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Diamond player thoughts on Dynamic Queue. Riot, I'm calling you out

L3Chuck··84 votes·4,495 views

Hi everyone,

Fridge here with a Dynamic Queue rant (yay I know). I'm very aware that this subject has been beaten to death, but I really felt like I needed to chime in and give some of my own thoughts. These thoughts are based off of my own solo experience's in diamond since the implementation of Dynamic Queue.

It's approaching a month since I have last logged onto the Rift. I decided to "take a break" from League for two reasons. The first was that Overwatch was coming out and I was genuinely excited to play a new game that strives to be competitive. At the current moment of writing this Blizzard has not implemented a ranked queue yet, but from what I have seen it looks promising. Overwatch is a fresh new genre of multiplayer game play that for the most part has lived up to my expectations.

The second reason why I decided to take a break is because I have just been fed up with the current state of the game. I have played League since season 3 (I remember starting when the pool party theme just started). I have manged to finish in diamond for the last 3 season and can say that the game has gotten to the point where its not even fun anymore. I still look over the boards every here and there to see what Riot is doing in regards to player concerns with Dynamic Queue and you know what they have done?

NOTHING item 3070

I cannot believe that a billion dollar company like Riot is treating its player base so poorly. Riot, all we want is to play League of Legends and have a good time doing it. If i did not care about League then I would not have made this post. There have been thousands of posts made about Dynamic Queue and it's inherent flaws, yet nothing has been done to try and remedy the problem.

Dynamic Queue currently DOES NOT show how good someone is. At all. Throwing solo players in with premade teams does not make any sense on a competitive level. Many pro players have gone on record to straight up bash dynamic queue, and for good reason. Riot tried explaining DQ through a video on their YouTube channel which, was not received well by the COMMUNITY. Riot insists that people actually enjoy dynamic queue. Alright Riot, PROVE IT. I'd be happy if Riot surveyed a set sample size of players ranging in ELO about their thoughts on dynamic queue.

This would be a great way to measure the player experience's across multiple ELO's. Now I'm sure Riot has done surveys like this before but the stats frankly become inaccurate after players have been exposed to the system for awhile. Opinions change with experiences. The same people that may have supported solo queue might have changed their mind with the system over the last month. A follow up DQ survey will likely give some interesting data to analyze.

I understand that League of Legends is a team game, but by straight up alienating the solo queue players is the wrong way to go about implementing change. Riot is trying to add banners now to display if you are a solo or dynamic player. This is not even a bandaid fix to the problem. This is Riot saying, "We know that premades win more games than solo players, so we are going to give solo players and premade players badge's. Just so you know you that you were beat by premades or solo players". I understand what Riot is going for but this does nothing to remedy the imbalance that it known as Dynamic Queue.

Riot, this part is mainly for you. I'm going to level with you here, I like League Of Legends. I genuinely do care for the game and have enjoyed it throughout my college studies for the past 3 years. This game has created many memories for me but it has also caused much stress, good and bad. I understand that you want people to be social with DQ and to play with friends, but you straight up eliminated the mode that a large segment of players enjoyed.

In a way, you took out a competitive layer from one of the most competitive esports in the world. I'm sure you guys and girls have all of this information on players, focus groups and whatnot, but it's clear that the League community is split right now from what I see. Speaking for myself here, I just want a competitive environment where I don't have to worry about being ganged up on by premades every game. Better players usually win lane, but the better TEAM wins the game. A group of 3 misfits and a duo thrown together are no match for a 4 man premade or even worse....5 man.

So that's really it, just thought i'd get that out of my system. Riot, I really do feel like you take your player base and community for granted. Yes League is the most popular game in the world, but that does not mean you can straight up ignore a VALID concern within higher level players. We just want the best for the game we love, and the fact that you go out of your way to straight up LIE to us and give us a inherently broken matchmaking system is a slap in the face.

