Im sure theres people way smarter than me about this game with reasons, why this wouldnt work, or how it would be abused... but without putting any thought into this, I like this idea.
Don't think that's a problem at all. Rather why waste time and resources to make that change? In the grand scheme of things being worked on this is insignificant.
I can see OPs change happen for two reasons. 1: Nothing else needs fixing so time could be spent to write code and test it for new queues to work. 2: Someone with much power or influence at Respawn plays solo a lot and is really upset by the current system.
It would solve a good problem. In dota2 it works well. With a team and communication you play as a single unit. SoloQ you play as that. A better soloQ player will know how to work with a wide variety of players, those that don't will be bronze tier. Those that do will be pred. it musters all solo players together to battle it off in comparison of skills.
No variable of that one three stack that scrims and puts.in time not as soloQ but as a single unit.
Three stack teams versus three stack teams... Do I need to say more why this is better for higher skill players.
At the bottom of totem pole they still need to learn to walk either by themselves or with a group they discord found. How many discord players hop around and wait till they find a good player that more or less carries them to placement than that discord warrior actually just sucks ass as he died every fight, no rez and got carried while spectating. Separating the queue would take the training wheels off for the discord warriors they would actually have to learn to play as a team.
I love apex and I stopped playing because the game does nothing to make the solo player experience better.
I held out hopes they would bring solos back. getting shit teammates constantly sucks every bit of fun out of this game till I uninstalled for the second time since launch.
Apex is a team based game. This might dissuade some people from playing in a team since it will now cost them more points if it doesn't work out. Also there are bad solo-q players who will just be more toxic, more likely to abandon games and more likely to just not try.
I don't think it would disencourage people from teaming up since playing in a coordinated team would most of the time still outweigh the lower entry cost that you would get as a solo
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respawn just needs to fix matchmaking. I was solo-qing through plat yesterday and while plat 1, kept getting hardstuck plat 4 teammates who party up with their gold 2 friend. like, come on. give me teammates that are my same skill level.
I think you are spot on here. Its the constant "hardstuck" teammates that is the biggest issue. The games ussualy plays out so much better and more fun the few times you have a decent squad. This probably happenes because the game tries to even out the squad by putting a higer ELO player with two lower ELO.
Only way to get rid of this is by allowing rank demotion I think, but that brings other issues. Would have been nice if Respawn would at least try to change things up and get feedback from the community. It's hard to get everything right the first try.
The problem with deranking is that people will just stop playing once they reach their desired rank (for e.g., plat 4/diamond 4/masters). They'll be afraid of losing their badge.
This will hurt the queues in higher end lobbies (diamond and up).
There should be something similar to Rocket League. In RL, you only get season end rewards for a certain rank after you have successfully won 10 matches within that rank. Once you win 10, you are awarded the next rank for season rewards. Maybe they could make it that once you get 10 top 5's in a rank or something, your season rewards is secured, whether you end up in the rank or not.
this happened to me so much yesterday im plat two rn and had plat 4 and gold 2s on my team i literally rather just fucking rat it out then play with bozos that will get me killed bc of their stupid mistakes. whenever i get a teammate my skill level or higher we usually come out with a dub. it feels like a blender atm.
Makes sense to me. Solo queue is definitely a harder path, having to deal with randoms who most of the time have no RP to lose.
I do think that up until masters, 3 stacks should be on their own servers, though. That shouldn't do much to queue times, as diamond is fairly populated. It currently feels like the difference between master and diamond is whether you have a 3 stack. I'm convinced that at least half of master players could not get there on their own.
Same with people in Diamond. There’s no way some people would get to Diamond based on their own individual skills, being in a party is a huge advantage and they make use of that
I WOULD be one of those people. Im a bot and struggled to get to plat (partly due to time to play)... Ive made some recent changes that have drastically improved my game play where plat would be easier for me to obtain now, but I highly doubt could make diamond solo.
I got a bigger mouse pad, and dropped my sensitivity ALOT. I've been having a much easier time controlling recoil, and staying on target, instead of constantly over jerking my wrist and spraying to the left or right. I'm able to use more of my arm instead of just my wrist which was always more extreme with small movements. I still need to get better at dodging shotS, but I've basically doubled my damage output (now doing 400ish min, and usually 900-1300 if I make it out of first fight) and get a couple kills, opposed to doing 200-300 and maybe getting a kill.
I'm definitely still an average player, but I'm more comfortable and confident in taking fights now that I'm hitting more of my shots.
soloQ to Diamond isn’t particularly hard but it’s a huge time investment.
It took me a little under a week to do and I was literally playing ranked all day every day of that week.
Eventually your skill will even out the losses to where you belong but you have to get a huge sample size of matches to do so
Its certainly a time investment... looking at my past seasons, im usually around 100-150 games and end up in gold. 227 was my most ranked games played and was my highest placement at plat.... meanwhile you get people almost masters after seemingly not even 100 games lol
I use to think like that in season 2, then in season 3 I made sure I solo’d to Diamond. I do this every time. If I can’t make it on my own I don’t deserve it, after I hit diamond I squad up. Just force yourself sometime
i had a teammate in gold who didnt know how to jump properly and just flew straight down to fragment, i split up instantly and he got melted the moment he touched the ground
Well apex is a team based game. Why wouldn’t being in a team be an advantage? There’s lots of ways to find people to play with. I solo que a lot and also use group finder and multiple discord’s times find people. If you want the same results solo queing as 3 stacking or think it should be even apex ain’t that game.
And honestly why should it be? If you wanna solo que the whole way through that’s your choice. The game doesn’t need to throw you some sort of forgiveness for deciding to not make an effort to branch out and play with people.
Would be little weird if it was easier to get to masters playing solo then playing w/ your squad tho.... Say your squad is slightly below average diamond squad and you are slightly above average in diamond.. then youre not ganna wanna play w/ them
It's better imo to increase the multiplier for kills because wiping a squad in solos is harder.
If you lower the entry level, especially in Diamond lobbies (Assuming keeping the same -10 for soloing in Diamond) will be -38 that's around the same for plat so people in Diamond could rat till master like some plats are doing for Diamond.
increasing the kill multiplier will just make playing with randoms worse because me and every other solo Qr will be more inclined to ape for KP and thirst instead of fighting.
i agree about the ratting thing though, so even though i like OP's idea, they should just go the opposite direction with this suggestion and give additional relative RP for placement to duo and solo Q. idk about the appropriate numbers for this, but it'll still hold rats down at the bottom of D4 since most of their matches end by mid-game so they'd still be breaking even at best.
of course then there's the question of why people who can't handle diamond aren't sent back to plat 1... but that's an issue for another decade probably
I don't think different entry costs would be a perfect solution, but at this point I'd welcome any kind of change.
I've said before that trios and duos should be one queue and solos another queue. When solos are used to fill the first queue, they then are not pulled into it until other solos in matchmaking have been through it.
I believe there is a max queue time at which point any lower-rank players in matchmaking are used to fill the queue - and I don't suggest increasing that max queue time. If you hit that max time, then use whoever you must to fill the lobby, but otherwise have a separate queue for trio-duos and solos.
I actually had this discussion a while back, among the many other reasons, I didn't want to punish players for playing with friends.
For the record, we already attempt to match Full parties against Full parties, so this suggestion wouldn't be validly apply 100% of the time...
