Dynamic queue and the future of League

Riot·May 31, 2016·37 votes·113,749 views

With the introduction of dynamic queue, we alienated a portion of League’s passionate player-base who believe a ranked competitive experience should be limited to a solo (or duo) endeavor. We agree dynamic queue standings don’t reflect pure individual skill as well as a solo ladder, but they also don’t inhibit competitive team experiences, and that’s a trade-off we want to make. After considering all possible options and assessing the gains (and losses) of dynamic queue over the last five months, we've made the decision to not bring back solo queue.

While we’re committed to dynamic queue, we know there’s still a few problems we need to solve. We highlighted the most serious issues and what we’re doing about them in an open roundtable discussion you can watch here. Below, we’re covering the data behind the problems as well as expanding on some of the answers presented in the video.

Role selection

Position select isn’t sufficiently prioritizing primary roles and we’re working to improve how it does so. You should get your primary position more often whenever possible. Right now, a support main has a 95% chance of getting his role, while a mid main has only a 55% shot at getting hers. Different combinations of roles also vary quite a bit. For example, if a mid main is a support secondary, she’ll end up mid only around 16% of the time.

Over the next few days we’re rolling out a few adjustments to tackle this problem directly. We’re increasing the likelihood you’ll get your primary role, and we’ll continue working to improve this.

Premades and fairness

We’re also tackling match quality because games featuring premades versus non-premades are unfair, even if they are rare. Delving into the numbers, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Plat solos, duos, and trios battle a five-player premade in about 1 game out of 1000 (slightly more often in Plat). In Diamond, the odds of encountering a full premade jump to 1 in 150, and then skyrockets in Masters+, where players encounter a five-stack as often as 1 in 25 games. Despite being relatively uncommon below Diamond, the winrates look like this overall:

We’ll be adjusting premade handicaps further to even the playing field between premades and non-premades.

High MMR adjustments

We know we can guarantee reasonable matches for almost all players, but elite MMR has such unique issues we need to make changes specifically to the highest tiers to account for the differences.

For example, because mismatches are much more common and much less fair at high MMR, we’ll limit the roughly top 1% of MMR (Diamond 5 or higher) to solo, duos, or trios. League is a team game, and we want dynamic queue to work for every player who wants to compete, but we’re admitting how impossible it is to find fair matches when fully-coordinated professional teams like SKT are out there lurking in the queue. We’re currently considering enabling 5s for Diamond and above during specific peak hours on certain days of the week--when more players are in queue to make matches.

We want to improve things now. We’re also still looking for and working on better solutions. It isn’t only match quality that varies wildly at the top compared to the rest of the ladder.

High MMR queue times

We recently made some behind-the-scenes adjustments to how the matchmaker works, bringing average queue times for high MMR down to 17 minutes (from spikes as high as 30). We still don’t think that’s good enough, but we’ve exhausted our leading options for addressing queue times via this type of algorithmic or other backend tinkering.

Position select combined with the smaller player pool at elite MMR is causing long queue times at the highest tiers. We’re going to intentionally make a trade-off here: Scale back on guaranteeing specific roles in order to better ensure high quality matches get made in a reasonable amount of time.

To address position shortages, we’re adding an autofill mode that can trigger when queue times are too long. If players enter queue with excessive estimated wait times, the matchmaker will potentially assign them a role other than the two they selected.

The matchmaker will continue to optimize for primary and secondary positions, falling back to fill only when necessary. We’re looking to minimize the number of players that’ll end up filling, but it will happen most often at highest tiers.

More clear and frequent updates

We know the dynamic ranked experience has been painful for the highest skilled players for the last few months. We remain focused on improving it and agree the current state is unacceptable. The video and this wall of text is another step we’re trying to take towards more clear and frequent updates. We’ll follow up with more data and results from our upcoming changes, sooner rather than later.

GLHF, and we’ll see you on the Rift.

967 Comments

VolgariaMay 31, 2016201 votes

Brace yourselves, there's a shit storm comin

VolgariaMay 31, 2016112 votes

"Its awful"

Scarra 2016 I actually liked the video, Scarra was very vocal about the issues / lack of communication. I hope they follow thru with some of the things discussed here and keep us informed along the way.

MandaariMay 31, 201688 votes

DQ is the shit storm.

VolgariaMay 31, 201626 votes

I think a lot of the DQ complaints are exaggerated (except maybe high elo, its actually pretty shitty). There definitely are issues, especially compared to solo queue, but I think it has the potential to at least be closed to what old solo queue was. There are still going to be positive things and drawbacks when comparing it to solo queue, hopefully the positive things out weigh the negative after some changes (hopefully)

LilybetJun 1, 201639 votes

I just don't like that they're focused on 1: 5 man groups and their impact. and 2: what seems to be exclusively Diamond+.

