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Dynamic Queue is awesome for what it does, but the community NEEDS soloqueue and teambuilder back.

Cirrusstrafe·4/28/2016, 5:32:47 PM·125 votes·4,010 views

[Revised] Let me start by saying that I think removing soloqueue was a bad idea. Thinking that Dynamic Queue could replace soloqueue was folly, and removing soloqueue was a mistake.

TL;DR - I personally don't like soloqueue. I never liked how it felt (though new champ select makes that way better), and I never liked how the games played out. I thought it was Mario party. An incredible number of people think otherwise and don't like Dynamic Queue. I totally understand that. Riot should do good by everyone and allow both schools of thought live at the same time. Bring soloqueue back, and keep Dynamic Queue here as well. Neither should exist at the expense of the other.

To take it up a notch, a proposed solution would be to have an opt-out option in the client. Allowing people to opt-out of being placed with a 4 man would be a great compromise to the whole situation. 4 man queue times would go up, but not nearly as much as if everyone who played solo and didn't care either way went to the dedicated soloqueue instead. Furthermore, soloqueue players that opted out would only see longer queue times relative to the number of 4 man queues that their search passes up, allowing them to still match into 2q and 3q groups (which apparently aren't nearly as much of a problem to them?), and this also means 2q and 3q groups will not see any difference in queue time which would happen if all of the singletons spun off to soloqueue instead.

Soloqueue fills a niche that doesn't gel with Dynamic Queue. Yes, on paper, dynamic queue makes sense. A solo + 4man vs a solo + 4man makes sense, right? Except that what if their solo is Nasus top lane, and you queue solo jungler. Now the enemy team's jungler is in close communication with two lanes, while Nasus does his Nasus thing and you're getting screamed at by everyone on your team. This is not a zero sum equation.

Soloqueue needs to come back (with New Champ Select of course), because tons of people want to play the game solo vs solos. Riot can't hide behind the defense that this is a pure teamwork game because so many champions and items and strategies exist to encourage this as a viable strategy. 1+1+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1 is completely functional and these players should be allowed to pick this instead of being pressganged into a premade.

Teambuilder also filled a niche that neither soloqueue nor New Machmaking pulls off. The ability to just flat out ensure you get your role and your champ. If you want to practice something specifically or you really just want to play something right now, you could find respite from the tumultuous hell that was pick/call soloqueue in here. Furthermore, some people just don't want a damn rank hanging over them like the moon in Majora's Mask. They just want to play Azir mid all the god damn time with no fuss. That was the beauty that Teambuilder brought. New Champ Select, IMO, does a well enough job, but Riot would do well to realize what Teambuilder brought to the table and why some people find New Champ Select a flat out downgrade.

However, Dynamic Queue needs to remain as it is to allow solo entities like myself whom greatly enjoy being able to link up with premades and try to merge with their teamwork for full teamwork oriented gameplay. Teambuilder was just soloqueue with dedicated picks, and soloqueue never came close to what I wanted. Dynamic Queue is my god damn ambrosia. It is my Valhalla, where I can find warriors of legend and fight alongside them for glory. No other queue method reliably combined the ability for me to reliably play what I wanted, in a ranked format, with the potential to play with teams that actually wanted to work together as a group.

On queue times, I love the quality of the matches Dynamic Queue brings me. I'd rather wait 30m for a good match, than two minutes for a 20m surrender shitshow on either side.

Still, Riot should at least entertain the idea of bringing soloqueue back. There are clearly three distinct types of players (idgaf I just wanna play what I want right now, solo rankers, and group rankers that don't want to be nailed down to a ranked team). Servicing only one of them (at the expense of the other two!) is just unfair.

63 Comments

Daen4/28/2016, 7:55:20 PM11 votes

Let's be clear here: In the comparison you bring up between Dynamic Queue and Team Builder, you are referring to New Champion Select, not Dynamic Queue. Important distinction.

I don't really see the need to bring Team Builder back, to be honest, and I'm a fan of having a standardized method of selecting your champion in all queues. I agree that being guaranteed a specific role is nice, but I don't feel it's worth an entirely separate queue just to raise your chance of getting your primary from ~60% to 100% when that isn't at all applicable for any other queue (e.g. Ranked).

In my personal opinion, Dynamic Queue is ideal for normal games whereas Solo Queue is ideal for ranked games. It's mathematically impossible for Dynamic Queue to result in games as balanced as pure Solo Queue, this is an inarguable fact, and for a queue toted as the most competitive in League of Legends this issue seems pretty significant. I just don't really see where Team Builder would fit in there without pulling players away from Dynamic Queue in normal games, which is likely to further increase queue times for both Team Builder and Dynamic Queue.

TallyZrg4/28/2016, 7:45:13 PM10 votes

Take my upvote for a professional, polite, and well worded assessment of the current situation of the game.

I do appreciate that you did not whine like 90% of the other posts on this topic. Well done sir! :)

Tufio4/28/2016, 10:13:01 PM4 votes

Dynamic queue is not a competitive system, is a glorified normal and that can't be fixed.

The mmr can't make balanced games accounting to premades and rolepick, you often even get crazy stuff like silvers and plats in the same ranked game. And how can a individual elo be legit in a mixed premade league?

Soloqueue needs to come back (with New Champ Select of course),

Or not.

Riot need to rework support to be more popular, role pick will make for crazy queue times even for solo ranked.

