Why DuoQ Should be Removed for Season 18 and Never Come Back

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

Feel free to add and suggest changes to what I was able to come up with. I'm not perfect, and i'm sure even through loads of research, experience, and reasoning i'll probably make at least one mistake, or leave something out. Should be noted that these are just the thoughts of an average Plat2 player as well, so anything I mention about divisions below or above me should be taken with a grain of salt.

DuoQ has changed the game to be less competitive. This is probably the biggest and most destructive thing DuoQ has done to ranked. It’s no longer about just playing the game, because DuoQ injects third-party hurdles that simply wouldn’t exist, or at the very least; wouldn't be as prevalent in SoloQ or TeamQ.

The most noticeable way it has accomplished this is by quarantining the very top% that do DuoQ into one small cumulative safe space. Good players being matched against other good players is a thing of the past, as they’ve come together to create the highest numbers advantage possible to the extent that finding a potential even matchup would not be possible even if the matchmaker wasn’t terribly flawed. Ranked SPvP has devolved into an all around farm as a result.

There has always been golds and silvers farming ranked for the rewards; never at all worried about winning, losing, competition, and now we have a fair chunk of the top% of players farming those golds and silvers with the exact same intentions. The people who get punished the most are people who actually try. Those who sit in the middle or upper-middle of the ranks, or really; anyone who decides to queue for a ranked gamemode with some sort of expectation of fair and competitive matchmaking.

And that’s just the main way DuoQ makes ranked less competitive. There’s ~3 problems that come to mind that just add up:(1)There’s no cap on how far apart two ranks can queue together, so top players hop on low-rank alts and queue with other top players to avoid decay and keep LB spots with total impunity, all at the expense for the low-mid level players playing at that hour.(2)Actual players are forced into using methods outside the game itself just to cope, all of which promote not actually playing. No longer can you just queue up. Now you have to check Twitch first to make sure no teamstacking is going on, or follow people you don’t care for just to see when they’re active, or get in the habit of Qdodging every few games to avoid certain DuoQs. Heck, the very concept of going out of your way to find a DuoQ is in itself an exclusive third-party hurdle.(3)Top rated DuoQs often exploit everything they can about the gamemode. Class switching? They got those. Exploiting the matchmaker? They got you, boo. Almost all these issues are exclusive to DuoQ. With SoloQ you can’t really abuse Class Switching, and matchmaking is less tractable.

People can blame all this on the low population all they want. If the population really is too low to play a competitive gamemode competitively, then DuoQ has to go either way. If SoloQ was barely sustainable, there is absolutely no excuse for DuoQ to exist. Low population is an argument against DuoQ, not for it.

DuoQ also promotes and facilitates wintrading(Match manipulation.) Getting a person or people, alt or alts on the opposite team is leagues easier when you have more control over who gets into your match & team, and guaranteeing one person to your team increases your odds by 2/5ths or 20% of a match on its own. Although, I will say that classic wintrading seems to have fallen off to some extent with DuoQ.

Not because DuoQ has finally solved the age-old issue, but because the means; the game, have both changed. Those 3 issues I just mentioned have replaced classic wintrading, because there’s no real reason to throw or leave a game when you can exploit DuoQ and the rest of ranked’s broken fundamentals and get a BETTER and cheaper turnout. Even when wintrading was at its worst, the winrates weren’t anything like they are now, with a lot of the top 25 carrying 80-90% winrates across multiple alts. I know this is DuoQ’s doing, because winrates like that between multiple alts just wasn’t a thing in SoloQ.

Before anyone says “you can’t blame DuoQ for your losses, get good” as i’ve heard no less than 257 times since I started complaining back before Season 13, i’m not blaming DuoQ for losses. Only the problems i’ve mentioned, which; I think contributes moreso to poor match quality than it does for solely bad losses.

Legends and plat3’s together with silvers and golds, no matter if that’s with or against; results in pretty terrible match quality. If you want to make a new or less-experienced player feel truly insignificant and hopeless, just pair them with or against a DuoQ consisting of the #1 and #2 rated players in the game. The resulting blowout match is going to feel bad for everyone else whether they win or lose in that scenario.

TL;DR There is no way to fix DuoQ or merged queues to accommodate ranked PvP without significant changes to the matchmaker. Changes that everyone knows wouldn’t work, because they’d be waiting in queue for hours, but that just shows that DuoQs really have no place in this game to begin with. DuoQ has ruined the competitive aspect of ranked. I could go on forever, because there’s as many reasons DuoQ shouldn’t exist as there is poorly contrived excuses to try and justify it, but; this is already getting too long. Please, just remove(Not restrict behind some rating threshold) DuoQ for Season 18 and all future seasons.

