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Dynamic Queue games don't feel balanced at all

Dregen·4/26/2016, 2:41:02 AM·74 votes·2,308 views

I don't know what is wrong this season. I have been plat all the way from season 2 onwards, and never had this much trouble in gold. For the first time in my LoL career I feel like I'm actually stuck in ELO hell. Is it because Dynamic queue just isn't viable for solo players? Games are either a stomp or impossible to win, and player skill is wildly inconsistent.

At gold 3 right now I've gotten adc's who don't know what attack-move is and just meleeform everything, and then the very next game I'll be matched against a double diamond smurf bot lane and just have no chance because they have voice + synergy and we don't. Then the very next game the enemy ADC will just walk up and literally give me kills. My last game, I was literally 2v1'ing people as a pure support Sona because the enemy was simply not anywhere near gold 3 level. What is the point in even having leagues when they don't correlate to player skill at all anymore?

I'm not really the most social player around, I solo queue 80% of my games because it's difficult to find an ADC to support that we find synergy with and can play at the same times as me. Does Riot simply not want solo players anymore?

34 Comments

lolptwo4/26/2016, 12:23:27 PM14 votes

I think 90% of Solo Q players are just waiting for Overwatch to come out

Cenobite Azaziel4/26/2016, 2:53:05 AM8 votes

Yup. S5 plat III here. Got to S6 gold IV and stopped playing. I feared getting demoted to silver. 4 man premades are ruining the game for solo players.

Tufio4/26/2016, 12:18:24 PM5 votes

Dynamic is a enchanted normal queue for premades.

You are not supposed to solo.

Gator Raid4/26/2016, 3:01:11 AM4 votes

Yeah the quality of pre-mades vary wildly this season, since there are so many of them.

Once I get to the next division, I'm gonna take a break from League and play other games.

TallyZrg4/26/2016, 7:52:42 PM3 votes

Less Dynamic Queue, and more Dynamic Boost.

You are probably getting matched with people who had much more skilled friends bump them into divisions that they don't have the skill to really play in.

Daen4/26/2016, 5:40:26 PM3 votes

Dynamic Queue games don't feel balanced at all

That's because they aren't, compared to pure solo queue. A group of people in a premade can be almost two entire Tiers apart from each other, which means that you can end up with matchups in-game that are a Silver V vs a Gold I. By definition that's weighed heavily in the second player's direction.

Essentially, Dynamic Queue seems to go through the following steps:

  • Average your premade's MMR into one number
  • Queue up assuming that averaged MMR
  • Matchmake based on that averaged MMR

By contrast, Solo Queue would do the following:

  • Queue up assuming your exact MMR
  • Matchmake based on your exact MMR

It's that first step in DQ, the averaging, that is likely where we're seeing these imbalances. If a Gold I and a Silver V queue together their average MMR is around Silver I, which means that the first player is an entire tier better than the average MMR of the game and the second player is almost an entire tier worse. Sure, the game overall is balanced, but on an individual basis it's mathematically unfair.

Osaka 7784/26/2016, 1:45:31 PM2 votes

Same here. I noticed I was having more bad games overall than last season. At the beginning, I didn't blame dynamic queue, then I started to noticed that games that were winnable, but lost was because of premades. If you don't like dynamic queue, stop playing LoL and spending money on RP.

RIP solo players.

ZT Xperimentor4/26/2016, 5:49:09 PM1 votes

I think a joke has inadvertently become reality, 'every elo is hell'.

BigPooStorm4/26/2016, 5:55:24 PM1 votes

I'm literally in the exact same position. Platinum 4 easily last season barely playing any games. Right now I'm going back and forth from G2 to G3, getting these terrible 7-8 game losing streaks where it feels like whether I go even or win lane, nothing can be done since the game is over by the time laning phase is over. I'm playing way more games than I was last season and definitely feel like I'm better than I was last season, but for some reason I can't seem to win any god damn games.

I have no clue if it's just that I need to grind more, or if it's actually because of dynamic queue. I have noticed things you mentioned, like the players skill seem to be all over the place, for example some laners just let me farm as Veigar without even harassing me at all, while some laners land every single bit of harass and make my life hell with their jungler.

dunkeroni4/26/2016, 5:57:42 PM1 votes

Yes, riot believes that 'playing with friends' is the more 'correct way to play league of legends' as they have stated in the past. Solo players are not their concern any more.