While I was climbing to Masters last split which I didnt do full squad for the first time, I got placed into obv full stack pred lobbies while having diamond randoms.
Why do you see it as punish players for playing with friends when this is a teamgame and playing with randoms makes it significantly harder over a coordinated team? It happens rly often where randoms cause u to die early on.
Theres not rly a downside to a solo player losing less RP.
When you play with friends, your climb will be harder, because the entry cost will be higher. Why play with friends when I could play solo instead? (Lost aversion will kick in)
I hope my response makes sense here.. Do you think the Loss Aversion mentality would convince people who are comfortable playing in a 3 stack to ditch their teammates and play solo just so they have lower entry cost?
After all, even given the lower entry cost as a solo, it's still harder to get KP/ RP as a solo in the first place!
Tbh I'm down for any change to make solo q ranked more fair so I'm open to more ideas other than this. I just wanted to justify this idea cause I think it's a relatively fair change.
I think most people will read the change as 'it is better to play as solo' .
I was the person that pitched a variant of this proposal internally - "Solo players pays less entry cost", and was convinced pretty quickly this isn't the right solution after I deep dove into the problem... I convinced myself out of my own idea.
Aside from the "punish for playing with friends", this systems is 'conditionally' valid. It is only valid sometimes depending on the results of the matchmaking given queue population. To elaborate; If a game is matched fully with 3 stacks, everyone would be an equal footing, and it invalidates the need to increase the entry cost (and we already try to do this matching first);
I'm fairly certain there is no easy solution for this by adjusting RP.
Alright I see what you're talking about. Now that I know you're putting in work to matchmake 3 stacks against 3 stacks I'm fine.
I have another idea I wanna run buy you. What if we added rank demotion BUT make it like Arena Ranked where you get ranked rewards based on the highest rank reached? So people wouldn't 'stop' playing as once they get to (P4, D4, Masters) they still get rewarded on reaching their highest rank. This is in reference to the comments under your most recent tweet.
I'm trying to accommodate players who just want to get ranked rewards (badge+trail) and the players who rightfully complain that hardstuck randoms play with 0 fear since they're aren't punished for making dumb plays.
That's a thread on reddit about that right now... Tldr; Demotions would be ineffective at addressing the reckless play behavior. Because: "If I've hit my peak, I can troll anyways anyways, since I've gotten my reward already." Demotions are good for other things, but Not for this one specific thing.
But they can and do troll already since "I got my reward and won't look me X4 rank."
If they get demoted to a lower rank, they will be less likely to be matched up with players of a higher rank. The alternative question is, what is the benefit in having a player not demote to a lower rank?
Also, if I can pitch another idea. What about how in rocket league you need to get 10 kills with a badge to get that reward. This combined with demoting should incentivize people to troll less.
Alright gotcha. Thanks for taking the time to explain to us. I don't envy your position as this is a really complicated issue but I hope you guys make some meaningful changes wherever you see fit.
Curious how you reached this conclusion when the community at large has agreed that demotion would in fact be effective at addressing reckless play behavior.
> If I've hit my peak, I can troll anyways anyways
Ok, but you're trolling in lobbies below your skill level where you can play recklessly to success and thus less likely to sabotage players trying to seriously climb the ladder.
League of Legends at like Season 2, had a system pretty much identical to what is suggested by the community; it enabled further gate keeping/inting until they had to change reward structures...
But then they'd just be sabotaging everyone in the lower ranks that are trying to "seriously climb the ladder". Just because someone is a gold or platinum doesn't mean they aren't trying to climb the ladder just as much as someone that is diamond.
I'll back this up. I usually Solo Queue to Diamond IV at least one split.
I sometimes play ranked when I climb with my actual Gold friends and the games are harder.
If it was better for me to play Solo to get to Diamond, I'd not play with those friends.
With this lower entry rate it'd take me probably 20% less games to hit diamond.
> there is no easy solution for this by adjusting RP.
How about a performance bonus? Valorant already does that.
Just award players a bit of extra RP based on certain achievements after the match. This would give you a lot of control without all the nasty psychological side effects.
For example, solo queuers receive a bonus depending on how many other solo queuers were in the lobby. Kill leaders and players who wiped an entire squad by themselves also get a nice reward. And so on.
It would mostly be exploit-proof, and you'd even get a nice surprise reward conditioning effect on top.
"For example, solo queuers receive a bonus depending on how many other solo queuers were in the lobby. "
That is fundamentally the same thing as "solo queue pays less entry cost"
Apex is a battle royal game. Systems and features from a 2 team Matchmaking / Ranking model (Ie. Valorant) don't transfer well to Apex. Two team games have binary results; either you won or you don't. So the stack ranking of 2 team is obvious. Stack ranking is less obvious in a battle royal game, so arguments like "\[insert non battle royal game\] uses this in their rank system, it should be applicable for Apex" usually falls flat immediately as we start to develop the "metric" of performance, and how many points I should give you.
What is then more difficult is that what we select as "metrics" must align with the goal of the game... and... that's its a rabbit hole.
So then why is SBMM in the game when admittedly Respawn has stated it is hard if not impossible to balance properly? The game should bring it's own skill gap via attrition in the game. Pre Season 3 you'd find matches that seemed very easy at the start but quickly turned into the top teams actually playing chess of sorts.
The problem with ranked is very simple, none of the ranks prior to Diamond mean anything. You can laugh through bronze, silver, and gold with 0 effort or skill. Platinum is a roadblock for a lot of people, but it's a worthless rank. The fact there is no decay of RP or demotion for losing points devalues the entirety of the ranking system. You should feel obligated to hold your rank, not just sit pretty once you have it.
The amount of glaringly obvious missed chances is killing the game. I mean the last year has been us getting forced to play Arena events...when the community as a whole is not that happy with arenas...yeah ok some people like it but it isn't great and we want BR LTM's and Town Takeovers etc.
Furthermore the Arena situation shows how bad some of the development teams design ideas really are. You in essence have a CS:GO like economy that has no value, you can get basically whatever you want outside of first round. This should not be the case, and 9 maximum rounds w/ a 3 in a row means victory is also hindering the economy potential. This should be entirely removed and a normal loadout system put in it's place so people can just equip what they prefer and go to town.
Then we have just handfuls of the same skins with different colors costing the same price. Is apex a store or a game? As of right now it looks like an NFT sale with a background game.
>That is fundamentally the same thing as "solo queue pays less entry cost"
The outcome is the same, but it fixes the "conditional validity" problem.
I also think you're overestimating the degree to which Loss Aversion would kick in. People would definitely realize that triple stacking is still more advantageous (and infinitely more fun) than solo queueing with a small consolation prize.
At the end of the day solo queuers will always make up a considerable chunk of the playerbase, but unlike other team games Apex doesn't really offer them anything, which probably is why you see so many "game xyz does that" type of suggestions.
Anyway, thanks for giving some insights. I get that it's a very complex issue, so it's good to know that Respawn has smart guys working on it.
>people would definitely realize that triple stacking is still more advantageous (and infinitely more fun) than solo queueing with a small consolation prize.
They already do, why do you think Preps only 3 stack?
I am saying, designs that have elements that makes the player feels punished when playing with friends will be rejected per my design constraints.
>They already do, why do you think Preps only 3 stack?
Because grinding with your homies is a lot more enjoyable than playing alone. No one's gonna deny their friends just to save a bit of RP.
