I know I’m going terribly against the general sentiment of this forum here, but having read that developers are indeed working on a solo queue mode, I find it necessary to voice some of my concerns about the idea.
Having no regular team myself, I fully understand the frustrations of being a disorganised pug and being matched against a premade. An organised team with voice comms will outplay a pug at every turn, using communication to dominate the map and run circles around you. Moreover, solo queue luck of the draw means that you’ll often get sub-par allies, and I’ve often suffered from clueless teammates, ragequitters, etc. I’m saying this so that you all know this isn’t coming from some top-ranked elitist worried that he’ll run out of puny pugs to destroy: I mostly play solo queue, and I’m not even any good as an individual player (74% on the rankings table right now). I’d probably be better ranked in a solo queue, but, even though it would be in my interest, I don’t think such a thing should exist, and this is why:
Firstly, I think it goes against the ethos of the game. The fact of the matter is that this format is a team game. The team with the best communications is SUPPOSED to have an advantage. People who are interested in competitive gaming seriously should realize and accept this, and understand that if you want to be competitive you need to get a team. The game simply isn’t all about individual skill, it’s also about teamwork, and to ask for a solo queue is to ask for this component to be removed simply because you can’t compete in it. That just goes against the ethos of the competitive PvPer: if you can’t be king of the hill, you find another way to the top – you don’t demand that another, smaller hill be built just for you!
The second reason is related to the first: I’m unclear how the rankings would be affected by the introduction of the solo queue. Would there be a separate leaderboard for solo queuers (the “smaller hill”)? Or would the solo queuers remain on the same rankings ladder, thereby devaluing the skill and hard work of the top-ranked teams when the better solo queuers started to aggregate enough rating to rise to the same levels as the top teams without ever having played them?
Thirdly, I have a very practical concern about how people who join the queue as 2s or 3s will be dealt with. From personal experience and observation there are A LOT of these “part-premades” around – much more than there are full teams. I do it too, because sometimes it’s easier to get a friend or two who happen to be online than to round up a whole team. So what would happen to these people? If they can only join the “normal” team queue, where will they get the random puggies to round out their numbers from? If they’re allowed to join the solo queue as part-premades, won’t the solo queuers (justifiably) complain that they’re exploiting the system and gaining an advantage? Or will it simply become impossible to join as 2s, 3s or 4s, and we’ll only be able to join either as individuals or full teams? The latter would, in my opinion, be an absolute disaster for the community, as that is how people find teammates! They get a friend and play some games together. They notice one of their teammates is really good, so they invite him to their party and join as a 3. Soon they’ve found a 4th, then a 5th, they win some games, add each other to their friends lists, and maybe after a few more evenings playing together they start a guild together and join as a team! To make the entry requirement for team tournaments “5 or nothing” is to put the bar extremely high considering how large a part of the community still play solo!
My final concern is possibly the most important one: there just aren’t enough teams around! Making a separate solo queue will mean huge waiting times for anyone still playing as a team, which will lead to people getting bored and quitting. It will also be very harsh on new teams, as, with no low-rated pug teams around for them to practice on, starting out in the team tournaments will be a baptism of fire! They’ll be thrown in against Made in Meta and Team Paradigm on their first game, and after a few dispiriting losses, they’ll go back to solo queue.
So, the tl;dr is: 1. it’s just wrong, get a team or suck it up, 2. What about the leaderboards? 3. Where would the duos go? 4. there aren’t enough teams!