We can have both and here is how
This post is inspired by a recent post by Vritra: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/Uj6xn62B-please-read-trying-to-understand-why-soloqs-not-here.
"Like it or not gaming is shifting away from pandering to players who identify via strong individual play and rating, in favor of a social experience. It is a trend of this age and i do not need to point you to overwatch, who is using this exact same system, and will not be the last of upcomming multiplayer titles.
They want to build large e-sport franchises and are orientating around real life sports. Like a trip to the local football pitch with your friends they want to make their game fullfill two criteria
- You identify with the activity primarly over your social connections and only secondarly via your personal skill
- Gameplay must be as similar as possible to competetive play to make it easier to access and identifying with your pro idols"
As a solo player individual rating is very important to me. I understand why games like League would like to get away from this and start forcing a more social aspect to the game. However, I believe both groups of players can have what they want.
First, Riot can implement solo queue. This queue can only be played solo and matches players vs. other players with their same solo elo.
Second, replace ranked 5s with dynamic queue or whatever you want to call this other queue. Limit teams to 2, 3, & 5 players. THERE ARE NO RANKED RESTRICTIONS. Just like 3v3 & 5v5, this new separate dynamic queue would be a separate ladder with a separate elo. Your rank is solely based on your performance in this queue and is not tied to your solo performance at all. This increases the number of players able to be matched in this queue, reducing queue times. This also would allow people who want to play ranked with their friends an easy option of doing so.
Since the ladders are separate, you can see a player's skill as a solo player and as team player. Yes... the variance in dynamic queue could be pretty great game to game.... but it really is not that different than it is now. If you want to play with friends in ranked and as a team, you should be forced to only play vs similar liked minded players. Your rating should also reflect this.
I remember playing ranked 5v5 in past seasons with friends who were all silver-gold. We did not play enough to get out of bronze and a lot of games we would play all plat teams or some diamond level players. However, we would still beat those teams and sometimes lose to teams with bronze and silver players. It came down to teamwork with us 5 and our solo records did not matter. Likewise, this queue would measure your ability to play grouped with players vs other grouped players. Although solo ranks would vary a lot, the outcomes of games should overall be fairly close.
The pros to this system is solo players still have a ladder to play in and a rating to focus on and be proud of. People who want to make a 5 team or want to play ranked with some friends still have this option and can get a team rank or "grouped rank". Just like 3v3 & 5v5 you would do separate season rewards for each ladder.
I honestly think this is the best option Riot has to make everyone somewhat happy. It might not be perfect but its a lot better than just throwing everyone together on the same ladder completely ruining any meaning of rank.
Your thoughts?