Honestly, what was the point of removing solo queue? What sort of hindrance did it prove on the game? I honestly cannot think of any reason why the removal of solo queue was necessary at the time it was taken down. Seems to me like you just want to give players only one way to play League, and that's Riots way. One day players will have enough. It's only a matter of time before your stubborn ways will cause a decline in players. I'm sure Riot has already noticed a dip In LCS viewership as well as overall viewership on twitch (I know I have).

TL;DR

Riot is not even trying to fix Dynamic Queue. They refuse to listen to player feedback and blatantly ignore player and community concerns. You cannot take the community for granted forever.

I just want League to be fair to solo players. A fair matchmaking experience. Is that too much to ask?

88 Comments

Cursed Legend28 votes

Sadly Riot doesn't give a fuck about you and us. You wrote this long and very true essay however riot openly posted that video and said it FUCK YOU ALL , then they noticed oh wait actually people quit for overwatch and say "oh we give you a banner so we recognize you solo players", sadly people spent to much money on this game just to quit and they try to delay it. My friend still believe that Riot will bring back soloq next season. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. League of Legends is not the same game anymore as i loved, the matchmaking is the worst this season. My experience day one i am winning all the games, day two i got the worse player every role doesn't mater if i beat my laner we lose, day 3 i play poorly but my top and jungler even bot just carry me for 3 games in a row, i am not tilting anymore and i am happy, day 4 i lose 7 games out of 10 even tho i played decent but somehow i get match against premades or just simply my teams are just suck. day 5 lose 3 games out of 4. i am about to quit. day 6 i win 7 games out of 8 my teams are just stomping there teams. and this process goes again and again.

Elikain9 votes

Riot has done a lot and intends to do a lot when it comes to fixing DQ flaws and they have openly stated so in videos and their board posts. And yet, people ignored all of it and just because they don't want to bring SQ back, all of their work amounts to nothing because the crying is too loud. It's fallen on deaf ears.

I'm on my way to Diamond and in 10 days, i've gone through entire Plat (from 5 to 1) with 80% win rate. I'm a solo player. I've never been in Diamond. So someone better explain how am i avoiding the BS everyone seems to be encountering on a daily basis and that it's the reason they lose the majority of their games. Am i suddenly going all the way to Challenger without any resistance or is the problem with DQ legit but way less impactful than everyone claims it is?

So far, i've not encountered 4 mans, not even 3 mans. Duos were a possibility and sometimes, in one game, the enemy team was way too organized because they were roaming too much and setting up ambushes way too often. I assumed that they wee a 3-4 man premade but i told my team that we need to group and ward. And that's what we did and we started winning. So, if a few randoms can still make a coordinated play, i doubt that every time you see synergy on the enemy team, that it's bound to be a premade. It has become an excuse every time when the enemy team is better and when your teammate loses a lane, then you call him trash or whatever.

Dextix LT12 votes

Riot has done a lot

Wat?

and intends to do a lot

They also "intended" to bring soloq back. And to bring back a better tribunal.......

People are not ignoring what Riot is saying. They are just simply not believing and not trusting them anymore because Riot has CONSTANTLY lied.

And people are arguing against DQ as a whole even with the "intended" changes because the whole concept of dynamicq is bad at its core.

What you are saying is personal experience, many people have different experiences though. However the concept of ranked integrity eludes you.

Ask yourself this. Would you conciously allow a full Real Madrid team to fight against a team of random people from every team of the A league? Because its the same with dynamic. The whole concept of fairness and ranked integrity is at risk.

Elikain1 votes

I see. One thing didn't happen as they said it would and they clearly communicated that as the time went on but people chose to cling to their delusions that SQ would come and got disappointed at the end.

I'm curious, what's your stance on Overwatch?

LazyW0lf6 votes

they clearly communicated that as the time went on

You must be crazy to think a company that like Riot clearly communicates anything.

