue one night there friends aren't there? How do you think it's going to effect the quality of your games when a large crowd of people are effectively being boosted? Yeah, sounds like a great idea.

If you make this change I am done. Overwatch is coming out soon, I'll be able to fully drop your game and focus on that. I have poured $1200 into this game as a solo queue person. I've played LoL since season 2, I would like to continue playing the game for many years to come. Please don't tell me to go away in order to try and capture the facebook social crowd.

Rockman1/16/2016, 9:24:01 AM13 votes

Delete 4 man premades

you have all the evidence you need they shouldn't exist.

eSLa1/16/2016, 8:00:12 AM12 votes

The problem is :

-Either you play with a 5 man squad, stomp the opponent and get no lp.

-Either you play solo get stomp and lose no lp.

-Either you get matched with a random premade and pray for them not to be annoying. (aka : Premade trying to bully you)

And now you are telling me they are going to find a way to play against the exact same amount of premade in both team, really?

Ok let's say 3 people are queuing up in High elo, not only they have to find 3 others premade queuing up at the almost exact same elo, and even worse, in the addition both premade have to find 2 others peoples with their MAIN roles in the last 2 position remaining. And i'm not even talking about those playing at night when there is less people online.

Let's be sincere :

-Either the queue is going to last for years.

-Either that's going to force everyone to create a smurf account over and over, and of course destroy low elo game.

-Either, and that's in the worst-case scenario people are just going to quit the game, because that's no sense, and of course, afterwards the queue will become even longer.

That's the main problem with a game as popular as League of legends, they believe they HAVE to makes change and find a new things over and over, i'm not against the change, but this whole systeme is a mess. And i truly believe that's going to have a big impact in a negative way on the community.

Come on, don't be stubborn, or at the very least like somebody says on reddit earlier today do 2 game modes :

-Soloq to play against other solo players

-Dynamic queue to play with a premade up to 5 players.

And if you are doing it, don't feel the need to implant the new champion select for the soloq mode, when you are playing soloq you should be able to play every role "decently", and even if you have to play your worse lane, that's the beauty of soloq, playing safe against a one trick pony riven top and pray for your team to carry your ass while those bitch took the role you would have carry with.

D1onys1us1/16/2016, 11:31:34 AM12 votes

I'm master rank on EUW and I wish to keep playing SOLO que, I don't want to play with friends in ranked and I don't play this game to make friends.

How it currently stands there's no way I'll ever reach master again seeing the MASSIVE disadvantages of playing vs constant premade teams. This is completely unfair and makes your individual rank completely useless as it isn't a correct measurement of skill anymore.

I wish we had a true SOLO que, a dynamic one and a 5v5 one.

Unicorn Rocket1/16/2016, 6:53:50 PM11 votes

Last year, we investigated why players didn’t play ranked, and a huge number said they didn’t want to abandon their friends to do it. In other words, there was a large subset of players who wanted to play competitively with friends on a ranked ladder, but lacked a great avenue to do so.

I don't have access to your data or your survey methodology, but I believe it's possible you misinterpreted your user research. Perhaps those players would prefer to play ranked with their friends, but they could have easily formed a ranked team, so you have to ask yourself why they weren't. Dynamic queue seems to solve for the objection that it's hard to get 5 friends on at the same time, but is that the main objection?

Could it be that individual ranking & pride in individual accomplishment, by its intrinsic nature, makes it very challenging to play with people who you want to get along with? Could it be that team environments with aligned individual incentives to be good teammates and friends are best served by recognizing the accomplishments of the team as the primary metric for success?

I believe that's the case. I don't want to play solo-rank with my friends because we have different skill levels. I don't play much ranked because I don't want to abandon my friends, but I don't want ranked to change so they can play with me.

I think Riot's core business revolves around people believing they could be at the top. Dynamic queue is a tradeoff between competitiveness and fun. If your business goals align with making the game more fun, then this may be a move in the right direction. But I think making the game more fun is not necessarily in your best interests as a business. That is, not when the fun has a trade off.

