#Solo Queue Game Mode

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severe bough
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I love the new focus the team is taking and the recent updates. I've been enjoying the new patch and am excited to see what new game modes await us. I just read the 10/29 dev blog and read that Tournament Mode will be moving to 3v3 in 2.01 rather than the 2v2 we have now. I'm not against that--I love fighting as teams of three. But I think having a 2 player mode will be missed. I thought it was nice having a game mode designed specifically for 2 players rather than 3. It provides more flexibility for those that want to play together with friends but are only in a group of 2 and would like to keep it that way. Just something to think about as you continue iterating on this game and game modes.

Now what I really want to discuss is a solo queue game mode. Supervive has consistently lacked a solo queue mode and I think this is a mistake. Now is the perfect time to remedy this. Supervive is by design a game made to be played in a team. I'm not advocating for any 1v1 modes. But even the best team based games out there cater heavily to the solo player because there is a large population of solo players. Not everyone is going to know people that play the game. And sure, there's matchmaking, but there's always been the problem of having 3 randoms getting matched against a premade team of 3. And that cursed problem has even led Supervive to design decisions that polarized the community. Solo players want to feel like they are playing at the same level as everyone else. That means everyone else has to be a solo player too. Now one barrier to this with Supervive has been the amount of players required to start a game of Breach as well as the player count. But the number of players to start a game of Breach as been reduced. And we're experimenting with new game modes. I think it's time to cater to that solo player by creating some game mode where you can only queue solo, but are still in a team (2v2, 3v3, whatever). Who knows, it could bring more in.

split sluice
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I already fought this war for months, I lost.

Good luck on the war soldier but sadly the few players that remain player most of them hate solo queue and they wont ever argument positively towards it

severe bough
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It's always been a shame that Supervive doesn't have a ranked solo queue mode. Are there not enough INT personalities on the team to know the value of such a mode? I feel like the lack of such mode has been a turnoff to a lot of newcomers and the addition of a mode could attract new people. Now is the time!

stoic rock
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After reaching GM you can only SoloQ and it is the worst thing ever, everyone that reached this point will tell you the same: "Playing with Friends is much more fun" if you dont have someone to play with... the community is still small you can easily find someone with your language and make friends because of how few others there are (And btw im an INTP myself, you can handle it as well)

severe bough
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I agree that only allowing GM users to solo queue in a non solo-queue mode sucks. That should never happen. But it happened because there's no place else for solo queue players to go.

Solo queue is never the worst thing ever if it's what you desire. Why can't we have both modes? If you want to solo queue, you play the solo queue mode. If you don't, then you play any of the non solo-queue modes. Everyone can be happy at the same time.

I agree playing with friends is fun but what can also be fun for people is that solo grind. But its not fun if it's not fair. What we have now just doesn't work. Solo queue players are at a disadvantage against premades, and certain premades cant exist due to restrictions. None of this has to exist if we just had two distinct modes.

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And with a ranked solo queue mode you could add an additional rank (your solo rank). You just doubled your player retention opportunity because now players potentially have 2 ranks they want to rank up.

abstract bear
# stoic rock After reaching GM you can only SoloQ and it is the worst thing ever, everyone th...

cos ranked means nothing, ppl dont tryhard improve snd theres little to no incentive for it nor raw competition, so ofc ppl arent gonna have a soloq envoirment that meets standards. But them not understanding that with squads they could have just kept the game solo duo and it would have been fine is just one thing among the at this point massive list of oversighths and areas of straight incompetence

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Community is so small that ppl cn just collectively make it not work by griefing r smthng etc on top of this. One of a million reasons to develop the game privately cos so much is missing or misunderstood still and the game is just a straight failure for the potential it had. Arena mode is copy paste no originality with many windows to do it, their creative ways or additions to the game have all flopped either cos it sucks or cos they give up on it on a whim, vision for the game is unclear theres just so much thats fucked i dont see them ever learning as developers while the game also improves enough simultaneously

spark stump
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Does every game improve retention though solo queue? Is this some sort of magical patch you can slap on to any game to increase player counts?

abstract bear
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U cant do that in trios which its why its so insane they made the swap at all for bullshit reasons like visyal clarity as if that matters at all on low graphics to begin with

royal sphinx
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the way i see it presently, there is almost no reason to add more queues
player base is too low, more queues will increase queue times across the board

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when the count gets low enough, there will be 0 reason to queue the regular gamemode, everyone would only queue solo bc it would have the shortest q times

spark stump
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We've had this discussion before, and you struggle to see past your specific experience with League of Legends to examine the concept of solo queue in isolation, and from there, how solo queue in isolation would work inside Supervive.

