Valve adds ‘Fast Queue’ update to better Ranked matchmaking experience

Valve has been adding multiple changes over the course of the last few weeks, constantly tweaking and patching Ranked Matchmaking in a bid to achieve an ideal balance between faster queue times and high-quality games. While the majority of the community doesn't face any issues with these patches, Immortal Ranked players have complained about not finding a game despite queueing for hours on end, due to the stricter requirements imposed.

The update released earlier yesterday seems to be Valve’s latest attempt to fix it. Dubbed as ‘Fast Queue’, this new feature to queue faster if you queue with all roles selected.

"To address role imbalance more generally, today’s update introduces Fast Queue for Ranked matchmaking. Players in the Fast Queue are given priority by the matchmaker, and will find matches much more quickly. In order to earn games for Fast Queue, you must elect to play with all roles selected. Playing with all roles selected will also automatically place you in Fast Queue for free."

So basically, Valve has stated that if you queue with all roles selected once, you're able to queue faster for a few more games.

However, there could be potential problems arising from this as well. If too many players move to the fast queue, the number of players in the normal queue will be reduced, which leads to an even longer waiting period for the players in the normal queue. 

It will be interesting to see Valve make more tweaks and changes to this algorithm in the upcoming weeks.