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I've gone through the first three pages - Queuing for WZ/FPs rationale?


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Oh, okay. That could work. I was thinking you guys meant the entire group would be held up until whoever was in the WZ was done and ready.

 

But, yeah, we'd need to know how BW's LFG tool is set up. This might not be as easy as it sound to implement.

My suspicions are that the queue stacking was disabled because it was easy, while this type of solution would take more time to code and debug. However, if they decided to do this kind of coding, it would be to their advantage to not only suppress lfg pops during wzs but also allow players to pause the queue for a few minutes which would alieviate the coming back from a bio break and seeing that the queue has popped and you have to start all over.

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How does Rob, the Senior PvP Designer, not realize/understand the counter effect this change has?!

 

Rather than queuing up for their dailies and waiting for the queue to pop while doing WZ's, now people are just skipping the WZs. This harms the very thing he's directly involved in designing...PvP.

 

The BETTER solution would have been to suppress the GF pop-up until AFTER a WZ. 13min max.

 

TUX, you and I are in complete agreement for once. Such an obvious solution, and the tech is already in place with the ranked/unranked queue. I'm simply dumbfounded.

 

It's no biggie on my tank, but on my marauder I have serious idle time waiting for that lfg queue.

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If Dan is queuing for wz's along with lfg then perhaps a wz pops at this point. If you pause Dan at #19 then he won't get a lfg pop during the wz. Instead the current #20, 21, 22, and so forth, will continue to move up the line, skipping Dan. When he gets out of the wz, he'll still be #19 but some of the people who were behind him will have moved in front of him in line.

 

Well this is a little more sophisticated than the "hold the queue til the warzone ends" concept, and I think I like it.

 

One tweak: Dan should move up in the queue if he is in a warzone and a queue pops for someone else. Otherwise, it still gives incentive to not join warzones and sit idle.

 

Once Dan gets to #2, if he is still in his warzone and the queue pops, #1 and #3 should get the invite. When Dan gets out of his warzone, he should get a message on his PvP interface that he is next in line in the LFG.

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It would be hard to say exactly how it would work without access to BW's LFG mechanics, but I'm assuming they have some sort of numbering system. So someone who is DPS (I'll call him Dan) might queue up with 21 other DPS in front of him, for example. Dan's #22. If someone ahead of Dan drops out of queue, he moves up to #21. A queue pops and #1 and #2 in the DPS queue are put into a group. So now Dan is #19.

 

If Dan is queuing for wz's along with lfg then perhaps a wz pops at this point. If you pause Dan at #19 then he won't get a lfg pop during the wz. Instead the current #20, 21, 22, and so forth, will continue to move up the line, skipping Dan. When he gets out of the wz, he'll still be #19 but some of the people who were behind him will have moved in front of him in line.

 

Such a system shouldn't inconvenience other group members. If Dan were #2 in line, for example, and joins a wz, then he pauses at #2 and the people at #1 and #3 would be given the next group.

Under this solution you'd still take forever to get a FP Q to pop cause PVP pops are dime a dozen and you'd have a cloud of perpetually stuck people in the limbo in-between the two. Dan is #19 and gets out of his PVP Q and gets another 30 seconds later, so he has a whole 30 seconds for the PVE Q to pop before he's back in limbo again.

 

How is this in anyway a workable solution? How much of the games resources are going to be tied up keep track of the massive cloud of people in the Q but not really because the are in a PVP match at the same time? Yes eventually they would get lucky and get a pop inbetween the two but in the meantime the only reliable way to get in a PVE grp is too...not Q up for another WZ...just like they are asking you to do now.

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Well this is a little more sophisticated than the "hold the queue til the warzone ends" concept, and I think I like it.

 

One tweak: Dan should move up in the queue if he is in a warzone and a queue pops for someone else. Otherwise, it still gives incentive to not join warzones and sit idle.

