Re: Solo Quers need a different rank system

@strrsljeen @stecheese 

I have to agree with @XHelperZ the game is a team based game. 

There is absolutely no reason to have a solo mode or a separate rank system for solo Q'ers.

There are other games that offer solo modes play them instead.

The best solution for the solo Q'er to mitigate the perceived problem of solo Q'eing is to find a friend or 2 to play with regularly.

I my self have 4 other friends that I regularly play with (we have a set date and time) so we play as a team, Rank up as a team and win/lose as a team. Since they cannot always be there to play due to IRL stuff or a play on days they are not available I do solo Q often enough and yes it can be frustrating but I tend to have a lot of good games solo Q'eing and a lot of fun. It is more difficult because there is so little time for meshing with your Randoms but when it works it is great.

---

@Asmodeus566 no I don't agree with that logic, even games like apex should try to account for solo players, because most likely alot of team players will end up as soloquers eventually. I imagine alot of people started playing with their friends and would prefer not to go looking for strangers from reddit or wherever. 

 

Should people who's friends stopped playing just be expected to leave aswell? Not great for player retention. How about people who don't use a mic due to speech impediments? People who play the game in a foreign speaking server because their native one doesn't have enough players or just doesn't exist? 

 

I don't agree with the idea that a game should be designed only for party players, because there's a lot cases where it's just not realistic for some players. But you know i'm sure it will never effect you, good job having 4 friends and all. 

---

@stecheese 

No need to be rude.

Just so you know I play about 70% of my games as a solo Q'er.

However I do not play solo, I actually try to play with my random team.

Also I have been playing with the same group of friends since day one except for one that recently moved from Fortnight to play with us. 

Mics are great but are not necessarily needed, in fact they can sometimes be a crutch. I have played with a few players that have speech impediments and we worked through that, even won a few games.  

Playing with players that do not speak the same languages has also not been an issue and I play in European servers, so that is a lot of different languages. The beauty of the ping system.

The game is designed as a team based game and should be played as so whether one is hopping on as a solo, premade duo or as a premade trio in ranked or trio pubs.

Solo game mode was tested a long time ago and it was not good, their was quite a bit of collusion between players, it encouraged camping in a bad way and the final circles was a hot mess of randomness for a win.

The game was not designed only for "party players" or premade teams but as a team based game. This is the core of the game and that is not going to change and I am glad that Respawn is keeping it that way.

Solo Q'ers do not need and should not get a different rank system.

If you want to solo Q and play solo then I suggest playing Duos with the no fill option. 

@Asmodeus566The needs of the many,
outweigh the needs of the few or one.

Players leaving in troves ... i think the needs have shifted.
The "many" are those Solo Qers.
And Apex MM is a very subjective thing, it might play out for you but it surely doesnt play out for many others.
I feel very much cheated out of the competition having a decent KDR but getting teamed up with <0.3 KDRs 99.9% of the time.

Respawn has a history of disappointing their fanbase, and like with Titanfall they will abandon Apex and move on to a new Title and do the same over and over again.
Until the company is burned for good.

I am 80% sure that solo Q players actually have another MM algorithm than premades, at least 3-man stacks. I played one account from Bronze4 to Plat4 this split which took me about 90 matches and I played about 70% as a 3-man premade and 30% as solo Q and the difference in the average skill level of my opponents was night and day. So much easier as a solo Q.So it seems to me that there AT LEAST are two different queues/matchmaking algorithms for the same rank, one "easy" and one "sweaty".

But anyhow; I think it would be very interesting to explore a solo Q only ranked ladder with a very individual-focused scoring based on each player. IMO, this would be the absolut fairest way to compete for non-pros since the rules would be clear; you are in a team with 2 randoms vs 19 other squads of 3 randoms where every player in the lobby is competing for HIS RP gain. In the end, the best player who can find the best way to maximize his teammates vs his egoistic strategies would be the one to gain the most RPs.

Games like League of legends has proven that a team-based game can have a solo Q focused ranked mode without hurting the player base or pro scene (duo queue is allowed up to masters but from there on, solo Q is only allowed)

@Palette24carats 

I don't really think it's fair to compare to R6, it's almost purely mechanical skill there with the TTK being extremely low.