Left Hook Larry4/26/2016, 6:12:27 PM1 votes

For the first time in my LoL career I feel like I'm actually stuck in ELO hell

There it is lmfao. People love to find excuses to why they can't climb. Before it was troll teammates. Now it's dynamic que. I solo'd 98% of my ranked games this season and climbed to diamond without noticing much difference from last season. It has nothing to do with dynamic que. Just you being bad

RiCaR14/26/2016, 11:15:45 PM1 votes

Throughout the years Riot has made LoL really team dependent game in which every member of the team is valuable. This is great, but only on theory. If all people are with the same skill it works really well and good matches are played. But now I can't see such thing. Even if you have one member that is really lower than this, you can really feel this pressure on your team. Now everything is mess and there are rarely any good games. Instead of showing skill and be competitive, this game is now pure hazard - you enter queue, the wheel spins you with random people that have entirely different skill lvl and hope for the best.

GundayMonday4/27/2016, 1:19:21 PM1 votes

Same, feels like people don't know what they're doing at all in my games. Really with my friends played League. :'(

xl Kirito lx4/26/2016, 4:33:51 AM1 votes

Player skill has always been wildly inconsistent, especially in meta's where people refuse to adapt. I've met plat players who could pass for bronze, gold's that should be in silver. S4/S5 were the exact same. People can rise above their station.

SoloQ wouldn't fix the problem. Well, maybe the double "smurf" bot lane. People would continue to rise, even without help, and eventually get hammer down into place. Sadly, you can't blame every bad player on being carried by diamond smurf friends. People tend to forget that this was common in previous seasons, bad teammates weren't uncommon.

KarmasPolice4/26/2016, 1:53:00 PM1 votes

Very simply, Riot made a huge mistake of canceling MMR penalties when you premade. Obviously it was logical at the time, they wanted you to feel 'safe' and 'encouraged' playing with friends. But what really happened was that players found how to abuse it so fast this season is effectively gone by now. I also had a S5 P3 account, now it's Gold1 and i didn't dare to touch ranked for the past month since once you go above G3 you encounter premades much much more than you don't, making the experience miserable.

So tl;dr: people already abused it, boosted themselves to an ELO they don't belong in, Riot applying MMR penalties now is too late, this season is already ruined.

Spaceman5pff4/26/2016, 3:15:54 PM1 votes

And yet I know multiple people climbing higher as solo than they ever have before.

Heck, I know a couple people who made Master Tier playing solo this season, when previously the highest they made it was plat.

Dukues4/26/2016, 3:29:33 PM1 votes

I just got gold like a month ago and was pretty pumped since I figure I am a gold 4 or 5 player. I have only played a few games since. It just seems like so many players are struggling to get back to their actual elo this season, especially mid gold + higher. I just have to assume its dynamic queue. I just fear playing since the games feel very inconsistent. I know the last game I played had 3-4 ex: plat players in it. Its fun playing with some higher elo players but I also do not want to frustrate my teammates. All our ranks might say gold 3 - gold 5 but when 1 or two of us are ex: gold 5 players and the rest are really plat or gold 1-2 then consistency of games and teammates varies and can create team frustration.

Like if I was your teammate I am sure you would get frustrated with me since you are used to Plat and expect teammates to know certain things and perform at a certain level. It would also frustrate me since I am at my actual elo and playing at that skill level but the team expects me to play at a higher elo and I have to since that is the level the enemy is playing at as well. Overall it makes the game frustrating for most players when there are large skill variances.

I just figured if I wait awhile players will continue to grind back their ranks back and I can go back to competing with players at my elo. But Dynamic may just keep a high variance throughout the remainder of the season.

Divine Hymn4/26/2016, 4:03:36 PM1 votes

I am not sure what is going on. Yesterday I played two games as support. I was a support main all last season, so I've seen a lot of ADCS. Both of these ADCs ranked on my top 10 worst ADCs ever -- and I used to play in bronze. One of them made an awful play that I, through sheer determination, managed to turn into a double kill, then went on to leap into them over and over without having backed because he said "I thought I was invincible." The second ADC engaged in a 1v2 when I was warding river. Yes, you read that right. My ADC engaged. Not got caught, but intentionally ran into the enemy bot lane. HIs justification? "I saw you in river and thought you were coming."

Is this the league of trolls, or did these people just get carried really hard by previous dynamic queue friends? I am not sure, but they really don't belong in the division they're in and are not carryable.

Aspar4/26/2016, 5:19:48 PM1 votes

I've found Gold from mid to high range is exceptionally poor in quality. A lot of players seem to have very little idea of what to do beyond laning phase. Even in lane, a lot of players have very poor trading mechanics (I play mostly ADC). People also tilt at nothing. I remember when I went through the Gold grind back in S3 and S4 to plat, I had learned to time ability cooldowns, lane management to get to lvl 2 first (top lane mostly) and all-in, jungler gank times (2:45 top first gank iirc or 3:15 if they started bot). It all seems irrelevant to games now,

Somehow I simply can't win games (for anyone wondering : http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=triumphed ).