A simple fix to PVP Queue times

[Kosmos992k]

At the end of the day, my personal experience is that people want to play this game with their friends, so any content that doesn't allow you to do that is going to lack interest from the playerbase.

Except you are arguing that this applies specifically to PvP, and let's be honest, in FFXIV, PvP is not popular, is it? I already agreed that personal experience varies, but that does not alter the fact that only a small minority of players who have tried PvP, have done more than dip a toe into PvP. I'm not even willing to believe that the majority of players have even tried PvP, simply because they don't want to do PvP.

The lack of interest in PvP has less to do with whether you can play with friends than it does a general apathy for PvP among FFXIV players.

anyone who is serious about PvP would want to do it whenever they wanted and as many times as they could. Pigeon-holing everyone into set times with only so many occurrences in a given amount of time is more of a band-aid than a fix to a problem that won't be solved with "making players plan when they want to fight other players".

I personally don't want to play PvP, but I can agree with what you are saying here. I can see that if people really want PvP - are serious about it as you say, then a sanitized, pigeon holed experience is not what they want. The issue I have there though is that this isn't a PvP game, and I do not think that unstructured, open world PvP would fit FFXIV.

Your language suggests you really don't like pvp.

That would be an accurate assessment. I find PvP to be grossly unfair to anyone who either does not often partake, or who lacks sufficient levels/gear to compete. There are several other reasons for my personal dislike of PvP, you could correctly conclude it is a deep seated aversion to PvP.

[Edellis]

Except you are arguing that this applies specifically to PvP, and let's be honest, in FFXIV, PvP is not popular, is it? I already agreed that personal experience varies, but that does not alter the fact that only a small minority of players who have tried PvP, have done more than dip a toe into PvP. I'm not even willing to believe that the majority of players have even tried PvP, simply because they don't want to do PvP.

The lack of interest in PvP has less to do with whether you can play with friends than it does a general apathy for PvP among FFXIV players.

Your language suggests you really don't like pvp.


Anyway, there are a couple reasons why people don't queue for PvP. As it stands currently, the queue times are terrible because people aren't queuing, which has a negative feedback loop, because now even people who WOULD occasionally like to PvP (me) don't queue...because the queue times are terrible. The GC restriction probably has alot to do with it, the team size too. Lack of incentives could have something to do with it.

They should just shoehorn some players into PvP by adding modes that incorporate some PvE elements to it, like having powerful monsters on your team, or maybe a dungeon with multiple paths where you encounter players in hallways or something. It'd be neat.

That would be an accurate assessment. I find PvP to be grossly unfair to anyone who either does not often partake, or who lacks sufficient levels/gear to compete. There are several other reasons for my personal dislike of PvP, you could correctly conclude it is a deep seated aversion to PvP.

Probably from a history of encountering players like me, who will gladly murder people in open fields on a slow day (if the game allows me to) because i find it piercingly hilarious.

However, XIV will likely never have open world PvP. And the biggest PvP modes at the moment don't even really allow for gear to make a difference. There's no way PvP as it currently exists will ever bleed into PvE. And if it does, similar to how factions work in WoW or something, i'm pretty sure it'll be in specifically designated areas or something. XIV isn't in any way designed around extremes.

[Edeline]

How to fix PVP: Remove GC teams lol.

Not true. People didn't Wolves' Den a few weeks after it released either, and there is no GC restrictions there. Most healers just don't want to be walking targets..

Wolves has class limitations. You can't have whetever set up you want. You need a melee and a ranged dps, tank and healer. If I have two friends who happen to be both melees, I can't pvp with them unless they switch to a class they don't enjoy PvP with. Basically the same as friends with different GC. Also, classes are unbalanced in FF14 PvP, 4v4 is boring and pointless if you can't even choose your party set up. It is also way too short. 1 Rounds which finishes in like what, 1 minute or 2? I love PvP in every game I play, and wolves den just wasnt enjoyable, no wonder it died one week after it released.

[SirTaint]

OP: Your ideas are cool, but anyone who is serious about PvP would want to do it whenever they wanted and as many times as they could. Pigeon-holing everyone into set times with only so many occurrences in a given amount of time is more of a band-aid than a fix to a problem that won't be solved with "making players plan when they want to fight other players".