Gamemode + Team size is completely different too.

Almost every game already compensates for the fact that there will be solo players, this won't mean that premades are going to be favored.

Communications are crucial for ranked gameplay, if solo players don't communicate with each other then they're obviously going to perform worse.

So what exactly is the plan?

Create a whole new ranked ladder or create a new queue for solo-only players?

Creating a whole new ranked ladder would make it pretty complicated, as you'd still be able to match against premade but you'd be on another ranked ladder, that wouldn't work out.

So the second logical thing would be to create a new queue for solo players, right?

Well not really, the RNG factor would still exist, some users can communicate better whilst other communicate less. We'd also be increasing queue times if we're going to divide the community even more.

I'd also like to add on that in almost every game, people start playing in premades from a specific point (typically a higher rank), as solo queue would just be "throwing" to many at that point.

Not that uncommon really, I think Apex pretty much has the same thing.

(P.S If premades don't fit you at all, does that mean you don't do well with constant communication and so forth? I don't see any downsides with premades as it's just literally a team on steroids.)

@XHelperZ 

League of legends is another successful 5v5 team-based game that focuses on solo Q over premade Q. As a matter of fact, the game even probitits playing premade for the sake of the competitive integrity and this hasn't hurt the player base or the pro scene at all. The only ladder that people take seriously, which also is the way for players to reach the pro scene, is the Solo Q ladder which allows premades of two up to Diamond rank, but for Masters, Grand masters and Challenger rank, only solo Q is allowed.

You can compete in the flex Q ladder which allows premades of 2, 3 or 5-man to play vs each other, but no one cares about this ladder and is considered very casual. 

So yes, the plan would be a Solo Q only ladder, totally separated from premade duos and trios. Yes, RNG of teammates would ofc still exist but this teammate RNG would be the same for everyone, i.e it would be fair, especially seen over many matches played. But more importantly, the playing conditions for EVERY player in that Q would be the same every match. Everyone in that Q would know that all 20 teams in his lobby consist of 3 randomly picked players of randomly picked skill levels and strengths and weaknesses. With this knowledge, every player would know exactly how he must play to maximize HIS chances to gain RP. In the end, the players, who could utilize his team the best and when this fails, prioritize his own game as a solo Qer, would also be the ones that gains the most RP.. 

The queue times would actually be the driving factor that determines which queue matters. Instead of using the economic term "willingness to pay", I think we can use "willingness to queue" in this situation. In the end, the new, queue times based on people's free choices incentivized by the "willingness to queue", would determine which queue is viable and which one isnt. Exactly like the situation in LoL; if the player base had preferred to play and compete in premade constellations, then flex Q would have been the queue that mattered. But the player base obviously preferred solo Q for the competitive mode and premade for causal mode.

@Asmodeus566@XHelperZ
"It's a team based game" every time I hear this I laugh because no, it is not.
The game may have been made around the idea of "Team" based, but I've said it before, and I'll say it again. There is hardly anyone in apex's player base that actually treat it as a team game for that argument to hold any sort of value.
It is and continues to be the lamest of excuses to not have a solo mode.
None of my gaming friends play apex, I solo que all the time, but if I don't want to deal with the * match making or * teammates I get forced to play with then I have to put myself at an even bigger disadvantage by no fill quing in duos.
Apex is a game, not only that but a br. Trying to force team play in a br game doesn't work. Obviously or we wouldn't have half the issues with solo players as we do.
Apex should make room for the people who don't want to play on a team setting like every other good br has done.

"If you want to play a solo mode, go play another game." Lol. Yes, because Apex should keep losing player base with all the bugs they don't fix, the cruddy match making, and for trying to force players to be on teams with people who really just don't give a * about team play.

The only things Apex has going for it in team aspect is that some of the legends work well together, and arenas. BR is not an appropriate team game mode. Other brs understand this and that is why they have solo modes with the options for duos, trios or even quads. 

Control was an appropriate team play mode. 

Arenas has great potential to be one, but as things are now its just a toxic playing field with un even match making.

Gun run is so far from team ethic I have absolutely no idea why they put it as a game mode or why they incorporated everyone into teams. 

Games like Smite, paladins, league, over watch-those are team play games. What they aren't is BRs, and that's why they work better as team games.