Play Together
With the party system removed, we need a new way to play with friends. This article will teach you all about sniping. If you are unfamiliar with today’s Vainglory, please read our Vainglory FAQ. You can find all the download links for Vainglory here.
Where can I find other players?
Discord is your best bet. See our list of active Vainglory communities. We highly recommend joining our Discord to stay up to date with the latest Vainglory news. With over 4,000 members, it is a nice place to connect with other veteran players. You should also join at least one sniping servers in your region. These are Discord servers made specifically for playing Vainglory together.
What is sniping?
Since making a party is not possible, we use a method called sniping to play with friends. Sniping means queueing for the same game mode at the same time for a chance to get matched together. If you fail, dodge and try again.
This process gets tedious quickly when you have more than a handful of players. Fortunately, Vainglory developer Loquori introduced a party workaround via a server-side patch on 18 March 2021 that makes it easy to team up with your friends.
How to guarantee a snipe
With the system introduced by Loquori, you have a very high probability to get matched with your friends. Do this by prefixing your in-game name (IGN) with a number in the range of 1 to 3000 followed by _ (English underscore).
The matchmaker will treat this number as your elo and try to match you against players with similar elo. The elo search range will increase with queue duration until a match is found (usually 7–8 minutes max). Functionally, this number acts like a party code built into your IGN.
For example, the IGN 1_Player tells the matchmaker that your elo is 1. You will have a high chance of matching with your friend 1_Friend who also has the same elo set. Since the default elo is 1200, we advise that you use numbers closer to 1200 to reduce queue duration.
How to snipe with a full party
For a full-party snipe, all players must use an identical number greater than 3000. Any number greater than 3000 is considered an “exact” elo. The matchmaker will only pair players with identical elo above 3000. This means 3001 will never get into a match with 3002 or other numbers.
Note: By full party, we mean 6 players in 3v3 or 10 players in 5v5.
Non-full party (1–3000 elo):
Full party (3001–9999 elo):
How to decide who goes on which team
The default elo is 1200 if none is specified. We can play around with the elo to get the desired roster. The matchmaker will try to ensure balanced placements. Our goal is to achieve the same average elo for both teams. Here are two examples to help you get the idea. The same concept applies to 3v3 games.
Same team placement for partial, two-player snipes:
| Team A | Team B |
|---|---|
| 1190 | - |
| 1210 | - |
| - | - |
| - | - |
| - | - |
Specific team assignment for full-party, ten-player snipes:
| Team A | Team B |
|---|---|
| 2891 | 2900 |
| 2892 | 2900 |
| 2893 | 2900 |
| 2894 | 2900 |
| 2930 | 2900 |
In-game examples (see the numbers):
Here is a failed example of five players who wanted to play on the same side (both teams average 1200 elo):
A few possible sets of elos they should have used to stay together:
| Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 |
|---|---|---|
| 1195 | 1196 | 1198 |
| 1195 | 1197 | 1199 |
| 1195 | 1198 | 1199 |
| 1195 | 1199 | 1199 |
| 1220 | 1210 | 1205 |
Thanks to our friend Freeze on Discord and Reddit for helping to test and confirm this method.
How to snipe on PC
Although the PC version does not support changing IGN, there is a workaround here if you have an Android device.
Instructions for sniping on Discord
Sandard procedure and etiquette you should follow when playing in a sniping server:
- Communication is needed for sniping so join a voice channel. If you can’t talk, make sure your text messages can be seen during the sniping process.
- The host will ask you to set your IGN. Prefix your IGN with the elo provided to you.
- If everyone is ready, the host will count down 3, 2, 1 for everyone to start the queue. Make sure you have the right game mode.
- Say “found” if you find a match. Say “not found” if not. Do not accept or decline the match until the host says so.
- If you accepted wrongly, cancel the queue when the match found screen closes so the host can restart the countdown and try again.
Since the range of numbers is huge and the player base is small, it is rare for another group to use the same elo. If this happens, use a different elo and make sure it does not leak outside your party. If you are in an active sniping server, communicate the elo via voice chat to prevent sabotages in a full-party snipe. Consider reporting the intruding players to the Discord mods.
Posted on July 19, 2021 #vainglory #guide