SoloQ vs DynamicQ: Who's fault is it?

ZekeKnight·3/25/2016, 1:07:43 AM·1 votes·539 views

I've never posted on the boards before, but I felt this issue was important enough for me to put in my two-cents. If people hate me, so what? Yeah I'm a NA Bronze idiot so if you got a problem with my opinion get a gun and try to find me, I'll gladly take one to the head. That being said, here goes my essay on Queues, and perhaps a broader topic.

SoloQ has always been there, yes, I know it has. More often than not I'd go in alone before I even started ranked, this season my first season. Ever since DynamicQ was announced people immediately were worried about their SoloQ, why? I've heard multiple times from multiple people, that the measurement of skill is the solo performance. However, isn't this a team game? Don't players work with each other to take objectives and eliminate high priority targets to win? This is the dichotomy of the League community. You yourself need to be challenger on your own, but you should pay attention to your team and things around you, which is it? Is the focus external or internal? We praise the fed Vayne that 1v5's the world but condemn the Yi for building greedy items. I see a serious lack of clarity here, is this a team or solo game? The Riven top flames the Vayne adc for feeding the enemy Lucian, but when she dies to Darius she's crying for help from her Shyvana jungle and telling her she doesn't know how to gank, when she's been getting LeBlanc mid fed and denying the enemy Vi farm. What is this polarization in philosophy? We hear the typical Bronze saying all the time, "I deserve [higher elo] but my teammates are trash" and we just write it off as they're just bad and need to get good or quit. Yet in higher elo there's stronger team play because those higher know what their teammates can do and what they themselves can do, and work together playing off of each others' strengths. People say that players that are good should be able to hard-carry, if that's the case someone could very easily 1v5 bots in a custom with a support champion, if they really are the best in the world they should just solo Baron without breaking a sweat, because that's the measure of being good at this game, right? In my personal opinion, SoloQ encourages an extremely selfish mentality, in a team game. We worship the carry roles of mid and adc, top is an island, support is a slave, and jungle is the root of all losses. Again, why this division of the team? Does support not matter because support can't hard-carry all the time? Ban the jungler that "can't gank YOUR lane"? Now, we have this philosophy that the team serves the carry, and only the carry gets the crown, doesn't matter the behind-the-scenes work that went into getting the carry to that position. Every role has a job, they come with purposes and challenges; the hand can't say to the foot, "I don't need you" nor the eye say to the ear, "You're useless". If everyone were an eye, where's the holding? If all were a foot, where's the thinking? Why do you think one for all, as fun as it is, is extremely crazy? If everyone were an adc, who would protect them so they can actually get kills? Who'd support them to peel for them so they can get away? While intentional or not, DynamicQ might be Riot's way of trying to fix this polarized community, like Riot would their community crush itself from within. In my opinion, we lost soloQ ourselves, because we refused to make the changes ourselves to make the game fun to play for everyone, not just for ourselves. Is DynamicQ the solution? Not exactly, but it is a start. Heck, if we weren't going to change the community, someone had to. Why would Riot want this? PR, they want to make this game more marketable, and thus if the community became less toxic, they'd get more potential revenue. I personally don't care either way as far as Solo vs Dynamic is concerned, but I do see the potential that it has to make a difference for the community to be less selfish, and more understanding. To depose the one carry that takes the crown, instead, to recognize all involved to bring the team victory, especially support and top. I hope this game continues to strive for improvement in all aspects.

Again, this is entirely my opinion, backed by my experiences playing this game. I'm not wrong or right, this is just what I think about this. Have your own opinion? Discuss.

Sorry for the long post, here's some Ahri: Ahri Ahri Ahri Ahri

3 Comments

Powderkegg3/25/2016, 1:14:43 AM1 votes

Before dynamic there was solo q and Ranked 5s for premade teams. With a full team games are incredibly easy, for example mid-high diamond players could and would often get challenger in Ranked 5s. Going up against even a 3 man premade as a solo player is very difficult and ultimately leads to unbalanced matchmaking.

Lisdexic3/25/2016, 4:41:35 PM1 votes

This is a good game.

IF you keep it exactly the way it is now and add Solo Queue, with the same champ selection, it becomes perfect.

The player base that enjoyed 5v5 teams under the previous queue system was smaller but loyal and probably brought a higher profit margin per account. Capitalizing on, and enhancing the accessibility for, that player base is smart. It should be applauded.

The issue is that the Solo Queue players who wish enjoy the game are alienated by having only Dynamic Queue. Everything that I've seen shows that over 60% of the player base wants to have a choice for where they play.

Corporations make a lot of decisions, some good, some not so good. It is what it is. I haven't felt like I've wasted a dime that I've paid to enhance my experience with this game but if this is the direction that the game is going I won't risk further investment.

The best thing that could happen is a lot more open communication about the issue from RIOT. People's imagination is always far worse than reality.