Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if this has been stated before on forums, I suppose there is a great chance it has. But, let me just say there is a very easy way to make soloQ less……painful. And believe me, I spent a good minute considering which adjective to use there.

In GW1, Random Arenas ( a.k.a GW1 SoloQ) was supremely fun, and among the best PvP in any game. This was because Random Arenas operated under the integrative districting of the zones. Most players were in the same PvP lobby, and got to know each other personally. I’m not saying put everyone in the same lobby and bust a lag nut, but….having 1,000,000 empty American HoTMs is really a waste of socialization potential.

The second (and maybe more important aspect SoloQ is missing) is a running win setup. Again, if you refer to GW1, random arenas encouraged better play by allowing you to keep your winning team for up to 15 matches. Before they changed that, you could go a max of 10 or 20 wins (I forget :P ) before being forwarded to Team Arenas (a.k.a TeamQ). Either way would be extremely more rewarding to the player. Keep in mind, after a few wins you would be probably facing teams with a few wins as well.

Though I may be called a GW1 fanboy, or that I’m living in the past and it can’t be done, I do think these changes are fairly common sense and would encourage and accomplish; more socialization, provide a less frustrating alternative to current SoloQ with minimal change required, offer a better arrangement of players queuing together , and most importantly…. BE TONS MORE FUN!

Thoughts?!

The second option actually sounds kinda fantastic.

just try to play other time zones … Na prime time is a horrible time to play solo Q ..

too many afkers, rage quitters, trash talkers and horrible players …

even just the second option would, I think, improve the state of soloQ significantly. the first is more of a wish, but the second is easily do-able. with a winning- team- goes- on structure, it would not be as frustrating to lose. and solo que would become less of an extension of hotjoin, and more its own thing.

100% agree, Karp. Not just for players, but viewers as well.

Win streaks would add a lot to stream storylines, being able to watch how far certain setups can go. Would be nice to have those teams that win consistently feed into Team Queue like GW1 as well.

Consolidating the Mists has been long sought after, I hope it comes to pass at some point.

it would be very tedius, tiring on the winning team though.

matches in gw1 random arena was usually over within a minute.
matches in gw2 conquest mode solo arena ranges from 7 – 10 minutes.

if time management is the worst con, which it might be, there is always hotjoin; the near equivalent of SoloQ. and also that, GW1 replaced players that left teams after a win, so that every match was 4v4. wins were worth incrementally more and got harder.
supposing that 10 wins was the cap, at 10 minutes each thats just over 1 hour of play, which i assume the majority of SoloQ’ers play at a time anyways. again, hotjoin is always an option.

LeetMagiKarp.3751:

if time management is the worst con, which it might be, there is always hotjoin; the near equivalent of SoloQ. and also that, GW1 replaced players that left teams after a win, so that every match was 4v4. wins were worth incrementally more and got harder.
supposing that 10 wins was the cap, at 10 minutes each thats just over 1 hour of play, which i assume the majority of SoloQ’ers play at a time anyways. again, hotjoin is always an option.

yes, hotjoin is the best thing to happen to guild wars 2 sPvP, i can browse any game servers in the list and join any room i want. no commitment, good casual fun.

gw1 only had random arena for me to play, because the rest are too hardcore for my skill level.

well, what you suggested would only work for pure death match no respawn mode though, because conquest mode to 500 points seems kinda tedius and tiring to me, because the games drags on, for death match, the game is usually over within a minute. then off with the next game.

theoretically, it would be easy to change the games pt cap to 250-300 pts, instead of 500. i dont think that would ever happen, but it could aide that problem.

but more importantly, i think you underestimate what happens when one starts winning. one wants to keep winning. at least, i know i keep solo/team queuing if i/were doing well…for at least 5-10 matches. i dont think winning too much will be the problem, people can always leave after a win. the win cap in gw1 was 25, and not every win was 1 min. most were 3-7minutes and you didnt make it to 25 even 10% of the time. it was more fun to go as long as you could before falling to the better random team.

well, 3 – 7 minutes is still way faster than 7 – 10 minutes which is what an average conquest game mode would take.

i still think this mode best fit annihilation (death match) mode where defeated players do not respawn, and the game is over in the first encounter.

Solo queue is for solo queuing, not for organised teams. Coming up against even semi-organised teams in solo queue would not, in fact, be any fun at all.

If you want to play in an organised team, play team queue. If you don’t know anyone to play with, use the LFG tool. If you want to socialise, befriend, and team up with the good/friendly players you meet in solo queue… well, I had a reasonable idea for how to facilitate that which drew precisely zero interest from the community other than a nominal dev response.

