It really is time for duo queue to be removed [Merged]

[yorkey.4215]

With the declining PVP population, the problems caused by allowing duo-queuing in ranked is more evident than ever.

 

For the uninitiated, here are the issues it causes:

 

1. Duos inherently handicap the matchmaker when trying to create balanced matches.  Where a more balanced match would have existed by splitting two good players onto each team, it forces the matchmaker to put them together on one team.  This would not be as much of a problem if the population weren't so low that the matchmaker can rarely find another good duo to balance out the teams.  So when two 1700+ rating players duo queue together and the queue has gone on for 5, 6, 7 minutes+, the matchmaker can do nothing but put them together with three 1400 rating players against a team of five 1400 rating players (just an example, but generally what happens).  Yes, if you're one of those people crying about going against MAT winners in your gold match that ended up 500-0, this is exactly what happened.  

 

2. What's worse, even semi-good players will start queue dodging when they know a duo of good players is queuing.  Say we have a plat 1500 player - he knows that a duo of 1700 streamers are queuing.  The 1500 player will more often than not choose not to queue at the same time because the odds are he'll be placed against said 1700 duo and have no chance of winning.  He would be MUCH more likely to queue if it were solo-queue only because he then knows the two 1700 players would be on separate teams and he'd have a chance to make an impact on either team.  This throws the match quality further off for everyone. 

 

3. Even more nefarious, there are some players who will abuse duo queue to get favorable games.  The matchmaker looks at a duo and takes the AVERAGE of their rating when putting together teams. So two top players can take advantage of this by having one player get on an alt account that is much lower rated and so they get better players on their team.  Some will even go out of their way to abuse this by throwing games on the alt account to keep its rating low, so that they can keep boosting their main account. 

 

All of these things absolutely happen with every ranked season, and anyone denying this is an absolute liar.

 

And yes, I've been around long enough to know the history of how duo-queue was allowed to stay because top players wanted to play with their friends. 

 

Anet should pay attention though because the things above lead to a vicious cycle that causes the experience to become ever worse for the general population.  Again, none of these problems would be so bad or exploitable if the population was even somewhat higher.  But CMC or whoever, the population is so low now that you really have to re-evaluate.  

Edited May 1, 2023 by yorkey.4215

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

DuoQ was the single worst Ranked update that killed Ranked not once, but twice. 

They removed it back in 2017 and things were good for a while, but then they put it back in and its stayed ever since, like six years. They won't fix it. They've taken the side of the "we just want to play with friends" people that you encounter in every other "competitive" game with DuoQ or merged queues.

Its a total joke and a demonic gamemode, I suggest you get out while your sanity and innocence are still intact, but its u2u.
These 2k posts I have after 10 years are mostly kittening about DuoQ if that gives you any idea to how little they care.

[Talan.1608]

I'm very new to pvp (just played my first ranked match ever yesterday). Getting into games with duo queued people were not fun (I assume they're when players have brackets next to their name on the score screen?) Would another solution be to not allow f2p games to duo queue, or better yet make the duo queue scale up to the level of the highest rank?

 

Another idea is to have a duo queue ranking that is unique to each partner for mmr purposes. So the game identifies these two specific people together and their rating is based on their collective performance? 

 

I know in other games I've played, groups in matchmaking are a problem simply because they're far more coordinated and almost always have comms, unlike pugs.

 

As an aside, what does MAT mean?

Edited July 6, 2023 by Talan.1608

[Endo.1652]

I wouldnt mind having 2 seperate ladders. One for solo q and one for team/duo q. I would literally play both.

[Essence Snow.3194]

11 hours ago, yorkey.4215 said:

And yes, I've been around long enough to know the history of how duo-queue was allowed to stay because top players wanted to play with their friends. 