EDIT(8/7/19): Due to a lot of confusion on the subject, I just want to make it clear that this is not a call to restrict ranked back to SoloQ only. It is purely an argument against DuoQ and any sort of merged queue existing in this game.

[Math.5123]

In a duo queue, the Matchmaker the mmr the highest rated player. It has been like this since season 5. I know many top players, myself included that would just stop if they removed duo, due to how unbearably low the skill in most games are.

Queued on alt yesterday, 1670 something in eu. I had a mirage camping every beast in Forest, even dying to it once. Me winning 1v2 against Firebrand scourge. Blowing up midfights in 2-5 seconds.

Duo makes the game bearable for me.

[lessthanjake.7920]

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:In a duo queue, the Matchmaker the mmr the highest rated player. It has been like this since season 5. I know many top players, myself included that would just stop if they removed duo, due to how unbearably low the skill in most games are.

Queued on alt yesterday, 1670 something in eu. I had a mirage camping every beast in Forest, even dying to it once. Me winning 1v2 against Firebrand scourge. Blowing up midfights in 2-5 seconds.

Duo makes the game bearable for me.

This is probably what most higher tier duo's think, at least i heard this expressed my multiple players.I do wonder if it is the case, cuz of low-pop, that duo quers have higher change of winning. But if this is the case i wonder if it would be fair to give them a small penalty, like split rank points gained from victory between both.

[Math.5123]

@stick.7258 said:

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:In a duo queue, the Matchmaker the mmr the highest rated player. It has been like this since season 5. I know many top players, myself included that would just stop if they removed duo, due to how unbearably low the skill in most games are.

Queued on alt yesterday, 1670 something in eu. I had a mirage camping every beast in Forest, even dying to it once. Me winning 1v2 against Firebrand scourge. Blowing up midfights in 2-5 seconds.

Duo makes the game bearable for me.

This is probably what most higher tier duo's think, at least i heard this expressed my multiple players.I do wonder if it is the case, cuz of low-pop, that duo quers have higher change of winning. But if this is the case i wonder if it would be fair to give them a small penalty, like split rank points gained from victory between both.

Most games already look like +5-10 -15-20. Making it even harder to climb is just ridiculous.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:In a duo queue, the Matchmaker the mmr the highest rated player. It has been like this since season 5. I know many top players, myself included that would just stop if they removed duo, due to how unbearably low the skill in most games are.

Actually this is just a common myth. There's absolutely nothing to suggest that it only uses the rating of the higher rated player, but there is evidence to suggest an average of the two ratings is used.

Like, at Plat2 if I DuoQ with a gold 1, I get very little rating from wins with that gold and get smashed with huge rating deductions for losses. Since rating is tied to the other players in your match, it shouldn't be unreasonable to assume they're all a lower average rating. Unless you mean to suggest that single gold 1 player is the cause, but if that's the case; that means they're just being dragged along to essentially punish my team.

That also begs the question: If there's the potential to gain less/lose more, and the higher rated player's ranking is always used, why would the top player for this season be handicapping themself? https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/83854/how-does-top-10-player-appear-in-gold-1-match#latest

Most games already look like +5-10 -15-20. Making it even harder to climb is just ridiculous.

If we're going by rating gain/loss alone, SoloQ actually allows for more because the rating of the other players determines that, and there's objectively more rating disparity with DuoQ than without it.

Queued on alt yesterday, 1670 something in eu. I had a mirage camping every beast in Forest, even dying to it once. Me winning 1v2 against Firebrand scourge. Blowing up midfights in 2-5 seconds.

Duo makes the game bearable for me.

Oh yeah, winning 1v2s, blowing up midfights. That sounds tragic. On further consideration, I think I see your point. It's a hard-knock SoloQ life.

[dominik.9721]

Even now with duoq matches are already more gambeling than competitive since the match gets dedicated by your teammates mainly. I can carry as much as I want, if my team fails to win consistently 4v3 while players afk on capped nodes ect. I simply lose.

With soloq only this situation will become even more extreme, because you get one less carrying player and one more potatoe. Your own performance will then have even less weight.

Your suggestion would make sense if you would have a higher population where you can implement soloq and teamq but not right now where gold players are in the same match as legend players.