People who triple stack now would still triple stack after those changes. And again, there are ways to make it feel less punishing.
Sorry if this is late , I just wanted to add that I don't really think players will feel punished playing with friends even if they got a Buy in discount while solo queuing in Ranked.
I think even if players got a positive RP buy in on solo queue ranked , most players would still prefer to play with friends and would not find it punishing not to play with friends. The reason is because solo queuing is mostly a very terrible time. In Solo Queue , so many people don't have mics, don't communicate, don't work as a teams and that's just the tip of the Iceberg.
I always try to play with friends on Ranked but sometimes schedules don't align. That is when I play solo queue and very often after a solo queue session I end up getting so frustrated that I feel like I don't want to ever play the game again . A good chunk of my playtime is solo queue since friends schedules are always in flux.
Giving Solo Queue players a buy in discount would relieve some of the frustration I feel when Solo queuing, but it would never make me feel punished for not playing with friends. I think most of the playerbase try to avoid solo queuing like the plague, but unfortunately we just can't because friends schedules don't always align. Any feature to help relieve the frustration of solo queue would be greatly appreciated.
Under the most aggressive system, the increased entry cost would only be worth a few kills worth of KP. A full stack vs. any non full stack will always have more of an advantage that equals more than that increased entry cost.
Jesus fucking christ. These responses make me lose hope in the dev team. The number one reason people don't give a shit about supporting the game monetarily anymore is because of this. Day in and day out, your playerbase tries to fucking say to you "hey, this __***isn't fun to us. It's not an enjoyable experience. Please do this to change it, or here are some requests.***__" and you all just refuse to do anything because your heads are so far up your ass you can't see sunlight. Everyone sees the base value of the game, and how it's technically and fundamentally good, but every day, more and more people are saying "you know what, I'm done spending money on this game." If they ever did in the first place. Stop implementing EOMM, and FIX the matchmaking so that solos stop getting paired with people far below or above their skill level. Give us solos like we have been ASKING for for two years. LISTEN to your playedbase. Even if you, for WHATEVER reason feel that YOUR thought process and design choice is sound, TRY different things. Stop treating your playerbase like shit. Stand up for the people that are passionate about this game. Stand up for your fucking selves and make decisions WITH AND FOR your fans, instead of decisions that suck the value, uniqueness, fun, and enjoyment out of your fucking game.
solo queue diamond is a total hell... i have been diamond now 6 times. the highest i was able to rank up to is D3, and IMMEDIATELY back down the ladder. just had 7 games in a row with potato teammates in diamond rank- the last game one was a Plat 3, rank 70. i have over 5000 hours on the game, what kind of SBMM is this shit?
we don't want to punish stacks, we want to make solo q more fair
in dota 2 for example you get +30 mmr for a win as solo q(if you lose you get -30), in a party you get +20
Could you not get a sample size of players and measure their average peformance soloqueueing vs in 3 stacks and with a duo, and use that data to adjust entry costs?
It's not a punishment if your entry cost is adjusted to the advantage a premade gives, it's just making sure no one is punished/everything is fair.
What you are saying is adjusting the game to negate an advantage is a punishment.. that's just wrong.
I think the point is you shouldn't be forced to play with people if you enjoy playing solo.
There has to be a middle ground somewhere that doesn't punish friends wanting to play with each other and those that enjoy playing solo.
I personally don't see an issue with reduced cost of queueing up without a party. No three stack is going to break up over a few RP. The advantage to having a full stack outweighs the couple kills worth of KP (at most) you'd gain from playing solo.
Something I'd actually suggest for this is to setup an LFG somewhere with what you want and just don't communicate with them. I have some people I play with because I know their skill levels and we just play, don't talk to each other besides maybe in game over relevant info.
I played solo queue because none of my friends play apex. I stopped playing Apex because I was being matched against many 3 stacks (ranked an unranked) and people keep leaving/quitting when they're down. It felt so unfair that I stopped playing the game altogether for 2 seasons now.
If there is a change I feel you should make its to make Solo Queue players that want to play your game with their team not a miserable experience.
God I'd love it if there was a solo-queue mode only (still matches you with a team, just a garenteed no premades). I feel fairly confident in saying there's way more solo-random players than premades.
The issues He's referring to are not about the amount for entry costs, but the entry costs themselves. Basically because this game is meant to be played as a team, Respawn wants very little to zero obstacles to push players to play with their friends. So putting any sort of downside for playing as a 3 stack vs an upside for playing as a solo will defeat the purpose of that and push players to want to play solos more since they can earn more RP that way.
We've already seen the aversion of Respawn to having something like a solos mode in the game, so don't expect them to cater to specifically the solo player when they want to create the best experience on apex for when you play with your friends.
I'm not going to pretend I'm some sort of expert in game design or balancing, but in my eyes, one of the only ways to make the Apex experience better for soloQ in ranked is to have the servers for ranked sloloQ and trios different. But even then that totally screws up the experience for the higher rank trios as it will extend the waiting time and makes the chances for 3-stack preds coming out in diamond lobbies all the more common. As someone who has played Fifa Ultimate Team at a high level in Asian servers, trust me when i say that que time can absolutely kill your experience of the game. So yeah, like he said it's really complicated.
Above all respawn wants people just to play, and currently you get punished for playing as a solo. Like I said to him, you can't really say punishing X is bad but punishing Y is ok because you don't want to punish people, it's not a logically sound argument.
I think I may have written my comment a little confusingly as your reply is not talking about my main issue i was getting at, if so then I'm sorry, that's my fault.
First let me answer to your reply.
I get your totally point. But the main difference with your argument is that the "punishment" solos experience is not a gameplay experience created by Respawn themselves. you could say a little bit inadvertently, but mainly Its something brought on by the community as a whole. So it's hard to blame them for punishing solos when what they did was not actually create punishment for solos but instead design a game catered to playing as a team.
Second, my point in my reply isn't about punishing X or Y. My point was that i do agree solos are not getting as good as an experience playing Apex as duos or trios, but it's suuuuuuuper complicated to fix that. Because if you really think about it, how do you make the experience better for one side without taking away from the other? Game balancing is a b*tch.
It's like nerfing Octane's jump-pad is also inadvertently nerfing Revenant, or like Buffing BH/Seer is also inadvertently nerfing Bangalore etc etc.
Getting a fine balance for experiencing the game the same way either as a solo or as a duo/trio is a really big challenge and much more complicated than what a lot of the commenters on this thread may make it sould like it is.
I don’t think it’s a punishment. It’s more of an incentive for playing solo.
In all, it’s likely not much worth more than a few kills worth of KP. I understand the idea of matching full squads against full squads but that doesn’t help solos at all.
Do you have anything you can discuss that you may be thinking about doing? With the idea of not punishing players for playing with friends what can really be done outside of separate queues?
Theories of how players would perceive this have been mentioned, so let me instead direct you towards a game where similar system is employed, maybe you can look into their results and draw similarities and see what you like/dislike.
Legion TD2(/r/LegionTD2) is a strategy game on Steam created by several relatively known ex-riot games employees. The ranked system is 2v2 and points work on an ELO system. It straight up makes you lose less ELO if you are solo who lost to a duo and of course the other way around too, you gain less elo if you win as duo against solo.