Even in the best scenario you can only fit in 3 matches an hour. My idea was to make
it more predictable. The problem we face currently is if you want to PvP now, the now turns into a 15-30 minute wait and after the match it can be another 15-30 minute wait. My idea makes the wait a maximum of 20 minutes but its predictable, go do a tribe quest, or trial roulette or level your bird for 15minutes before getting into the cycle. Once you are in the cycle there is no real wait time.

This will make playing PvP much more accessible to the masses. I know I see the 30minute wait and typically just cancel and do something else. I could also see stuff like Coil statics getting out of T13 at :15 and deciding to PvP as a group since a match starts in 5 minutes.


As for removing GC my post allows SE to keep their lore and not punish the players.

[JayCommon]

I personally don't want to play PvP, but I can agree with what you are saying here. I can see that if people really want PvP - are serious about it as you say, then a sanitized, pigeon holed experience is not what they want. The issue I have there though is that this isn't a PvP game, and I do not think that unstructured, open world PvP would fit FFXIV.

I agree as well, and as long as a "Final Fantasy" moniker is attached to the beginning of this game I don't think it ever will be a PvP-friendly game. Open world PvP would absolutely not work, it would be used for griefing more than competition.

While we are throwing out some personal experiences, here is mine. Goblin server used to be pretty populated and involved in PvP compared to other servers. Not to the level that Balmung was, but much more than other servers. Right when WD came out, I had a 4 man and we hit it hard. There were more than enough other's hanging around the WD Pier for us to start a linkshell to discuss PvP tactics and form pre-mades. It was awesome for maybe 2-3 weeks! Then, queue times starting getting outrageous. The ranking system had something to do with that, because the DF purposely avoided matching a premade of level 20s against 4 random people that were all less than level 5, because of the obvious Morale stat advantage. People started getting discouraged.

The weeks rolled by, and people left the linkshell, or stopped logging in altogether. The "I was waiting for PvP in this game and it didn't deliver" crowd largely left. We actually had one of the best Warriors on our server at one point named Master Warrage. He would 1v3 teams, and made videos of him wrecking full wolves den teams by himself. SE took those videos down. He left the game. So the linkshell devolved into a group of people who were setting up full pre-mades. Two teams of 4 to queue on a French server for an insta-pop to just fight each other. This kept most of us occupied for another few weeks.

Then it got old only fighting against the same 7 people all....the.....time. The linkshell largely disbanded after a month or two, because the interest simply just wasn't there. I hit rank 29 with Twin Adder just playing Wolves Den. I switched to Flames with like 10 other people for Frontlines when it came out. Almost identical situation copy/pasted. Super popular for a week or two, then queue times just went to complete shit, and not worth devoting that much of your day's play time waiting in a queue.



tl;dr : I completely agree that FFXIV does not have the right type of playerbase to ever make PvP popular. Many people playing this game grew up on single-player fantasy experiences, not shooting each other in CoD. A very vocal minority won't change the fact that queues wouldn't need fixing, if the interest was just there at all.



Edit response:

Even in the best scenario you can only fit in 3 matches an hour.

I'm aware of what your idea was. I did read it. However, you are just wrong. I have been in FL (Secure) matches where we completely dominated both other teams and won in 8-9 minutes. I would go do something else and not PvP any longer if that happened and I literally had to wait another 10mins for the next window. Like I said, your idea would band-aid the problem. Lack of interest in general can't be fixed with coordinating, it just makes it seem like the problem isn't there.

And this idea would force people to avoid instances they might rather do, just to be there for the window. That window won't keep me out of running WoD with my friends. Some of us have level 20 chocobos. What if I don't want to do a beast tribe quest?

I think your idea would be better than what we currently have, but it isn't fixing the problem. That's all I meant by what I said.

[CrystalRainbow]

The que is broken, I que a good 30 seconds after my wife and she gets in 2nd some times.

Or bam we get into one 24 and 72 within 2 mins of each other. Ya these 2 things don't happen often but they have happened.