They said:

  1. Solo Q will release a few weeks after Dynamic Queue launched
  2. Solo Q is definitely on the way

Not only that, but they remained silent through the whole thing. If A Rioter states in a Tweet that Solo Q is "definitely on the way", I expect that to be a clearly communicated statement that concludes to Solo Q returning.

people chose to cling to their delusions that SQ would come and got disappointed at the end.

I guess you see this as a clearly communicated statement about Solo Q never coming back and found the community as childish to hold on to such an obscene idea as the thought of Solo Q returning.

Dextix LT6 votes

It is not one thing. It is many things. And it is constant lying. Do you seriously believe that this was a failure of communication? Because i dont buy that shit. Riot as a big company would not make idiotic mistakes like that, ever. All of their responses and posts are carefully crafted on many issues.

It was not a delusion. Many people actually expected Riot to keep their word for once. But week, turned into months. Then turned into "world in which it may not exist" and then into "No soloq". I don know if i consider a statement from Riot themselves a delusion.

And my stance on overwatch in what way? It has no ranked component currently if you want to talk about matchmaking. Unless you are talking about the praise it is receiving and the players it attracts. It is a fact that LOL is losing players. My own wait times show that. Overwatch is offering something new and different. Pair that with Riot effing up constantly this season, and you have a problem.

OF course ovewatch will most likely not outdo LOL, because it is still a game that you have to buy. But if Riot continues on this route, overwatch may be the game that gets many LOL players to it.

ZeeWolfZ1 votes

I'm on my way to Diamond and in 10 days, i've gone through entire Plat (from 5 to 1) with 80% win rate. I'm a solo player. I've never been in Diamond. So someone better explain how am i avoiding the BS everyone seems to be encountering on a daily basis and that it's the reason they lose the majority of their games. Am i suddenly going all the way to Challenger without any resistance or is the problem with DQ legit but way less impactful than everyone claims it is?

What?

Season 3: Bronze, Season 4: Plat, Season 5: Gold, Season 6: Unranked (afraid to face the DQ)

Elikain1 votes

I'm using my ex main to post on boards while i'm using my smurf (main for 1.5 years) to play the game. Check the tier graph.

Kodyack1 votes

With that information, I can actually answer how you avoided it; you played support.

Now, don't get me wrong, support is needed and not easy to play, but you are NOTABLY going to have less issue with DQ premades when you play support, perhaps you get thrown into alot of 4-mans and they're fine cause they found a support and don't really "need" you as much as a team of solos would need a support.

besides that, you have a 27/18 record and shot up from plat 5 to plat 1, so I'm assuming you were getting a ton of LP a game and this isn't the best sample size for actually determining how DQ is compared to SQ.

finally, it could just be luck; like i said, it's a small sample size, so maybe you just have managed to avoid it till now and have shot up as a solo player as a result, after all, I have ~440 games in ranked overall, and honestly alot of it doesn't feel in my control when premades are involved, but when everyone is solo/duo, I've noticed a rather clear rise in winrate in those games.

and as an aside, maybe you just got better than you were last season, so you circumvented the need for grinding your way up in favor of being a much better player who will hit the "grind wall" in mid diamond, diamond 3 is where the skill jump is, I hear.

(I should mention, I am currently plat 4, still going up, albeit slowly, and was gold 4 to start this season; last season ended gold but got plat 3 in the preseason)

The Deckowner17 votes

Sadly I have seen many dynamic queue related posts on the front page, and none of them ever gets any sort of reply or explaination from any ritoer. I don't think they even read those posts, since dynamic queue related posts are all deleted from reddit.

Rito PR did a terrible job by lying to us about solo queue, niw they are doing a worse job by remaining silence.

Arakadia10 votes

Are they actually deleted on redit? by who?

Win1Ocent11 votes

They have a policy that you may not be negative, rant or say anything that might be offensive about anything on the league reddit. So any thread about DQ no matter how constructive is seen as negative/rant by the mods, so they delete them, every single one.