Broad live testing is certainly the right approach, but be careful. Even if this game is merely perceived to be less competitive (and that perception is wrong), it may be enough to damage the real value in your business. Riot isn't so successful because they have the most fun game on the market. Fun isn't enough. Don't lose sight of that.

Asylum Archfiend1/16/2016, 11:38:18 AM11 votes

My biggest concern is that there are two goals being aimed at with ranked dynamic queues:

  • The goal of playing ranked (and being able to compare yourself to other players by extension)

  • The goal of playing with your friends

I believe these two are mutually exclusive (outside of ranked 5's of course, but in there, you compare your TEAM with other teams and not your team with solo players).

Measuring skills, solo vs teams, in a trading card game I have done some statistics and measured elo ratings for a well sized population in another game (yugioh, around 200 players). When comparing single players with a system like that, it is very quickly possible to determine their skills. We ran two "leagues", one for solo play and one of tag team dueling. Our seasons lasted a month after which everyone was reset. 1500 Elo was the standard. During one of the seasons, I asked a good player (2403 rating in the previous season) to play with a "poor" player (around 1100 rating in the previous season) in the tag team league for a season.

Their individual ranks were around the same for that season (the good player dropped slightly, but not much), but their "ranked team" ended up at 1927 rating. This was not an accurate reading of either player's skill level, but as they only played together in that league, it was impossible to determine where each of them were. If you compared the low-placed player with the people he played with in the solo league, he looked to be head and shoulders above them (like bronze vs plat above them), but his actual skill wasn't anywhere near that; he was just being carried.

Dynamic Queue in Heroes of the Storm In Heroes of the Storm they used to have dynamic queue, but honestly, it just wasn't working. There were several reasons for this:

The premades rose insanely high, far higher than the individual players were fit for and the second they no longer played with their premade they were a huge deficit for their team. I have friends who, before the reset and removal, were ranked around rank 1-4, who can't get below rank 20 when they only have duo queue. This, apart from meaning their rank did not reflect their skill level, meant that there were fights that were hugely imbalanced because the match making had no way to account for the MMR of the player not being valid.

All harassment issues aside (and yes, the 5th player when there was a 4 man premade did face quite a bit of harassment), there was a different problem for the solo player in a 4 man premade; They hardly got a say in what the team did. You might say "Oh, but you don't do that in solo queue at the moment either", which might be true, but neither does the rest of your team. But when the rest of your team is on skype/VT/Whatever together, they can plan, discuss and coordinate without you. We all know that ganks work best when well coordinated and at high levels of play, this can be done wordlessly with 2 or 3 pings. Not so much at lower elos. Hands on your hearts, junglers who play with your friends at bronze, silver, gold level; How much more likely are you to gank the lane your premade is in than another lane, if both lanes are doing equal? Now imagine only the top laner is not on your team. He is the only one you can't coordinate your ganks with at the same level as you can with the others.

The last problem was the frequency with which players got matched in a 4-5 man premade vs all solo queue. These games were no fun, and usually stupidly quick stomps. You say you will prevent this in 95 % of the cases, and that number is still too low to me. That's 5 % almost guaranteed win for the premades by default.

Suggestions Rather than looking to destroy the idea of ranked meaning anything about the player's skill, how about we look to improve ranked 5 man instead? I agree that the current system is far too rigid and has way too many problems, but I have an alternative solution, because Heroes of the Storm actually fixed it, imo.

Their ranked system has two queues:

  • Ranked solo/duo

  • Ranked team

How is this different from how League does it at the moment, you might ask. The difference is that you don't make a team to play ranked teams. You just group up, press play and then it finds you a match. You then have a rank, not for a specific team, but for your skill in teams. So, if I have 4 friends (A, B, C and D), we can just go play a few games of ranked team. We then get a rank of, let's say... Silver 2. Then B has to leave, but another guy E asks if he can play. We then invite him, and go play team league without any hassle at all. His and our ranks are combined to make a MMR (like dynamic queue would do it) and we are then matched with someone approximately equal.