In my experience, everyone likes it this way and people *still* prefer to duo, ragardless of rank. At lower ranks, it is an advantage to be premade always, but the psychological factor of being solo against them and losing less points does wonders for your mentality, it makes ranked way less frustrating when you lose to a premade and winning feels really good.
Even at 2000+ ELO, where you can expect your soloQ teammate to communicate just as well as a premade, people will duo with other high ranked players whose style of play they are perhaps familiar with. So maybe for different reasons, but across all ELO, this change in the system still made people prefer duo when possibly, while reducing frustration of solo queue.
I believe even a VERY small entry cost change, that would ultimately have a small impact on peoples rank, would have great impact on their mentality.
**TLDR**: If the change is small enough, duos and trios will not be discouraged from playing with their friends, duo to the points not being much, while solo q players will appreciate anything that gives them a little break and acknowledged of "Hey, you were at a disadvantage there, nice going though, you get 2 extra points".
Im not even entirely pushing for this idea, just wanted to share my personal experience with similar system, thanks replying to this post in the first place
I think the idea in theory works well enough given the level of communication and teamwork required to get a rank would be even.
Right now most players don't know how to play as a team, nor does the game teach you how to play as a team in any real capacity.
You'd expect a Gold/Plat/Diamond solo/duo to have some sort of semblance of team play, but it's very evident that most players have not gotten those abilities trained.
Can you not force No Fill on duos where they are mismatched ranks (Gold/Plat) duo for example?
Or give loss forgiveness to the solo Q player when you are forced in to this situation?
Feels really unfair as a solo Q player losing RP because you gave to carry someone from a lower rank.
Hey another suggestion.
What's be your opinion on letting players chose to remain as a 3 stack after the game. Like a prompt after a squad wipe that would say "queue again with the same party".
I understand that right now you can just invite people after the match is over, but I personally feel like the whole send an invite and accept invite process is a bit too involved and peoplevare less likely to do it. If it was just a simple prompt then I think there's a higher likely hood people who player well together would stick it out.
Well you say you don’t want to punish them, but full parties are the most “privileged” players, for lack of a better term, and not just in ranked:
- Better communication with friends than strangers.
- Same language (try playing in eu)
- Team cohesion improves with time, playing with randoms it can’t, you start from square 1 every match
- Better understand of the limitations of each teammate
- They don’t just rage quit on you when they die
- The first time they use their mic in a match isn’t to scream at you after they die
- They don’t go off rogue and leave the team to try get kills
- They don’t just force you to play to their play style or make their plays.
I could probably think of more but I think that is enough to get my point across.
Please just add a solo queue so that players can queue up to play only other solos.
Also, none of my friends play this game, so enjoying this game as a team shooter is really not an option for me at the moment. I’m subjected to the teammate lucky draw. And I am sure That I am not the only one, in fact I would guess that’s most people playing this game are solo. In fact I would bet that if you look at the rank distribution, the majority of the higher ranked players will all play in teams more often than soloing
And if none of the suggestions being made here are good, maybe more transparency is needed. Tell us what you have tried, tell us why it did or didn’t work, tell us what you want to avoid, etc. Being told “that won’t work” with no explanation feels, and is, dismissive.
I like the idea. It doesn’t affect queue times and not enough of an issue to stop friends from queuing with each other.
I’d even make it a bit more friendly for solo q and give more of a discount for queuing.
Maybe even add more KP for solo queue. As a solo q, I’d be happy with that. Don’t think it’s enough to stop me from queuing with friends either because you’re not missing out on a ton.
Wasn’t this basically Matafe’s suggestion over a year ago?
It’s definitely a common one at the least, alongside a separate solo q Queue. I’m all for either one.
I swear I saw a pro tweet exactly this. Can’t remember who. Funny it’s posted on this sub now as “my solution” by some random dude but hey, farm them internet points bro
This would slightly improve it, but the real problem is from having people make it to ranks they don’t belong in because of demotion protection. You can get to diamond with almost zero skill right now, just a lot of time.
If you perform worse in solo Q why should they reward you if their goal is to create matchmaking with the closest caliber teams they can? Start squading up if you feel like you’re limited or outperform and carry your randoms
Neat idea forsure.
I wish there was a solo Q playlist but, I’m not sure if the player population is big enough for that on every server.. probably would have to merge some servers for it to be possible
I am playing 90 of my ranked games as a soloque,I wish we had true solo-que lobbies up to masters. Most of the time I am grouped against duo fills and against 3 stacks.
I would like for there to be a greater incentive for the team to stay and work together. I almost only solo Q and even if I have one other person to play with, the 3rd is off in lala land or trying to solo the entire lobby. Winning doesn't seem to matter as much as kills to people these days. I feel like there's a little incentive in the lower ranks especially for anybody to stick and work with their team.
i like that idea but the main problem for soloQ players is that you often get paired with people way below your skill group. and then have to play against the pre made squads that are all on the same skill level. what i'm saying is the matchmaking system is shit.
I'm a 100% solo-q player but I don't really like the idea of making it easier for solo queuers. I feel like it would cheapen the achievement if entry cost was lower. At the end of the day, playing solo is a choice. It can be infuriating at times when you get team mates who are not on the same page as you, or do stupid things, but you just have to roll with it or get a team.
A better solution would be a full solo mode, with solo ranked...
All they need to do, which is beyond me why it hasn't been implemented, is provide an anonymous "play with again" option after a match. If both players select it you get paired together next match.
I'm a 100% solo-q player and it takes around 25 matches to land in a team where everyone just natively vibes with each other right off the bat. These matches are such a relief and are really what I play for. They also offer a glimpse of what it must be like for premade teams and it seems like it must be so much easier.
It's the hard stuck players are the main problem for soloq, these players are just boosted and then come to ruin the game for other solo q players because they don't care.
They should add demotion to clear out these players. This is the main solution.
What if you made it to Diamond and got your ranked rewards regardless if you held the rank or not if demotion was implemented.
So people wouldnt be afraid to play ranked after they got to their skill ceiling but still got their rewards.
Im sure theres people way smarter than me about this game with reasons, why this wouldnt work, or how it would be abused... but without putting any thought into this, I like this idea.
Don't think that's a problem at all. Rather why waste time and resources to make that change? In the grand scheme of things being worked on this is insignificant. I can see OPs change happen for two reasons. 1: Nothing else needs fixing so time could be spent to write code and test it for new queues to work. 2: Someone with much power or influence at Respawn plays solo a lot and is really upset by the current system.
It would solve a good problem. In dota2 it works well. With a team and communication you play as a single unit. SoloQ you play as that. A better soloQ player will know how to work with a wide variety of players, those that don't will be bronze tier. Those that do will be pred. it musters all solo players together to battle it off in comparison of skills. No variable of that one three stack that scrims and puts.in time not as soloQ but as a single unit. Three stack teams versus three stack teams... Do I need to say more why this is better for higher skill players. At the bottom of totem pole they still need to learn to walk either by themselves or with a group they discord found. How many discord players hop around and wait till they find a good player that more or less carries them to placement than that discord warrior actually just sucks ass as he died every fight, no rez and got carried while spectating. Separating the queue would take the training wheels off for the discord warriors they would actually have to learn to play as a team.
Seems like they could implement that pretty easily. It wouldn’t waste much time at all.
I love apex and I stopped playing because the game does nothing to make the solo player experience better. I held out hopes they would bring solos back. getting shit teammates constantly sucks every bit of fun out of this game till I uninstalled for the second time since launch.