AMYS GRAVE3 votes

That's not true at all, they get so many DQ threads that they made one mega thread for the discussion. Otherwise the front page would be nothing but DQ complaints because there were so many of them. They have done this for other topics before as well.

Karn Bishop14 votes

Whats worse is when you see a dynamic knight and you think oh well they must play a lot of ranked dynamic then you na.op.gg them only to see that 90/95% of their games are normals and arams with a small sprinkling of ranked with their buddies.

Champion Skin6 votes

Honestly, what was the point of removing solo queue?

Dynamic Que doesn't work all that well without solo players since if someone groups as 4 they will need a solo player to fill the last spot...

Also if most Solo players left Dynamic Queue then the match making and queue times would be even worse

And Riot seems to prefer DQ for some reason

AninLegions7772 votes

Cos if you remove solo players, it turns into, wait for it, RANKED 5s! Riot should just fire some people for the DQ decision.

Champion Skin1 votes

Well yeah... but not quite as team ranked 5v5 (and 3v3) don't affect your individual rank (And you can also have like 3+2 for a total of 5 players but no solo players)

TNHA Baritone5 votes

Can we stop? Riot = The entire company

At least blame the right people.

As much as I would say this season is full of unbalanced things, the balance team has nothing to do with DQ. The Arts team has nothing to do with DQ. The client update team has nothing to do with DQ. The Lore and Music team has nothing to do with DQ.

Please...show some respect to the people who work at Riot and do some their job every day to deliver us worthy material instead of

Riot doesn't give a fuck about you and us

Because if that was true, you'd never have the lore updates, urf, the events, none of that.

MrWasjig9 votes

People aren't stupid (which is why we can all see DQ sucks asphalt milkshakes, and Riot can't), we can differentiate between the DQ Devs and Riot has a company. But it's easier to just refer to them as Riot in discussion.

TNHA Baritone2 votes

People aren't stupid

LOL

MrWasjig2 votes

Well you don't help my argument when you make replies like that. As a matter of fact, let me amend my statement: "People aren't stupid, except maybe KarmaCatchesUp2U with THAT kind of response."

Leetri2 votes

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

MrWasjig1 votes

People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

I think not truer words have ever been spoken. Tell me, who are you quoting sir?

Outside of that however, while people are dumb there are many who have the strength of character to overcome their disabilities. (By that I mean, they stop being stupid)

Leetri1 votes

Agent K in Men In Black. :P

TNHA Baritone1 votes

Howdoes putting "LOL" make someone stupid? You're judging my intelligence off of what I put on a gaming forum...

Isn't calling someone flat out stupid in a discussion even more ignorant than saying "LOL"(which....isn't an ignorant thing at all to say)?

Did the upvotes by randoms who probably don't have a highschool diploma inflate your ego? :( Sad

MrWasjig2 votes

You're insulting your own intelligence by putting a completely empty response to what I had to say. If you had any credible retort to the point I was making, then you would have done so. But instead you chose to reply with "lol". You would have done yourself a favour by not saying anything at all.

Get real, upvotes don't mean shit. What I say is what I think, not to have my internet cock stroked by strangers.

TNHA Baritone1 votes

"People aren't stupid, except maybe KarmaCatchesUp2U with THAT kind of response."

Is a credible retort?

Get real....

MrWasjig1 votes

If you really wanted a credible retort, you would have given one yourself.

Nice try. But go home.

0pAL2NlcpJ5 votes

Compared to Season 1, Riot has changed heavily up to the current season. Usually, changes are great way to keep active content and keep players interested. I feel Riot has grown into a money hungry mosquito and in result they design the game in such a way that will give them the highest possible revenue. I believe a selective few in the Riot Staff is corrupted with greed and/or do not have actual knowledge of the game. Updates are being done where not needed and customers (that's us) are being ignored. Poor customer service leads to a downfall of a company as I seen with my own eyes time and time again.

kaltenashes3 votes

Rito has data that a large part of the player base likes dynaq.....

