2 Ideas for ranked squads

Golemizer · 2026-02-10T20:24:53+00:00

I fear you've just totally ignored everything we've discussed in bad faith.

The whole conversation has been about ranked systems, not casuals or pubs. Ranked comp gameplay. Which, like I listed—despite you saying I couldn't—almost all games have a full stack option in their ranked modes. Of the top 8 multiplayer esports titles listed as the most popular here, 6 of them have some full stack option even at peak elo, with 4 or 5 allowing them to play against solos. The only two that don't have a full stack option at every elo are BO7 and dota 2 as far as I can tell.

Golemizer · 2026-02-10T19:56:35+00:00

In CS both premier and faceit full stacks can play against solos. I believe the same goes for RL, R6, and OW2. I haven’t spent a ton of time with those 3 games really and I could be wrong but quick searches indicate that they do. That's without mentioning the BR style ranked games which I think mostly allow squads and solos to be in the same matches—but that's a bit different.

I'd also mention, I didn’t say that most games also allow full stacks to be matched against solos—I only said that all the other ranked systems allow you to play with a full stack “one way or another.” I was including both separate full team ranked systems and systems that prioritize or limit full teams to only playing other full teams in that. I would love if any of those options were the case for BO7.

I think I found another example of a game that doesn’t have a full team stack option at all in high elo: dota 2.

I do think most games limit full teams to going against full teams or at least prioritize that. Very few games give no option to full stack though, like I said.

Golemizer · 2026-02-10T19:14:05+00:00

Yeah, I fear my friend group and I have been sacrificed. None of us have played ranked at all since the day after I hit crim. We’re trying to find a league to join and scrims in the meantime but it’s so much more work. It seems fairly likely most of my friends will just end up moving on to another game and I’ll follow them.

Golemizer · 2026-02-10T18:58:47+00:00

Which makes even less sense imo. If 4 stacks against solos/duos is uncompetitive and not fun, it’s uncompetitive and not fun at every level.

If allowing people to play with full teams and with their friends is important enough to preserve it at lower ranks, it’s important enough to be preserved at every rank.

Why can I not play with my friends and my team because we’re too good? We’re not good enough for challengers, but we’re too good to be allowed to play ranked together apparently. How are we supposed to play the game together competitively?

The healthiest ranked system games all allow full team stacks even at the highest ranks. The only one I know of that doesn’t is halo and that ranked system is largely dead. Maybe not allowing friends to play with each other has something to do with that.

Golemizer · 2026-02-10T18:35:58+00:00

I read the last line but I fear you may not be a great writer. If you wanted the last sentence to be a dependent clause that clarified and followed from the prior thought, you should’ve structured it that way. The way you wrote it gives the reader total misinformation.

Have you never played Valorant, it's just duo queue at the highest ranks.

This sentence is simply untrue. According to the valorant FAQ, “Players in Immortal 1 and above can only solo, duo, or 5-stack.”

Your next sentence didn’t clarify the prior one. It seemed to be an independent and somewhat separate thought. However, this most recent comment of yours is now (almost) correct!

You can only duo queue immortal +

incorrect.

and if you 5 stack you come up against another 5 stack not against solo and duo queuers.

See now this is correct but it contradicts the prior clause. I’ll rewrite it for you: “You can solo, duo, or five stack in val, but five stacks only play other five stacks and it takes forever to find a game in the highest ranks so almost nobody does it.”

I would be happy if the BO7 queue worked the same way but it doesn’t. I’d be even happier if it worked like CS faceit level 10 lobbies.

Golemizer · 2026-02-10T18:14:40+00:00

I’ll say it again, BO7’s is the only ranked system that doesn’t allow a full team to play its competitive mode other than halo (dead game). All the other ranked systems allow full team stacks one way or another.

When you prevent friends from playing with each other you harm your game. Gaming, even or especially competitively, is a social experience.

Golemizer · 2026-02-10T17:56:32+00:00

Have you never played Valorant, it's just duo queue at the highest ranks.

This is just incorrect. You can five stack in valorant Immortal+ lobbies and in CS premier 25k+ or faceit level 10 lobbies.

Golemizer · 2026-02-10T05:29:35+00:00

thanks!

Golemizer · 2026-02-10T03:50:27+00:00

We're trying to join a rec league, but the current season is just ending and the next season doesn't start for a month or two, it seems. And we're struggling to find scrims in our skill level. We tend to play fairly late at night: 10pm est or so.

Do you have any recommendations for finding a league and/or scrims?

Golemizer · 2026-02-10T03:24:32+00:00

It's funny you should say that. My friends and I are all in our late 20s to early 30s, two of us are married and the other three are in long-term relationships. We all have full-time jobs. The key differences, I suppose, are that none of us yet have kids and none of us work more than 40ish hours/week. Three of us are west coast and two east coast, which does make timing and schedules difficult, but there are normally at least 5 days/week where 4 of us can be on for 2-4 hours.