 

Once Dan gets to #2, if he is still in his warzone and the queue pops, #1 and #3 should get the invite. When Dan gets out of his warzone, he should get a message on his PvP interface that he is next in line in the LFG.

I like the tweak. I haven't run pvp much, but I'm guessing from what you're saying that the pvp queues pop very very quickly, not leaving much time for a person to move through the lfg queue. If that's so, then your suggestion makes a lot of sense.

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Well this is a little more sophisticated than the "hold the queue til the warzone ends" concept, and I think I like it.

 

One tweak: Dan should move up in the queue if he is in a warzone and a queue pops for someone else. Otherwise, it still gives incentive to not join warzones and sit idle.

 

Once Dan gets to #2, if he is still in his warzone and the queue pops, #1 and #3 should get the invite. When Dan gets out of his warzone, he should get a message on his PvP interface that he is next in line in the LFG.

 

Perfect solution!!! I gotta admit, there were times the queue has popped for me soooo long after I joined, that I'd forgotten I was even in the queue. This system message would also serves as a handy reminder that I'm in it and should be getting a pop soon, allowing me to leave it and continue doing what I'm doing, or wait for it.

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You only do the FP once a day usually though. Kind of an odd thing to focus on. I had dropped out of wz to go do FP daily cause finding the group takes a while. I think I've quit more from being tired of losing for the upteenth time today than group finder. Or it being huttball... again. If they made pvp more balanced and not so predictible, it could be fun and people wouldn't think of quitting the wz. PVP is more of a filler from being bored as a 50. After playing for so long, I can pretty much figure how the match will go in the first 30 seconds of the game. Edited by manchusabre
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Just quoting this. I think it needs to be said on every page of this thread.

 

A couple things.

 

First, to the guy or gal arguing that it wasn't BW's intent to stop stacking queues, I have to ask: in what MMO have you played where stacking queues was an intended playstyle? That's a serious question because in my seven years of playing MMOs, I have yet to see it. No MMOs I have ever played encourages this. In fact, they discourage it by putting in features similar to the one BioWare just did where they put a stop to queuing for multiple things. You trying to say Allison never mentioned this as a problem is engaging in semantics. The fact BW put a stop to queueing for WZs and FPs at the same time means they don't want you to be stacking queues. If they were fine with it, this change would never have been put in to begin with.

 

Second, for those of you complaining about how long it takes for queues to pop for DPS, I'm going to once again assume you are new to MMOs as this happens in all of them. There's always an overabundance of DPS. So, there are two solutions to this problem. Either roll a tank or healer and have instant queues, or BW implements cross-realm FP queuing. But in reality the only way that you will have guaranteed short queues is to play a support class. That is the easiest fix. And I say this as a DPS class myself, where I, too, am waiting hours for a queue. Is it frustrating? Of course. But I knew when I rolled a sentinel that it would be a consequence.

 

Someone on here said it best years ago before the game launched. There are really only two classes in every game: LFM and LFG.

 

Though, after reading some of the replies in this thread, I'm starting to think that with such pleasant, well adjusted folks ... one factor in the long GF wait times could be the many ignore lists you are on.

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I mean, the first bold thing you quoted isn't true, at all. Even the guy who wrote it has backed off the statement somewhat. The community manager extremely explicitly said the change was to reduce people quitting warzones, not because they don't want us to be able to do both PVE and PVP content.

 

There's no sane game developer that thinks it's a good idea to segregate or fracture a shrinking player base. The fact that there are people who want to participate in both PVE and PVP aspects of the game wholeheartedly is an awesome thumbs up for the game. They patched an inelegant solution to a problem they saw. There appears to be consensus that there are better solutions. We're asking them to consider one of them if they feel the problem is serious enough to warrant action.

 

I'm not sure why this is super difficult for you.