 

 

It's almost like listening to "top" players is a bad idea....lol. Evidence of this persists in every game mode and almost always is born of  self-serving motivation rather than being good for the game.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

My buds and I would love if ranked randomly put us on teams so we're guaranteed to play the match together and being able to match against each other adds to the fun, unfortunately people can't be trusted to play honorably and would take advantage of a system like that to match manipulate worse than they currently already do. I gues to some players equate a high rank as some sort of significant life achievement, regardless if having to manipulate the system to get there, I feel sad for these people including some of the known streamers.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Psycoprophet.8107

[Eddbopkins.2630]

Imo the top 25 maybe even top 50 no duo queing.  That seems fair. If you manage to get that high on the ladder you should maintain that BY your self. No crutch buddy to help.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Eddbopkins.2630

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

14 minutes ago, Eddbopkins.2630 said:

Imo the top 25 maybe even top 50 no duo queing.  That seems fair. If you manage to get that high on the ladder you should maintain that BY your self. No crutch buddy to help.

People would still find some way to abuse it.
IMO A-net should make simply:

• Team Queue (ranked, only 5v5);
• Solo Queue (ranked, only solo players);
• Mixed Queue (unranked or/and ranked, teams + solo players, so if team has 4 players then they'll get random 1 solo dude);

Ofc there would be a need for different  leadboards for Team and Solo, since they're different "modes" at the end of day.
I highly doubt it'll happen, since it should be something present from the release...

[shion.2084]

Said it before will say it again.   People should have a check box when queuing that lets them choose the MMR span of teammates they are willing to have (consequence of setting it is you might not get a match).   And they should have a check box for whether they wished to be matched against groups that are larger than them.  So for ranked that would mean a single could check that they didn't want to be matched against a duo, and for unranked a duo could check they didn't want to get matched against a 3+.  Mmr average for groups should be the highest players rank

So I say let people duo, but let solo's decide if they're OK to play against them.

Edited May 1, 2023 by shion.2084

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

17 hours ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

DuoQ was the single worst Ranked update that killed Ranked not once, but twice. 

They removed it back in 2017 and things were good for a while, but then they put it back in and its stayed ever since, like six years. They won't fix it. They've taken the side of the "we just want to play with friends" people that you encounter in every other "competitive" game with DuoQ or merged queues.

Its a total joke and a demonic gamemode, I suggest you get out while your sanity and innocence are still intact, but its u2u.
These 2k posts I have after 10 years are mostly kittening about DuoQ if that gives you any idea to how little they care.

 

I want to play with friends, but I understand that playing with friends should exclude me from the soloer queues, or split us. I don't always have to play on the same team as friends to play with them (though, I'm aware the latter will be used by some particularly desperate groups to wintrade, so-)

 

If people were more concerned with playing the game because its a game and for fun instead of desperately trying to hoover up a single drop of clout, we wouldn't have to build guardrails in, but alas.

 

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Bazsi.2734]

You guys don't get it. How do I wintrade if we can't duoQ? Do you know how much effort it takes to cheat a fair system? REEEEE!

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

2 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I want to play with friends, but I understand that playing with friends should exclude me from the soloer queues, or split us. I don't always have to play on the same team as friends to play with them (though, I'm aware the latter will be used by some particularly desperate groups to wintrade, so-)

I believe you, and furthermore I believe in you 🙏

In a competitive setting that already offers different ways to play with friends...

If anyone who said "I just want to play friends" said so with intention to go against other people who also "just want to play with friends" then they are being honest and genuine.

If anyone who said "I just want to play with friends" said so with intention to DuoQ in 5v5, then they are most definitely lying and being disingenuous, likely in pursuit of that singular drop of clout you described:

2 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

If people were more concerned with playing the game because its a game and for fun instead of desperately trying to hoover up a single drop of clout, we wouldn't have to build guardrails in, but alas.

However, there's no internet clout to be found in a dead, objectively unfair competition. In letting go, we are all of us redeemed.

"Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us."

[Cait Sith.4650]

20 hours ago, Talan.1608 said:

As an aside, what does MAT mean?

Monthly Automated Tournament.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

We just need to make 2v2 permanently available and limit dual-queue to duo versus duo. All oddly-numbered game modes like 3v3 or 5v5 should have it disabled entirely.

 

We will, however run into the following situation when its ifxed:

- Low ranking players will be revealed to be higher ranking, having been tanked down by duos. This will likely be especially true for supports, who are also at the mercy of their own teammates.

- Higher ranking players will be revealed to be lower ranking, having been carried by duos.

