Guild Wars 2

I feel like I am going to be decimated by the incoming comments already, but I implore you to hear me out beforehand.

We are close to a month into the first season of this new PvP system, and I think it’s fair to say that the majority of players have dozens of games under their belt and thus have at one time or another seen duo queues in action or have participated in them. For better or worse, the ratings have stabilized more or less and now we are in the middle of the season where players are ripping into each other trying to perform better and get higher. Cool, but outside the general complaints about balance or bad players ‘ruinin ma gaems’ one very fair complaint about this season is the “abuse of duo queue over solo queue”.

Specifically, I want to go over three main advantages I acknowledge about what duo queue has over solo queue. These are arguments that I believe grant an indisputable edge and should be mentioned before I make my case. So in no particular order:

- Duo Queuing enables bluntly “One less bad player” mentality, if each player in a game, ally or enemy, contributes 10% to how the game works out, playing in a duo queue means the duo queue has 20% control, the duo queue knows one of their teammates ’isn’t crappy’ or else they wouldn’t be duo queuing.

- Duo Queuing enables a communication/teamwork edge, meaning that the two players know how the other plays and very likely are in direct comms with another. As a solo queuer I’ve seen only one attempt at another teammate asking for everyone to join his TS in the pre-match, which was pretty crazy but serves to show the importance of immediately communication rather than typing. They are faster to react to developments innately.

- Duo Queuing enables the potential of flexibility, and creating a strategy/synergy based on professions and builds. Further elaborating, the duo queue has more control over the team composition, and creating a profession combination that can be devastating to their opponents. Mesmer/Thief Duo Queue? That’s simultaneous +1s on two points constantly, that’s kind of broken to think about and extremely hard to pull off in lower divisions with text. That’s just an example, there are other combos that can work.

So all these points made, you think I did a very good job of disproving my case here. But here’s the thing, and this is pretty important. Despite the advantages, the biggest reason by far for keeping duo and solo queue the same is because without duo queue, the creation of future teams through competitive aspirations becomes so much more difficult.

Hold on, you might be asking where that ties into any of the duo queue imbalances. Let me get to that in a bit, but for now think about how our ranked queue has worked in the past and currently right now. We used to have everything merged more or less, we’ve been rolling back steadily because the match quality was many times awful, and as the above points have been mentioned, anything above a solo queue gains substantial advantages. But, there’s a reason why these game-modes are in 5v5 rather than 1v1 arenas. Ultimately the intended route for an aspiring SPvP player who wants to eventually become the best is to start off in solo queue, find a good ally and queue up with them, and eventually fill out their roster steadily and play Team-Queue and get good.

Duo-Queue is the least intrusive option to ranked Solo-Queue play while creating a path for teams to be formed and go into Ranked Team Queue.

Duo-Queue players can find one other set of Duo-Queue players, plus a Solo Queue Player and make a team, the work and time to creating a team is cut in HALF compared to a Solo Queuer, finding 4 other Solo Queuers who are like-minded. Actually I would even say the success-rate for a team to be formed and compete competitively from 5 solo-queue players is far less than one using a mix. There’s a lot of gambling between training in unranked and a ranked environment, you haven’t played with your allies in team queue yet and fleshed out what strengths and weaknesses exist.

Right now, there isn’t a team queue, there aren’t enough teams yet out there to warrant the creation. In actuality I believe there aren’t enough players yet in SPvP that will allow Team Queue to come back for some time without impacting the queue times. That being said, there’s a massive merit to keeping Duo Queue and Solo Queue together, it creates a potential for teamwork and eventual Team creation. Not to mention it’s likely fun to play with a friend.

This post is already pretty ranting, so I’ll make my next point fast. Under the understanding that Duo Queue is a necessary evil to SPvP being healthy, we can always adjust how Duo Queues are treated so that there are slight disadvantages when you decide to trust your teammate.

Right now I am very positive there’s no difference between how a duo-queue gets treated versus a solo queue gets treated in how Rating is lost/gained.

That’s not really a good idea, and it promotes what we are seeing this season across all time-zones a duo-queue mentality to get to the top. There’s a very simple fix for this that was implemented back in another well-known MOBA a long time ago that I believe can address this.

