Devs Shake Things up With PVP Solo Queue, New Double Weekends
Yesterday the devs revealed what our frequent readers know for some weeks: There will be a solo test queue! Of course it instantly created multiple threads on official platforms and a controversial discussion.
Solo queue is a must for a competitive environment
If you follow my stuff you might know I have been a supporter of the solo queue ever since the introduction of the Leaderboard. In a solo player format that the Leaderboard is, only solo players should be able to participate. It really boils down to that simply fact. Premades or generally team sizes do only mess with the ranking. I’m not saying the solo queue should be exclusive, but for a competitive environment of single players it’s absolutely vital.
That’s why I think it’s great that the devs have finally listened and filled a major demand. I’m very happy it’s happening, but let’s not celebrate the solo queue as savior of PVP yet. The game format has more issues that aren’t solved by simply letting player queue solo. Most namely population. To make ELO work better, the server simply needs more PVP participants. So here’s hoping that the solo queue will bring back a player here and there.
More than that, it’s good to see the devs are trying to shake things up a little bit. Any news is good news for PVP. Plus there is pretty much no way a solo queue can worsen anything. They collect data and hopefully they see more balanced matches and solid participation. It’s not the end of the road, but can be the start of a brighter future.
Double campaign weekends
Additionally you might have spotted new double campaign currency weekends this month. This is also something our dataminers spotted a while back in the game files and I have to say it makes sense. Not only lets it complete players the campaigns faster and fill Stronghold coffers, more double weekends also mean we’re seeing less Call-to-Arms. Or at least less CtAs as sole event over the weekend. The skirmishes have gotten irrelevant in terms of time vs. reward and are pretty much only worth doing for quick skirmish completions towards the daily AD. This is getting a thumbs up as well.
What’s your opinion on the solo queue test week and the new double events? Share your thoughts in the comments below or visit the corresponding thread on our message board.
I’m aware its not a popular sentiment, but there is another item that should be added in addition to solo queues to improve pvp. Make an alternative method to obtain conqueror shards that doesn’t involve pvp.
I’m a PVE player with a SH to help. The power SH boon is of course a popular one to try for, even for PVE guilds, especially before they realize the stupidly massive undertaking that those conqueror shards represent. The current non-PVP options would take years for any smaller guild to work through to even something moderate like level 8, let alone the higher levels.
As it is now you have thousands of PVE only players queuing up for PVP that dont have the gear, the practice, or the inclination to actually PVP competitively. There is an entire pool of discontents right there that have no choice but to participate if they want to meet their goal.
The way its setup now doesn’t make anyone happy. PVE players don’t want to be there, and PVP players don’t want them there either.