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Ok problem solved, Give healers and Tanks a bigger reward for quing for group finder as an incentive to que more often thus giving DPS a shorter wait (in theory). It's your job as a developer to decide what this reward should be. Some possiblities could be A: More cash or in game rewards such as coms. B: Ability to get blackhole coms for every group finder que COMPLETED obviously put a cap on this one at say 3 for a max of 15bh coms earned daily just from group finder hard modes. C: Reward tanks and heals who que for GROUP FINDER DAILY hardmodes better gear than just columi, IE they get a chance to get say a Campaign peice each time at a VERY LOW% roll.

 

Since there are times that there are plenty of tanks and heals going around, give the game a dynamic that detects how many heals/tanks in relation to dps there are and when that falls below a certain % the reward dynamic would kick in thus allowing people to earn the rewards and would be visible in the que window where you select your group roll as damage heals or tank. This would prevent joe exploiter from running hm's all day and being completely geared out in 5 hours in campaign gear. When free to play comes out give tanks and heals a bigger cartel coin reward or perk. Put other rewards in there too, such as rare items, IE vanity objects such as pets, a color crystal, crazy looking rare orange modable armor that no one else has or very few people have thus promoting individualism in the area of cosmetic appearance, speeders, PVE buffs with low impact on game play yet a small bonus none the less.

 

It's YOUR job to think this stuff up. On the plus side, you could HIRE someone and create a few JOBS by delegating this out. How cool would that be. (hypothetical) "what's your job?" "Oh, I get to brainstorm all day and think of cool new perks and rewards people get for helping other people complete content" . I'd do this job for 8 dollars an hour and be completely happy with myself. Come on BW i have faith in you, don't blow it.

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I mean, the first bold thing you quoted isn't true, at all. Even the guy who wrote it has backed off the statement somewhat. The community manager extremely explicitly said the change was to reduce people quitting warzones, not because they don't want us to be able to do both PVE and PVP content.

 

There's no sane game developer that thinks it's a good idea to segregate or fracture a shrinking player base. The fact that there are people who want to participate in both PVE and PVP aspects of the game wholeheartedly is an awesome thumbs up for the game. They patched an inelegant solution to a problem they saw. There appears to be consensus that there are better solutions. We're asking them to consider one of them if they feel the problem is serious enough to warrant action.

 

I'm not sure why this is super difficult for you.

 

I just have to say, there's nothing stopping you from doing both PvE and PvP content. You just have to choose which one you want to do at any given time. And I didn't back off my statement somewhat. I just said the method proposed by others in this thread could, in theory, work.

 

But again, the fact that they don't want people leaving WZs early means they don't people stacking queues. Because the reason people are leaving WZs early is the FP queue pops in the middle of it.

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But again, the fact that they don't want people leaving WZs early means they don't people stacking queues. Because the reason people are leaving WZs early is the FP queue pops in the middle of it.

I just don't think we can assume that they don't want us to stack queues because they disabled it. There is obviously a problem with people leaving in the middle of wzs due to a lfg pop (after sitting in lfg queue for 2 hours, it's understandable). They decided to quit allowing stacking because of this. That doesn't necessarily mean that they don't WANT to allow stacking, just that thus far they haven't found a way to do it that doesn't negatively effect wzs.

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You're right, people should go out and do their heroic dailies while they wait for the gro-

 

what's that? You can't group at all while you're in the group finder queue? And it can take *hours* to get a pop for a DPS?

.

 

This is a bit misleading, because if you are even reasonably geared and have reasonable skill, you can solo the majority of the heroic dailies in both factions, or at least enough to occupy yourself for a couple of hours if you run them with a couple or three of the regular mish.

 

And if you can't solo the 2 and 2+ heroics, Google a lrn2play guide for your class, because you need to get better so you aren't a drag on your group when the LFG does pop.

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One question.

 

Why are people still leaving WZ's?

 

I have noticed virtually no change in the number of people leaving WZ's.

 

This 'fix' didn't fix anything.

 

FP queues have gotten longer.

 

People are still bailing on WZ's left and right.