For Season 6, create an artificial inflation of the duo-queue’s average Rating together AFTER the match’s conclusion. This might be a bit difficult to explain but let’s say we got a duo queue from a 1900 and a 2000. Between the both of them, they average 1950. Matchmaking gives them a game based upon their ratings, whatever.

Here’s where it gets interesting, Win or Lose, they both get treated as an inflated rating, so for a number let’s say they are inflated by 100. JUST for the duo queuers, they have 2050 rating, and presuming the game balanced them properly, winning the game earns them less than normal while losing the game hurts their rating badly.

That’s one way to challenge duo-queuers, another method would be inflating their rating BEFORE the game so they end up facing much higher ranked players. See if their teamwork outclasses more skillful competition. That’s another possibility we can go with.

Regardless, I agree right now that duo-queues are strong. But if you want SPvP to actually become something in the future, and have Team Queue return, we need Duo-Queue to help facilitate the potential of future teams being created.

We don’t need a bunch of ranked solo queuers trying to form teams with 4 others and creating a volatile SPvP team environment that will likely fail in the end. We can always address the Duo-Queue Advantages with rating disadvantages.

Thank you.

duoQ needs to go and have pure soloQ only. also anet need to make seperate leaderboard for the 5 man teamQ. they have done it with the guild leaderboard but sadly in NA. ESL players abused it.

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

duoQ needs to go and have pure soloQ only. also anet need to make seperate leaderboard for the 5 man teamQ. they have done it with the guild leaderboard but sadly in NA. ESL players abused it.

absolute +1 to this, this game format may only work on pure randoms or pure teams puting hybrids (duo trio quad) only hurts system and “competition”

Depends. If you want actual in game competition with a meaningful leaderboard then it must be solo queue only. With duo queue there is little point in the leaderboard or rating system as it doesnt really reflect skill.

If duo queue stays then they should get rid of this rating system because it is worthless.

there will never be any fair solo or duo system cause different classes have different carry potential

Competition wise, five v five is the way to go or larger number.

megilandil.7506:

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

duoQ needs to go and have pure soloQ only. also anet need to make seperate leaderboard for the 5 man teamQ. they have done it with the guild leaderboard but sadly in NA. ESL players abused it.

absolute +1 to this, this game format may only work on pure randoms or pure teams puting hybrids (duo trio quad) only hurts system and “competition”

Duo is the least intrusive, and can only help create a road for team queue to develop.

We don’t have a team queue because there aren’t enough teams.

And let’s not even pretend that ESL players who “abuse” duo-queue suddenly won’t be at the top of the leaderboards in solo-only. Joe-McNoRotation in Gold suddenly won’t become top 250 if it was solo-only. Removing Duo-Queue effectively ensures we won’t see Team Queue come back in a very long time given the bigger walls it forces on solo queuers in finding other players.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Depends. If you want actual in game competition with a meaningful leaderboard then it must be solo queue only. With duo queue there is little point in the leaderboard or rating system as it doesnt really reflect skill.

If duo queue stays then they should get rid of this rating system because it is worthless.

I want you to explain very clearly how Duo Queue suddenly invalidates the rating system we have. I’m fairly certain those on the Leaderboard are night and day above those who aren’t. The only thing that’s troubling about the Duo Queue is that there’s no downside to it as of yet, if Duo Queues were given an appropriate handicap such as facing higher rated opponents or earning less rating for wins and losing more rating for losses, things look far nicer.

Otherwise, I don’t want to speak on profession balance here, nor do I want to go specifically too far into Team Queue discussion but allude to it from a solo/duo queue perspective.

