Separating the queues is a terrible idea. Get a group or queue solo into groups. Those have been the options for 20 years.
People don’t game to mimic real life, that train already departed decades ago.
Classic has made a big success since 2019, but one of its handicaps is keep catering end game for players that have to basically organize all their irl around the game tasks and schedules.
This philosophy, that was directed for a 15-25 yo range player base, back in 2004-2010, where a great majority had tons of spare time, now is having negative consequences in SOD, like it had in TBCC and WoTLKC, because, guess what?! The majority isn’t 20 anymore.
If you force/demand high organization, upon the classic player base, which now is 30+ yo, the game invariably end like arenas or end games raids in TBCC and WOTLKC: “Half a dozen” sweaty guilds, staring at each other in deserted capital cities.
The only exception to that, is when gdkp’s and boosts thrive and allow the majority to swipe their own credit cards and replicate what they achieved back in the old days, because no one that works 8+hours/day, many with wife/husband and children, with saturated online/digital lives, have the will to spent months organizing their inteire schedule around an online game.
I’m having a blast with SOD, just because that, i can log at any time and get in a raid, or get in a group for whatever important end game content in 20m tops, with exception of wsg.
I was not suggesting joining a pre-made of random trade chat people or from some server wide discord.
I was talking about playing with your guildies and friends. People still have those… right???
I queue with groups between like 2-6 all the time, still fun and you can probably beat a lot of bad premades
Will be interesting to see how many people “live for 10v10 pre-made” when they actually have competitive games vs other pre-mades. From what I’ve seen everyone wants a free win. 90% if the time when you cap one flag the whole pre-made afk out. What a stupid take from our lead dev. That’s a terrible sign for the future.
They already know the answer. Theyll stop doing premades.
They tried this with retail and they stopped doing it.
I love classic to death but its the meta rat parse cycle that causes this / ppl who r “keep classic as is” crowd.
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I don’t understand why they don’t just make a system that prioritises pug vs pug and premade vs premade grouping. If none qre available to be matched together then it defaults back to normal queueing. Could just have a 2min window where it tries to prioritize grouping if it’s available.
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Problem is for ppl like me on a PVE server…super hard to get a decent premade.
You kind of have to read between the lines from what Aggrend states. It’s clear to me that he acknowledges such a system would mean premades get longer queues. So the meta would become more about pugging. And he wants to preserve premades because he believes that is the intended way to enjoy the game.
I think the way to satisfy both side of this issue is to simply give premades more of a reason to keep queuing. Have a title system. Cosmetics even.
But sacrificing the large player population that just wants to be on random teams that play other random teams – It’s not a very good solution. Just telling them to start their own premades doesn’t work because they don’t like playing that way. I could go into a dissertation as to why that is the case but it’s probably not needed for just this post.
It makes much more sense to me to simply align an algorithm to make premades face other premades. If they drop off, then that is a place where they can focus more design in encouraging premades to get together.
But, that encouragement shouldn’t be at the expense of another demographic playing the game.
No, they’ve gotten enough and done enough damage to the community in the process. You’d be rewarding the toxicity.
If premade vs. premade is what those folks live for, then that’s all they should need. Oh wait, it isn’t and it’s all a farce to justify pubstomping.
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While I agree with this, I’m looking at it from a design perspective. Aggrend clearly has concerns about this aspect, so it has to be incorporated as a variable. It seems like a guarantee that he will not be reversing this decision without some kind of fallback solution for the premades, at least. Just being realistic as much as I don’t think it’s ideal.
It’s because they’re trying to prop up a dead play paradigm that should die. The whole idea of a PVP premade is good, if the game is healthy and balanced. WoW is far from either of these and never has been.
WoW BGs have always been a haven for → queue → quick match, repeat or log.
This farce of trying to force 1-3 hour game time sessions around PVP is insane. It’s only been recent in WoW that this has happened. All of a sudden BGs need to be scheduled and organized like raiding. It’s honestly really weird.
Original Vanilla never had this problem, it was always; how many healers did you get and how bad is everyone’s gear.
Now it’s; premade? God comp? GY GG.
guys, stop writing all these ideas. the twitter posts were the end of the discussion 
it’s over. you’re not getting your solo queues.
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Read the responses in the Twitter thread. This is FAR from over.
I mean I’m totally with you. If you and I were designing a game, the design is clear. But it’s fool hardy to think we can change his mind without a fallback for the premades.
Even though you and I know the only reason they get together is to steamroll pugs, and that with such a dynamic off the table they would no longer queue, that’s not going to be good enough for Aggrend.
So unfortunately the discussion should revolve around how to facilitate premades so it’s worth it for them to queue. So long as it’s not at the expense of the other playing population that enjoys random team competition.
In fact he just ignited the situation, his transparency has once again put him in the crosshairs, and then we wonder why the devs don’t communicate on these forums, the majority of it is not even constructive. He’d have been safer saying nothing
Then Microsoft needs to step in and replace him. Not budging from this one.
His set of Tweets is one of the most tone deaf anti-consumer garbage I’ve read in a long time. And worse it’s wrapped in some sort of fake philosophical discussion that doesn’t exist and is only in his and his streamer buddies minds.
If he wants that kind of game he can put in for a transfer to the Era team and let someone with vision and the skill to do customer experience correctly take the helm.
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I get it. I totally understand.
Agree completely, very very few people are making pre-made hoping to run into another one. It’s just the easiest and most efficient way to do the grind, and it completely sucks for the other 10 people.
Aggrend not making sense?! say it aint so, Just like when he was reluctant about lockouts allowing those who are 5/7 to join other 5/7s ect. I mean I expected at least this issue to be handled with some level headed changes but instead we got a nothing burger with a side of air fries for WSG/PvP
More common than you think.
Tho I do think “normal Q” should be limited to solo Q or groups of 3 max, but this would not do anything on low pop games like Wrath, Era or Retail where you will run into the same players over and over.
However on high pop games like SoD Q’n with more than 3 should just push you into a pre-made category and require you have 10 / 15 players in order to Q so that its fully organized and fun.
People who hate on premade play are irrational, and people who hate on solo Q are just as irrational.