Locked out of the Duty Finder.

[Kerwin]

You over complicate things Polyphonica. Refer to my OP to simplify.

[polyphonica]

You over complicate things Polyphonica. Refer to my OP to simplify.

Conversely, you've oversimplified it. The impact of a party withdrawal is multiplied by its party members. If you only punish the one person who withdraws, it creates a way for an individual to bypass the restriction by allowing others to take the hit for them. And that party failure still means <x> less people in the queue, despite it maybe being only one withdrawal. So, when you queue as a party, the punishment has to have some collective impact. Maybe this implementation isn't perfect and there's a middle-ground approach, but just applying the penalty to the one person alone doesn't solve it either.

[Kerwin]

Again. You are making it more complicated then it needs to be.

[Giantbane]

I mean if you think of it as if we're all individual people queuing, you could imagine that it just fills slots as "first-come, first-serve," with slots for each job category. In that scenario, the closer you get to the "front of the line", the sooner your number is likely to come up; in that sort of world, a "defer" option that lets others step in front of you could work. But if you're a tank or a healer, and there aren't enough of those to go around, your deferral could essentially have the same effect as a withdrawal to all the other players involved, because unless it so happens that another tank or healer shows up, they just have to wait for you anyway. So, "defer" is good for high-supply roles (since there are plenty of people in line behind you), but bad for high-demand roles (since one deferral makes a lot of people wait). (Perhaps you could make it so that the defer option is only available if there are others available who could readily fill your place.)

I don't think it matters much if you pause before the commencement window. The problem with withdrawing after the commencement window pops is that everyone else is already locked into that group, they have to hit ok, are locked out of most actions for the duration of that window which very much stalls their gameplay, and a withdraw repeats that annoying process. If you were to pause outside of the commencement window in order to remove yourself from any temp groups you are a part of, then it will prevent you being paired in a group and have the commencement window show up when you know you are going to be AFK briefly. It's actually better for the people you're grouped with, since they don't have to sit around waiting for you to time out if the commencement window pops while you're AFK. If there's an immediate replacement for you when the queue is ready to pop for that group, you will be replaced and shuffled into some other partially formed group. If there isn't a replacement, then the group members in your group don't have to sit through the commencement window that you're not going to be there to accept, and THEN have to wait even longer because there aren't any replacements and you may be locked out of the DF if you happen to already have 2 strikes (possibly because you got 2 strikes because you were unlucky when grouping with someone else who withdrew, or DC'd or whatever).

There is no downside to this idea other than the normal development costs.

As was discussed in this thread before, from a system point of view, the party is the queue entity. When one person in the queue withdraws, it's exactly the same as if every single one of those members had withdrawn. So while people may not like that they share in the punishment when it's not directly their fault, from a systematic point of view, it's the equitable thing to do. It's a punishment that attempts to discourage every occurrence of match failure. (In other words, whether you consider it "fair" all depends on who you consider as the party who was most wronged: the other people in the party, or the non-party people in the queue. The system is more worried about the latter than the former, because it assumes that the people in the party have more chance of interacting with each other.)

A person withdrawing within a group hurts his own party more than non party members. Everybody (party and non party members alike) all get to experience a "failed' queue. However party members get to naturally suffer the additional penalty of being placed in the back of the line when they do queue up again. It isn't equitable in any interpretation. It may be *easier* to implement because the punishment system may have no idea who in the group withdrew, but there is no way to interpret this as fair.

It's "fairer" than giving strikes to EVERYBODY that sees the commencement window (party members AND whatever random non party members happen to be stuck in the queue from your group). But that's not really saying much.

Besides, non party members who are grouped with a partial group already have the benefit of a lower chance of a failed queue. 8 individuals acting on their own are going to each have some chance to not accept the queue. This chance to not accept is going to be lower for a partial group, due to inherent social pressures to not disappoint the group (because, as has been stated, those members that clicked "ok" already still get hit with the same failed queue that the non party members did, and it's every bit as annoying), and this is without any external punishment mechanism. So in terms of the effects upon non party members, there is no greater threat of a failed queue when they are grouped with a partial group vs. only individuals. There is no justification in terms of fairness, from the point of view of the non party members, for treating a partially formed group any different than a collection of random individuals (in that you give all of the partially formed group strikes when one member withdraws as opposed to only a single individual getting a strike when they queue solo).