 

This is going to create a mess of matchmaking for a good while until it stabilises, and the situation will likely be worse than even now for a little while. At the end of it all, though, matchmaking will probably come out more balanced than its ever been before.

Edited May 2, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Duke Nukem.6783]

any team q in any multiplayer game is bad unless the game is massive

 

but the solution in the long run is to not only remove it but to lower the skill ceiling so a bronze player can consistently get kills even on the best players

 

call of duty solved this decades ago people

[Shadow Dragon.1469]

i just find it funny how back in the gw2 days before the xpacs they used to show premades prior to a match starting hehe but now they hide that dirty little secret till the end of the match probably to hide their bad matchmaking in general.

 

i remember they said if there is one duo on one side there should be another on the other side well well well i often got matches with 2 duos on one side with bad solos on mine i would say these are matches that they expect me to carry but said double duo on one side matches with none on mine usually have those duos harboring players about as good as me lol hows that work? one team has one player doing the right objectives and targeting people whereas the other team has at least 4 doing the same i can't carry that ish.

 

i think a good middle ground for me that wouldn't solve much but anxiety is at least tell me how porked i am before the match starts bring back showing premades before match begins.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Shadow Dragon.1469

[FiveBunnies.5730]

On 5/2/2023 at 2:22 AM, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

If anyone who said "I just want to play friends" said so with intention to go against other people who also "just want to play with friends" then they are being honest and genuine.

If anyone who said "I just want to play with friends" said so with intention to DuoQ in 5v5, then they are most definitely lying and being disingenuous, likely in pursuit of that singular drop of clout you described:

I like the idea of 2x2 being available all the time. Right now I play pvp during 2x2 seasons only because I want to play in team with my friend. These seasons 2x2 are very rare! I would like to play more often without stirring solo players 5x5.

[FiveBunnies.5730]

Adding 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, and 5x5 modes available to choose from is the best thing!

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

2 hours ago, FiveBunnies.5730 said:

I like the idea of 2x2 being available all the time. Right now I play pvp during 2x2 seasons only because I want to play in team with my friend. These seasons 2x2 are very rare! I would like to play more often without stirring solo players 5x5.

I feel that. I hear pretty good things about 2v2/3v3 a lot and I appreciate that because I think it important to sing people's praises for the stuff they get right, and 2v2/3v3 were righteous 👍

But they were also somewhat of a missed opportunity. Too infrequent like you said, and they include soloqs for no good reason.

 

One solution would be to make 2v2/3v3 the team-oriented ranked modes while making 5v5 conquest the solo ranked mode. 2v2/3v3 are small enough to where full TeamQ only is entirely justified for those modes. 5v5 conquest is not.

Both could exist at the same time with their own separate leaderboards/rewards and when you go to queue Ranked you choose either Teams(2v2/3v3) or Solos(5v5 conquest) and then you are matched exclusively with people playing the game at the same level as you, no out-of-game advantages.

 

And at that point there would be nothing left to do but sing the game's praises, because mixed Solo/DuoQ is the antichrist made manifest. There are other smaller problems with the game; sure, but none of them are even close to being as detrimental or off-putting as Solo/DuoQ is.

Divines keep you, comrade 🙏

[Pierro.2981]

It's even more simple, due to low population even a g2 players like me can be matched with or against high rank duo, just some days ago i was matched with Boyce and Zan and obviusly was an easy win for our team, yesterday instead i was matched against a couple of Baron of the arena and it was a loose. I don't mind loosing agaist better players than me, but it could be a better balanced match if the stronger players was equally distributed in the teams.  So I really don't hunderstand why anet don't remove duo from ranked since is the easiest thing to do to balance match matching

[Goldilock.2584]

I think when it was duo until plat 2 was really workable.  I find i get more games vs good high lvl duos x 2 with all my team being solo more tha  i grt a duo on my team vs a duo

Edited June 5, 2023 by Goldilock.2584

[Dickinson.7368]

Duos with a population this low just don't work, its just too massive of an advantage more than half the time its premade(s) vs PuG.
Those who "want to play pvp with their friends" can always play WvW/casual.