 

The impact of this change has been an overall negative one.

 

This was the wrong way to address the issue.

 

Whole lot of back and forth about crap that that does not belong here.

Whole lot of presumptions about intentions and so on.

You're just selfish.

You're just immature.

None of that is relevent to the issue.

 

A change was made.

It did not fix the issue.

It did more harm then good.

Several suggestions have been made on ways to address the issue in a much more acceptable way for all those involved.

 

Have they been forwarded, Allison Berryman | Senior Community Coordinator?

Edited by Voranis
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Hi everyone, we asked Rob Hinkle (Senior PvP Designer) to shed some more light on why this change was made. As many of you suspected, we implemented this change to reduce the frequency with which players abandon Warzone matches mid-fight. We found that Group Finder queues popping were a major cause of players leaving, and wanted to mitigate this negative impact on Warzones.

 

Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff.

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Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff.

 

People will just afk. People will just afk. People will just ... you get it.

 

I'd rather get a new player than have to sit through a match of medal farmers.

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Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff. Add a deserter debuff.

 

This will cause more harm than good. People will just afk or sit at a node and do nothing. What they need to do which they are discussing is adding incentives for players to stay and finish games.

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Hi everyone, we asked Rob Hinkle (Senior PvP Designer) to shed some more light on why this change was made. As many of you suspected, we implemented this change to reduce the frequency with which players abandon Warzone matches mid-fight. We found that Group Finder queues popping were a major cause of players leaving, and wanted to mitigate this negative impact on Warzones.

 

There is an easy solution to both problems. Allow us to keep our position in the queue while in a warzone. If it becomes our "turn" during a warzone then simply allow the next person to go.

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One question.

 

I have noticed virtually no change in the number of people leaving WZ's.

 

This 'fix' didn't fix anything.

 

FP queues have gotten longer.

 

People are still bailing on WZ's left and right.

 

The impact of this change has been an overall negative one.

 

This was the wrong way to address the issue.

 

A change was made.

It did not fix the issue.

It did more harm then good.

Several suggestions have been made on ways to address the issue in a much more acceptable way for all those involved.

 

 

QFE!

 

Devs here's a perfect opportunity for you to react positively to the player base's request. We understand knee-jerk reactions are made from time to time without the full consequences thought out. Your "solution" has actually decreased the enjoyment/playability of this game. It's not too late to revert this change.

 

A little bit of effort can go a long ways of restoring the player's faith (what's left of it anyways) in BW/EA.

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A couple things.

 

First, to the guy or gal arguing that it wasn't BW's intent to stop stacking queues, I have to ask: in what MMO have you played where stacking queues was an intended playstyle? That's a serious question because in my seven years of playing MMOs, I have yet to see it. No MMOs I have ever played encourages this. In fact, they discourage it by putting in features similar to the one BioWare just did where they put a stop to queuing for multiple things. You trying to say Allison never mentioned this as a problem is engaging in semantics. The fact BW put a stop to queueing for WZs and FPs at the same time means they don't want you to be stacking queues. If they were fine with it, this change would never have been put in to begin with.

 

Second, for those of you complaining about how long it takes for queues to pop for DPS, I'm going to once again assume you are new to MMOs as this happens in all of them. There's always an overabundance of DPS. So, there are two solutions to this problem. Either roll a tank or healer and have instant queues, or BW implements cross-realm FP queuing. But in reality the only way that you will have guaranteed short queues is to play a support class. That is the easiest fix. And I say this as a DPS class myself, where I, too, am waiting hours for a queue. Is it frustrating? Of course. But I knew when I rolled a sentinel that it would be a consequence.

 

Someone on here said it best years ago before the game launched. There are really only two classes in every game: LFM and LFG.

 

This is, quite frankly, a silly argument. You are proposing that Stacking Queues are bad. They are not, and here's why:

 

Option A - No stacking queue: Players choose either PVP or PVE, but cannot do both. If they choose to PVE, then they will generally have to wait a long time if they are a DPS, and will not experience any PVP.