No hassle, no great big barrier of entry.

edit: Just a small extra question for Lyte: Have you considered that asking players who are playing ranked at the moment is not a good indicator? People playing ranked at the moment is probably people excited with the new system while many solo players might skip out on it, hoping it will be changed back soon.

xXSexMaster69Xx1/16/2016, 12:59:39 PM11 votes

Why does this feel like we're changing the only competitive aspect of league for non-pro players to please the people who aren't currently playing it while making the people who are playing it mostly unhappy. I honestly don't want to see a single game where I'm in a team of solo players or a small 2 man team and 3 solos go up against a 5 man team to get dicked on. Lets face it at D1 level there's not much hope winning an equal skilled team with voice coms and as soon as I have to play a game like this, the frustration is definitely going to make me stop ranked for the day and probably a few more days after. Not happy at all.

Lucriox1/16/2016, 6:15:56 AM10 votes

Automatically dodging because you didn't lock in your champion is stupid, if you picked a champion you shouldn't have to lock in, Ice picked a champion and stayed at the screen just looking and dodged twice because i didn't hit lock in, even though i was clearly not AFK. instant 30 minute queue because you don't press one extra button? and the first pick part is just wasting 40 seconds of champion select, and all 3 players should be able to ban at the same time or something because it goes so slow, and players shouldn't' picked one by one, if two teammates are picking in the same time, they should both be able to pick and not go one to the other, it is wasting time and making champ select an extra few minutes. I love the layout and they did a great job making champ select but I play league to play league, not to pick champions for 5+ minutes.

GGX Millia1/16/2016, 9:19:02 AM10 votes

This makes me wish for "only solo players" option even more. Premades should be playing against premades, people who don't care should fill the premade teams, people who do care should have an option to play solo.

When you (Lyte) mentioned that premades eventually get inflated MMR and start losing against solo players, it was only mentioning how things work shallowly. Unless you have some hidden matchmaker stats, inflated MMR makes premade players absolutely suck when playing solo and crush when in premades, which makes the game really unfun for their own team (when they get crushed) or the enemy team (when they play together), doesn't it? In any case, premades are not fun for a casual solo player to play with.

As another solution, a new ladder would be good (by merging duo and dynamic), but somehow I doubt many people would play it. You have the stats tho.

Haunt1/16/2016, 8:27:59 AM10 votes

I still feel I should be able to pick ONE role of I choose in ranked, and deal with a longer queue time. People want options. Your whole player base doesn't all play more than one thing, it should cater to those who play one role/champ, (for the record I do play more than one thing, but where I am in diamond 2, I want to get the role I main almost always, because that's what I'm able to play at that level the best.)

HugorPT1/16/2016, 5:31:23 PM10 votes

People aren't realizing a very important aspect, "rank integrity".

Mr Jones is a Silver\Gold player, and he goes on and plays with 4 of his (higher rank) buddies, rolls support, gets carried hard by his friends. Ends up at... Plat 2, whatever. Happy as hell.

However, when Mr Jones wants to play alone, solo, his actual skill and knowledge does not equate his current rank, so, he will get stomped, be a burden on his team, and eventually slide down the ranking again, not having a good time at all - until his friends can take care of him again.

This will be a serious problem in matchmaking, yet people don't care, because 'they can get carried by friends'.

This is not a good system.

Johr Dinh1/16/2016, 9:25:13 AM10 votes

I don't even have any IRL friends that play cuz time constraints and they don't wanna learn all the stuff in the game. I pretty much have to play alone and enjoy it like this most of the time anyways. Even when I duo I don't wanna do it in ranked cuz frankly even marginal differences in rank seem to effect it, or it's just too easy rolling other teams cuz the synergy. I wanna earn my rank alone, I really wish there was a solo only queue, i'd be way happier with that than this.

