Please abolish match making SE

Dear SE,

I am sure the community appreciates the effort you put into making the match making system, however a match making algorithm cannot effectively work with low q populations. On my data center (Aether) the wolves den Q has been dead since 2.2, until Wolves den is overhauled completely this will not change. You will not see 8 rank 40's qued up at once unless the community itself organizes such a thing, in fact the vast majority of the time there aren't even 8 people of any rank (2 of each role) que'd up.

Delaying a wolves den match for the sake of balance when said balancing cannot even occur due to the lack of people in que hurts the pvp community more then imbalanced matches.

I have tried to jump start the wolves den Q by organizing enough solo players to satisfy the requirements for 2 full teams(at minimum)on more then one occasion. The players in question were of various ranks and que'd solo. I would expect the Q to not be instant due to the variance in our ranks... however the Q's lasted for over 10 minutes in some instances. In previous occasions pre 2.2 I have been pulled into games with 7 low ranks as a 40 through instant ques. Not only were the ques long or non existent in some situations changing party composition created instant ques (ie instead of 8+ solo players (2 of each class min) we would have players enter the que as a dou).

My observations point towards the match making system being irrelevant and broken. I understand that the low population of players that participate in wolves den do not really warrant the consumption of the dev teams resources. however the solution is simple, get rid of the match making system.

With i80 Sync wolves den & all base pvp abilities unlocked at rank 1 there is no real need for a match making system

You keep saying match making system but I don't know what your talking about because there is no system called the match making system. If you mean the duty finder then that covers more then just the wolves den and there's no way they would remove the whole duty finder because the wolves den has low queues.
Even so the system is working fine, it already searches between all servers to find teams so I don't know what more your expecting. It's not an issue with how the search is done, there's just not many people that want to do the wolves den anymore after front lines. They would have to add more to it to make it more appealing

WD matchmaking attempts to create a match where all participates are of similar rank

It's very easy to notice, get 2 parties of rank 40's and the queue pops instantly, have a party of rank 40's and a party of 3 rank 40's and a rank 38 and there is a 30-60 seconds delay on the queue popping

its the reason why queue times slow down considerably when your rank gets closer to 40

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Originally Posted by IveraIvalice

You keep saying match making system but I don't know what your talking about because there is no system called the match making system.

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yes, there is. the match-making system is the built in programming that Wolves Den uses to group people of same or within a bracket of ranks, classes and party composition. there have been many changes but the match-making system was initially implemented in patch 2.15 when low rank players cried rivers of blood because they were getting farmed and steamrolled by, then max rank 30 players, game after game after game, for hours on a daily basis. they had an unfair advantage because a rank 30 premade or pug team could get put up against a low rank team and literally just crush them in seconds; it was an auto-loss for the lowbies and discouraged new players from coming to the den because high ranks were point farming newbies.

http://i.imgur.com/WZRNhFs.png

this matchmaking system only affects Wolves Den; PvE content has their own matchmaking system that works differently.

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Originally Posted by IveraIvalice

Even so the system is working fine, it already searches between all servers to find teams so I don't know what more your expecting. It's not an issue with how the search is done, there's just not many people that want to do the wolves den anymore after front lines. They would have to add more to it to make it more appealing

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yes, you're correct. the system is working fine but the problem is it is out-dated because it now impedes on players' game experience. it was fine when WD was new and the population of Wolves Den players was there but it has now out-grown its usefulness now that the WD community has dried up and is now only a shadow of its former self. it IS an issue with how the search is done because depending on your rank if queuing solo or your party's average rank when queuing in a premade, the system makes you wait XX amount of minutes before it winds down to look for lower ranks and if you are an 8 man premade like the op is talking about, just trying to get matches going between friends, then you will wait even longer because it will also make you wait longer based on party composition even though you have already premade the two teams yourself. there is no need to force players to wait when they have already made their own teams which is what the op and others are complaining about and rightfully so.