[megilandil.7506]

@dominik.9721 said:

Your suggestion would make sense if you would have a higher population where you can implement soloq and teamq but not right now where gold players are in the same match as legend players.

duo is the thing that stresses mm making that posible, and if this is enought bad puts the two legends in the same team

[dominik.9721]

@megilandil.7506 said:

@dominik.9721 said:

Your suggestion would make sense if you would have a higher population where you can implement soloq and teamq but not right now where gold players are in the same match as legend players.

duo is the thing that stresses mm making that posible, and if this is enought bad puts the two legends in the same team

No it does not, since the highest raiting of the duo is taken. So it doesn't matter if you are solo with 1900 raiting, duo with 1900 and 1900 raiting or duo with 1900 and 1100 raiting - it counts in all three cases as 1900 which will lead to the fact that the rest of the team most likely will be filled with golds to reach an equivalent average 1600~ raiting team, depending on the opponent team.

Or what was your point?

[Sindrener.1592]

If anything its a myth soloq increases the match quality LOL

[megilandil.7506]

@dominik.9721 said:

@megilandil.7506 said:

@dominik.9721 said:

Your suggestion would make sense if you would have a higher population where you can implement soloq and teamq but not right now where gold players are in the same match as legend players.

duo is the thing that stresses mm making that posible, and if this is enought bad puts the two legends in the same team

No it does not, since the highest raiting of the duo is taken. So it doesn't matter if you are solo with 1900 raiting, duo with 1900 and 1900 raiting or duo with 1900 and 1100 raiting - it counts in all three cases as 1900 which will lead to the fact that the rest of the team most likely will be filled with golds to reach an equivalent average 1600~ raiting team, depending on the opponent team.

Or what was your point?first: f not changed this season, last time a dev said somethiong about said that duo not takes the high rank, takes the average.Second: multiple top spots are ocupied by alts of top players; less "real" top players that can queue at the same timethird: if not much top players queuing at the same moment game have to search players from low platinum, high gold, med gold.... etcfourth: if the two players are in a duo and mm can find or dont want to find a same level duo, the mm will idealy try to put the top duo with the lowest palyers vs the average team, and at this moment it depends on the hard carriing of the top duo vs the average players

[Bazooka.3590]

+1duoq must die. It is just a built in system exploit

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

@"bluri.2653" said:If anything its a myth soloq increases the match quality LOL

It's truth, not myth.

To be a myth would require some degree of mystery, or lack of closure. That's why the whole "the matchmaker only uses the rating of the highest rated player in a duo" myth, is a myth. There's been no comment by Arenanet(As far as I know, hmu if you find something that suggests otherwise) and there exists nothing in the matchmaking algorithm that would suggest this is true. Therefore it's all conjecture and myth.

SoloQ increasing match quality is truth, because that's something Arenanet actually confirmed multiple times, one example being when they removed DuoQ the first time.

Still, it feels kind of dirty to put SoloQ up on a pedestal. I don't want to give off the impression that SoloQ is perfect, because it's not. It's just the infinitely better option to DuoQ.

[Eurantien.4632]

Many people believe solo queue means more Match manipulation. Without being able to play the system as a duo, winning becomes much harder and people then must resort to straight up match manipulation to win sometimes.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

@"dominik.9721" said:Even now with duoq matches are already more gambeling than competitive since the match gets dedicated by your teammates mainly. I can carry as much as I want, if my team fails to win consistently 4v3 while players afk on capped nodes ect. I simply lose.

With soloq only this situation will become even more extreme, because you get one less carrying player and one more potatoe. Your own performance will then have even less weight.

At least with SoloQ the "potatoes" are just a chance. Whereas with DuoQ, you're pretty much guaranteed a good amount of potatoes on either your team, or the opposing team. Even if you were the rank #1 and rank #2 player DuoQd together, you'd still likely have 3 other potatoes with you. To call them potatoes is surprisingly accurate too, since the high-rated DuoQs farm them now, gotta give props.

But when you inject the very highest rated players into a low population that has no earthly chance or mirroring it, that's what tends to happen.

The other team is given the best available at that moment, because the matchmaker values getting into a game as fast as possible over getting into a game that's actually fair, which is owed to the fact that if it didn't do this; those legends DuoQing together would be waiting in queue for hours. The team with the DuoQ will be given 3 blighted potatoes(even worse potatoes) to make up for the rating disparity the high-ranked DuoQ creates. Those blighted potatoes are going to get carried though, so... I guess that makes them feel better about themselves?

I'm going to speak up for the potatoes and the blighted potatoes though, and start calling them lower-ranked and new players. I don't think that someone of lower-rank has anything to gain or learn by being carried or steamrolled by someone with thousands of hours of experience. That's a sign of awful match quality, them being paired together. I think no matter what, SoloQ would make it far easier for them to gradually get better at the game, and feel better in doing so, by giving them more similarly structured teams rating-wise.