1: 5 man groups are not always the issue. a 4 man group can be even worse, as one person is left all by themselves on an island, and they may also be facing a group of 3 solo players and a duo. This is also unfair matchmaking. And I'll bet that the data would also show these matchups winning more often as well.

2: There are issues in low elo as well. As you go up the ladder, people get more consistently even in skill level. People may make more positioning mistakes or just plain poor choices.

However, in low elo, the skill discrepancy can be HUGE even between bronze 3 and silver 5. and again from silver 5 to silver 2. With people ebing able to queue together between bronze 3 and silver 3, that opens a single game up to incredibly uneven fights that can win or lose a game just because a person cannot hold his own weight in a game due to everyone else in the game being above his individual skill level.

Matchmaking needs to tighten up for fairer games.

Noobs SurrenderMay 31, 2016126 votes

Just a thought...

Allow players to choose their own individual settings. Allowing the player to decide their priority.

For example: Allow a slider bar that goes 0-9 for each of the big three (Role, Time & MMR). As you slide one bar up, the other two go down. This would allow people to "customize" their match-ups. This would allow players to minimize the stat that is most problematic to them.

We all find certain issues more annoying than others. I wouldn't mind a 20-30min Q... Others do...

Another alt. example: Give players fixed numbers to choose from based off Q time. 5min Q + (priority of MMR or Role) or 10min 15min 20min... etc... Then these players could wait for up to the maximum wait time they chose to get the "best" match-up. Riot could also show a % or # of players in those Q timers to allow the player to make a best guess on what timer to use. Or provide some other statistic.

5min Q with prioritized MMR would not wait for a role match. If it worked, great, but would not hold you back based on it.

5min Q w/prioritized Role would match your role __% of the time but allow a variation of __% MMR

*Just my 2 cents....

PalavenMay 31, 201647 votes

I fully agree with something like this. Different players have different priorities. Some want ONE role more than quick queue time. Some want a quick queue time and wouldn't mind playing three roles. Giving individual queue preferences would appease a large portion of the player base.

UnderestimatedMay 31, 2016108 votes

Well, at least they confirmed what we've been suspecting for months... finally...

GrashnimMay 31, 201616 votes

Nice to see a resolution, shame it's not the one I wanted, but good luck all/Riot.

FuzzkatJun 1, 20165 votes

Yeah, whether or not the solution ends up being one I'm personally happy with, the communication alone and willingness to say definitively "We fucked up here. We're sticking by this issue here." etc. is good enough.

XonraJun 1, 201622 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, whether or not the solution ends up being one I'm personally happy with, the communication alone and willingness to say definitively "We fucked up here. We're sticking by this issue here." etc. is good enough.

Had they said "This is what we are sticking with" from the start, it would have gained my respect by now.

The unwillingness to make people mad, and so they chose to:

lie
lie a second time
try to keep pushing the round peg in the square hole knowing it wasn't working and they didn't actually want to
Finally come out and say, half way through the season (literally) they fucked up and are "working on it" but say very vague ways how aside from that terrible idea of pushing you into a role if your queue time is too long....

...Negates any good will they would have gotten. They should have admitted everything from the start. Instead they promised out right twice (once by someone that wasn't even working on solo queue or dynamic queue at the time of promising it, Lyte) solo queue was coming back, then went all but silent aside from a single PR filled message that just annoyed people more, then more silence...I mean...

For me, them putting out a video where one guy (across from GBay99) seemed to have zero facts and just pushing the PR "we have stats", One Rioters acting as moderator, seeming to ask real questions (that neither Rioter properly answered in my opinion), and two players who were clearly still not sold at all by the end of the video. It was placate video 101.

They need to start doing, and not either staying silent or saying...essentially nothing but "we are working on it".

So, no, just "communicating" after months of NOT communicating is NOT good enough, and they should never be lead to believe otherwise, or let off the hook until they give some real results, and not a placate video.

Melodramadic PudMay 31, 201696 votes

Seems as if Riot clearly hasn't been listening to the majority of their players. SoloQ is the one thing we've heard and voiced over and over that we want to see happen.

TimorousGMay 31, 2016165 votes

Majority of angry people on Reddit=/=Majority of Players

Zenthon PrimeMay 31, 2016102 votes

The vast majority of Reddit and the vast majority of Boards basically equates to the entire vocal community. Basically, almost everyone willing to speak out.