1/we will not see team q in a long time because low population and adding more qs will substract population from others qs not only for “not having teams”
2/“less intrusive” but intrusive, if anet wants to make a pseudocompetive ranking system there will be no intrusions or dont try to make this pseudocompetitive leagues with individual ranking

megilandil.7506:

1/we will not see team q in a long time because low population and adding more qs will substract population from others qs not only for “not having teams”
2/“less intrusive” but intrusive, if anet wants to make a pseudocompetive ranking system there will be no intrusions or dont try to make this pseudocompetitive leagues with individual ranking

1) I’m not adding queues, Solo/Duo stay merged until there is enough ‘Teams’ out there. Right now Team Queue doesn’t exist because of the low pop, starting from Solo/Duo ladder will only serve to attract more players to the mode provided they continue to improve the system as it is.
2) News Flash, even if it was Solo-only, the ranking system wouldn’t be balanced strictly because as someone mentioned, professions and role true balance aren’t a thing and Matchmaking can’t get down to the level that corresponds to whether a player is the best. Example, how do you decide the world’s best Warrior or the world’s best Thief are better than one another? Two utterly different roles, yet somehow the Solo Queue metric has to make one of them better than the other.

I’m going to make this statement real clear, not matter what the outcome whether Solo/Duo Queue stays or goes Solo Queue, that leaderboard has less bearing than the Team Queue Leaderboard just because the game is built around 5v5.

I’m looking for Solo/Duo to stick around as is, to become the foundation for building Teams in a Team-Based Conquest which in the future carries the real Leaderboard. All the current leaderboard shows is the players who most excel at winning games with other randoms, who may or may not be partied with only 1 other person. That is all.

That doesn’t mean that the solo/duo queue leaderboard is pointless, being in the top 250 of that leaderboard shows prowess in the gamemode given varied factors and makes you a quality choice for a pick on a team. But solo/duo queue, either or, will never be representative of how you win in a team setting, only an individualistic.

My examination is therefore looking to make the Solo/Duo Queue Leaderboard more concrete for players, whether they solo or duo, make their way to the top and find other players to actually make teams with.

Prepare for the decimation….

To this, OP. I say NO.

Duo should NOT be kept. Here’s why. Any mixed queues of 2-5 man teams and solo queuers will always give solo queuers a disadvantage. Always. Mixed queues distort the matchmaking system and create unbalanced games. This has been happening since leagues began.

We need a separate team queue(5-man) and solo queue(1-man), population be kitten ed. Lack of population is not a good enough reason not to fix problems. We have a lack of population NOW. I don’t know why players keep using this excuse.

If gw2 PvP wants to attract and keep new players or just have any kind of relevance, they need to get down and dirty. There can be no shortcuts.

JTGuevara.9018:

If gw2 PvP wants to attract and keep new players or just have any kind of relevance, they need to get down and dirty. There can be no shortcuts.

You say this, but then almost flawlessly use:

JTGuevara.9018:

Lack of population is not a good enough reason not to fix problems.

As a point. You do understand that as less players play a game-mode like SPvP, the queue times get longer, players get frustrated and have less fun, thus leave and circle ensues.

I can’t understand why you think we should decimate SPvP in it’s already low population attempting to support SoloQ which can never be fairly balanced on a leaderboard scale, and Team Queue which requires players on an individual level to group up with other individuals in Unranked or Quickplay rather than taking incremental steps with Duo Queue as a first step.

Sykper.6583:

JTGuevara.9018:

If gw2 PvP wants to attract and keep new players or just have any kind of relevance, they need to get down and dirty. There can be no shortcuts.

You say this, but then almost flawlessly use:

JTGuevara.9018:

Lack of population is not a good enough reason not to fix problems.

As a point. You do understand that as less players play a game-mode like SPvP, the queue times get longer, players get frustrated and have less fun, thus leave and circle ensues.

I can’t understand why you think we should decimate SPvP in it’s already low population attempting to support SoloQ which can never be fairly balanced on a leaderboard scale, and Team Queue which requires players on an individual level to group up with other individuals in Unranked or Quickplay rather than taking incremental steps with Duo Queue as a first step.

Solo queue had balanced matches. That alone is reason enough.

PvP’s already decimated. Solo/Duo is already unfairly balanced on a leaderboard scale. All this incremental business will make players lose their patience. This is the FIFTH season now. Solo/Duo is just the same old MIXED QUEUES, which inherently perpetuate unbalanced and unfair matches.

JTGuevara.9018:

Sykper.6583:

JTGuevara.9018:

If gw2 PvP wants to attract and keep new players or just have any kind of relevance, they need to get down and dirty. There can be no shortcuts.

You say this, but then almost flawlessly use:

JTGuevara.9018:

Lack of population is not a good enough reason not to fix problems.