I just wonder if they defined what is dynaq in the question, because, i once, as well as many others players, thought that dynaq and champ select was the same thing

I love the new champ selection and I hate playing with/against premades.

Keevalroy2 votes

You also have to ask:

How many people did they collect data from? Because, I didn't see anything specifically talking about Dynamic, did you? Did anyone here?

Are they counting people in normals as well or just ranked?

And most importantly, does the data even exist, or is this whole system the fever dream of someone too proud to admit it was a bad idea?

kaltenashes1 votes

i read it on reddit, a few days after the dynashit video was released. a rioter jumped in the conversation and said: "we have data showing majority of players prefer dynaq"

i dont know, one time after using the new kayle skin a survey popped up asking something like "how happy i am for unlocking new kayle's skin using hextech?"

Leon Etoile2 votes

they probably polled players from the Rito office that were required to answer a certain way due to contractual obligations.

Anags2 votes

They changed solo queue so people could queue up in any configuration of players which actually increases the players that play ranked.

I had a fair amount of friends that played in season 3 and 4 and we rarely played ranked because we always had 3 or 4 friends on. And this game is more fun to play with friends than without.

So we only played normals. Most of them quit towards the end of season 4.

And if you are complaining about it not showing a players skill I don't know what to say. The game is a team game and not about individual skill. That is just how this game is.

Dextix LT12 votes

Yes, it is a team game. However, the umbrella term of "team game" does not mean only premades! Or that premades have to be involved.

The whole concept of teamwork in LOL relied on 5 different random people working together to achieve the same goal. And that teamwork was needed to rise in the ranks. IF you were a good player it didn't matter if you could not communicate with your team.

And despite it being a team game individual skill still matters. Just like in real-life sports. Teamwork and Individual skill is important.

Dynamicq however, removes the fairness, because having premades with knowledge of each other is an advantage that is bad for the soloes.

And also, sk yourself this. Would you conciously allow a full Real Madrid team to fight against a team of random people from every team of the A league? Because its the same with dynamic. The whole concept of fairness and ranked integrity is at risk.

Mr Fidori2 votes

Dynamic-ranting aside (I'm bored with that), can someone explain to me how Overwatch is a "fresh new genre of multiplayer game"? From what I can tell, it's another shooter. What's special about it? (I don't play shooters, so I don't know what makes them good)

L3Chuck3 votes

It's a new take on class based multiplayer. You could argue that it is similar to TF2, and that's a fair comparison. Blizzard looked at what made that game good and built upon that foundation. Team based multiplayer with distinctive characters to fill specific roles within a team dynamic. Each playable hero in Overwatch excels at something, and as such should be played around said strengths/weaknesses. Each hero has 3 abilities within their kit, which further defines the champion and reinforces their distinct identity's.

Each champion has 2 basic abilities and an ultimate ability that can be used once built up (or off cool down). This is a very similar concept to what you would find within champions that you play in League. Just like League, Overwatch gives its characters unique kits that are exclusive to that hero. No hero feels the same either, which is due in part to hero abilities being so different from one another. Each hero truly feels unique.

To sum it up, I feel like Overwatch is the first game to incorporate MOBA elements like hero kits and translate it into a competitive 6v6 shooter to this level of refinement. Yes I am aware that Battleborn exists, but i believe this is a similar situation to what happened to League with DOTA. Even though the original DOTA Warcraft mod invented the genre, it was League Of Legends that took what worked and built a game around the established DOTA formula. League was the one to actually bring the MOBA genre to the mainstream. This is what i believe Overwatch has now done for this hero based FPS genre. Even if they were not "technically" the sole inventors of the genre.

o Shockwave2 votes

Well said my friend well said.