Looking at solo queue in isolation lends us an interesting view. This format is most effective when the solo player has a strong degree of control over the outcome of whatever they are solo queueing. This makes logical sense when considering the motivations of a player seeking this queue type. They are seeking to focus on their own individual inputs and impacts and the easiest way to do this is to keep one thing consistent between games they are able to compare and contrast the outcomes to their inputs and impacts more effectively. Solo queue is an effective tool when the game supports strong individual agency. The way this individual agency is expressed in the game is almost entirely up to the designer. The most important thing is that the game contains a clear and repeatable way for the solo player to express agency over the outcome of the game. Thinking about the inverse, where a solo player would not have much agency over the outcome of the game, we can understand how this would frustrate the player. If you are seeking to control one specific variable to better improve your inputs and impacts it would be frustrating and pointless if your inputs and impacts didn't have a reliable influence on the outcome.

To put this another way, imagine the only bicycles we had invented with two seaters and you are training to compete in the Tour de TwoSeater France. As you practice, you start each morning by grabbing a random stranger from the starting line. Even if you can verify that each stranger is relatively close to you and your potential competitors in skill, it would be really frustrating that some mornings you align better with your random more closely in decision making around when to go fast and when to go slow and when to conserve and other mornings you have to spend half the time getting aligned on these important parts before you could actually practice. You do not leave each session with a consistent experience that the reason your outcomes are different is because of something you specifically did or didn't do.

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In much the same way, Supervive is designed to have very little individual agency. If you look at the earliest marketing materials and copy that was released alongside Supervive, you can see "team" all throughout it, which is exactly what they created: a team game. One of the hallmarks of a team game is teamwork being integral to the outcome of the game. Supervive did not do a good job balancing teamwork alongside individual agency. In the past year, they have realized this and starting trying to make changes that move the game towards having more individual agency. These efforts by and large have not been successful as it is not really a problem with the characters, items, or map design but more of a problem with the BR genre. Battle Royales with teams are very teamwork focused games. A lot of the skill involved is cerebral, and requires all teammates to be making similar decisions together. Understanding information on the minimap, moving around the map, loot pathing optimization, and picking (and not picking) fights. You can make the "correct" decisions in many of these cases, but if you do it alone while your two other teammates make the "incorrect" decision you will almost certainly be punished for splitting decisions. The major ways in which skill is expressed in Supervive are almost entirely centered on teamwork.

As such, Supervive is still much more close to the Tour de TwoSeater France than it is the Tour de France.

royal sphinx
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tl;dr (from my understanding)
low solo agency = bad solo game
and vive was designed as a team game, naturally giving it low solo agency

royal sphinx
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as someone that types a lot, i figure some ppl wouldnt wanna read the text wall
i myself didnt reall all of it, but i read most and think i have a good idea

spark stump
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Also, with respect, that is 642 words. It is not a hardship to read 642 words in completion on a topic you are interested in.

royal sphinx
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yea but idk
some ppl read and some dont
such is life one way or another

severe bough
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As I said before, Supervive is a team game. But every other successful team-based game also has a solo queue option because they understand how valuable that experience is. It’s not just about design or "solo agency." It’s about giving players accessibility, fairness, and a way to play on their own terms. That matters just as much psychologically as it does mechanically.

Supervive’s design isn’t set in stone. The devs have already been experimenting with new modes because the current formula clearly hasn’t hit the mark. When your player base is under 1,000, the goal shouldn’t be to protect what’s left, it should be to rebuild what was lost. That means taking smart risks that could bring people back. A solo queue mode is one of those risks.

The argument about splitting the player base doesn’t really hold anymore with multi-queue in the game. Adding a solo queue would take minimal effort and could easily be tested. If it doesn’t work, turn it off. But if it does work, you get a big win: better accessibility, stronger fairness perception, another progression path, and even a small marketing boost ("Now with Solo Queue!"). There’s no real downside.

And beyond all that, solo queue would finally give players a fair way to measure their own skill. Right now, ranked play lets solo players fight premades, which just isn’t fair. A solo queue ranked mode fixes that — everyone’s competing under the same conditions. It’d even solve the weird issue where high-ranked players are forced to solo queue sometimes. With a dedicated solo mode, they could always play with friends again. Everyone wins.

royal sphinx
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oh, honestly i thought u wanted a different gamemode for non-3 party teams
if u mean adding a seprate queue just so people can solo, i disagree pretty heavily TBH

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a lot of other games with this solo or not solo mindset, their team sizes are massive

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so putting 6 solos vs a premade 6 for example is completely terrible

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but in the case of 3 players id say its much less of an issue
and on top of that, i have to reiterate the whole "too many queues for a low playercount game" issue

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some team based games dont split it into separate queues either
they may have some sort of restriction on party size (ex: you cant do a 4/5 stack, it has to be 1, 2, 3, or 5), but some games do mix solos and premades
the difference is that premade would get some kinda downside to make up for it

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artificially higher MMR(ex: premade of silvers would play in a gold+ lobby), not allowing premades to play vs full solos (ex: a full premade of 3 cannot play vs 3 solos, but this is VERY hard to do for a BR style game), etc

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there are solutions to your issue, and i do think solo queue experience is valuable
but i dont think the game is in a good state for it, and there are other solutions with similar, albeit not perfect, outcomes

spark stump
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Again- A large difference is in design. There is no high degree of individual agency in the game that would support an engaging solo queue.

