How to Fix the Solo Queue Nightmare: Individual Penalties for Ranked

I completely understand this frustration. I think that's actually another reason individual accountability is worth looking at.

The proposal isn't specifically designed to solve premade duos bringing lower-ranked friends, but the underlying problem is similar: one player's decisions shouldn't be able to disproportionately determine the experience and RP outcome of the other two players.

Right now, everyone pays the normal RP entry cost regardless of who made the bad decision. If the lower-ranked player hot-drops, gets eliminated immediately, and leaves the other two to deal with the aftermath, the two teammates still lose their normal RP and have to decide whether to risk crafting or respawning them.

And that's not a harmless inconvenience. Crafting or using a beacon can effectively announce your location to the lobby. Teams actively look for crafting stations and respawn beacons because they know players are likely to be vulnerable there.

Then you're potentially fighting the rest of the match as a 2v3 because someone else made the initial reckless decision.

That's why I think an additional individual penalty makes more sense than simply making everyone lose more RP. Everyone still pays the normal base entry cost. The player who triggers the reckless-behaviour conditions simply takes an additional deduction.

If someone repeatedly makes those decisions, eventually losing an additional 2x or even 2.5x entry cost should discourage the behaviour. The objective isn't to ruin their progression; it's to make reckless behaviour have a consequence for the person actually choosing to do it.

I also don't want the system to make Ranked artificially safe or punish people simply for losing a fight. The point is to create a distinction between losing while making a reasonable play and repeatedly making decisions that put the entire squad in an unnecessarily bad position.

And I agree that the warnings are a big part of making this fair. That's why I included the Vicinity Audio Cue, the 150m HUD warning, the countdown, and the disconnection amnesties. The player shouldn't be surprised afterwards that they triggered something they had no way of knowing about.

I also think the extra 2x/2.5x deduction is important because otherwise the deterrent may not actually change the behaviour we're trying to address. Everyone would still pay the normal Ranked entry cost as they do now. The offender would simply take an additional individual deduction when they trigger the defined reckless-behaviour conditions. Because getting a 2.5x point entry cost in play is even higher than masters pay for entry cost. 

That extra loss could actually be useful in changing bad habits. If someone repeatedly hot-drops, dies immediately, gets respawned, then runs off and dies again, losing an additional 2x or potentially 2.5x entry cost might finally make them think twice about repeating the same behaviour.

And the important thing is that the reckless death is already hurting the whole team before the extra penalty even happens. If someone dies early, the remaining players have to decide whether to craft their banner or use a Respawn Beacon. Both options can be dangerous because teams actively look for crafters and beacon respawns. I've personally died several times because we tried to bring a teammate back and another squad found us.

A normal 3v3 fight is already difficult enough because you have to worry about third parties, fourth parties and teams rotating into the fight. Turning that into a 2v3 because one teammate threw their life away unnecessarily is a massive disadvantage. And if you then risk your own life trying to recover them, the consequences spread even further.

So the goal isn't “punish people for dying.” It's make the person making the reckless decision carry some additional responsibility for the consequences of that decision, while everyone still pays the normal base RP cost.

Hello. You’ve asked for a feedback, so here’s mine.

I think the first penalty may do more harm than good if implemented. There are cases when dying early has nothing to do with reckless behavior. You can go to a free POI and start split looting, then 5 seconds later a late-dropping team that flew backwards lands on you and 3-v-1 you. You may be lagging (but not disconnected) and unwillingly land in an out-of-bound area. You may also accidentally jump of the map (sounds ridiculous, but I did that a couple of times in Overlook). Secondly, if hot dropping punishment becomes effective to the point of making everyone not wanting to contest, it will become very hard to find a free POI with decent loot, and you may get contests just because there’s nowhere else to land. We had “early contest protection” in the form of drop zones in seasons 26 & 27 and apparently it wasn’t a good experience for many lower rank players.

I’m equally concerned about penalizing for being too far from your team. The biggest problem here is that this system will make no distinction between cases when one player plays recklessly and when one reasonable player refuses to follow a reckless duo. In case of three solos you can get punished if you are the only person who tries to play sensibly and chooses to rotate around a big POI where 5 teams are fighting. In case of a duo plus solo, pair’s movement will be at the mercy of solo’s desires and, for example, the duo will get punished for refusing to hot drop with the solo.

Finally, great post and proposal breakdown. You made it very easy to grasp your suggestions and motivations behind them, which is very helpful for having a meaningful discussion.

All i want is for those duos that i always get to stop bringing their 1 rank lower console bot player into my lobbies where they clearly dont belong. If his partner wanna try carrying him fine but dont force that dead weight on me too.

I really like the direction of this proposal. The biggest strength is that it focuses on individual accountability instead of punishing the entire squad for one player's reckless decisions. As someone who solo queues, it's frustrating to lose RP because of a random teammate's hot drop or decision to run off alone. I also think the disconnection amnesty and the warning systems make the idea much fairer. Giving players clear audio/HUD warnings before penalties are applied helps avoid punishing honest mistakes, while still discouraging repeated reckless behavior. The rollout idea is smart too. Testing the audio cue system in Pubs first would let Respawn gather feedback and fine-tune it before introducing RP penalties in Ranked. Overall, this feels like a well-thought-out concept that encourages teamwork without being overly harsh.