PSA: Real SoloQ

Parceval·Nov 10, 2016·52 votes·2,409 views

With the inclusion of FlexQ, please remove the option for "duo" in the soloQ lineup. It takes away from the purity of the queue. In addition, if we want to play with groups, we have flex.

Thank you.

83 Comments

LimmieNov 10, 201622 votes

Yeah agreed. I'll just copy the post I made yesterday:

I really don't see the point of allowing duos in "solo" queue at all. It doesn't really eliminate the problems of DQ, just lessens them. Namely:

Legitimate boosting is still allowed, since people can duo with high ranking smurfs and get winrates they wouldn't get by themselves. That includes paid boosting, which is an abomination for any ladder with any semblance of competitive integrity.
It doesn't completely level the playing field. Duos still have an unfair advantage over solos since they can practice together, have easier access to voice coms and generally work well together. Specially a support/ADC duo.

3)It makes matchmaking problematic because even though duos can potentially have an advantage, it doesn't necessarily mean they do. If they don't put a handicap on duos they'll have an advantage over the other team if they have things like voice comms or trained together. And on the other hand if they're just random people that happened to queue together but don't really have comms or played before etc, then the team hosting them will be on a disadvantage because the system will handicap the matchmaking accounting for an advantage that isn't really there.

4)Allowing duos in Solo Queue makes the Flex Queue less viable. Duos and trios complement eachother and 5s are self sufficient, so only 4s need solo players. By funneling duos into the flex queue they don't need to worry as much about attracting solo players.

Back when there was only one ladder, it made sense to allow duos into solo queue, because people who wanted to play with a friend would have no other way to do that. But now we have 2 separate ladders and you can be part of both at the same time, so the reason doesn't exist anymore. Just play solo on solo queue and hop over to flex for the games when you want to premade with friends. Everyone wins.

Mojihito666Nov 10, 20167 votes

I would upvote you 832793457 times if i could

ZepperNov 10, 201611 votes

Queue times would definitely be lower for both queues if there was Pure Solo

DrCyanideNov 10, 20167 votes

Oh really? How many pure solo players think they can carry the game on Support?

A Duo can at least count on one person being a decent carry that they can back up in team fights and what not if they choose to go Support, Solos don't have that luxury. Without Supports the Solo Queue would grind to a halt.

realDRdealNov 10, 20165 votes

Well, there are support mains out there raises hand and there is this thing called auto fill. Yeah, it blows getting auto filled into a role you don't like/aren't good at but back in the day (i.e., before last season) you had to be able to at least try to play any role. Besides, there is a lot to the game that you learn from playing other roles.

DrCyanideNov 10, 20164 votes

If you're getting Auto Filled it's because the queue times would be longer than currently. Season 5 and earlier was fast because it didn't have the role preference system, so it didn't have to find a full team before dumping people into a lobby.

Support Mains obviously exist, but they're in high demand and short supply, particularly in Solo Queue, where the mantra seems to be "play hard carry champions and 1v9 the game".

I agree it's good to play every role from time to time. That's why I love going Fill in Blind Pick, it actually gives me a random role to mix things up.

lolipopevelynnNov 10, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Oh really? How many pure solo players think they can carry the game on Support?

A Duo can at least count on one person being a decent carry that they can back up in team fights and what not if they choose to go Support, Solos don't have that luxury. Without Supports the Solo Queue would grind to a halt.

a support will always play with groups/duo because they want to get carried by nature. idk what you are trying to prove here.

DrCyanideNov 10, 20164 votes

I'm trying to prove that Queue Times for Solo Only Queue won't be faster because they'll be even more heavily bottle-necked by a lack of Supports.

RisenDarkKnightNov 11, 20165 votes

Well the problem of a not enough support players is something Riot should address directly, rather than leaving duo queue just because some of them are duo bots where the support would otherwise try to play a carry role. I don't think the impact on queue times would be that large from switching to pure solo, as a lot of duos are a solo laner and a jungler or other role combinations that don't include a support.

I personally didn't mind dynamic queue, but all the bad things about it are true of duo queue to a lesser extent. Solo players that were abused by 3 or 4 man queues can still be abused by duos, and a solo player playing with 2 duos on his team still has way less impact on a match usually than a solo player playing with 4 other solos.