A shared lobby I could agree with; just have overflow instances for if it becomes too crowded. But most people probably queue from PvE now, anyway.

im proposing that we keep the win cap low at 10-15, with incrementally harder and more rewarding match ups. soloQ needs the spice. i really dont think play time would be an issue if the average win streak was ~3-8 @ 7-10min/ea. and you could always leave or hotjoin.

@ entropy
it would still be solo que. but the teams that won would go on fighting each other for more wins instead of disbanding. i teamQ too, im well aware of that. and teamQ is still an option. but do you not see a problem with soloQ?

LeetMagiKarp.3751:

@ entropy
it would still be solo que. but the teams that won would go on fighting each other for more wins instead of disbanding.

if you wanna spice it up even further, make it such that,
teams with 1 win, faces another team with at least 1 win.
teams with 2 wins streak, faces another team with at least 2 wins streak.
teams with 3 wins streak, faces another team with at least 3 wins streak.

fair enough?

then again that is hard, probably impossible too, since we have this MMR thing doing match ups for us.

“with incrementally harder and more rewarding match ups”

And how do you propose to achieve that? Another layer of matchmaking?

Also, logistics. How do you requeue as a team? Is it automatic? Do you have to press a button? What happens when someone leaves the queue?

Half the time, a win in solo queue just means I’ve managed to carry members of a 4-man zerg whom I have no real desire to play with ever again. I suspect the retention rate for winning teams would be abyssmal. Next time you have a huge win in solo, ask your teammates if they’d like to party for team queue and see how many responses you get.

Teams on a streak would sooner or later face each other simply because they’d kick lesser teams out fairly quickly, don’t really need any kind of matchmaking for that to occur.
You don’t ‘re-que’ as a team, you are simply teamed up with the next team that ques.
If your team is down a member or two, a replacement is automatically added from the existing que.
However I’d remove the leaderboards, if progression was implemented. That would make it the ideal prep ground for TQ as well as the go-to place whenever you don’t have the ppl to form a team with, but still want to get some solid pvp matches.

You can find more info on RA here.

the teams that win in soloQ, go on fighting other winning teams? whats not to get? it would, theoretically, get harder on its own with very little help. better teams facing better teams. sure it might take some code, but doesnt every update? if you dont like the team you can quit after game 1. which was, fortunately, an option in gw1 as well. but it is unreasonable to imply that one never happens across decent players.

KarlaGrey.5903:

You don’t ‘re-que’ as a team, you are simply teamed up with the next team that ques.

So you queue for a quick solo match, win, are automatically requeued, load back into PvE, by which time the next match has popped and you must play it or eat the dishonor? No thanks.

For obvious reasons, no-one should be automatically queued for anything unless they specifically request it.

KarlaGrey.5903:

If your team is down a member or two, a replacement is automatically added from the existing que.

What you describe already exists: it’s called team queue.

sPvP is not RA. I won’t go into the details.

you obviously never played gw1 pvp……why are you so bitter dude? haha
if you lost, you were sent back to the lobby. if you won, you remained in the pvp map, until your competitor won their match. there is no wait time, you can leave after any win. its really that easy. you can have your cake and eat it too. what he described was not team que either. if youre solo queuing on team arenas, then maybe. but thats not as it was intended which you seem to be a purist sooooo…….

entropy.9613:

So you queue for a quick solo match, win, are automatically requeued, load back into PvE, by which time the next match has popped and you must play it or eat the dishonor? No thanks.

Err, no you don’t reload back into your original zone. You simply remain in the same map until paired with the next group. It’s virtually just like TA/TQ with the difference teams are assembled randomly (minus a few syncs here and there) instead of being premade, and you’re spared the nuisance of being ported back to the district you originally queed in.
Seems like you intentionally refuse to admit the major QoL benefit such a design brings to the table.

entropy.9613:

For obvious reasons, no-one should be automatically queued for anything unless they specifically request it.

That’s why you are free to leave after the victory, if you do not wish to continue playing with the same team. Problems?

entropy.9613:

KarlaGrey.5903:

If your team is down a member or two, a replacement is automatically added from the existing que.

What you describe already exists: it’s called team queue.

sPvP is not RA. I won’t go into the details.

That sure made a lot of sense.
Not.
L2argument

honestly, just look at all of the disgruntled people all over this pvp forum on the state of soloQ, and how discouraging it is. something needs to be done, and implicating a loose “bracket” of sorts after the first win is an easy and effective way to make them more ….well more!

I’m not going to argue the point with people who don’t understand how elimination tournaments work, I’ll just let this thread fade into well-deserved obscurity.