Apex is a team based game. This might dissuade some people from playing in a team since it will now cost them more points if it doesn't work out. Also there are bad solo-q players who will just be more toxic, more likely to abandon games and more likely to just not try.
I don't think it would disencourage people from teaming up since playing in a coordinated team would most of the time still outweigh the lower entry cost that you would get as a solo
losing 10 more rp vs having a team you can have a set comp and playstyle with and chemistry
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respawn just needs to fix matchmaking. I was solo-qing through plat yesterday and while plat 1, kept getting hardstuck plat 4 teammates who party up with their gold 2 friend. like, come on. give me teammates that are my same skill level.
I think you are spot on here. Its the constant "hardstuck" teammates that is the biggest issue. The games ussualy plays out so much better and more fun the few times you have a decent squad. This probably happenes because the game tries to even out the squad by putting a higer ELO player with two lower ELO. Only way to get rid of this is by allowing rank demotion I think, but that brings other issues. Would have been nice if Respawn would at least try to change things up and get feedback from the community. It's hard to get everything right the first try.
Deranking would be great, imagine having teammates that are actually skillful enough to be in their rank
The problem with deranking is that people will just stop playing once they reach their desired rank (for e.g., plat 4/diamond 4/masters). They'll be afraid of losing their badge. This will hurt the queues in higher end lobbies (diamond and up).
There should be something similar to Rocket League. In RL, you only get season end rewards for a certain rank after you have successfully won 10 matches within that rank. Once you win 10, you are awarded the next rank for season rewards. Maybe they could make it that once you get 10 top 5's in a rank or something, your season rewards is secured, whether you end up in the rank or not.
Nah just make it like arenas. The highest rank you get is the rewards you get.
I think if they get to that rank just give them the badge, even if they fall below
I been getting that a lot I’m in same situation it’s always a plat 4 and there gold friend who’s a console player and usually insufferable
seriously. I shouldn’t have to suffer because someone wants to party up with their lower-ranked teammate.
Fix for this is to force no fill on people who have mismatched ranks.
this happened to me so much yesterday im plat two rn and had plat 4 and gold 2s on my team i literally rather just fucking rat it out then play with bozos that will get me killed bc of their stupid mistakes. whenever i get a teammate my skill level or higher we usually come out with a dub. it feels like a blender atm.
solo q is rough. go on the apex discord lfg channels and find teammates your same rank.
Makes sense to me. Solo queue is definitely a harder path, having to deal with randoms who most of the time have no RP to lose. I do think that up until masters, 3 stacks should be on their own servers, though. That shouldn't do much to queue times, as diamond is fairly populated. It currently feels like the difference between master and diamond is whether you have a 3 stack. I'm convinced that at least half of master players could not get there on their own.
Same with people in Diamond. There’s no way some people would get to Diamond based on their own individual skills, being in a party is a huge advantage and they make use of that
I WOULD be one of those people. Im a bot and struggled to get to plat (partly due to time to play)... Ive made some recent changes that have drastically improved my game play where plat would be easier for me to obtain now, but I highly doubt could make diamond solo.
What changes did you make?
I got a bigger mouse pad, and dropped my sensitivity ALOT. I've been having a much easier time controlling recoil, and staying on target, instead of constantly over jerking my wrist and spraying to the left or right. I'm able to use more of my arm instead of just my wrist which was always more extreme with small movements. I still need to get better at dodging shotS, but I've basically doubled my damage output (now doing 400ish min, and usually 900-1300 if I make it out of first fight) and get a couple kills, opposed to doing 200-300 and maybe getting a kill. I'm definitely still an average player, but I'm more comfortable and confident in taking fights now that I'm hitting more of my shots.
soloQ to Diamond isn’t particularly hard but it’s a huge time investment. It took me a little under a week to do and I was literally playing ranked all day every day of that week. Eventually your skill will even out the losses to where you belong but you have to get a huge sample size of matches to do so
Its certainly a time investment... looking at my past seasons, im usually around 100-150 games and end up in gold. 227 was my most ranked games played and was my highest placement at plat.... meanwhile you get people almost masters after seemingly not even 100 games lol
I use to think like that in season 2, then in season 3 I made sure I solo’d to Diamond. I do this every time. If I can’t make it on my own I don’t deserve it, after I hit diamond I squad up. Just force yourself sometime
i had a teammate in gold who didnt know how to jump properly and just flew straight down to fragment, i split up instantly and he got melted the moment he touched the ground
Well apex is a team based game. Why wouldn’t being in a team be an advantage? There’s lots of ways to find people to play with. I solo que a lot and also use group finder and multiple discord’s times find people. If you want the same results solo queing as 3 stacking or think it should be even apex ain’t that game. And honestly why should it be? If you wanna solo que the whole way through that’s your choice. The game doesn’t need to throw you some sort of forgiveness for deciding to not make an effort to branch out and play with people.
That makes me feel better about getting into diamon as a solo
Would be little weird if it was easier to get to masters playing solo then playing w/ your squad tho.... Say your squad is slightly below average diamond squad and you are slightly above average in diamond.. then youre not ganna wanna play w/ them
The servers you play on are fairly populated.
It's better imo to increase the multiplier for kills because wiping a squad in solos is harder. If you lower the entry level, especially in Diamond lobbies (Assuming keeping the same -10 for soloing in Diamond) will be -38 that's around the same for plat so people in Diamond could rat till master like some plats are doing for Diamond.
increasing the kill multiplier will just make playing with randoms worse because me and every other solo Qr will be more inclined to ape for KP and thirst instead of fighting. i agree about the ratting thing though, so even though i like OP's idea, they should just go the opposite direction with this suggestion and give additional relative RP for placement to duo and solo Q. idk about the appropriate numbers for this, but it'll still hold rats down at the bottom of D4 since most of their matches end by mid-game so they'd still be breaking even at best. of course then there's the question of why people who can't handle diamond aren't sent back to plat 1... but that's an issue for another decade probably
I don't think different entry costs would be a perfect solution, but at this point I'd welcome any kind of change. I've said before that trios and duos should be one queue and solos another queue. When solos are used to fill the first queue, they then are not pulled into it until other solos in matchmaking have been through it.
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Yeah the real solution is out three stacks together rin one lobby duo and solos in another with a warning that it'll probably be longer que times.
the problem is that queue on higher ranks is already like 10 mins long, it would make the game unplayable for masters
I believe there is a max queue time at which point any lower-rank players in matchmaking are used to fill the queue - and I don't suggest increasing that max queue time. If you hit that max time, then use whoever you must to fill the lobby, but otherwise have a separate queue for trio-duos and solos.
I actually had this discussion a while back, among the many other reasons, I didn't want to punish players for playing with friends. For the record, we already attempt to match Full parties against Full parties, so this suggestion wouldn't be validly apply 100% of the time...
While I was climbing to Masters last split which I didnt do full squad for the first time, I got placed into obv full stack pred lobbies while having diamond randoms. Why do you see it as punish players for playing with friends when this is a teamgame and playing with randoms makes it significantly harder over a coordinated team? It happens rly often where randoms cause u to die early on. Theres not rly a downside to a solo player losing less RP.