Regardless of Dynamic Queue's success, this is bad news of LoL. The last two games where the developers went into full-on "screw the vocal community" mode.....well, those two were Runescape and WoW.

TimorousGMay 31, 201692 votes

Again, my point is that "Vocal Community" is not the same as the whole playerbase. People who have no problems with DQ don't go on every reddit post about it saying how they have no problems with it.

AOL KidoffireMay 31, 201634 votes

you are indefinatly correct, people who work in customer service can even tell you that customers or people in general are more ALOT more vocal when they are UPSET about something or want to complain, the majority of lol p;ayers LIKE dq

Senpai SquirrelMay 31, 201675 votes

Fuck dynamic queue.

DarkRitualMay 31, 201635 votes

I don't think you understand how "majority" works. Less than 1% of the playerbase is certainly not a majority. Even when you go to other sites, and even if you add people with multiple posts over multiple sites, 5% is not a majority.

biggnig69May 31, 201689 votes

RIP Solo Queue

2011-2016

Gone but Never Forgotten

AATTRROOXXMay 31, 201675 votes

So what I get from this is that Riot wants a competitive scene in ranked, but because playing with friends is more fun, competitive isn't good.

Don't forget that they are completely going back on this statement in regards to higher tiers, where they are instituting a semi-soloqueue (because these tiers are supposed to be "competitive" unlike the rest of the entirety of the ranked queue) and also making it similar to the old draft pick in which players have to play whatever role is open.

Riot, please create a poll or other similar information recording device and tell us how much the community wants dynamic queue instead of making decisions for us.

relevant quotes: (different boxes are not speaking of similar things)

We agree dynamic queue standings don’t reflect pure individual skill as well as a solo ladder, but they also don’t inhibit competitive team experiences, and that’s a trade-off we want to make.

For example, because mismatches are much more common and much less fair at high MMR, we’ll limit the roughly top 1% of MMR (Diamond 5 or higher) to solo, duos, or trios.

League is a team game, and we want dynamic queue to work for every player who wants to compete

To address position shortages, we’re adding an autofill mode that can trigger when queue times are too long. If players enter queue with excessive estimated wait times, the matchmaker will potentially assign them a role other than the two they selected.

[zombie-brand-mindblown]

LilybetMay 31, 201682 votes

I have a serious problem with this attitude from them. I play ranked because I want to be competitive. I may only be silver, but isn't a ranked ladder supposed to be for people who want to play seriously?

If you're going to say that only diamond and above count as competitive, may as well take away ranked rewards for gold and plat. Because obviously, anything below doesn't matter.

From bronze to silver, we should have the most competitive experience. Ranked should not be "fun with friends, let's fuck around" time. Ranked is for tryharding, normals are for all that other shit.

SîcarîusJun 1, 20163 votes

This game has never been about 'serious gamers'. This game is purely based around the casual player. League's ranked system is a joke, and the fact we deem any form of criticism in game as 'toxicity' shows you that we're either a gaming community full of immature idiots or people who just have no idea what a true competitive drive is.

LilybetJun 1, 201638 votes

I think people have forgotten what the actual meaning of the word "Toxic" is in favour of seeing it only as a buzzword. Plainly speaking, it means negative behaviour begets more negative behaviour, and just like a poison, it will spread and infect as many people as possible, until it creates an entire community of people who are dicks to each other.

This is a problem. This is not a buzzword. This is what actually happens. "Toxic" was not used to overreact. It's because poor behaviour actually acts like a toxic substance would.

Being competitive doesn't mean being an asshole to other people. In fact, in most major sports, if people acted on the field the way some people do in game, especially once a game is done, they'd get cited for poor sportsmanship and be in danger of losing their contracts or ability to play. Nobody wants to play against people who are assholes. Nobody wants to play with people who are assholes.

Only in video gaming is this even a question. "Gg ez" and things that people think are overreacting? That's the equivalent of not shaking someone's hand after a game and at least pretending it was hard fought. American Football has rules against excessive celebration because it's poor sportsmanship.

Don't hide behind it being competitive as a reason to be a dick to people.

Deep Terror NamiMay 31, 201649 votes

To address position shortages, we’re adding an autofill mode that can trigger when queue times are too long.

I want to know how this will be indicated to the player. Do they get some sort of notification that 'autofill' is active and they might end up somewhere else, or are they not going to know until they enter champ select?

I imagine that this would be indicated during role selection, but if it doesn't then that is horrible because people need to ensure they have runes/masteries and champions that will fit other roles, along with simply being mentally prepared for it.

LaughingStaplerMay 31, 201638 votes

Autofill seems like an absolutely awful idea and requires so many more champions, runes and masteries. They should just have people pick 3 roles instead.