ParcevalNov 10, 20167 votes

I'm a support main. I sincerely enjoy playing alone. With solos. With groups. I don't care.

LimmieNov 11, 20161 votes

Same. I climbed from unranked to silver 1 in 30 games playing nothing but solo support (apart from like 4 games, 1 as ADC, 1 jungler and 2 top). The only thing that annoyed me was when I was against a premade bot lane, and specially against a botlane/jungler trio. From my experience the skill of the support matters more than that of the ADC since it's the support that has to zone, ward and set up kills. Specially I'd lose lanes because the enemy's support was good, never because of the ADC.

ParcevalNov 10, 20165 votes

? I've found it easier than most roles to carry the game as support.

MoeuguudesNov 10, 20161 votes

It's nearly impossible to totally eliminate boosting. Like, this honestly shouldn't even be a legitimate point because you can very, very easily pay someone to log into your account for you and boost you. If anything, queing with someone that's a smurf is just a safer way to boost for those afraid to have someone log onto their account.
Duo's were very, very frequently matched against other duo's, especially in the lower divisions. It is significantly easier for the game to matchmake another team that also has a duo in it to balance the level of skill between the two teams, as opposed to say, attempting to find two three man premades, or 4 or 5.
This has very close ties to point 2, so might as well just combine the two into a larger point. Will say that it doesn't make sense to ever be premade with someone you haven't played games with before or at least have comms. And there's no denying the advantage that comms give you, but there are ways to work around that since it's two players on the enemy team that has that advantage. When only two people have voice comms/play history together, it's not as devastating an advantage as if, say, 3 or 4 or all of them have it.
If allowing duo's in solo que makes dynamic que less viable, then that's dynamic que's problem to figure out. Riot's little kitten of a game mode can attract it's own playerbase if it's anywhere near as good as Riot claims it is (which, according to Riot, must be pretty good considering they fucked up the integrity of ranked for an entire season and seriously damaged the trust that their community has in them while doing so). Personally, i have absolutely no problem with duo que stealing premade duos from 3 man premade teams.

LimmieNov 10, 20169 votes

{quoted}

It's nearly impossible to totally eliminate boosting. Like, this honestly shouldn't even be a legitimate point because you can very, very easily pay someone to log into your account for you and boost you. If anything, queing with someone that's a smurf is just a safer way to boost for those afraid to have someone log onto their account.

Actually what you're describing can be (and BTW, is) easily detectable by Riot's automated systems. Accounts with suspect IP changes (such as people playing ranked games in another city etc) are already automatedly flagged for review. There also systems in place that keep track of your average APM ratio and other patterns, and flag accounts that shows suspect variations. Even changing your password then changing it back can cause your account to be flagged. About a year ago Lyte said in a podcast that they managed to clamp down on account boosting so efficiently that by then it was almost statistically negligible.

And even if that was not the case, how is this an argument? If we can't find a perfect solution does that mean we should implement an improvement? I don't think that makes sense at all.

Duo's were very, very frequently matched against other duo's, especially in the lower divisions. It is significantly easier for the game to matchmake another team that also has a duo in it to balance the level of skill between the two teams, as opposed to say, attempting to find two three man premades, or 4 or 5.

It doesn't make it any more enjoyable to be for instance a solo ADC lanning against a duo botlane. Even if you win the game it won't have been as enjoyable as if you were playing on even grounds, and it feels doublly bad to lose lane because the opponent had an unfair advantage. Statistically it might even out winrates, but it does nothing for your enjoyment of the matches.

This has very close ties to point 2, so might as well just combine the two into a larger point. Will say that it doesn't make sense to ever be premade with someone you haven't played games with before or at least have comms. And there's no denying the advantage that comms give you, but there are ways to work around that since it's two players on the enemy team that has that advantage. When only two people have voice comms/play history together, it's not as devastating an advantage as if, say, 3 or 4 or all of them have it.

Sometimes you just met somebody who was pleasant and want to play another match with them. Or maybe they don't have comms or can't use them at the time (it's late at night or something). I could go on and on. And it does make a huge advantage in lane, which can be translated into an advantage in-game if you snowball other lanes. Imagine this scenario: you're a midlaner playing an even or slightly advantageous lane so far. Then bot lane loses hard and you're collapsed on by the support and ADC.