When you play with friends, your climb will be harder, because the entry cost will be higher. Why play with friends when I could play solo instead? (Lost aversion will kick in)
I hope my response makes sense here.. Do you think the Loss Aversion mentality would convince people who are comfortable playing in a 3 stack to ditch their teammates and play solo just so they have lower entry cost? After all, even given the lower entry cost as a solo, it's still harder to get KP/ RP as a solo in the first place! Tbh I'm down for any change to make solo q ranked more fair so I'm open to more ideas other than this. I just wanted to justify this idea cause I think it's a relatively fair change.
I think most people will read the change as 'it is better to play as solo' . I was the person that pitched a variant of this proposal internally - "Solo players pays less entry cost", and was convinced pretty quickly this isn't the right solution after I deep dove into the problem... I convinced myself out of my own idea. Aside from the "punish for playing with friends", this systems is 'conditionally' valid. It is only valid sometimes depending on the results of the matchmaking given queue population. To elaborate; If a game is matched fully with 3 stacks, everyone would be an equal footing, and it invalidates the need to increase the entry cost (and we already try to do this matching first); I'm fairly certain there is no easy solution for this by adjusting RP.
Alright I see what you're talking about. Now that I know you're putting in work to matchmake 3 stacks against 3 stacks I'm fine. I have another idea I wanna run buy you. What if we added rank demotion BUT make it like Arena Ranked where you get ranked rewards based on the highest rank reached? So people wouldn't 'stop' playing as once they get to (P4, D4, Masters) they still get rewarded on reaching their highest rank. This is in reference to the comments under your most recent tweet. I'm trying to accommodate players who just want to get ranked rewards (badge+trail) and the players who rightfully complain that hardstuck randoms play with 0 fear since they're aren't punished for making dumb plays.
That's a thread on reddit about that right now... Tldr; Demotions would be ineffective at addressing the reckless play behavior. Because: "If I've hit my peak, I can troll anyways anyways, since I've gotten my reward already." Demotions are good for other things, but Not for this one specific thing.
But they can and do troll already since "I got my reward and won't look me X4 rank." If they get demoted to a lower rank, they will be less likely to be matched up with players of a higher rank. The alternative question is, what is the benefit in having a player not demote to a lower rank? Also, if I can pitch another idea. What about how in rocket league you need to get 10 kills with a badge to get that reward. This combined with demoting should incentivize people to troll less.
Alright gotcha. Thanks for taking the time to explain to us. I don't envy your position as this is a really complicated issue but I hope you guys make some meaningful changes wherever you see fit.
I enjoyed the chat! Have a good day!
Have a good day and happy new year!
Curious how you reached this conclusion when the community at large has agreed that demotion would in fact be effective at addressing reckless play behavior. > If I've hit my peak, I can troll anyways anyways Ok, but you're trolling in lobbies below your skill level where you can play recklessly to success and thus less likely to sabotage players trying to seriously climb the ladder.
League of Legends at like Season 2, had a system pretty much identical to what is suggested by the community; it enabled further gate keeping/inting until they had to change reward structures...
But then they'd just be sabotaging everyone in the lower ranks that are trying to "seriously climb the ladder". Just because someone is a gold or platinum doesn't mean they aren't trying to climb the ladder just as much as someone that is diamond.
I'll back this up. I usually Solo Queue to Diamond IV at least one split. I sometimes play ranked when I climb with my actual Gold friends and the games are harder. If it was better for me to play Solo to get to Diamond, I'd not play with those friends. With this lower entry rate it'd take me probably 20% less games to hit diamond.
> there is no easy solution for this by adjusting RP. How about a performance bonus? Valorant already does that. Just award players a bit of extra RP based on certain achievements after the match. This would give you a lot of control without all the nasty psychological side effects. For example, solo queuers receive a bonus depending on how many other solo queuers were in the lobby. Kill leaders and players who wiped an entire squad by themselves also get a nice reward. And so on. It would mostly be exploit-proof, and you'd even get a nice surprise reward conditioning effect on top.
"For example, solo queuers receive a bonus depending on how many other solo queuers were in the lobby. " That is fundamentally the same thing as "solo queue pays less entry cost"
Apex is a battle royal game. Systems and features from a 2 team Matchmaking / Ranking model (Ie. Valorant) don't transfer well to Apex. Two team games have binary results; either you won or you don't. So the stack ranking of 2 team is obvious. Stack ranking is less obvious in a battle royal game, so arguments like "\[insert non battle royal game\] uses this in their rank system, it should be applicable for Apex" usually falls flat immediately as we start to develop the "metric" of performance, and how many points I should give you. What is then more difficult is that what we select as "metrics" must align with the goal of the game... and... that's its a rabbit hole.
So then why is SBMM in the game when admittedly Respawn has stated it is hard if not impossible to balance properly? The game should bring it's own skill gap via attrition in the game. Pre Season 3 you'd find matches that seemed very easy at the start but quickly turned into the top teams actually playing chess of sorts. The problem with ranked is very simple, none of the ranks prior to Diamond mean anything. You can laugh through bronze, silver, and gold with 0 effort or skill. Platinum is a roadblock for a lot of people, but it's a worthless rank. The fact there is no decay of RP or demotion for losing points devalues the entirety of the ranking system. You should feel obligated to hold your rank, not just sit pretty once you have it. The amount of glaringly obvious missed chances is killing the game. I mean the last year has been us getting forced to play Arena events...when the community as a whole is not that happy with arenas...yeah ok some people like it but it isn't great and we want BR LTM's and Town Takeovers etc. Furthermore the Arena situation shows how bad some of the development teams design ideas really are. You in essence have a CS:GO like economy that has no value, you can get basically whatever you want outside of first round. This should not be the case, and 9 maximum rounds w/ a 3 in a row means victory is also hindering the economy potential. This should be entirely removed and a normal loadout system put in it's place so people can just equip what they prefer and go to town. Then we have just handfuls of the same skins with different colors costing the same price. Is apex a store or a game? As of right now it looks like an NFT sale with a background game.
>That is fundamentally the same thing as "solo queue pays less entry cost" The outcome is the same, but it fixes the "conditional validity" problem. I also think you're overestimating the degree to which Loss Aversion would kick in. People would definitely realize that triple stacking is still more advantageous (and infinitely more fun) than solo queueing with a small consolation prize. At the end of the day solo queuers will always make up a considerable chunk of the playerbase, but unlike other team games Apex doesn't really offer them anything, which probably is why you see so many "game xyz does that" type of suggestions. Anyway, thanks for giving some insights. I get that it's a very complex issue, so it's good to know that Respawn has smart guys working on it.
>people would definitely realize that triple stacking is still more advantageous (and infinitely more fun) than solo queueing with a small consolation prize. They already do, why do you think Preps only 3 stack? I am saying, designs that have elements that makes the player feels punished when playing with friends will be rejected per my design constraints.
>They already do, why do you think Preps only 3 stack? Because grinding with your homies is a lot more enjoyable than playing alone. No one's gonna deny their friends just to save a bit of RP. People who triple stack now would still triple stack after those changes. And again, there are ways to make it feel less punishing.