Now, of course, you may think that it's good to ratchet up those social pressures to accept by additional punishment for the group due to one individuals actions (ie: they experience a failed queue, they go to the back of the line when they re-enter a queue, AND they also all suffer a strike). And this may lead to an even lower chance for partial groups to withdraw than they are already at (which is lower than an equal number of solo individuals), but this comes at a cost. It starts to encourage people to not group casually with random individuals for fear of getting a strike due to someone else's mistakes. It will cause drama if someone does disconnect, hit the wrong button, have an emergency or just make some sort of mistake that leads to a failed queue. It leads to overall more distrust and strife between players. There are things the game does NOT need, and it's certainly poor justification to do it purely because you want to apply MORE social pressures to players within a group than a solo player just because you can.

[Giantbane]

The impact of a party withdrawal is multiplied by its party members.

It's not in the slightest. The withdrawal of one group has the same impact as one person withdrawing: 1 failed queue for everyone involved.

If there are enough replacements, the non party members are instantly reformed into a group. If there are not enough replacements, then it's a non issue, because the non party members would have never gotten the commencement window in the first place without the group.

[polyphonica]

It's not in the slightest. The withdrawal of one group has the same impact as one person withdrawing: 1 failed queue for everyone involved.

If there are enough replacements, the non party members are instantly reformed into a group. If there are not enough replacements, then it's a non issue, because the non party members would have never gotten the commencement window in the first place without the group.

It is. The party configuration is more likely to pop in most cases (depending on the configuration) due to having less gaps to fill. A group will get pushed up if it means some people that have been waiting a long time no longer have to wait. At that point, the odds of actual queue failure in the system increases if there punishment does not have a group impact, particularly when you consider the potential for players to use other players to exceed their personal limit. ("Hey, I'm still doing this 3-star craft; can you withdraw and requeue for me, since I already have two strikes?") So when you combine that with the innate party incentive (for honest parties) to want to queue quickly and not wait (the "social pressure" part of your previous post), the two together should reduce queue failures and prevent "punishment splitting".

As I said, though, maybe the solution to all this is to come up with a different angle for the group to discourage the negative potential, but one that isn't quite as blunt a force as the three strikes. But a solution that's entirely punishing only the one that withdraws isn't balanced either, even when you consider that the typical party would already feel punished having to wait again (but they'd still have incentive to stay in the party rather than leave, because it's still probably going to be faster in most cases, and it's almost always better to play with people you know).

Anyway, it's all about finding balance. I'm not saying that this system is perfect, but I don't think the opposite is quite right either.

[Zirael_Foxfire]

Can you add push notification being sent out to Libra Eorzea when a Duty Ready window pops up? There's a third party program out there that does that.

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

Can you add push notification being sent out to Libra Eorzea when a Duty Ready window pops up? There's a third party program out there that does that.

Yep and they charge $5 a month for it too.

SE should really take notice when a feature is in high enough demand that people are willing to pay real money to use it.

[Zirael_Foxfire]

In the current system it is more beneficial to accept the duty and either leave, ask party to kick you or go afk for 10min for the system to automatically log you off dungeon. This screws over with 3 or 7 other people in the party. And if a tank or healer does that, there is a big chance there will not be another tank/healer joining a 0/4 in-progress dungeon any time soon. Mor often than not, party needs to leave and queue again.

[Zirael_Foxfire]

Also, SE, can you make the FFXIV program blink on the Windows Task Bar when duty finder window pops up? I like to alt+tab from game to read things on Skype or Firefox and don't always want to keep the speakers on. Rift does this for Duty Finder window and being attacked by an enemy for example.