Rolldembones4/28/2016, 9:43:48 PM3 votes

Please do not lump Team Builder and solo queue together as an issue. Personally I'm glad they replaced team builder with dynamic. It is better. It actually improved game enjoyment. Where as dynamic ranked degraded the solo player experience to the point where the game is decided by which side has the better more organized premade. Winning isn't even fun as the solo player when you have no sense of having any sort of impact on the game. Also we weren't "mislead" about the fate of team builder, unlike the future of solo queue.

50ShadesOfGender4/28/2016, 6:49:13 PM3 votes

[deleted]

chipndip14/28/2016, 8:39:22 PM3 votes

They will never have room for both DQ and Solo Queue. EVER. The two queues would cannibalize each other. That's the real reason why they're looking to make DQ as functional as possible.

JustJayson4/28/2016, 8:58:13 PM3 votes

I like dynamic queue, but I find it frustrating at the same time. The frustrating aspect for me about it has nothing to do with Riot and its design of dynamic queue but rather the approach people take to champion select. In lower leagues (Gold-Bronze, also the majority of the player base) seem to play whatever they want, they do not take into account their teammates picks before them or what the enemy had decided to draft before their turn.

In the old Solo Q people drafted to complete their team comp or pick a favorable matchup, now its more like organized blind pick with a handful of bans. I have had many games where my team has no way to engage or seige.

Gregor Gysi4/29/2016, 11:09:35 AM3 votes

I agree that we need soloQ, but I think dynQ is a decent replacement for Team Builder. I'll just go ahead and quote myself from the other thread:

{quoted}

Teambuilder get's easily outclassed by DynQ normal:

  • you keep talking about the champion select time, but it seems that you totally forgot how long it took to get a Teambuilder game started -> if you started a lobby you better have support and adc - otherwise you are going to wait for 10 minutes until you get a support. Who will of course leave before you get an ADC - and vice versa. -> this is especially true if you want to pick something unusual. No way that you'll find a support and an ADC who are both happy with eg Teemo mid
  • no bans. I am not a great fan of many bans, but those that we have are definetely needed. Unless you'd really enjoy having a tank Ekko mirror matchup all the time (or horrors like 4.20 weedwick)
  • less luck dependent. In Teambuilder there is so much luck involved as you could get countered or counter the opponent without anything you could do. League + dice is not something that I do enjoy, not even in normals.
warmcorntortilla4/29/2016, 12:07:59 PM3 votes

I think there's this weird thing where the community mixes up the new champ select with dynamic queue. The new champion select is NOT a replacement for Teambuilder, because the new champion select is DRAFT mode where you have bans and counterpicks. So if you want to, for instance, spam the new champion, or play Zed until your fingers bleed to LEARN him, you can't do that anymore. In Teambuilder, you could queue with an absolutely idiotic team comp and actually let your teammates know what you wanted to do. I love playing Soraka/Volibear bot lane. (Also Janna/Yasuo, but I digress...) In Teambuilder, I could specify I wanted an ADC top, and people would know going in they were going to have Volibear/Soraka bot. Now, I have to make it through pick-and-ban phase, or just DO it in a blind pick, which inevitably tilts everyone.

So for players under Plat who actually need to fluff out their roster of playable champions, Teambuilder was great. If you loved playing Azir mid like OP said, you could just happily play Azir mid all god damn day until the word "Shurima" triggered you. If you needed to learn a tank for the jungle or support, you could dedicate a day to learning that champion. And like OP said, nobody--and I mean NOBODY--likes blind pick, so if they could replace the current call-your-lane-as-fast-as-you-could option with old Teambuilder and 'fill' option for people who like to fill, that would be nice. (Did old Teambuilder have that? It's been so long... I've forgotten...)

Now, Dynamic Queue is not a replacement for SoloQ because of all the many reasons multiple board posts have pointed out. DynamicQ is the system where you can queue with 3, 4 or 5 people in Ranked. (I don't have any problem with DynamicQ in normals. It is obviously and clearly superior in normals, where FUN should outweigh COMPETITIVENESS.) Soloq players feel cheated because of the inherent lack of competitiveness and their disadvantage (no, queuing with other people is not a solution to this problem) in the DynamicQ system.

tldr: PLEASE BRING BACK TEAMBUILDER

MrLlamaWaffle4/29/2016, 3:57:06 AM2 votes

Team Builder was the greatest thing that ever happened to this game no idea why they removed it.

option paralysis4/28/2016, 8:37:39 PM2 votes

Idk man, starting 2 years ago playing ranked I thought I'd play this for a long long time. But then dynamic q happened and from 400 ranked games per season, now i have like 20 games. They can try to sugar coat dynamic q with all those statistics they give us, but this game is slowly dying for me and even if they say "we fucked up hard guys, here's solo q" which is for sure not gonna happen... the deal is done and I'll never have the same will or motivation to play this game like before.

Rendarkan4/29/2016, 8:00:56 AM1 votes

I love how in my placement matches there are high gold ranks carrying someone. It's so brilliant this Dynamic Que isn't it?

Nevermind its endless design flaw of putting higher ranking players in placement matches its DYNAMIC! A Dynamic failure more than anything. The idea is good but the execution is subpar and rather underthought. makes me not want to bother with even playing ranked anymore if this keeps up.

Sammystorm4/29/2016, 4:17:39 PM1 votes

We can't have both. A lot of people would ditch dynamic queue for solo queue soley for faster queue times and then DQ goes the way of teambuilder and has too long of queue times.

Splashworks4/29/2016, 12:29:56 AM1 votes

I say we keep trio queue with the new champ select. Personally I think 4 mans and 5 mans are the problem.