If allowing duo's in solo que makes dynamic que less viable, then that's dynamic que's problem to figure out. Riot's little kitten of a game mode can attract it's own playerbase if it's anywhere near as good as Riot claims it is (which, according to Riot, must be pretty good considering they fucked up the integrity of ranked for an entire season and seriously damaged the trust that their community has in them while doing so). Personally, i have absolutely no problem with duo que stealing premade duos from 3 man premade teams.

You talk about dynamic queue ruining the competitive integrity of ranked in the same post you defend a totally, 100% legitimate way to be boosted? One that can't even be punished and is in fact incentivized? Doesn't make sense to me.

So far all you've talked about was how the problems I mentioned aren't that bad, but I didn't see anything about why should duos queue with solos instead of with the rest of the premades in the first place. If there's nothing good out of queuing with solos then why should they? What justifies putting up with all the problems I mentioned (even if they were as small as you say)?

SlaktarTaskenNov 11, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Yeah agreed. I'll just copy the post I made yesterday:

I really don't see the point of allowing duos in "solo" queue at all. It doesn't really eliminate the problems of DQ, just lessens them. Namely:

Legitimate boosting is still allowed, since people can duo with high ranking smurfs and get winrates they wouldn't get by themselves. That includes paid boosting, which is an abomination for any ladder with any semblance of competitive integrity.

It doesn't completely level the playing field. Duos still have an unfair advantage over solos since they can practice together, have easier access to voice coms and generally work well together. Specially a support/ADC duo.

3)It makes matchmaking problematic because even though duos can potentially have an advantage, it doesn't necessarily mean they do. If they don't put a handicap on duos they'll have an advantage over the other team if they have things like voice comms or trained together. And on the other hand if they're just random people that happened to queue together but don't really have comms or played before etc, then the team hosting them will be on a disadvantage because the system will handicap the matchmaking accounting for an advantage that isn't really there.

4)Allowing duos in Solo Queue makes the Flex Queue less viable. Duos and trios complement eachother and 5s are self sufficient, so only 4s need solo players. By funneling duos into the flex queue they don't need to worry as much about attracting solo players.

Back when there was only one ladder, it made sense to allow duos into solo queue, because people who wanted to play with a friend would have no other way to do that. But now we have 2 separate ladders and you can be part of both at the same time, so the reason doesn't exist anymore. Just play solo on solo queue and hop over to flex for the games when you want to premade with friends. Everyone wins.

These are all really great arguments, this needs to be posted on the large SQ thread on reddit if you have not already since lol:reddit gets far more attention from Riot than boards. If you haven't I'll gladly post it and link it to this post/page so credit is given where credit is due.

LimmieNov 11, 20162 votes

Yeah, please do.

SlaktarTaskenNov 11, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, please do.

Cool, it's out there now. Early yet but I hope it garners some attention.

UmioNov 11, 20162 votes

{quoted}

agreed

LingLing23Nov 10, 201611 votes

This is so obvious... cmon rito

theArtifactsNov 10, 20169 votes

Agreed

Yordle PotluckNov 10, 20169 votes

Without a doubt.

SlaktarTaskenNov 10, 20169 votes

Where is the benefit in having duo players playing in an otherwise solo environment? Can anyone mention a single one? And by that I mean a benefit to the ladder, not to your personal experience.

Have people already forgotten that duos were one of the main complaints of the old solo/duoQ? And by God they will be the main complaint again, mark my words.

It's a bad move, people who want that friend experience should simply flex, heck, even solo players who like DQ environment can flex. Those who don't want anything to do with premades for the sake of integrity and an absolutely fair playing field, should have true soloQ.

GayFluffyUnicornNov 10, 20168 votes

Yup. Fuck premades, especially this season. You think Duos had an unfair advantage the seasons before? Here have role selection and get guaranteed solo lane/jungler comps or duo bot comps stomping their way through the poor solo players.

SlaktarTaskenNov 10, 20167 votes

{quoted}

Yup. Fuck premades, especially this season. You think Duos had an unfair advantage the seasons before? Here have role selection and get guaranteed solo lane/jungler comps or duo bot comps stomping their way through the poor solo players.

Couldn't agree more, the abuse culture of DQ is just going to find a new home in Solo/DuoQ. Apparently, this is what Riot wants.

