We were wrong to completely shut down the possibility of sandbox mode. Full stop. Our initial argument - that training mode makes for an even higher barrier to entry - makes some behavioral assumptions that many rightly called us out on. Your passionate feedback and sound reasoning, along with a lot of internal conversations around this vision of League as a global sport have made it clear that our concerns only have the potential to become reality if we’re not doing our job. Providing competitive experiences at all levels of play also means we should be providing the right training tools at all levels of play.
That said, being open to the idea doesn’t mean it immediately becomes our top priority. The internal team that would develop this feature is focused on a different project for the foreseeable future, so while we’re saying we want to do it and, one day, we will, that’s the extent of this commitment. Your feedback has always been a powerful presence in conversations around how we achieve our goals, so while we can’t even promise SoonTM here, we didn’t want to leave the issue canceled. When we begin tangible, focused work on sandbox mode, we’ll update you.
(Quick caveat: when we say sandbox mode, we’re specifically referring to a training mode where players can practice core skills - not a sandbox ‘modify your game in any way’ mode.)
We don’t expect you to rent out a gaming house with four friends just so you can stay in Plat, but we do want to support a queue that levels up in competition like any other team sport: through leadership, cooperation, and, yes, raw skill. All athletes possess these attributes in different measures, but they understand and value them intrinsically. Prior to the launch of dynamic queue, we felt like we had a competitive ladder that over-indexed on the raw skill and individualism parts instead of naturally promoting all-around great teamplay.
When the competitive team made its recent update, a lot of players took away the conclusion of “no solo queue” -- that we were hiding from a hard conversation by being purposefully vague. In reality, we’re not making a call on solo queue because there are some critical issues we need to fix in dynamic queue to understand what’s actually missing. Promising solo queue in our original announcement was premature - a knee-jerk reaction to a situation we were still figuring out - and our silence on the matter (outside of some miscommunications) only made things more suspicious.
Here’s the rundown: We know that for some players, dynamic queue undermines individual recognition of skill, and that’s not something we can solve with iterative improvements. It’s a philosophical difference. But, we know a lot of things that can be solved with iterative improvements, and our current top three priorities are improving the solo player experience against premades, lowering queue times, and smoothing out role selection weight. In an ideal (and optimistic) world, getting these numbers right would make a second queue unnecessary, but it’s not something we’re dismissing as of yet. Right now we're prioritizing the stability and health of a single queue - two would split the ranked player base and have a significant impact on wait times - and this is not a decision we’re taking lightly.
When it comes to a philosophical stance, however, we do want to be clear: we believe that dynamic queue is closer to representing a healthy, competitive landscape in League of Legends than solo/duo queue. We’re not saying this to present a binary ‘one or the other’ situation -- it’s a belief in the same way we know we’re under-serving those who want a way to measure (and communicate) their individual performance. This will be an ongoing conversation as we finish stabilizing dynamic queue and develop a deeper understanding of what we should be prioritizing next
Resumen para vagos:
-Sandbox mode puede que en unos años
-Solo qeue totalmente cancelada. Riot cree que dynamic qeue encaja más con la filosofía de teamplay. Opinan que la soloq premiaba demasiado la skill individual.
Que comience la bilis y buen foro