Dota 2 gets a 'Fast Queue' update for ranked matchmaking

Dota 2 ranked matchmaking has been seeing some weird things happen for the last few weeks. After TI9, Valve has made it a point to communicate with the Dota 2 community about changes they want to see in ranked matchmaking and the company is making an effort to incorporate all the good feedback they are getting. However, even though the games themselves may have improved, the queue time for games has skyrocketed with the last few updates. High rank streamers have reported not finding a game for hours on end due to the stricter requirements imposed. Once again, Valve has heard the community’s cries and have come up with ‘fast queue’, an option that players can choose if they don’t have the patience to wait for a long time.
The basic concept of fast queue is this:
We know that queue times have increased across the board recently, and the most significant factor contributing to this has been the stricter requirements that Ranked Roles imposes on the formation of matches. Prior to the introduction of Ranked Roles, the matchmaker had a wider pool of people to draw upon because of the few restrictions. In the past, when one or more players desired the same role, this conflict was resolved during the game itself, often with unpleasant results. This conflict is now resolved at queue time, but a price of this is that the matchmaker is often starved for players in the least-queued roles. The matchmaker must wait for players in the desired roles to enter the queue, or form sub-optimal matches with the players currently in queue to satisfy all role requirements. Usually the role most in demand by the matchmaker is Hard Support, but this is not always the case, and historically this has varied based on time of day, skill bracket, region, etc.
So basically in fast queue, some of the restrictions are eased off to ensure those in the queue get a game quicker than the others. There’s more to it – a player can store up to 60 fast queue games depending what kind of matchmaking he/she choses.
When playing solo with all roles selected, you will earn four more games for future use in the Fast Queue. When grouped as a party, players can also earn Fast Queue games if the party fulfills all roles between its players. Two-player parties earn 2 games each, three-player parties earn 1 game each. You can earn and store up to 60 Fast Queue games.
While this does appear to be a fast solution (pun intended), there is a potential problem that could arise from this. If players migrate to the fast queue, it will leave the traditional matchmaking with a lower pool, meaning those who don’t mind waiting for a while to get a good, balanced game will have to wait even longer from now on! The good thing is, Valve have said they will be listening to feedback on this update and make changes based on the responses.
As always, please continue to give us feedback. We appreciate your patience thus far as we iterate on matchmaking.
It is really positive to see Valve make an effort to work with the community to improve ranked matchmaking. Maybe one fine day, somewhere in the future, we will have a system where we not only get extrememly balanced games, but we get them in a very short time. Might be wishful thinking, but you never know…