Solo/Duo Queue in Ranked Season 1

(RazielWarmonic) #1

The biggest complaint we’ve had over the Open Beta period about our Ranked mode has been from solo players who encounter 5-Player pre-made parties, giving them very little chance of winning. This is in part due to the inherit coordination and tactics advantage gained by 5 friends playing together, and also due to the difficulties of matching a group of 5 against fair opposition in an acceptable amount of time with an fluctuating Ranked playerbase (see Graph B.).

When planning Ranked Season 1, we made the decision to split the Ranked Matchmaking into two different pools to prevent these frustrations. These two pools were Solo/Duo and 5-Player Parties only. It’d be the best of both worlds, right?

But then, there’s the fine print… we then analysed the behaviour of the matchmaking population over the past few months, we were able to determine several things:

  • Solo/Duo made up over 85% of the matchmaking queries (see Graph A)
  • 5-Player Parties made up less than 7% of matchmaking queries
  • 3 and 4-Player Parties made up less than 8% of matchmaking queries combined
  • The AU and Asia regions did not have enough queueing players for reasonable queue times

[center]http://nxcache.nexon.net/umbraco/4178/image2016-2-24-14-52-30.png
http://nxcache.nexon.net/umbraco/4179/image2016-2-24-14-52-24.png[/center]

When we factored in the maximum allowed skill difference (this expands over time, so how aggressively the matchmaker is at balancing the teams softens in order to get a match going), along with only allowing 5-Player Parties to match with each other, we found the following:

  • During peak hours in the EU, a Cobalt Rank 5-Player Team would be looking at average queue times of over 40 mins
  • During peak hours in the US, a Gold Rank 5-Player Team would be looking at average queue times of over 30 mins

With this in mind, we decided to remove the 5-Player queue for Ranked Season 1, as finding a game in a decent amount of time would essentially require two teams telling each other when to join the queue… almost as if it were a private match. In the short-term we’re prioritising improving the Private Match feature to help Clans play matches against each other.

We consider organised team play the lifeblood of Dirty Bomb, so this isn’t a decision we’ve come to lightly, nor is it necessarily a wide-ranging indicator of things to come. In the longer term, we are working towards the following:

  • Reintroducing 5-Player Parties to Ranked with full 5v5 team play as soon as possible
  • This involves working on removing/reducing the worst queue times and also communicating more information to players who are queueing
  • Giving friends a method of Partying-up and playing together in Casual games
  • Due to the much larger population, any sort of waiting time would be much faster in Casual
  • Giving players the ability to rent and admin their own community servers
  • Providing players with more flexibility and also the opportunity to build a community on their own servers

One of our imperatives for Dirty Bomb is to better support playing with friends and encouraging healthy competition, and we feel that these features will go a long way towards that.

(diamondPlant) #2

Thanks for this ! Totaly agree with you !

(Backuplight) #3

So, if only 7% of all of comp is made up of actual full teams - and now the option for this is removed (even if temporarily) what’s planned to actually encourage real teams getting interested in competitive? I can’t really decide if it’s the game’s overall popularity just not being high enough to get more teams interested, or if it’s something more to do with the core mechanics of comp. and/or the mercs and maps that factor in to this? It’s all well and good saying that competitive play is the lifeblood of the game, but according to those stats the blood is a little low!

I’m sure it’s something discussed behind the scenes, but as someone who doesn’t really get hugely into ranked play unless I get involved with a proper, regular team I’m not seeing a very compelling case to have one as it stands. I don’t mean that in a doom and gloom way, casual has been more than enough to keep me entertained for a year now, but if we really want comp to be the core of the game, it’ll need more than hope and optimism. I know we’ve seen (and are seeing) some steps in the right direction, but I’d like to think there’s more on the way.

(fruityoat) #4

Hooray! I guess this means I won’t face any more pre-made cobalt teams with my silver PUG any more… that wasn’t fun for either side.

Now if only there was a way to kick hackers who join with a friend…

(sonsofaugust5) #5

This is amazing. I wanna say. I’ve been part of many 5 team queues and I hate them honestly. You already know that you are gonna stomp the other team unless it is another premade team. Removing that will bring a lot more players to competitive because not everyone has friends online they queue with. For more experienced players, comp becomes more challenging because you can’t stack with your experienced buddies.

(sonsofaugust5) #6

[quote=“Backuplight;152710”]So, if only 7% of all of comp is made up of actual full teams - and now the option for this is removed (even if temporarily) what’s planned to actually encourage real teams getting interested in competitive? I can’t really decide if it’s the game’s overall popularity just not being high enough to get more teams interested, or if it’s something more to do with the core mechanics of comp. and/or the mercs and maps that factor in to this? It’s all well and good saying that competitive play is the lifeblood of the game, but according to those stats the blood is a little low!

I’m sure it’s something discussed behind the scenes, but as someone who doesn’t really get hugely into ranked play unless I get involved with a proper, regular team I’m not seeing a very compelling case to have one as it stands. I don’t mean that in a doom and gloom way, casual has been more than enough to keep me entertained for a year now, but if we really want comp to be the core of the game, it’ll need more than hope and optimism. I know we’ve seen (and are seeing) some steps in the right direction, but I’d like to think there’s more on the way.[/quote]

If you have a team, play another team using the Dirty Bomb TS to find other teams and play in private password protected servers. A premade team vs random low experience players isn’t enjoyable and turns new players away from ranked.

(sonsofaugust5) #7

I solo queue a lot. Most random players are very open to making a team strategy, such as 2 medics and an engineer if it helps their success rate.