[apharma.3741]

Force solo queue and some people stop playing because if you can't play with friends what's the point of multiplayer?
Allow team queues only and you're likely to make it more exploitable as the only way to make a team of 5 without a solo is 2+3.
Force solo above a certain rank we tried and a lot of people above that rank hated it and played less and the rank wasn't that high either.

There isn't a good solution that doesn't have major problems, that's also without mentioning how soloQ actually diminishes your ability to climb to the top in randomly generated team based games. You stick rank 1 on one team then ranks 9 and 10 on the opposite and fill the rest with no-name plats/gold. Rank 1 loses and with it comes a ton of rating all because those 3 were the only top 10 players on for the last 15 minutes. You would need a major algorithm overhaul (matchmaking AND rating distribution) to account for this. Even then I think it'd be a case of be careful what you wish for.

All of this is a symptom of the real problem though. The death of competitive gaming in GW2 and a lot of that falls squarely at ANet's feet as they don't enforce their own rules on RMT, account sharing and the more egregious manipulation.
 

[Dickinson.7368]

They can add an "I accept to play with premades" option at next to queue button.
The queue that is problematic/unpopular will end up dying and we'll have an clear view of what the community actually wants.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

3 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

Force solo queue and some people stop playing because if you can't play with friends what's the point of multiplayer?

Competition. Something Gw2 sorely lacks. Plenty of ways to play with friends already though.

3 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

Allow team queues only and you're likely to make it more exploitable as the only way to make a team of 5 without a solo is 2+3.

When people refer to full TeamQ, they're suggesting a carbon copy of ATs, meaning you need a full party of 5 to queue. I don't think this is at all reasonable, but it isn't 2+3.

3 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

Force solo above a certain rank we tried and a lot of people above that rank hated it and played less and the rank wasn't that high either.

I see no problem here. Would wave them along to ATs, unranked, or the quitting club because they've always represented a tiny fraction of an already dwindling population and Ranked should not exist to cater to them or anyone else. 👋

3 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

There isn't a good solution that doesn't have major problems, that's also without mentioning how soloQ actually diminishes your ability to climb to the top in randomly generated team based games.

That's the point. SoloQ is fair and true, therefore it is more difficult by design than playing in a DuoQ, which isn't fair and presents a massive advantage over SoloQ, the much more popular way to queue by a margin of ~90% in ranked according to Ben P back in 2018.
"Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than speaking comfort." -Fyodor Dostoyevsky 🙏

3 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

You stick rank 1 on one team then ranks 9 and 10 on the opposite and fill the rest with no-name plats/gold. Rank 1 loses and with it comes a ton of rating all because those 3 were the only top 10 players on for the last 15 minutes. You would need a major algorithm overhaul (matchmaking AND rating distribution) to account for this. Even then I think it'd be a case of be careful what you wish for.

You wouldn't. We've had SoloQ before like you said, and it works just fine with the current matchmaking algorithm. Not only that, but significantly better than how it does with DuoQ, since DuoQ uses an average of the 2 player's rating when matchmaking. With SoloQ, it just uses an average of every matched player.

3 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

All of this is a symptom of the real problem though. The death of competitive gaming in GW2 and a lot of that falls squarely at ANet's feet as they don't enforce their own rules on RMT, account sharing and the more egregious manipulation.

DuoQ is the instrumental tool for all match manipulation in Ranked. When it was SoloQ-only past 1600 rating, the highest winrates on the leaderboard could never break 70%. After DuoQ, top 10 claims 90 even 100%(0 losses) winrates pretty much every season. There's never been a wintrader that SoloQ'd because DuoQ is an advantage and an advantage is essential when it comes to breaking a matchmaker.

Removing DuoQ or making a separate SoloQ-only Ranked arena would automatically begin to push the wintraders out. But I suppose you could buckle in and wait for Arenanet to ban the wintraders, because that's something they've done before. If history is anything to go by, in just a few years the wintraders will be banned for 3 months again, and we'll have that time to enjoy a competitive Ranked experience. 🥳🎊

Assuming of course that they take any action and that the past 5 years of complete inaction are totally meaningless and just a mere fluke.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Multicolorhipster.9751