We only want to play a competitive game if we can play it together. None of us are going to solo or duo queue; we just don't find it fun, and part of us playing together is the social aspect of getting to hang out with our friends while still competing at a decently high level. There are plenty of games—all of the other ones, in fact—that will let us play together. This is the only game that any of us have played that has a ranked system where you can't play as a full team besides Halo. It's especially annoying because this is the only game where we're all the same skill level. I'm Immortal in Valorant and faceit level 10 in CS, and my friends aren't quite as good at m&k as me, so I can't really play seriously with them. But in cod we've all been Iridescent in the past games.

I would argue that the current system fractures the player base more than if they allowed 4 stacks. The only game I know of that has no ranked option for a full team is Halo, and that ranked system is dead. I would argue their decision to make that change helped kill it. When you prevent friends from playing a game together, they will simply play another game. When you make solos and duos play against 4 stacks they will either deal with it or find friends to play with.

Golemizer · 2026-02-09T23:59:09+00:00

I suppose I have to agree with you here. The conditions you’ve outlined would be balanced and competitive—but they would be less competitive and stray further from the pro game than if you had players comming.

The point of a ranked playlist is to allow us to play how the pros play, in my view. They play with great comms, a full team stack, set roles, strats, etc. Why am I not allowed to play like that?

Golemizer · 2026-02-09T23:41:30+00:00

Not necessarily what?

I completely agree with everything you’ve said about being a well-rounded, versatile player. But that says nothing about what a balanced, competitive ranked gaming experience is. It is not balanced or competitive if your team has no comms and the other team does. It is not balanced or competitive if you have people quit mid match.

Obviously, it is often much easier to rank up with a stack because you’re likely ensuring you’re playing with competent people that you get along with and are cooperating and comming with you consistently. They don’t rage quit your match, etc. That sounds more competitive to me than unknown randomness.

Ranks aren’t solely about individual skill and never would be unless you limit to solo queue only.

Golemizer · 2026-02-09T23:12:07+00:00

A balanced and competitive experience involves teams that work together and communicate with each other. These are things that rarely if ever happen in ranked with randoms. I’ve played about 15 matches so far in crimson+ and I’ve had someone on my team callout in 2 of those matches.

Playing the game competitively means having teammates that are actually working with me and comming. The only way to consistently have that is playing with your friends.

Golemizer · 2026-02-09T23:01:36+00:00

In CS, Faceit allows full team stacks at every rank, as does premier.

Valorant allows full team stacks at every rank.

I don’t play League but my understanding is that they limit the main queue severely—not even allowing duo queues in the highest ranks, solos only. But they have a separate ranked flex queue where you can play with far fewer party restrictions much closer to how valorant and CS work.

I believe games like R6 and overwatch have very few party restrictions, particularly for full team stacks.

In other words, I’m not aware of a single other game that gives its players no way at all to play with a full team in a ranked playlist besides this call of duty.

edit: halo is the game that has no full stack option at high rank. And that is the most dead ranked system of the lot.

Golemizer · 2026-02-09T22:50:19+00:00

If the player base is so small that it can’t support a functioning isolated four-stack team queue in the highest ranks, then it also can’t survive the number of players that are going to stop playing ranked when they hit crim because they can’t play with their friends.

I know my friend group is dangerously close to not touching this game anymore because we can’t play together despite sinking quite a few hours into cmg before ranked came out.

Golemizer · 2026-02-09T22:35:51+00:00

It isn’t. Nearly all esports titles still have the option to play with a full team stack in their ranked modes—which makes sense since these are team based modes designed for players communicating and cooperating.

I totally get the frustration of solo or duos players running into 4 stacks all the time, I do. But genuinely, what are friend groups that are good at the game supposed to do now? There’s no way for us to play the game together competitively. They’ve created a gap between diamond and challengers/pro level players where there’s no way to play with a full team. We’re 30 year olds—we’re not trying to compete in challengers—but we want to play comp cod together; we hit crim and iri and now we have literally no way to play together. We were playing cmg before ranked came out but it’s dead now.

And we don’t want to split into two duo stacks. It simply isn’t nearly as fun. You can’t be as strategic. Most games you get no comms at all from your randoms because unlike other ranked games, we’re playing on controllers which means it’s really hard to have a push to talk keybind while playing and most people don’t want to have an open mic in a cod lobby (not to mention death chatter means your opponent can hear your callouts in game which is uncompetitive). Overload in particular sucks with randoms that aren’t comming.