KnKitsune2 votes

I see so many DQ Knights in every thread trying to defend this system, yet none of them ever actually show valid proof and just say anything along the lines of "Vocal Minority" or "Silent Majority".

Eevee In A Jar2 votes

Dude even if all League players from Plat 5 and above quit, that's still such a small fraction of the population, Riot couldn't give two shits. Fuck Riot. And people wonder why I hate Riot and have such crude demeanor towards them. It's because Riot sucks.

Lirik2 votes

it is too much to ask and thats why i am gone away from rito games, meanwhile i stay around the board to see if they getting back on the glory road but they seem to push it towards the pain road.

manbearswine1 votes

I don't know, overwatch has no morrelo, how are they going to stop healers from being the cancer they are in hots?

OHminus1 votes

By making Mercy (the primary healer) super squishy and easy to kill. Just kill the healer and stop focusing on the Reinhardt/Zarya/etc that she's healing.

manbearswine1 votes

{quoted}

By making Mercy (the primary healer) super squishy and easy to kill. Just kill the healer and stop focusing on the Reinhardt/Zarya/etc that she's healing.

You know I'm getting the sense this is as true as "just kill soraka", who you know, is also squishy. Thing is she sits from behind the back line using her abilities to heal ranged champion from range, she is VERY inaccessible.

The issue lies deeper than that, healers by design are so lame that unless crazy overpowered the vast majority of people won't play them, and I've seen what they did with hots healers and how cancerous those shits are, I'm going to remain extremely sceptical as to overwatch healers till I can get the opinion of someone who is aware of both how much soraka and hots healers are a miserable failure.

Dies to Wolves2 votes

{quoted}

You know I'm getting the sense this is as true as "just kill soraka", who you know, is also squishy. Thing is she sits from behind the back line using her abilities to heal ranged champion from ranged.

The lies deeper than that, healers by design are so lame that unless crazy overpowered the vast majority of people won't play them, and I've seen what they did with hots healers and how cancerous those shits are, I'm going to remain extremely sceptical as to overwatch healers till I can get the opinion of someone who is aware of both how much soraka and hots healers are a miserable failure.

I hate healers in general, in most games. I actually think they're really nicely implemented in overwatch. I find them pretty fun to play, pretty unique (each support character feels very different to play and have their own fun mechanics), and they feel both impactful yet not oppressive. I think maybe Lucio feels a bit too strong, but still, nothing game-breaking.

Almost every game of overwatch I play somebody picks supports even without the team "ordering" them to do so, and when there isn't one, I feel perfectly fine picking one up. They're fun.

OHminus1 votes

^This.

I love playing the support champs in Overwatch. They have less reliable options of doing damage (Mercy especially) but "supports" in overwatch feel fresh and can still impact the game greatly.

I got several plays of the game by having 3-5 man Mercy Ults. Pretty cool eh :)

manbearswine1 votes

{quoted}

^This.

I love playing the support champs in Overwatch. They have less reliable options of doing damage (Mercy especially) but "supports" in overwatch feel fresh and can still impact the game greatly.

I got several plays of the game by having 3-5 man Mercy Ults. Pretty cool eh :)

Ah yes, the permanent revival of teammates, sounds super balanced and not broken at all.

OHminus1 votes

It's balanced you twat. You can just kill the revived teammates as soon as they respawn - there's a timer to the revive.

scottca1 votes

Is it dynamic que or is it their overly convoluted matchmaking system?

Win a few games in a row and get harder opponents, even though you haven't climbed rank at all. Play the same champ a few games in a row, your opponents get harder. Have low deaths per game, match with players who feed.

Its the same system they use to weed out smurfs climbing to 30. They analyze your gameplay and adjust your experience in the most fucked up way.

Leon Etoile2 votes

DQ is tied to the matchmaking system. It actually makes matchmaking worse due to having to filter in roles+premades+mmr. Solo queue was a better system b/c it didn't have as many filters so Rito fucked it up less creating fairly balanced matches.

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