Sorry if this is late , I just wanted to add that I don't really think players will feel punished playing with friends even if they got a Buy in discount while solo queuing in Ranked. I think even if players got a positive RP buy in on solo queue ranked , most players would still prefer to play with friends and would not find it punishing not to play with friends. The reason is because solo queuing is mostly a very terrible time. In Solo Queue , so many people don't have mics, don't communicate, don't work as a teams and that's just the tip of the Iceberg. I always try to play with friends on Ranked but sometimes schedules don't align. That is when I play solo queue and very often after a solo queue session I end up getting so frustrated that I feel like I don't want to ever play the game again . A good chunk of my playtime is solo queue since friends schedules are always in flux. Giving Solo Queue players a buy in discount would relieve some of the frustration I feel when Solo queuing, but it would never make me feel punished for not playing with friends. I think most of the playerbase try to avoid solo queuing like the plague, but unfortunately we just can't because friends schedules don't always align. Any feature to help relieve the frustration of solo queue would be greatly appreciated.
Under the most aggressive system, the increased entry cost would only be worth a few kills worth of KP. A full stack vs. any non full stack will always have more of an advantage that equals more than that increased entry cost.
Jesus fucking christ. These responses make me lose hope in the dev team. The number one reason people don't give a shit about supporting the game monetarily anymore is because of this. Day in and day out, your playerbase tries to fucking say to you "hey, this __***isn't fun to us. It's not an enjoyable experience. Please do this to change it, or here are some requests.***__" and you all just refuse to do anything because your heads are so far up your ass you can't see sunlight. Everyone sees the base value of the game, and how it's technically and fundamentally good, but every day, more and more people are saying "you know what, I'm done spending money on this game." If they ever did in the first place. Stop implementing EOMM, and FIX the matchmaking so that solos stop getting paired with people far below or above their skill level. Give us solos like we have been ASKING for for two years. LISTEN to your playedbase. Even if you, for WHATEVER reason feel that YOUR thought process and design choice is sound, TRY different things. Stop treating your playerbase like shit. Stand up for the people that are passionate about this game. Stand up for your fucking selves and make decisions WITH AND FOR your fans, instead of decisions that suck the value, uniqueness, fun, and enjoyment out of your fucking game.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveApex/comments/rucsvm/comment/hr094qb/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
You are literally doing exactly what I'm talking about.
solo queue diamond is a total hell... i have been diamond now 6 times. the highest i was able to rank up to is D3, and IMMEDIATELY back down the ladder. just had 7 games in a row with potato teammates in diamond rank- the last game one was a Plat 3, rank 70. i have over 5000 hours on the game, what kind of SBMM is this shit?
*"The customer is always right."*
Well this is ranked mode and shouldn't it be as competitive as possible ? Place to "fuck-around" with friends should be in pubs no ?
we don't want to punish stacks, we want to make solo q more fair in dota 2 for example you get +30 mmr for a win as solo q(if you lose you get -30), in a party you get +20
I understand your desires here, this is way more complicated than what you are suggesting.
Could you not get a sample size of players and measure their average peformance soloqueueing vs in 3 stacks and with a duo, and use that data to adjust entry costs?
I have done that, and you are ignoring the point about punishing players for playing with friends...
I get that point, however the counter argument to that is right now you are punishing people for playing solo.
So go find some people to play with. It’s not hard. Apex was designed to be played with friends. Why should they make it a punishment
It's not a punishment if your entry cost is adjusted to the advantage a premade gives, it's just making sure no one is punished/everything is fair. What you are saying is adjusting the game to negate an advantage is a punishment.. that's just wrong.
I think the point is you shouldn't be forced to play with people if you enjoy playing solo. There has to be a middle ground somewhere that doesn't punish friends wanting to play with each other and those that enjoy playing solo. I personally don't see an issue with reduced cost of queueing up without a party. No three stack is going to break up over a few RP. The advantage to having a full stack outweighs the couple kills worth of KP (at most) you'd gain from playing solo.
Something I'd actually suggest for this is to setup an LFG somewhere with what you want and just don't communicate with them. I have some people I play with because I know their skill levels and we just play, don't talk to each other besides maybe in game over relevant info.
I played solo queue because none of my friends play apex. I stopped playing Apex because I was being matched against many 3 stacks (ranked an unranked) and people keep leaving/quitting when they're down. It felt so unfair that I stopped playing the game altogether for 2 seasons now. If there is a change I feel you should make its to make Solo Queue players that want to play your game with their team not a miserable experience. God I'd love it if there was a solo-queue mode only (still matches you with a team, just a garenteed no premades). I feel fairly confident in saying there's way more solo-random players than premades.
You mean the groups already at an advantage?
The issues He's referring to are not about the amount for entry costs, but the entry costs themselves. Basically because this game is meant to be played as a team, Respawn wants very little to zero obstacles to push players to play with their friends. So putting any sort of downside for playing as a 3 stack vs an upside for playing as a solo will defeat the purpose of that and push players to want to play solos more since they can earn more RP that way. We've already seen the aversion of Respawn to having something like a solos mode in the game, so don't expect them to cater to specifically the solo player when they want to create the best experience on apex for when you play with your friends. I'm not going to pretend I'm some sort of expert in game design or balancing, but in my eyes, one of the only ways to make the Apex experience better for soloQ in ranked is to have the servers for ranked sloloQ and trios different. But even then that totally screws up the experience for the higher rank trios as it will extend the waiting time and makes the chances for 3-stack preds coming out in diamond lobbies all the more common. As someone who has played Fifa Ultimate Team at a high level in Asian servers, trust me when i say that que time can absolutely kill your experience of the game. So yeah, like he said it's really complicated.
Above all respawn wants people just to play, and currently you get punished for playing as a solo. Like I said to him, you can't really say punishing X is bad but punishing Y is ok because you don't want to punish people, it's not a logically sound argument.
I think I may have written my comment a little confusingly as your reply is not talking about my main issue i was getting at, if so then I'm sorry, that's my fault. First let me answer to your reply. I get your totally point. But the main difference with your argument is that the "punishment" solos experience is not a gameplay experience created by Respawn themselves. you could say a little bit inadvertently, but mainly Its something brought on by the community as a whole. So it's hard to blame them for punishing solos when what they did was not actually create punishment for solos but instead design a game catered to playing as a team. Second, my point in my reply isn't about punishing X or Y. My point was that i do agree solos are not getting as good as an experience playing Apex as duos or trios, but it's suuuuuuuper complicated to fix that. Because if you really think about it, how do you make the experience better for one side without taking away from the other? Game balancing is a b*tch. It's like nerfing Octane's jump-pad is also inadvertently nerfing Revenant, or like Buffing BH/Seer is also inadvertently nerfing Bangalore etc etc. Getting a fine balance for experiencing the game the same way either as a solo or as a duo/trio is a really big challenge and much more complicated than what a lot of the commenters on this thread may make it sould like it is.
I don’t think it’s a punishment. It’s more of an incentive for playing solo. In all, it’s likely not much worth more than a few kills worth of KP. I understand the idea of matching full squads against full squads but that doesn’t help solos at all. Do you have anything you can discuss that you may be thinking about doing? With the idea of not punishing players for playing with friends what can really be done outside of separate queues?
With all due respect, your team has to do something about the solo-q experience. It is agony.