As a point. You do understand that as less players play a game-mode like SPvP, the queue times get longer, players get frustrated and have less fun, thus leave and circle ensues.

I can’t understand why you think we should decimate SPvP in it’s already low population attempting to support SoloQ which can never be fairly balanced on a leaderboard scale, and Team Queue which requires players on an individual level to group up with other individuals in Unranked or Quickplay rather than taking incremental steps with Duo Queue as a first step.

Solo queue had balanced matches. That alone is reason enough.

Solo Queue has never had balanced matches, if you wanted to make balanced matches you would have to go steps further than just removing duo-queue and forcing everyone to play everyone else in the game on the same exact profession. OR you would force queuers to play certain professions based on a role they select upon queuing so as to artifically force balanced compositions, and not the triple thief double engineer combinations we see on a single side.

That’s the extent you would have to go in order to get close to balancing out a solo queue only leaderboard, and I don’t want to pretend that’s the intent of a game-mode that focuses on making teams and doing premade 5v5s for E-SPARTS where every commercial is a kitten Graphics Card one.

A different question: in what way do you believe a leaderboard for solo to be representative if you still have to rely on 4 other teammates in your matches?
Overall the leaderboards are just artificial, there is no #1 player due to all the different roles and professions you can take in this game. There will never be fairness in Solo nor duo.
The only way to get a representative leaderboard is to have a 5v5 que. But until that point it’s really nice to be able to find players, form a duo with them and start to teach yourself the basics of teamplay until you go for 5v5.

I think there’s still a bit of merit in having Duo Queues take a slightly higher risk than the Solo Queue on that leaderboard.

At the very least, as I mentioned, the solo/duo queue leaderboard shows a sort of ‘resume’ for teams, and can foster growth in that aspect through potential 5-mans starting out in Duos.

Entenkommando.5208:

A different question: in what way do you believe a leaderboard for solo to be representative if you still have to rely on 4 other teammates in your matches?
Overall the leaderboards are just artificial, there is no #1 player due to all the different roles and professions you can take in this game. There will never be fairness in Solo nor duo.
The only way to get a representative leaderboard is to have a 5v5 que. But until that point it’s really nice to be able to find players, form a duo with them and start to teach yourself the basics of teamplay until you go for 5v5.

the think is that you are the only constant in your solo matches, if mm works fine coff coff you get the same amount of players better than you and worse than you, and the same for rival teams and in large numbers the sistem can get an idea of your “skill”
this if system works fine, and devs dont mess with them every 3 month to adjust their last missadjusment etc etc

megilandil.7506:

Entenkommando.5208:

A different question: in what way do you believe a leaderboard for solo to be representative if you still have to rely on 4 other teammates in your matches?
Overall the leaderboards are just artificial, there is no #1 player due to all the different roles and professions you can take in this game. There will never be fairness in Solo nor duo.
The only way to get a representative leaderboard is to have a 5v5 que. But until that point it’s really nice to be able to find players, form a duo with them and start to teach yourself the basics of teamplay until you go for 5v5.

the think is that you are the only constant in your solo matches, if mm works fine coff coff you get the same amount of players better than you and worse than you, and the same for rival teams and in large numbers the sistem can get an idea of your “skill”
this if system works fine, and devs dont mess with them every 3 month to adjust their last missadjusment etc etc

You skipped over the part where ‘professions and roles’ mess with a pure solo queue setup. Matchmaking cannot account for what players excel at and give them ‘balanced’ team comps. We even see this now, and it is an outstanding factor that will make solo-queue only leaderboards a pip-dream.

Today I had two rangers duo queue and we lost the match anyways. Entire game they kept going far where an enemy engi was pwning them 1v2, meanwhile the rest of us was fighting 3v4.

It all depends on skills of your teammates/enemies and those are basically totally random and are not related to rating whatsoever. Since I started checking people’s rating I am so surprised with performance from different tiers and I am surprised how some people got that far.

Or maybe they play like idiots to lower the rating? No idea, but already met a guy who claimed that’s what he was doing. I don’t know if he was serious though.