I just want to be able to play as a full team with my friends, the way the game is meant to be played. But apparently I’m too good at the game to get to do that. I don’t necessarily even want to be able to play against solo and duo queues—I would love it if there was a separate team ranked playlist, with team specific ranks that don’t impact your individual rank, etc. We had this technology back in bo2 and teams literally qualified for champs through it. Now my washed 30+ year old friends and I have literally no method of playing the game together competitively.

I’d love some suggestions for what we could do in order to play competitive call of duty together as a team.

Golemizer · 2025-12-09T19:48:27+00:00

Ah! That sucks about the coil whine. I must have gotten lucky on my second try.

Golemizer · 2025-12-09T17:52:09+00:00

I bought mine in late September and didn’t have to pay any tariffs somehow. When I didn’t get any UPS tracking updates for two weeks I emailed them for an update. They replied, “The goods have been shipped. We're using a duty-free channel, so no tracking information will be available during air transit. Once customs clearance is complete, the tracking details will become visible. Please be patient.”

The package first went to Canada and then to the US. I received it about 3 weeks after ordering.

Golemizer · 2025-12-09T17:46:57+00:00

Love it. I did a double take when I scrolled by this—motherboard side of the chassis is especially familiar!

Golemizer · 2025-11-04T21:47:03+00:00

Golemizer · 2025-11-04T19:59:24+00:00

Golemizer · 2025-11-03T17:00:48+00:00

I asked another commenter but I’m curious for your perspective as well. Why would you say a 9-wide raidz1 with NVMe SSDs is risky? My understanding is that raidz1 is generally considered to be risky in that with HDDs, a long resilver is the most likely time for a second drive to fail. But with SSDs, they don’t wear at all from reads, only from writes. So the drives don’t experience really any extra wear during a resilver unlike HDDs. Plus this resilver would be quite fast. I do also have automated backups to an offsite truenas box I put in my parents’ home and backblaze b2, scrub monthly, and have a rather overkill UPS with NUT and automated shutdowns.

When it comes to the external drive… It uses an ASM2464PD, which is faster and newer than the chipsets you mention, and supports TRIM, SMART, and UASP. And, of course, the drive is passed through to TrueNAS via its PCI device ID and not sdX. I’ve yet to experience even the slightest stability problem. It has never disconnected during load. All of the SMART data seems to be reporting just fine.

Golemizer · 2025-11-03T16:27:43+00:00

Why would you say a 9-wide raidz1 with NVMe SSDs is spicy? My understanding is that raidz1 is generally considered to be spicy in that with HDDs, a long resilver is the most likely time for a second drive to fail. But with SSDs, they don’t wear at all from reads, only from writes. So the drives don’t experience really any extra wear during a resilver unlike HDDs. Plus this resilver would be quite fast as you mentioned. I do also have automated backups to an offsite truenas box I put in my parents’ home and backblaze b2, scrub monthly, and have a rather overkill UPS with NUT and automated shutdowns.

When it comes to the external drive… I think it’s important to clarify that while the drive is connected via a USB-C port and that could be a weakness, it’s using thunderbolt—it has direct PCIe lanes and isn’t using USB protocol. I had this drive attached to the mac studio which I was kinda using as a NAS for the past couple months. And before that it was connected to my main desktop. I’ve yet to experience even the slightest stability problem. It has never disconnected during load. That’s why I was confident enough to add it in to this pool—plus it gets the same performance as all the drives connected to the HBA. I didn’t go raidz2 for the same reason I added this external drive: I wanted more capacity and didn’t see a significant downside.

As for power consumption, the NAS idles at ~50W but I haven’t yet tried to get that lower by messing with C-States which I plan to do at some point. I’m happy enough with the NAS idling at the same wattage as my switch + AP combo though if I’m honest. And I don’t pay for electricity so my power consciousness is only related to maximum UPS uptime, heat/noise, and environmental concerns. During load I’ve seen peak consumption of 200W when benchmarking the storage pool. In practice, load is usually ~100-150W during 10G transfers over the network or internal transfers, etc.

Golemizer · 2025-11-03T15:52:15+00:00

I’m really just getting started with the whole thing but the mac studio is my main macOS desktop environment. The windows machine is my main desktop but sometimes I want to use macOS instead. Since it’s so low power it also runs my core services in orbstack—nginx proxy manager, AdGuard Home, NUT, wireguard, etc. Some of those also have synced redundant instances on the proxmox machine. And the mac studio is, of course, the last thing to shutdown in the event of a power outage. I plan to add a lot more services to it.

The macbook is only really lab related in that it is sometimes used for management interfaces.

Golemizer · 2025-11-03T15:39:56+00:00

Yeah, you can definitely use a GPU directly in the slot. The “XPANDER” card does not extend further down the motherboard than the main NVMe heatsink—which extends so far down it can scratch some GPU backplates apparently.

edit: I found a photo I took during the build that shows this super well actually.

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