GayFluffyUnicornNov 11, 20164 votes

Yes because deep inside riot still believes DQ is "superior" and the better system. Just look how riot AGAIN delayed fucking soloQ to give us less time to boost our mmr before the reset and forces me to play flex (which i did and it is horrible atm). Imo if riot wants to keep duo Q they need to remove role selection or atleast make it impossible that duos queue up as solo and jungler. The advantage is just way too big like coordinated objective taking, invades and ofc endless camping.

ElfadorNov 10, 20169 votes

it doesn't make sense to have a flex queue and yet a solo queue which allows duos.

If you want to play with a friend just join flex queue.

ParcevalNov 10, 20164 votes

Yep!

Firefox509Nov 10, 20168 votes

Why can't people ever be happy?

They already admitted DynQ was a failure and are adding back the old ladder system (Solo/Duo Queue) like we asked. Why do we still have to complain about it not being solo only?

You say take away the "purity" of the queue like it was solo only to begin with.

GayFluffyUnicornNov 10, 20166 votes

Because we've been asking for soloQ since the dawn of time and complaining about duos for even longer. (slight exeggaration here). Riot said fuck you and gave us DynQ after they PROMISED to give us a TRUE SoloQ. Instead of admitting that DynQ was a failure and giving us SOLOQ riot keeps DynQ and let duo Q return. So nothing changes. Great. Still you people praise riot... but for what exactly? Giving us the same old queue we've been complaining about for ages? Great. Fucking. Achievement.

ParcevalNov 10, 20166 votes

I'm not suggesting it was only solo to begin with.

I'm suggesting we make progress.

Two distinct queues, as promise. No unnecessary overlap. Everyone wins.

Existential BardNov 10, 20166 votes

Seriously people need to stop just being soo demanding. The option to duo in ranked was how the system was before dynamic queue. Everyone said they wanted solo queue back and now you got it.

SlaktarTaskenNov 10, 20168 votes

[{quoted}](name=Existential Bard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1IuEz9XB,comment-id=000a,timestamp=2016-11-10T15:11:44.058+0000)

Seriously people need to stop just being soo demanding. The option to duo in ranked was how the system was before dynamic queue. Everyone said they wanted solo queue back and now you got it.

Being demanding? We asked for true soloQ and got DQ. Riot should just prove to us they aren't a bunch of liars and that we can actually trust them to keep their word albeit late. DuoQ had major issues, why go back to a system that had obvious flaws when there already will be a flex option for duo premades? Where is the benefit to having duos in an otherwise solo environment? Can you mention one? Because people have already mentioned many flaws with that system.

ParcevalNov 10, 20167 votes

It's not solo queue.

I've been playing this game since s2. People constantly complained about 'duo boosting' 'why duos' before.

We know groups are an issue. Why would we include them in the soloq when we now have a separate option? It's illogical. There's no value-add. If they're giving us two separate queues, give us two distinct queues.

SplashworksNov 10, 20165 votes

I disagree...Despite the obvious point of the solo queue ladder showing who the best individual players are, sometimes carrying 4 people depending on matchmaking is very difficult considering you are 1/5 of your team.

Although, if I'm confident in my duo, then that is a much larger impact on the game and it seems to be less of a "please don't match me with plebs" system.

I feel like pure solo queue all the time would become a roulette for some such as myself. I'd rather have someone I know is going to perform but that's me personally i can't speak for people who live on soloing solely.

GayFluffyUnicornNov 10, 20166 votes

Well there is flex q for you but it seems you haven'T noticed? Noone forces you to play a true solo q (if it existed in the first place) you can still enjoy your premade heaven in flex q

MoeuguudesNov 10, 20161 votes

Ah, yes, Flex que. The one where the duo of two guys that want to climb together can be faced with a fate worse than a solo going against a duo, the fate that exists as 3 man and duo vs a single duo and a bunch of solo's. Fantastic idea. /s

You're literally contradicting yourself; it's ok for you to only face solos, but the duos aren't allowed to face another duo? They HAVE to deal with 3 mans and 5 mans? How's that fair? "How's it fair if the solo has to face a duo" It's not, but it's way way way less unfair than a duo vs 5 man or 3 man. Besides, if you lose vs a duo and you were in a solo lane, that's either your fault for not communicating with your teammates or your team's fault for not giving you a helping hand...Although I personally welcome a duo attempting to camp me in a solo lane. I, personally, like challenge. I don't like it as much in bot lane, but that's because I'm not a very good adc for people around my level. Something i need to work on personally though.