This also reminds me of Halo and Call of Duty, where people back out immediatly if they see the other team if a premade, or people CONSTANTLY beg the developer to only match teams with other teams regardless of time it takes cuz it's otherwise unfair. Any implementation of this will still be messy, and frankly unneeded anyways. Teams have advantage unless they're playing against other teams, period...and its still messy cuz no one is usually right on the money with their ranks when they do play.

My problem with not playing Ranked (besides just ladder anxiety, which u've helped alleviate a little next season with a free win in promos) is that I don't have an actual solo queue system in place...all random players all the time. That sounds amazing to me personally, and if I wanna play with friends ill jam Normals. That's just me tho, everyones different and u'll never please everyone, but dynamic queue will possibly make me stop playing Ranked all together sadly:(

D1key1/16/2016, 10:23:49 AM10 votes

Make a solo-queue (for 1 player) and dynamic-queue (for 2,3 or 5 players).

You may ask: "But what if i have a 4-men-premade?! Q_Q"

You still can play normals. Its totally OK to have some restrictions for competitive. So u cant play as 4 ranked- deal with that. You cant play as 6 too. Or I bet even more friends have an ELO-difference problem. So what now? F*ck competitive, allow every1 play ranked? Right? plz no...

Mansana1/16/2016, 6:31:51 AM8 votes

Wasn't the reason for implementing Duo-Queue in the first place was for competitive pro teams to practice and synergize their gameplay? Last season the duo-queue option wasn't bad since it had very minimal impact in terms of outcomes. But 3+ premades just makes it easier to exploit and bully out the soloists. Then again the psychological ambiguity that ranked gameplay implements in to minds of the players, especially hidden info like mmr, is a big factor with stuff like smurfs playing with friends and so forth. Personally I feel like there should be risk vs reward when playing as a team with friends in dynamic queue. I've mentioned that depending on how many people you queue up with LP gains and losses should be adjusted to reflect the skill cap that gets shifted by how much synergy is within the team or yourself. I feel like if you go solo (which is basically making matches much easier to fill up and get made) you should get rewarded more than if you play with friends. This is for people who want the faster climb. Vs people who still want to play with friends in a competitive and fun environment.

Blupor1/16/2016, 6:52:11 AM8 votes

As a support main, I have some issues with dynamic queue. When I queue solo, I am guaranteed to get an ADC that I don't know. In the past, that was fine, because there was a similar chance the enemy would have that too. If not, MMR took care of it. Now with dynamic queue, I am very likely to be up against a premade bot lane (assuming 4+1 on both teams). Meanwhile, the enemy team's solo player will frequently be in a solo lane or the jungle, where less split-second communication is required.

So, my question is whether anything is being done to match solo players against each other in terms of roles as well. I can see this potentially impacting solo players in the bot lane specifically, and I feel it is a variable that should be controlled (and can be controlled, given that roles are now known to the system).

Thank you for your openness and adaptation in the launch of Dynamic Queue. I hope we can all come to a good compromise here and enjoy ranked in S6 to the fullest.

Meanie401/16/2016, 4:43:02 PM8 votes

When we polled players who were playing in dynamic queues the specific question: “I like that you are allowed to queue with any number of people to play ranked”, about 55% of players agreed, 20% were neutral, and 25% disagreed.

The fact that you asked such a biased question with a biased sample and still only got 55% approval should tell you all you need to know about Dynamic Queues.

Sigogglin1/16/2016, 5:39:50 PM7 votes

There are only 3 real solutions I see:

  1. Completely trash the entire Idea.summoner 11

  2. Make Ranked Dynamic Queue for 3 people max.Renekton Nasus Azir

  3. Have separate Ranked Solo Queue and Ranked Dynamic Queue. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]