(Dagasawr) #8

[quote=“LumpyPorridge;152716”]Hooray! I guess this means I won’t face any more pre-made cobalt teams with my silver PUG any more… that wasn’t fun for either side.

Now if only there was a way to kick hackers who join with a friend…[/quote]

even if you dont get destroyed by a 5 man. there’s still a chance you will get destroyed by a cobalt duo queue (due to the low player count)

(Ardez1) #9

•Giving players the ability to rent and admin their own community servers

Thank you.

(Todes) #10

I disagree quite abit with you -BigRed on the point that “Removing that will bring a lot more players to competitive because not everyone has friends online they queue with.”

I’ve played another game in the past where they completly removed 5man competitive from the queue, since we couldn’t play a full team competitively & were forced to play in casual half of us slowly started to just quit the game as we couldn’t play it in the intended way.

There’s a bunch of people who will refuse queueing up with randoms for ranked mode as you’ll get a mixed bag of people.
I got an example from last week, i queued with two others for DB ranked mode & we got two randoms who ended up having 1/5 the score of the rest of us, the opposing team were doing slightly worse than the three of us on an individual level but we still couldn’t win the game in what was essentially a 3v5 (it got pretty close).

Queueing with less than 4 people in a competitive setting will scare alot of the hardcore players & the teams away as they can’t play a proper competitive mode.

Not to mention it may eliminate some of the social elements of ranked, a part of that being able to queue up with nice people who’re about the same skill level as you are.

(opicr0n) #11

You could join the DNB ts and arrange pugs.

(Jesus) #12

You could join the DNB ts and arrange pugs.

[/quote]
It doesnt make your Rank goes up.

In the end everyone was butthurt about premade for not that much since the stats are here 71% of the ranked mode are actually SoloQing and there was only 7% of 5 person premade

I cant believe all of the people butthurting everyday about facing premade one after another like they were saying while premade of more than 3 person constituted only 10% of the Ranked player. So some people must have been exagerating a lot again just cause they lost agaisnt more coordinated team. And SD just turned down 15% of the Ranked PlayerBase.
I personally dont care as i dont play Ranked but I still think its a bad decision, and i still think its delusional to think that those player will start to duoQ or will even stay on DB (maybe few exceptions will but i dont think most of them will) and imho its also being delusional to think that it will suddenly attract load of player or make ranked any better.
For me this update just forbid teamplay which is sad. Anyway for being someone who doesnt play Ranked this Update will still probably not get me into it. So i cant think lots of people will join.

(fruityoat) #13

[quote=“Daga;152728”]
even if you dont get destroyed by a 5 man. there’s still a chance you will get destroyed by a cobalt duo queue (due to the low player count) [/quote]

2 Cobalts are better than 5… and according to the patch notes (oops thought it was this post) 3-5 level rank gap should be the maximum now. And yeah, always a chance you’ll get stomped queuing solo, but any improvements are welcome.

(Ardez1) #14

It doesn’t forbid teamplay, but it does relegate playing as a premade to private games. You can still coordinate with your team of players in ranked.

Also, people seem to ignore

We consider organised team play the lifeblood of Dirty Bomb, so this isn’t a decision we’ve come to lightly, nor is it necessarily a wide-ranging indicator of things to come. In the longer term, we are working towards the following: •Reintroducing 5-Player Parties to Ranked with full 5v5 team play as soon as possible

.

That means this is in no way permanent. 5-Man premades will be back. So far the only commitment they have made is that they won’t be back for Season 1 and that 5-man teams would return in the future.

(Runeforce) #15

Obviously math and statistics are not your strong suit - F

(Ardez1) #16

[quote=“LumpyPorridge;152767”][quote=“Daga;152728”]
even if you dont get destroyed by a 5 man. there’s still a chance you will get destroyed by a cobalt duo queue (due to the low player count) [/quote]

2 Cobalts are better than 5… and according to the patch notes (oops thought it was this post) 3-5 level gap should be the maximum now. And yeah, always a chance you’ll get stomped queuing solo, but any improvements are welcome.
[/quote]

Level gap has nothing to do with player skill. I have been beaten by players more then 10 levels below me and I have beaten players more then 10 levels above me. You can’t measure skill perfectly with time played.

(eggplantSafe) #17

DotA 2 group ranking matchmaking is like this with parties: Only parties of 2, 3 or 5 people can enter it.

So, it’s basically groups of people vs groups of people, it does not put in solo queued people. Party of 2 + party of 3 = 5 people, etc. But that’s just how DotA 2 did it - I think it’s a way of solving it.

(Jesus) #18

[quote=“Runeforce;152780”][quote=“Jesus;152756”]
In the end everyone was butthurt about premade for not that much since the stats are here 71% of the ranked mode are actually SoloQing and there was only 7% of 5 person premade

I cant believe all of the people butthurting everyday about facing premade one after another like they were saying while premade of more than 3 person constituted only 10% of the Ranked player. So some people must have been exagerating a lot again just cause they lost agaisnt more coordinated team. And SD just turned down 15% of the Ranked PlayerBase.
[/quote]

Obviously math and statistics are not your strong suit - F[/quote]

I think i did pretty well if you read exactly the graph

(NickMillion) #19

How long are Seasons supposed to last? Me and my buddies only 5-man queue in every game we play and now that we’re unable to do that in comp we’ve only got pub matches to look forward too, and the frustration that’ll come from that.

(fruityoat) #20

[quote=“Ardez;152782”]
Level gap has nothing to do with player skill. I have been beaten by players more then 10 levels below me and I have beaten players more then 10 levels above me. You can measure skill perfectly with time played.[/quote]

Sorry I meant ranks not levels.