DarkRitualNov 10, 20164 votes

Duos being with soloq is a fallback plan in case Flex fails. They don't want to leave players with no way to play ranked games with friends, and also don't want to be forced to change Solo Queue midseason if Flex doesn't get enough players. The outcry from Solo Queue players would be significant if Duos were added in halfway, "tainting the purity of Solo Queue."

So the fallback plan is to move Flex to Ranked 5's, and have Solo/Duo Queue. Back to what has been tried and is known to players. This provides the least disruption to all players if Riot has to make significant changes to Flex Queue.

RisenDarkKnightNov 11, 20164 votes

I think they are dooming flex queue to failure by splitting duos between it and solo queue. If they had pure solo queue and flex queue as the two options, flex queue would be much more likely to succeed with all the duos to populate it. Queue times may be a bit long if trio queues are rarer than duo queues, but I think it would be worth it to finally give solo players a fair experience.

GayFluffyUnicornNov 11, 20164 votes

But didn't riots data last season show that trio queues where the most popular and duos the second most favorite? This would even shorten q times for those two. 3+2= five. Math can be so easy! And we "solo warriors" as riot now wants to call us (atleast in the client notification about Q changes) get rid of premade pest.

RisenDarkKnightNov 11, 20161 votes

Oh I didn't know trios were popular. That's good, they have no real excuse for not making "solo queue" actually solo then, because duos will improve the health of flex queue.

ParcevalNov 11, 20164 votes

If, in the event that flex fails, they can add duo.

It's illogical to start with the fallback.

MeritasNov 10, 20164 votes

It's not happening. Ever.

The Solo Q people played in has always included Duos. Riot brought it back, presumably because it worked better than Dynamic Q. They brought it back in its original form, presumably because it always worked good enough. And, yes, "good enough" is a completely reasonable state for this game, as its community doesn't tolerate the smallest margin of change. Thus it's safe to assume they won't bring changes to it.

SlaktarTaskenNov 10, 20168 votes

{quoted}

It's not happening. Ever.

The Solo Q people played in has always included Duos. Riot brought it back, presumably because it worked better than Dynamic Q. They brought it back in its original form, presumably because it always worked good enough. And, yes, "good enough" is a completely reasonable state for this game, as its community doesn't tolerate the smallest margin of change. Thus it's safe to assume they won't bring changes to it.

That's BS, the community has tolerated massive changes and the new changes will be massive as well. There is no valid reason not to implement true solo alongside flexQ, the only reason I hear stated is that people want to bring the advantages of premades to an otherwise solo environment, that's an advantage to personal benefit, not to the health of the queue. Have you already forgotten how duos were the main complaint of solo/duoQ? Where you even playing back then? Why take a step back when they have the chance to completely correct their mistake and keep their promise?

ParcevalNov 10, 20165 votes

Agreed.

RisenDarkKnightNov 11, 20164 votes

Yeah it also doesn't make sense that you can duo queue up to master tier, but when you get challenger you have to go solo.

Maybe if they put duo players in flex queue, they wouldn't have to remove normal draft?

Yeah I have no idea why they decided to have a 1/2 player queue and a 1/2/3/5 player queue, rather than just a solo vs any grouping queue. I guess Riot thought people would complain if they didn't bring back solo/duo queue exactly as it was before?

TI3d17N1CSNov 10, 20163 votes

Yep i quit playing this game the moment dynamic q was made i was masters earlier s6 but then i faced 4man and 5man premades and even after that the autofill messed everything up, its just not worth playing anymore

GayFluffyUnicornNov 11, 20164 votes

Well now we get duo Q back (well unless you are challenger overlord because riot only cares about them because who would have thought they are mostly the pros as well) with role selection which means you are guaranteed you get stomped by a premade jungler/solo comp in every decent elo. I mean is it so hard to make it solo only from plat+? Or atleast diamond +? If all those low elo kids want to play in a big clownfiesta with their friends=fine. But i want solo Q as many other players are begging for since s2.