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Matchmaking and queue are game design elements and when and how to implement and use them is heavily based on how they interplay with other game design elements. For example- some games have very meaningful and successful design in slot based gacha mechanics. Did that work well in supervive?

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A good example is to look to Apex, which is a close competitor to Supervive and close in the genre. That game supports group play at all levels

royal sphinx
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Yeah
Its definitely different per game and based on different designs
There are solutions to better incentivize players that wish to show off their solo skill, but i think itd be hard with the current game state

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A good first step may be to arbitrarily increase the MMR of stacked players without giving them the bonus elo that comes from playing in higher lobbies

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AKA a silver 3 stack would be effectively treated as golds for all elo math except for visual rank

spark stump
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I am pretty sure they already do that

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Any modern MM worth their salt should be doing that

split sluice
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BUT they decided to go with Duos which practically killed the whole game on its own

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releasing the game with squads + duos instead of flex / solo squads was one of the biggest mistakes this game ever did

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I think the intended experience was to solo players to queue duos, but duos was fundamentally an inferior/different experience than squads so yeah, it was fucked up

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still im not a game designer, I dont know the drawbacks to it

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I just know that soloq issue was ccu and on first launch supervive had CCU to handle solo queue

royal sphinx
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Yea
Design issues aside, those can be worked around
Playercount is the biggest problem IMO

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Hard to ever warrant making new gamemodes, especially long term ones, when ppl are already waiting minutes for the main gamemode and the playerbase is being pulled thin

spark stump
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How do you propose Apex retains a sizable playerbase with a team queue as their primary method?

split sluice
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playing alone is bad, but atleast you can always shoot better

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so playing solo does not feel as bad as on a game like supervive

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specifically the lack of solo-agency on supervive its what makes the game horrible to play alone vs squads

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and why solo players want an equal foot

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the less solo-agency a game has, the more it needs a soloq because what it makes is creating a competitive enviroment for players that for any reason whatsoever, want to play solo, or have to

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coming back to the league of legends example, if the game survives with a solo queue being the most played, even when the game has deviated towards group play being more important every year, is because solo queue still exists even ifplaying solo feels worse, atleast everyone is playing solo, so everyone is equal

spark stump
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We agree when it comes to Apex- I do think the FPS mechanics lend much more agency.

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I disagree with your premise that when you have a low degree of agency that is when you need solo queue the most. This doesn't make much sense to me from the view of game design and potential player motivation.

split sluice
# spark stump I disagree with your premise that when you have a low degree of agency that is w...

but as a game designer, you should aspire to fix your player problems/inquires through the game itself without requiring external factors, the aim should be that your solo player (as solo players is the biggest population of multiplayer games normally) gets his issues fixed within the game, without the need of seeking extra players to queue with in order to have a good experience.

More or less like tutorials, you want to create a tutorial ingame, instead of throwing the players to seek information outside

severe bough
dusk pagoda
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Noobs would prob still get farmed somewhat cus there are noob 4 stacks. But even non noobs are getting farmed rn lol

pale thorn
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i want soloq

short tendon
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I don't get why so many people want solo

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Its a moba not a shooter

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Most characters are not self sufficient and are not balanced around solo

split sluice
short tendon
split sluice
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so why you dont get that a moba enjoyer wants soloq

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he is asking a 3v3 soloq btw, not 1v1v1v1v1

short tendon
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mb

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i was thinking br solo

split sluice
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nah I agree that would've been bullshit

short tendon
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yeah solo que is fine

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but it would literaly nuke que times

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since their would be 2 seperate ques now

pale thorn
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where everyone in the que, is qued solo.

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you know, the way most online games are made

pale thorn
spark stump
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Guess you should game change then

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Solo Nut

abstract bear
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squads was infront of their eyes

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legit devide 4 by 2 and u get 2

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solo duo its like magic

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cut fkn powers by over half and we got a good open beta trial attempt with shit like messenges and stuff in place. Cos releasing or opening the game to this many ppl THAT incomplete would just naturally kill what potential in terms of playerbase the game might have had. And that already showed that even though they believed then probably, it was also not clear in what exactly. Catering to deaf ppl with audio pings, crybabies with spiking molestation nerfs (obviously can be huge thing that might have required changes, but the way they went about it is as conflicting as everything else) and legit in a general sense they are conflicted in what they want/ think the game needs. While last year i watch a video of them saying "X is hard we need to learn X" etc, and skip forward close to a yera and regarding that area in the game/ further communication from devs on how theyve grown or anything at all its dead silent. So what is it exactly we should do as community? Just feed random feedback and hope that the playerbase slot machine just unironically one day hits? XD