Sykper.6583:

megilandil.7506:

Entenkommando.5208:

A different question: in what way do you believe a leaderboard for solo to be representative if you still have to rely on 4 other teammates in your matches?
Overall the leaderboards are just artificial, there is no #1 player due to all the different roles and professions you can take in this game. There will never be fairness in Solo nor duo.
The only way to get a representative leaderboard is to have a 5v5 que. But until that point it’s really nice to be able to find players, form a duo with them and start to teach yourself the basics of teamplay until you go for 5v5.

the think is that you are the only constant in your solo matches, if mm works fine coff coff you get the same amount of players better than you and worse than you, and the same for rival teams and in large numbers the sistem can get an idea of your “skill”
this if system works fine, and devs dont mess with them every 3 month to adjust their last missadjusment etc etc

You skipped over the part where ‘professions and roles’ mess with a pure solo queue setup. Matchmaking cannot account for what players excel at and give them ‘balanced’ team comps. We even see this now, and it is an outstanding factor that will make solo-queue only leaderboards a pip-dream.

an you skiped the ironic of mm working fine
a part of mm working fine if have solid roles, they(anet) said no but HoT bring it, a proper mm reserve slots for them and fill these spaces with players of that role in both teams , other issue is the performance of player in a class, that can be calculated so, giving diferent rating for class, if i have x mmr and i take the desision of playing a class never played i dont have to count as a player of x skill, my skill now is much lower

the mmr had to be some sort of your basic skill(pvp mechanics knowledge)+your class skill

megilandil.7506:

Sykper.6583:

megilandil.7506:

Entenkommando.5208:

A different question: in what way do you believe a leaderboard for solo to be representative if you still have to rely on 4 other teammates in your matches?
Overall the leaderboards are just artificial, there is no #1 player due to all the different roles and professions you can take in this game. There will never be fairness in Solo nor duo.
The only way to get a representative leaderboard is to have a 5v5 que. But until that point it’s really nice to be able to find players, form a duo with them and start to teach yourself the basics of teamplay until you go for 5v5.

the think is that you are the only constant in your solo matches, if mm works fine coff coff you get the same amount of players better than you and worse than you, and the same for rival teams and in large numbers the sistem can get an idea of your “skill”
this if system works fine, and devs dont mess with them every 3 month to adjust their last missadjusment etc etc

You skipped over the part where ‘professions and roles’ mess with a pure solo queue setup. Matchmaking cannot account for what players excel at and give them ‘balanced’ team comps. We even see this now, and it is an outstanding factor that will make solo-queue only leaderboards a pip-dream.

an you skiped the ironic of mm working fine
a part of mm working fine if have solid roles, they(anet) said no but HoT bring it, a proper mm reserve slots for them and fill these spaces with players of that role in both teams , other issue is the performance of player in a class, that can be calculated so, giving diferent rating for class, if i have x mmr and i take the desision of playing a class never played i dont have to count as a player of x skill, my skill now is much lower

the mmr had to be some sort of your basic skill(pvp mechanics knowledge)+your class skill

It’s very clear Matchmaking is not taking roles into account whatsoever. They’ve only specifically mentioned that profession has a slight adjustment, but things like the professions which are best at support, professions that +1, bruisers, damage, etc…These are clearly not calculated. That’s what I mean when I say roles as opposed to professions, and because roles aren’t distinguished, we get the ultimate irony in that even the devs agreed: The Leaderboard doesn’t show skill in a traditional sense, only your skill in winning the game which can place an unfortunately skilled player in a bad spot on the leaderboard.

JTGuevara.9018:

Prepare for the decimation….

To this, OP. I say NO.

Duo should NOT be kept. Here’s why. Any mixed queues of 2-5 man teams and solo queuers will always give solo queuers a disadvantage. Always. Mixed queues distort the matchmaking system and create unbalanced games. This has been happening since leagues began.

We need a separate team queue(5-man) and solo queue(1-man), population be kitten ed. Lack of population is not a good enough reason not to fix problems. We have a lack of population NOW. I don’t know why players keep using this excuse.

If gw2 PvP wants to attract and keep new players or just have any kind of relevance, they need to get down and dirty. There can be no shortcuts.

I agree, best response I’ve heard….either 1 man que or team que both with leaderboards, but seperate.