Due to that the Wolves Den has pretty much boiled down to a few 4v4 enthusiasts per data center and a few pugs who still want to do it, SE should just remove the matchmaking system because there is no need for it anymore. the population of WD is so small now that low ranks just get grouped with high ranks anyways so there is no longer a need for a matchmaking system since there is nothing there to match. there is no need for players to have to wait 10-30+ minutes to play just to get grouped with the same ranking composition that the system was designed to prevent. furthermore for those people of level 50 without pvp gear, now that everyone is given the first tier of pvp skills (which was part of the issue with doing 50s, the lack of pvp skills), the addition of the ilvl80 sync WD makes a matchmaking system even further null and void. all its doing at this point is serving no purpose at all but just making everyone have exuberant wait times for no reason at all when its going to group you with whoever of any rank anyways.

the matchmaking system no longer serves any purpose so SE should just get rid of it

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-in-Wolves-Den

Thanks for the SS of the patch notes Gor :)

I'm not just talking about the delay in MM when you have multi ranks queuing. I have on multiple occasions had 8+ people solo Q (2+ of each role) and stood in the duty finder for over 10 minutes without anyone getting a Q pop. I have then started shuffling players in and out of parties and the Q pops and will continue to pop. The delay in matchmaking is tedious especially when there are not enough players for it to be useful, however in some situations it seems to refuse to put together 8 people

In some circumstances the MM algorithm seems to just not work, period.

The MM system is completely debilitating; players have to wait upwards of 30+ minutes for queues, and I'd say more than 75% of the time someone misses the queue forcing me to wait yet another 30 to find the right rank for that last spot. By the time you do get in, you're playing a match that lasts at most two minutes which is a ridiculous disparity between the wait and actual gameplay.

Imagine you are new wanting to try out den for the first time. You wait 40 minutes for a 30 cap. You are a healer, the worst class one could play at 30. Ten seconds in and you are dead and you're kicked out of the arena wondering why in the world you wasted 41 minutes for 10 seconds of gameplay when you could have done FL at least twice. Most reasonable people would never try again, and while I'd like to say that's an exaggeration this is something that I hear ALL THE TIME from players new to den.

The worst part is the big picture. Because of MM any players with even remote interest are driven away from WD. What is fun about waiting 30 minutes for a 2 minute game? And with any interest in WD being continually marginalized to nothing, SE can never prioritize it into something it needs to fix. It's a catch-22: In order to prioritize and fix den issues, there needs to be at least a modicum of interest in it. But den will always be losing interest because MM shuts it all down. As a result, SE won't prioritize fixing the big issue (MM) because people don't want to do den.

Unfortunately until SE recognizes the disparity of spending the greater part of an hour for just a fraction of the gameplay, I am not sure things are going to ever get better.

Also, something I'd like to add: from a conversation I had yesterday, apparently players on JP datacenters have instant queues in prime time, and the worst it gets is a few minutes long. If this is true, how maddening is this? Why are NA/EU datacenters not merged for PVP instances where the population is deathly scarce? There is just nothing fun about this entire process at all and to know that other servers have it so much better is quite awful.

And yet another: I've been waiting 95+ minutes for this current queue. Twice so far (once at 30 minutes in, another time at 50 minutes in) I've gotten to 7/8, had the last person not accept and been kicked back to the start. If it does pop I'm half-tempted to cancel the queue out because at this point I don't really even care about playing this match. I just want to see how long MM can keep someone in queue with one person constantly withdrawing and forcing us to start all over.

It shouldn't be like this.

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As a result, SE won't prioritize fixing the big issue (MM) because people don't want to do den.

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Thats why the post is entitled abolish match making. I understand that its not worth fixing the matchmaking, however there doesn't need to be any MM with recent changes....

I80 sync Ques --- gear balancing, check
All base pvp abilities at rank 1 ---- semi rank balance, check
Frontlines ---- powerleveling your rank / marks, check

match making provides very very little that isn't in the game

I made a suggestion before that some of the datacenre queues be combined, but the forum white knights always disagree....on everything xc

they also need to ditch the whole gc vs gc vs gc on FL. Just make it 24 vs 24 vs 24. Nobody cares of the crappy lore surrounding this, and in all honesty, on Odin, everyone just moves to "Maelstronk" anyways for autowin = everyone has crappy queue coz all on same GC.

yes, i agree. i think anyone with a bit of common sense should agree.

also i want to relay my experiences today and from now on in the hopes of getting the devs to see just how bad the issues are with MM.


today i queued for everything den. at 30 minutes in i hit 7/8 and someone skipped the queue. at 50 minutes in 7/8 happened again. i left queue up, made some posts on here, and at 178 minutes lost queue at 7/8 again. i gave up after that.

without matchmaking queues wouldn't take this long to find 8, and if someone did drop out we should be able to instantly find an 8th.

to put it in a bit more perspective, that was 3 hours for a 2 minute match i didn't even get to play. and this was on a weekend when queue times tend to be the best since everyone's off of work.