Fantastic idea leet i Think this would make soloq alot better then it is now

you obviously dont understand the premise of this thread, or the definition of tournament. its not a tournament, a tournie has a winner and an end. its just a collection of random teams perpetually pitted against each other. the teams with more wins, face teams with more wins. you can leave after 1 win each time if you desire. have.your.cake.and.eat.it.too.

this maby couldwork in teamQ but not in soloQ

there arent enough matched teams to do it in teamQ. i dont see why it couldnt work in solo? tons more traffic, at the least.

there are tons more players in teamQ and enough teams and it would atleast fix somehow teamQ cause this wannabe e-sport-pro teams which now farm only randoms could get atleast a chalenge with this

and it can´t work in soloQ cause soloQ is designed to play it solo vs solo palyers to make it fair
this would bring the bullkitten from teamQ to soloQ where premades(and from system made premade is still premade) farm solo players/randoms

you win 1x? nice but why you think you should be rewarded now with advantage over your next enemy?

just no

this would break soloQ

make this in teamQ – fine but dont touch soloQ with this

thx

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

it would be very tedius, tiring on the winning team though.

matches in gw1 random arena was usually over within a minute.
matches in gw2 conquest mode solo arena ranges from 7 – 10 minutes.

Most high gladiators from gw1 had to play for 2-3 hours straight with no breaks for each 25 win streak in order to get maximum points, I have done 100s of those over the years, so 5 wins in a row for solo q is basically nothing.

When they add 2v2 or 3v3 death match then this will work great, but atm it just cant work because of the rating system and general lack of population. After I hit top 400ish I really started to notice the wait times, but now that im top 100 it is like 10 min between matches :/

soloQ is designed to pit 2 teams against each other as fairly as mmr can see. if winners went on to fight other winners then, theoretically, neither team would have an advantage. if youre afraid of teamQ’ers switching to soloQ, why not implement it on both ends? it would certainly be better than current. it would not break soloQ, change can be good.

It works like a charm in RA seven years in.
No reason why it wouldn’t work in SQ one year in, especially since it would bring in quite a big QoL improvement. Not like the OP is asking for a new game type or maps, although those might be of quite some help too, given they’d be designed and implemented in a proper manner.
‘Open-access’ progression with a ‘leave-after-victory’ option and reward scaling is a win-win scenario in most cases (mind, though, that the latter isn’t a must – e.g. the old TA only awarded 1 (!) point per 10 wins, yet still supported a regular and highly and competitive playerbase).
The SOLE counter-argument anyone could muster in this regard is the issue of syncing due to low playerbase numbers, but such a re-design should spurr growth, especially if coupled with the removal of the most problematic map(s), which would in turn make syncing a lot harder, it not impossible.
Another thing to consider is that progression in random environments often translates to easier player recognition, especially in regards to players who don’t TQ or/and don’t have a pvp guild, which often contributes to social networking (e.g. a team of random players who discover they work really well together as a team might consider, for instance, to also que together in TQ, or at least add each other to their friend lists), and we all know good networking is key in online games, as much as it is irl.

Outstanding arguments by KarlaGrey.

I wanted to point you guys to another recent thread about consecutive wins in Solo Arena: Excellent points by KarlaGrey. I agree on the networking boost. The OP brings up good points on the socializing potential we are missing by GW2’s mechanics (especially how the PvP lobby is set up).

I also wanted to point at another recent thread about consecutive win progression in Solo Arena: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Solo-Queue-suggestion/first#post3468804

thanks for the link to the similar post, i knew they had to exist. kayla, you made a great point about spurring growth. i think that an overhaul to soloQ would encourage new players, more players, and more consistent players. especially when coupled with the recent changes to rewards.

i think this could work, if they quickly matched the winning team with another team, immediately, without spending too long on “match making” to find another team.

for example,

red vs blue (jon justin peter josh colin)
blue team won

a pop up appears for all blue team members.
“continue with current team members?”
“yes” or “no”
the time limit is before the system kicks everyone back to where they were.

scenario 1
all 5 members click yes.
the current team is locked in,
system will still kick everyone back to where they were,

but all 5 members will be queued in the “winning streak solo arena” teams
system will attempt to find another solo arena team who won at least once and choose to continue, disregarding the MMR match making etc,

scenario 2
4 members clicked yes, 1 clicked no.
4 members locked in for queue, and will search another 5th member

scenario 3
3 members clicked yes, 2 clicked no.
3 members locked in for queue, and will search another 2 more members

etc

something like that.
it would work yes?

but the wait time needs to be low, and the system will search for other winning solo arena teams who choose to continue and fight.

yes precisely, but the hope is that the winning team wouldnt even have to leave the match to stay queued. if the rewards were high enough for winning a streak of games, i do believe a lot of people would be active, much like Random Arenas. but other than that, your structure seems just about right.