Your suggestion would make sense if you would have a higher population where you can implement soloq and teamq but not right now where gold players are in the same match as legend players.

Like I said in my obnoxiously long original post, the low population is an argument against DuoQ, not for it. If DuoQ stays, those golds are going to continue to get matched with legends and nothing will change. Right now there is little to no competition for those players because there's no high-level of competitive play in ranked.

If it returns back to SoloQ, then you've split that DuoQ up, and there's two players of high and equal skill-level to be released into the matchmaker to be evenly distributed among teams when they queue, and even if they avidly try to avoid playing together after that point(Because in Gw2 Good players just hate being matched against other good players) their rampant abuse of DuoQ to exploit the low population will be at an end.

[yanniell.1236]

Ben already said they won't change it. They prefer to cater for a small percentage of their player base that wants easy wins and ruins the game for everyone else involved in their matches.

[Snellibee.2761]

@bluri.2653 said:If anything its a myth soloq increases the match quality LOL

Why you still checking forums when you have WoW xs

[Snellibee.2761]

Imagine making ur game anti social and anti friends by not allowing you to qeue with a friend, most games allow you to qeue ranked with a full party, be happy they don't allow that in gw2

[NotoriousNaru.1705]

No thanks no one wants ranked to be even more of a clown fiesta than it already is. If you want to solo so bad just do it but stop trying to use the few outlier matches that me and the other top players have out of 100s of games we play to justify duo making the game 'less competitive' that was the biggest stretch ever and insanely misinformed. There is a large group of players in the pvp scene that duo q only and probably would stop playing if they couldn't duo and had to deal with 4 pugs every match. Ben already mentioned more afking/griefing/throwing happens when its solo. Solo means 1 extra player to carry and 1 less competent player in most matches. Dropping match quality drastically is always bad and if there is no coordination to win and just people walking out of spawn to either stumble on a win or get farmed off a perma stagger then ranked just goes back to the stone ages. If you are upset duos are farming you try to learn and improve because those players get on comms coordinate opener strats, recovery strats, snowballs, and kills, and comp switches to accommodate the match(so if they are putting this much effort into winning why punish them for it when most people just half afk walk out of spawn and just run around till game is over??). Taking that away I know a lot of people who would no longer find enjoyment in ranked and will go back to either memeing on dumb shit solo(causing more griefing/unnecessary throws because no one cares) if theyre bored and ultimately quit ranked. This isn't speculation, all of this HAS happened when anet tried solo and it was one of the worst experiences ever and it is why it won't happen again so you can write your long misinformed paragraphs and riling up the people who aren't fully aware by trying to seem sympathetic to golds who run into legend duos but what you leave out is the fact that those matches are outliers and only a few happen out of the 100s of games legend players play.

[GoldenPants.1870]

I disagree, I am a silver 3 player and I often duo queue with my gold 1 and 2 friends, duo queue is the only thing that makes rankes pvp fun, that you are able to play with your friends in a competetive enviroment.

[Ouk.5914]

fuck that if im going back to solo Q season i better not see any Core specs in my games that are looking to get carried. Hell fucking no lmfao, Matter fact they better change the Win/Lose Rating gain/lost if they want to Solo Q to be a thing again.

It's already hard as fuck to carry games on a necro imagine with out a duo to help out lol or Imagine a season with no duo again and having win trading happen again lmaoooo. Duo Q safer then Solo Q for a lot of reasons my guy and the sooner you stop complaining or making these insane post with horrible suggestions you'll understand why. The game lacks good players on Na because everyone pretty much expected to either get carried or given an easier chance to win. If your saying solo Q gives you a better chance of winning then off the bat im gonna assume you just want to be placed higher on the LB in the easiest way possible.

Want to be higher rating? Guess what you can do! Study Old Esl Games, Follow a Few good Streamers, Learn the No teleport spots, and Learn the match ups that are good and bad for you to take. Once you get At least half that done you can start learning rotations and Target focus! Those small little tips would legit help you reach high p2-p3 with no issues at all.

But please enough with trying to make this game mode easier/a joke then what it already is. I'm tired of casuals or player unable to make some sort of effort to get better or try to compete against higher tier players. When I see some of the best players in the game in a match i try to shut them down and help carry the team to get that W instead of complaining or making insane comments as to why Match making is so "unfair".

[Deadly Moonshiner.1354]

IMO, there should be soloQ and teamQ with only 5-man teams allowed. As Anet is introducing 2v2 maps, this should be only for duoQs. So who wants to play with friend(s), can play duoQ or teamQ or AT. Soloqueuers will not complain on premade duo or team ganking, and in my view there will be less win trading.