Completely agree with everything here, I loved doing wolves den before frontlines but the queues are just not worth it now so I don't even bother. Most people don't even know that i80 wolves den is even a thing, and there's no "!" quest indicator to even show you how to unlock it, you just have to know you talk to that guy to unlock it.

With all pvp skills unlocked and well as the i80 sync, seems like a no brainer match making should be overhauled to make 4v4 arenas a better experience.

Also Dusty, good to see someone else from Aether here. I think I've seen you in one of my frontlines matches fighting for the adders with me.

Would be super to see match making lifted. Would love to have more Wolves' Den matches again.

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I made a suggestion before that some of the datacenre queues be combined, but the forum white knights always disagree....on everything xc

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The problem with merging data centers is latency. Altho it would decrease Q times, pvp would be nearly unplayable

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Originally Posted by DustySlippers

The problem with merging data centers is latency. Altho it would decrease Q times, pvp would be nearly unplayable

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dont see why that would matter. other games have pulled off coast to coast servers flawlessly.

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Originally Posted by Gor

other games have pulled off coast to coast servers flawlessly.

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I am not sure you mean by coast to coast servers.

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Originally Posted by DustySlippers

I am not sure you mean by coast to coast servers.

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meaning that they were able to have players from no matter their location in NA/Canada, east coast, west coast, central or mountain, get into the same pvp matches with little to no lag. this would help Aether and Primal data centers. still wouldn't do anything for EU servers since they are such a small area and only one data center and of course JP servers wouldn't need it since they apparently are getting godlike pops.

I think what SE needs to do is make a Ranked and Normal match for both FL and WD. Ranked is based on rank and morale plays a role. Normal is not based on rank and no morale.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

I think what SE needs to do is make a Ranked and Normal match for both FL and WD. Ranked is based on rank and morale plays a role. Normal is not based on rank and no morale.

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This is exactly what they need to do. That way there is a place where everyone can be happy.

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Originally Posted by Gor

meaning that they were able to have players from no matter their location in NA/Canada, east coast, west coast, central or mountain, get into the same pvp matches with little to no lag. this would help Aether and Primal data centers.

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Primal and Aether data centers are hosted in the same location. Latency is inevitable, you just notice the latency less in some games due to the combat style / programming. If you recall the game at launch, there was a greater delay in position updating. The delay in position updating isnt "lag". The reason you get hit by attacks/ spells as you line of sight something in this game is due to the position updating more so then latency issues.

allowing for cross data center pvp servers would require a overhaul on the system. Also having datacenters share information between them would introduce more latency.

The problem isn't the queing system.

The problem is very few even bother with the Wolves Den anymore. By changing the que system they won't make it suddenly popular.

So the thing that needs to be looked at is "Why don't players want to do Wolves Den PvP?". Tournaments, leaderboards, etc. Making it an E-Sport are some things they could try to pique players interest in getting involved. Albeit, imo, any ranked system should not be gear influenced, ilvl synced to keep it balanced. Also, any form of competition recording for ranks etc need be fair for those who play a lot and those that play less. Also pairing up of teams for ranked matches should never be against teams on the same server, to block any attempts to match rig. As we all know if theres the ability to, some will XD

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Originally Posted by Sapphic

The problem isn't the queing system.

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Nonsense. We all know how things we're pre and post matchmaking system.

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Originally Posted by tehomegaking

Nonsense. We all know how things we're pre and post matchmaking system.

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exactly. The que system is a problem.

People are put off by the increased que times to a point were nobody ques at all because they can be almost certain they wont pop into a match in there allotted play time