Deep Terror NamiMay 31, 201629 votes

Pick 3 seemed like the obvious step to me to reducing queue times. I never imagined they'd go to force-fill (though as a Supp main it's not my problem).

Crowe StalkerMay 31, 201614 votes

If anything, Pick all 5, but sort them in a specific order would be the best overall solution. For example, 'Mid, Jungle, Top, ADC, Supp' or 'Mid, Jungle, Fill'

CressaliaMay 31, 201648 votes

The biggest flaw of 5 Solos versus a Premade being "equal" is communication and teamwork. Solo versus Premade will never be equal, never.

2nd ChanceMay 31, 201648 votes

Golly gee whillickers! I wonder why we're down voting you so much on reddit and the lol boards? :D It's the question of the century that has Riot dumbfounded according to Riot Pwyff.

It's like we're trying to express our distaste over these changes like a good fanbase and yet your still not listening fleeing to twitter!... Nah that couldn't POSSIBLY be it!...

...

It's absolutely horrid to play ranked at the moment as a solo player.

Just give us back freakin' solo queue already, make dynamic queue a duo/triple queue option and make a team queue like always for groups of 5. Pre-made groups of 4 is always going to be a problem and shouldn't be allowed. This isn't friggin' hard to comprehend now and implement.

bowgamerMay 31, 201647 votes

[deleted]

CainbrosMay 31, 201627 votes

Bye, no one cares

trivialattireMay 31, 201641 votes

I don't have any friends that play LoL, I've been playing solo for the last three years. Are you telling me I can't play Ranked anymore?

MrWizard0022Jun 1, 20164 votes

You can still play, you could ask those friends to play League with you, or just make friends with other people who already play League. Or, hey, play something else with your friends. There are millions of ways you could be spending your time that are better than this game.

Star PlatinumELOJun 1, 201620 votes

that is a shit way to justify the lack of fair solo play

303DevilfishMay 31, 201641 votes

Graves can't have his cigar We can't have solo queue

why live

SirDante830May 31, 201640 votes

"but we’re admitting how impossible it is to find fair matches when fully-coordinated professional teams like SKT are out there lurking in the queue." lol I can imagine SKT lurking in a dark street and finding some innocent harmless person and creeping closer and jumping at him and stabbing him in the back with a knife, then eating the lp out of his body as he drops back down to bronze xD

ZiPSMay 31, 201638 votes

we've made the decision to not bring back solo queue. we’ll limit the roughly top 1% of MMR (Diamond 5 or higher) to solo, duos, or trios.

Make up your minds. This double standard is bullshit. "5-man stacks are unfair" and "5-man stacks are okay sub-diamond". In other words, "fair games are for diamond+". If you aren't diamond already, start looking for friends.

JofeyyMay 31, 201638 votes

On a side note, Overwatch is a thing :D

warpenguin555May 31, 201616 votes

gonna have to get that now

High5May 31, 201637 votes

Those aggregate numbers don't reflect my average queue times. Average time said 2 mins and I was upwards of 4, 6, 8 mins. Too often, I had to requeue at 20 mins.

DynamicQ had a lot of problems, but longer queues times to appease lazy players was a deal breaker. I was perfectly happy with pick order and 1:30 queues before.

Best KhaZix VoidMay 31, 201635 votes

"You want Soloqueue huh? Well FUCK YOU"

Thanks Riot.

Polite YasuoMay 31, 201635 votes

I'm not sure why Riot is focusing on the high-tier matchmaking when 98% of their players are Plat and below. They should be optimizing it for the majority of players

ShinkoMinoriMay 31, 201635 votes

This is a big "Fuck you" to a big chunk of league players and honestly it makes me consider if its worth spending more time and money in this game if Riot is going to treat us like that.

If you are so confident to say "Fuck you" to the players then back it up with your player-base number... that you HAVE NOT DONE FOR 2 YEARS

MandaariMay 31, 201630 votes

They're phrasing it as if DQ and role selection are the same thing. They're not. Role selection is a feature that DQ uses. DQ can exist without role selection and role selection can exist without DQ.

Personally, my problem has nothing to do with role selection. All of my problems are with the fact solo queue and premades are ranked together:

They "rank" two different things. I don't want to win against a premade team because I'm playing against a premade of worse players. That isn't a valuable experience at all to me. Just because you quantified the value of their "premade-ness" and adjusted for it doesn't mean we're equally skilled. It means the thing I care about in solo queue (mechanical skill, strategy, adaptation and coordination with strangers) plus this adjustment beats what I care about in a premade queue (mechanical skill and strategy given perfect communication tools) results in an equal win rate. Congrats, you quantified it. I don't give a shit. I don't want to see how good I am with that adjustment.