With low population queue time will always be a pain. So if you choose a queue with low population, it is your own choice.

[Mbelch.9028]

@"NotoriousNaru.1705" said:No thanks no one wants ranked to be even more of a clown fiesta than it already is. If you want to solo so bad just do it but stop trying to use the few outlier matches that me and the other top players have out of 100s of games we play to justify duo making the game 'less competitive' that was the biggest stretch ever and insanely misinformed. There is a large group of players in the pvp scene that duo q only and probably would stop playing if they couldn't duo and had to deal with 4 pugs every match. Ben already mentioned more afking/griefing/throwing happens when its solo. Solo means 1 extra player to carry and 1 less competent player in most matches. Dropping match quality drastically is always bad and if there is no coordination to win and just people walking out of spawn to either stumble on a win or get farmed off a perma stagger then ranked just goes back to the stone ages. If you are upset duos are farming you try to learn and improve because those players get on comms coordinate opener strats, recovery strats, snowballs, and kills, and comp switches to accommodate the match(so if they are putting this much effort into winning why punish them for it when most people just half afk walk out of spawn and just run around till game is over??). Taking that away I know a lot of people who would no longer find enjoyment in ranked and will go back to either memeing on dumb kitten solo(causing more griefing/unnecessary throws because no one cares) if theyre bored and ultimately quit ranked. This isn't speculation, all of this HAS happened when anet tried solo and it was one of the worst experiences ever and it is why it won't happen again so you can write your long misinformed paragraphs and riling up the people who aren't fully aware by trying to seem sympathetic to golds who run into legend duos but what you leave out is the fact that those matches are outliers and only a few happen out of the 100s of games legend players play.

I don't care whether it's solo, duo or 5-man, as I rarely play ranked anymore, but you have to admit. The top tier just wants the easiest way to climb. And it's easier to climb right now while in a skillful duo by queue dodging other top-tier players, messaging them on discord "don't queue right now I'm queueing." All the while, you're farming gold-tier players rather than actually competing against people in your skill bracket.

Idk the solution, but it's not really fun right now for me at least.

[zealex.9410]

Ngl i didnt really read your points, they could be solid, they could be not, but i generally find something for fun when i can do it with a friend or 4.

Not to trash your arguement or anything just my opinion of duo queues.

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

People want to play with friends? That's fine. But they should be playing matches with others who are playing with friends. Separate solo, duo, and team queues please, each with their own respective LBs.

[yanniell.1236]

@"NotoriousNaru.1705" said:No thanks no one wants ranked to be even more of a clown fiesta than it already is. If you want to solo so bad just do it but stop trying to use the few outlier matches that me and the other top players have out of 100s of games we play to justify duo making the game 'less competitive' that was the biggest stretch ever and insanely misinformed. There is a large group of players in the pvp scene that duo q only and probably would stop playing if they couldn't duo and had to deal with 4 pugs every match. Ben already mentioned more afking/griefing/throwing happens when its solo. Solo means 1 extra player to carry and 1 less competent player in most matches. Dropping match quality drastically is always bad and if there is no coordination to win and just people walking out of spawn to either stumble on a win or get farmed off a perma stagger then ranked just goes back to the stone ages. If you are upset duos are farming you try to learn and improve because those players get on comms coordinate opener strats, recovery strats, snowballs, and kills, and comp switches to accommodate the match(so if they are putting this much effort into winning why punish them for it when most people just half afk walk out of spawn and just run around till game is over??). Taking that away I know a lot of people who would no longer find enjoyment in ranked and will go back to either memeing on dumb kitten solo(causing more griefing/unnecessary throws because no one cares) if theyre bored and ultimately quit ranked. This isn't speculation, all of this HAS happened when anet tried solo and it was one of the worst experiences ever and it is why it won't happen again so you can write your long misinformed paragraphs and riling up the people who aren't fully aware by trying to seem sympathetic to golds who run into legend duos but what you leave out is the fact that those matches are outliers and only a few happen out of the 100s of games legend players play.

"Paper is fine, said the scissor".

A tldr for everybody else: "yes, duoQ gives an unfair advantage over the playfield and I don't want to give up this advantage and play like the vast majority of the PvP players. If they take duoQ away I will stop playing because mostly of my matches wont be easy wins anymore and I wont be able to sustain a 80% winrate anymore by just solo queing. If you are losing to duoQ, just get gud, quit your job, player like a maniac, find someone to duoQ with, train like a maniac, make your duoQ partner quit his job too, go on coms, and did I said get gud already? Easy peeze. DuoQ is fine".