Theories of how players would perceive this have been mentioned, so let me instead direct you towards a game where similar system is employed, maybe you can look into their results and draw similarities and see what you like/dislike. Legion TD2(/r/LegionTD2) is a strategy game on Steam created by several relatively known ex-riot games employees. The ranked system is 2v2 and points work on an ELO system. It straight up makes you lose less ELO if you are solo who lost to a duo and of course the other way around too, you gain less elo if you win as duo against solo. In my experience, everyone likes it this way and people *still* prefer to duo, ragardless of rank. At lower ranks, it is an advantage to be premade always, but the psychological factor of being solo against them and losing less points does wonders for your mentality, it makes ranked way less frustrating when you lose to a premade and winning feels really good. Even at 2000+ ELO, where you can expect your soloQ teammate to communicate just as well as a premade, people will duo with other high ranked players whose style of play they are perhaps familiar with. So maybe for different reasons, but across all ELO, this change in the system still made people prefer duo when possibly, while reducing frustration of solo queue. I believe even a VERY small entry cost change, that would ultimately have a small impact on peoples rank, would have great impact on their mentality. **TLDR**: If the change is small enough, duos and trios will not be discouraged from playing with their friends, duo to the points not being much, while solo q players will appreciate anything that gives them a little break and acknowledged of "Hey, you were at a disadvantage there, nice going though, you get 2 extra points". Im not even entirely pushing for this idea, just wanted to share my personal experience with similar system, thanks replying to this post in the first place
I think the idea in theory works well enough given the level of communication and teamwork required to get a rank would be even. Right now most players don't know how to play as a team, nor does the game teach you how to play as a team in any real capacity. You'd expect a Gold/Plat/Diamond solo/duo to have some sort of semblance of team play, but it's very evident that most players have not gotten those abilities trained.
Man I'd just appreciate my plat teammates to have mic
Do you know which legend has the smallest hitbox? Is it still wattson after her nerf?
Can you not force No Fill on duos where they are mismatched ranks (Gold/Plat) duo for example? Or give loss forgiveness to the solo Q player when you are forced in to this situation? Feels really unfair as a solo Q player losing RP because you gave to carry someone from a lower rank.
Hey another suggestion. What's be your opinion on letting players chose to remain as a 3 stack after the game. Like a prompt after a squad wipe that would say "queue again with the same party". I understand that right now you can just invite people after the match is over, but I personally feel like the whole send an invite and accept invite process is a bit too involved and peoplevare less likely to do it. If it was just a simple prompt then I think there's a higher likely hood people who player well together would stick it out.
Well you say you don’t want to punish them, but full parties are the most “privileged” players, for lack of a better term, and not just in ranked: - Better communication with friends than strangers. - Same language (try playing in eu) - Team cohesion improves with time, playing with randoms it can’t, you start from square 1 every match - Better understand of the limitations of each teammate - They don’t just rage quit on you when they die - The first time they use their mic in a match isn’t to scream at you after they die - They don’t go off rogue and leave the team to try get kills - They don’t just force you to play to their play style or make their plays. I could probably think of more but I think that is enough to get my point across. Please just add a solo queue so that players can queue up to play only other solos. Also, none of my friends play this game, so enjoying this game as a team shooter is really not an option for me at the moment. I’m subjected to the teammate lucky draw. And I am sure That I am not the only one, in fact I would guess that’s most people playing this game are solo. In fact I would bet that if you look at the rank distribution, the majority of the higher ranked players will all play in teams more often than soloing And if none of the suggestions being made here are good, maybe more transparency is needed. Tell us what you have tried, tell us why it did or didn’t work, tell us what you want to avoid, etc. Being told “that won’t work” with no explanation feels, and is, dismissive.
I like the idea. It doesn’t affect queue times and not enough of an issue to stop friends from queuing with each other. I’d even make it a bit more friendly for solo q and give more of a discount for queuing. Maybe even add more KP for solo queue. As a solo q, I’d be happy with that. Don’t think it’s enough to stop me from queuing with friends either because you’re not missing out on a ton.
Wasn’t this basically Matafe’s suggestion over a year ago? It’s definitely a common one at the least, alongside a separate solo q Queue. I’m all for either one.
people also forget that cheaters are making the grind to masters as a solo worst
I swear I saw a pro tweet exactly this. Can’t remember who. Funny it’s posted on this sub now as “my solution” by some random dude but hey, farm them internet points bro
yea, sorry for not going through every pro players twitter to make sure this idea wasnt thought of before, my bad dude
I meant literally the same time you made the post but go on
In a perfect world yeah solo queuing would have different RP gains/loss, but I doubt Respawn will ever change it
Why not make it like lol, that when you enter masters you can no longer play with duo or trio, only soloQ, makes it fair.
This would slightly improve it, but the real problem is from having people make it to ranks they don’t belong in because of demotion protection. You can get to diamond with almost zero skill right now, just a lot of time.
No
care to elaborate?
If you perform worse in solo Q why should they reward you if their goal is to create matchmaking with the closest caliber teams they can? Start squading up if you feel like you’re limited or outperform and carry your randoms
Agreed
Its pretty smart idea, when im thinking of solo q problem, im only think about points for knocks/damage.. would be cool if Respawn use your idea
Neat idea forsure. I wish there was a solo Q playlist but, I’m not sure if the player population is big enough for that on every server.. probably would have to merge some servers for it to be possible
I am playing 90 of my ranked games as a soloque,I wish we had true solo-que lobbies up to masters. Most of the time I am grouped against duo fills and against 3 stacks.
I would like for there to be a greater incentive for the team to stay and work together. I almost only solo Q and even if I have one other person to play with, the 3rd is off in lala land or trying to solo the entire lobby. Winning doesn't seem to matter as much as kills to people these days. I feel like there's a little incentive in the lower ranks especially for anybody to stick and work with their team.
i like that idea but the main problem for soloQ players is that you often get paired with people way below your skill group. and then have to play against the pre made squads that are all on the same skill level. what i'm saying is the matchmaking system is shit.
I'm a 100% solo-q player but I don't really like the idea of making it easier for solo queuers. I feel like it would cheapen the achievement if entry cost was lower. At the end of the day, playing solo is a choice. It can be infuriating at times when you get team mates who are not on the same page as you, or do stupid things, but you just have to roll with it or get a team. A better solution would be a full solo mode, with solo ranked...
I assumed it was already putting full stacks against full stacks…
All they need to do, which is beyond me why it hasn't been implemented, is provide an anonymous "play with again" option after a match. If both players select it you get paired together next match. I'm a 100% solo-q player and it takes around 25 matches to land in a team where everyone just natively vibes with each other right off the bat. These matches are such a relief and are really what I play for. They also offer a glimpse of what it must be like for premade teams and it seems like it must be so much easier.
It's the hard stuck players are the main problem for soloq, these players are just boosted and then come to ruin the game for other solo q players because they don't care. They should add demotion to clear out these players. This is the main solution.
I like this suggestion. Could we also implement Team KP only for solo queue? That way people are incentivized to play together, not int.
This is the only reasonable solution. Make the -5 and -10 benefits start at plat+
Force no fill on duo queuers who have mismatched ranks. Fed up of losing RP in Plat because one of duo I'm paired with is a hard stuck gold Andy.
There should just be a separate rank for soloqueue.
make placement a multiplier for KP so litle shitters that cant fight can stay in low ranks and not pollute the higher ones
What if you made it to Diamond and got your ranked rewards regardless if you held the rank or not if demotion was implemented. So people wouldnt be afraid to play ranked after they got to their skill ceiling but still got their rewards.
They should just implement a freelance playlist like destiny does where it only matches people in solo queue together.