In regards to the video, Riot spent half an hour trying to justify their decision when it's based off assumptions. For one assume they can project their values onto other people. Example: You're willing to trade these ladder issues to quell in game harassment. I'm not. For the most part I straight up don't care about in game harassment (no, I don't flame people at all). I'm not interested in everybody getting along; I'm interested in winning. Part of winning is being able to overcome those issues, which premades teams (shouldn't) have an issue with. You're implying you don't value that as a skill, so you're just going to adjust for it in your matchmaking. Don't pretend you know what I want, because you've been getting it wrong for years now.

You also mention how you're trying to balance all these different levers (quality, time, etc.), yet the two people in the room that aren't from Riot disagree with what they want. You will never find one solution to satisfy us all. If you try to do so you're going to end up with the lowest common denominator and nobody will be very happy. If I care about my role then let me pick one role. I'll wait for the queue. If I care about time let me queue for more than two roles. Let me tell you what I want, not the other way around.

Also, you're falling into the "when all you have is a hammer" problem: You're trying to fix a bunch of issues solely based on matchmaking. Look at the role selection chart you have. I'm sure you're aware, but it's inversely proportional to how many people want to play that role. Support has fundamental issues that you have no plans to fix any time soon. ADCs and supports are frustrated that they get 5 man turret dove constantly, and that their roles are way more team reliant than other roles. Just start by fixing the support role and I'm sure you'll put a pretty good dent in your precious queue times.

After you look at the chart maybe realize why premades were so frustrated. You have one game mode that you give a damn about and it's 5v5. Maybe give Twisted Treeline some love and 3 man premades will be happier. And by "some love" I mean you treat SR and TT as equals. Dragon has been fundamentally changed and re-tweaked repeatedly for the last few years. Vilemaw hasn't been touched since it was added. You would never add an item to TT that would break SR, yet you've been doing the inverse for years. Personal anecdote: I've had three friends and all the time I think "Maybe we should play on TT," which is quickly followed by, "Fuck that, it's broken as hell." I would love to play on a balanced TT. Too bad you made the decision for us that League of Legends is nothing but 5v5 on SR.

I don't know if it's pride, putting too much faith into statistics, or what, but you can't seem to admit that you should undo your mistakes. You have this "roll forward" attitude that just digs you you into a deeper hole. I started playing LoL less and less over the course of season 6. I love some of the new skins, but my wallet has been closed to you for the past couple months. Now I have Overwatch installed and I'm having a blast. Let's see how much deeper you want to dig.

HowPlayGAEMMay 31, 201628 votes

So you admit 5 stacks destroy solo queue and you think just because it doesn't happen often, its fine to keep it in ranked?

I like how you didn't even bother going into the details. Do 4 stacks demolish solo queue? 3 stacks?

How sad is this, you're obfuscating facts just to force this shit through.

ViktomizedMay 31, 201627 votes

I understand how some people may be upset by this, but what else was Riot to do? I for one like solo queue because it forced people to play other roles and prove they can climb the ladder based on overall skill, but also because in solo they had to support when it was their turn or at the bottom of queue. The flaw though; imagine your the ADC and you get a support heimer or nocturne. At least in Dynamic, the supp now tends to pick it because they want to do it. Its hard to please everyone. Perhaps this way they can be semi-pleased by playing what they prefer and we can have better games. Now we can complain about why people lock in Zilean mids and spare me the "it works" cause no it doesn't.

Quantum WeebMay 31, 201663 votes

People aren't complaining about the new champion select, people are complaining about queuing up for ranked with multiple people. Everything you mentioned can be kept in a solo queue system, people simply won't be able to queue up with people they know.

ReconnectedMay 31, 201623 votes

And thus Riot entered the Warlords of Draenor era.[zombie-nunu-bummed]

JunkyardMay 31, 201620 votes

Well, I was pretty much done with this game anyways. Overwatch looks cool!

SIaytonMay 31, 201620 votes

IMO they are prioritizing quick queue times too much. People should be able to opt into 1 role selection knowing that their queue time may be longer. Don't wanna wait for mid queue times? That's the price of playing only mid. Pick a secondary or a different role if you can't handle that.

As far as teams vs solos, I've said it 100 times but teams should never fight solo players. MMR difference can never make up for the strength of coordination without stacking the MMR so in favor of the solo guys that it feels unfair for the 5 man. Why can't 5 man teams just fight 5 man teams and so on? We don't have to have instant queue times. We just want fair games and agency over our roles we play.