SoloQ vs DQ: A hint towards the direction Riot is going
This is a snippet from a reddit post by Riot Tryndamere. Let's discuss this a bit, because I think it's valuable information and I'm honestly tired of complaining and looking backwards towards "the good ole days". I want League to succeed and become better, even if it seems like now we've seen it take a step back with Dynamic Queue.
What could be added to dynamic queue that would make it meaningful for solo que?
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My first hint would be to point towards the individual champion mastery upgrades. As a Diana main, I enjoyed getting the level 7 mastery and love throwing my swag after making sick plays. My gut tells me this a first attempt at fostering the individual mastery that we all seem to miss from solo que.
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Tyrndamere talks a lot about sports analogies with how he envisions league, basketball especially. However in the game's current state I see two issues.
First, we are matched into teams and into opponents based on a computer's calculation as to our skill level. And as such, we do not work together with the same people over and over again. DQ was intented to "soft force" teamwork, but I believe it failed for the following reason. Excuse the analogy, but playing league is like porn. If you don't like a teammate, there's always another one just a few clicks away. Add to that the fact that you can tell the teammate how much he sucks on the way out, and you have the current state of mind of the average silver/bronze player. This isn't how people play sports. In sports, you pick a team and you work together to get better. I played football in Highschool. Once the preseason was over and you made your cuts, unless someone got in trouble or suspended (or grades fell), you were stuck with the players you had. You made your best effort to improve: you couldn't flame your teammates because you NEEDED THEM. Also, teams have coaches to mediate when players do become upset. Unless your a pro, there are no coaches in league. How cool would it be for there to be an official channel in league for say a diamond player to coach bronzies? Isn't that what brings people to semi educational streamers like NB3 or Trick?
I haven't been able to fit into the DQ system mostly because any time I try and team up with another player, I am either flamed for doing poorly and discarded like an ugly porn star, or we get along well for a couple games but eventually part ways for a variety of other, less hurtful reasons (skill level difference, not online at the same time, lack of competitiveness, or sheer boredom with the current state of the game and how much it sucks to loose in it).
Second, we need to clarify what exactly from the sports analogy we want, and where the analogy will fall apart (as all analogies do) when applied to league in the ideal sense. Is the ideal ranked game modeled off of the NBA? A highschool team? A pickup game? What do you think it should be modeled off of?
In sum, as dissapointed with this season as I am, I do see some hope.
