A new suggestion for a solo queue, but different!

[Bewarê-frostmane]

Right, this thought just came to me and while there’d undoubtedly be some increase in toxicity, it might have a chance of addressing what people focus on.

So the idea is to make a solo queue, where you only get grouped up. You still need to queue up manually, basically making the group itself into a “lobby” for introductions and so on.

The automation would lie in how the group is formed, where you can have the same function as in the matchmaking.

The way the matchmaking works is that it first starts by finding people close to your rating range. But then it gradually expands the search parameter to increase the scope of the range it tries to match you with, until it finds a match. (It’s basically what can make the really high rated face a team with much lower MMR.)

But we all know that CR is not necessarily indicative of ability per se. It’s just the result of all the matches a person has played that far into the season, so naturally people wouldn’t enjoy an automatic system that puts you with players with much lower ability, even moreso when they’d then “drag you down” with them which would just lead to people looking up each other on 3rd party websites and if they aren’t happy then they’d leave the group before queuing.

So what about if the automation would try to match you up with people close to your exp, and then gradually expand the parameters just like the matchmaking works now?

As mentioned, it’d then only group you up. You’d still have to queue normally.

It has about a 50/50 chance to either incentivize greeting each other, or there’s the risk of it normalizing people not saying anything at all. That part is more up to the players, although adding a “suggestion” in the chat window to greet each other would likely help steer it in the right direction for the masses.

Then we also have differences in consistency between those who only reached a rating once in their life (especially as something broken in the design), compared to those who does it more regularly. There’s also a difference between those with multiclass exp, and those with only exp as that one character.
So including such things in the search parameters as a starting point to then gradually expand the parameters as time moves on, would increase the likelihood of finding better matches in ability.

It’s not a solo queue some very loud people keep asking for, but it’s a kind of solo queue. I’d argue this has a better chance of working out overall for more people.

Disclaimer:
This is just a basic outline of the concept. There are many more details that’d need to be ironed out, like for example what if it’s a new alt, or an alt of the same class as your “main” or whatever, and if there should be a punishment for leaving a group before queuing up when using that solo queue, and so on.
There’s also a question of whether there should be a class/spec filter or not, which I’d argue is more of a possibility in this kind of “lobby solo queue” for a game like this where you can only queue up when already having chosen your character to play instead of vice versa.

As well as if it should start by matching close to the CR or not, while there’d be a downside to trying to do a match of exp+cr in that it dramatically makes it take much longer. But if the overall account exp is close to matching each other as well as with the number of chars and exp on those and so on, then the ability to play is much more likely to be similar.
And that’s much more beneficial long term, to find those who matches your ability instead of having people with a much lower ability but happens to have the same cr. Those with a relatively close ability to play are more likely to play up the CR again after being matched, even if one starts with much lower.

[Xaeth-archimonde]

note: this idea has the advantage that it could theoretically be implemented independently from blizzard (say, as a community effort) as a discord server with a bot, an ad-hoc addon and a desktop app for some conveniences (getting the matchmaking broadcasts from the discord bot to then show a button to invite the player you’ve been matched with).

i though about this very idea for a while, and had started to (very badly) write a specification for it, but who am i kidding, i am way too lazy to actually make it let alone finish writing the draft. there are some limitations (a major one being that i think you can’t automate the entire process without violating ToS, to put it simply) and quite a few problems in such a third party implementation though (the bot may not get the most up to date informations about the players queuing) but that could be a start, who knows. certainly a good way to see how the community would react to a solo queue system and how they would use it.

[Bewarê-frostmane]

It’s true that you can go a certain length with this concept via 3rd party routes only, without the involvement of Blizzard. But there’s a big question about whether it can be as regulated as Blizzard can.

For example, if you do it via a discord bot, then there’s the option of using discord punishments like bans or temporary timeouts to discourage stuff like leaving the group before queuing up.
But the question is how to detect that, whether it should be manual reporting (very big risk of false reports), or if there’s a way to program that into the addon you mentioned that goes along with it to check it automatically.
I also don’t know if it’s possible for an addon to check variables like if a person disconnected before queuing up and so on, or if a person in the group disconnected before queuing up etc.

This is why I’d prefer Blizzard handling it, since they’re not as limited in what they can do, especially the part about how it’d match ability, like for example:

@Bewarê-frostmane

As well as if it should start by matching close to the CR or not, while there’d be a downside to trying to do a match of exp+cr in that it dramatically makes it take much longer. But if the overall account exp is close to matching each other as well as with the number of chars and exp on those and so on, then the ability to play is much more likely to be similar.
And that’s much more beneficial long term, to find those who matches your ability instead of having people with a much lower ability but happens to have the same cr. Those with a relatively close ability to play are more likely to play up the CR again after being matched, even if one starts with much lower.

The benefit of a system that can more accurately keep matching you with those close to your ability via such encompassing algorithms that checks detailed things like matching when they got their exp, how often they’ve gotten their exp, and on how many characters they’ve gotten their exp on, and if they’re to be grouped with others on the character they got a certain kind of exp on and so on.
And by doing so, it massively grows the level of implicit trust in each other.
It’s basically like having a system that causes you to “click” on its own, without you thinking it’s because of a fluke. It’ll basically feel more natural like that, if done well.

But there are a lot of variables to consider and so on, and ways you can work in “suggestions” for players to help smooth it out further.

There’s also a problem with how not everyone gets along with each other. That’s just the way people work, and how clashing personalities work, and so on.

Anyway, there’s a lot to consider, and why Blizzard is the one more likely to do it better than anyone else ever could when it’s for their own game.

There’s also the question of whether that is all necessary or not. As mentioned, variables like multiclass exp, regularly hitting a certain rating or just doing it once and so on, as well as on what character you did it on etc., while they are certainly good as indicators, maybe just the MMR alone is good enough to get a somewhat good match? Maybe it isn’t?
It’d definitely be less accurate, but can it be good enough for the purpose of increasing trust levels on a macro scale? I know how it is now, but in a system like that then it’s hard to tell and what your ultimate goal is as a designer (which in this case would be Blizzard who needs to consider every single player in the game instead of just you who are reading this).

For the record, increasing trust levels between players would without a doubt make people like it more. Which, for the record, trust can only be increased via reciprocation. Basically, if you go from one team you fit in with to the next you fit in with in such a system, then that makes you far more likely to trust the team you end up with after that.
Have that repeat itself over and over again and then it eventually feels like you naturally “belong” with the people you end up with, every single time (or close to it).

Which is why such a merit-based solo queue to just end up in the same group for people to say hi to each other, and then agree on how they should do it in general and then adjust it in the waiting room after having found a match to what they face and so on, would have an ok-ish potential to maybe work well. Might not though.
It might work great for some people, but not for others.

This is just the outline of a concept. Some things does need alpha/beta testing for a reason, and some things needs your input for a reason.
It’d definitely be great if Blizzard could add those “suggestions” to sort out pre-planned roles as in who should do this kind of thing and who should do that kind of thing in the chat window though, when they use such a system. Especially for the new players.

Tbh the game needs a much better tutorial for beginners in PvP…

(Would be funny if they added youtube links in the chat window to whatever comp you got matched up as in such a solo queue, to a skill-capped video explaining the general concept of the comp. It’d definitely help the learning curve tbh.)