 

Option B - Stack queues... BUT... The player in the warzone will continue to rise in the queue until they are next in line. They are then skipped by players below them any time a Flashpoint group is able to form until they are done their Warzone, unless all the players below them in the queue are likewise in a warzone, in which case the queue doesn't move at all and the flashpoint group isn't formed until someone not in a Warzone becomes available. Upon reaching the highest spot in the queue they receive a notification that they will remain at the top of the queue.

 

If for some reason they abandon their warzone, they also lose their Flashpoint queue. When they finish the PVP match they are then at the top of the Flashpoint queue, and were never tempted to leave the Warzone in order to participate in a Flashpoint.

 

Now... reverse everything I said and also apply it to players in Flashpoints queueing for warzones.

 

This is the ideal method of stacking queues. Players get to participate in ALL content, and it inconveniences no one. If you don't believe that players should be allowed to queue for both, then you believe in limiting game play options over allowing players to enjoy all content equally. If that's the case, then no reason or logic will persuade you to see differently, and I won't even bother with debate.

Edited by Craftamancer
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This is, quite frankly, a silly argument. You are proposing that Stacking Queues are bad. They are not, and here's why:

 

Option A - No stacking queue: Players choose either PVP or PVE, but cannot do both. If they choose to PVE, then they will generally have to wait a long time if they are a DPS, and will not experience any PVP.

 

Option B - Stack queues... BUT... The player in the warzone will continue to rise in the queue until they are next in line. They are then skipped by players below them any time a Flashpoint group is able to form until they are done their Warzone, unless all the players below them in the queue are likewise in a warzone, in which case the queue doesn't move at all and the flashpoint group isn't formed until someone not in a Warzone becomes available. Upon reaching the highest spot in the queue they receive a notification that they will remain at the top of the queue.

 

If for some reason they abandon their warzone, they also lose their Flashpoint queue. When they finish the PVP match they are then at the top of the Flashpoint queue, and were never tempted to leave the Warzone in order to participate in a Flashpoint.

 

Now... reverse everything I said and also apply it to players in Flashpoints queueing for warzones.

 

This is the ideal method of stacking queues. Players get to participate in ALL content, and it inconveniences no one. If you don't believe that players should be allowed to queue for both, then you believe in limiting game play options over allowing players to enjoy all content equally. If that's the case, then no reason or logic will persuade you to see differently, and I won't even bother with debate.

 

Boom. I don't see a thing wrong with this idea. Doesn't seem like a difficult thing to implement either. I cannot see how having to give up a huge part of the game to queue for FP for hours is preferred.

 

What we have now was probably the first/quickest solution that popped.

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One question.

 

Why are people still leaving WZ's?

 

I have noticed virtually no change in the number of people leaving WZ's.

 

This 'fix' didn't fix anything.

 

FP queues have gotten longer.

 

People are still bailing on WZ's left and right.

 

The impact of this change has been an overall negative one.

 

This was the wrong way to address the issue.

 

Whole lot of back and forth about crap that that does not belong here.

Whole lot of presumptions about intentions and so on.

You're just selfish.

You're just immature.

None of that is relevent to the issue.

 

A change was made.

It did not fix the issue.

It did more harm then good.

Several suggestions have been made on ways to address the issue in a much more acceptable way for all those involved.

 

Have they been forwarded, Allison Berryman | Senior Community Coordinator?

 

Of course it didn't. Not to say that this wasn't part of the reason why people were bailing from WZ's. It's not the main reason. Those who actually play WZ's know the reasons why people bail and that this was far from being the main reason why. The reasons have been documented time and time again in the PvP forum since LONG before we even had the queue system.

 

But of course. According to EAWare's favorite community spokesperson, Uncle EAWare knows best and that the immature, entitled criers know nothing about what we are talking about because we don't have the "whole picture".

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