Also, I would love to see a break down of how many from each city are currently in a queue. IE I queue up look at DF, and see 43/21/9 and and then see a count down timer with 24 man match will begin in X amount of time if a 48/72 isn't met by that time.

[SirTaint]

I'm aware of what your idea was. I did read it. However, you are just wrong. I have been in FL (Secure) matches where we completely dominated both other teams and won in 8-9 minutes. I would go do something else and not PvP any longer if that happened and I literally had to wait another 10mins for the next window. Like I said, your idea would band-aid the problem. Lack of interest in general can't be fixed with coordinating, it just makes it seem like the problem isn't there.

And this idea would force people to avoid instances they might rather do, just to be there for the window. That window won't keep me out of running WoD with my friends. Some of us have level 20 chocobos. What if I don't want to do a beast tribe quest?

I think your idea would be better than what we currently have, but it isn't fixing the problem. That's all I meant by what I said.

Right but then you are sitting in the Queue again after the 10 minute match. Even in the fixed 20 minute intervals you'd only have an 8 minute max wait after a quick match. 8 minute wait is still 3-4 times better then the current average.

Yes there is that extremely rare Saturday night where you get 4 matches in an hour but that is extremely rare.


FUCK the 100 character limit, this forum acts like its 1997

[siverstorm]

The lack of interest in PvP has less to do with whether you can play with friends than it does a general apathy for PvP among FFXIV players.

It's been said time and time again amongst the people who do enjoy pvp: If they removed the GC restrictions not only would queues be faster but more people would be likely to queue if they know its not going to be a ridiculous wait. I would love to kill time in pvp when I don't have anything else to do. I would also love to queue with bros and just go ham. Whether our alliance wins or loses, getting in as a party with VoIP is fun as hell.

Maybe you personally aren't interested (judging from your crusade of "I don't care about pvp" posts), but there's still enough interest among the people who do. It also sounds like you're only thinking of wolves den, which I'll concede is not fun in any regard (all the people I know who participate in wolves den just do so to try and level grind). But I think at this point in the game 99% of the people who mention PvP are talking about frontlines.

[Kosmos992k]

I agree as well, and as long as a "Final Fantasy" moniker is attached to the beginning of this game I don't think it ever will be a PvP-friendly game. Open world PvP would absolutely not work, it would be used for griefing more than competition.
**snip of very cool experience - wish I had seen that warrior in action....**
Then it got old only fighting against the same 7 people all....the.....time. The linkshell largely disbanded after a month or two, because the interest simply just wasn't there. I hit rank 29 with Twin Adder just playing Wolves Den. I switched to Flames with like 10 other people for Frontlines when it came out. Almost identical situation copy/pasted. Super popular for a week or two, then queue times just went to complete shit, and not worth devoting that much of your day's play time waiting in a queue.

The drastic drop in popularity soon after WD arrived did confuse me a little, because I figured that for people that enjoy PvP, it would provide something they want. But then I read about the pretty widespread abuse of win trading, and realized that for many WD was essentially a broken system about nothing more than a cynical grind for PvP vanity gear. I can only imagine how annoying this was for PvP players who enjoy PvP for what it is rather than simply another grind. I can well imagine many more serious players losing interest due to the win trading aspect of things.

I completely agree that FFXIV does not have the right type of playerbase to ever make PvP popular. Many people playing this game grew up on single-player fantasy experiences, not shooting each other in CoD. A very vocal minority won't change the fact that queues wouldn't need fixing, if the interest was just there at all.

This is pretty much where I am coming from with respect to this.

[DoctorPepper]

But then I read about the pretty widespread abuse of win trading, and realized that for many WD was essentially a broken system about nothing more than a cynical grind for PvP vanity gear. I can only imagine how annoying this was for PvP players who enjoy PvP for what it is rather than simply another grind. I can well imagine many more serious players losing interest due to the win trading aspect of things.

This is exactly why nobody had any interest in Wolve's Den as far as I am concerned. The fact that in order to get a set of vanity gear you had to grind the same bland 4v4 matches with job restrictions for literally hundreds of hours in order to get it legitimately really turned me off. People shouldn't have to resort to things such as win trading because the grind is too long and the fact that people were exploiting the system that way really turned me off from the Wolve's Den pretty much completely.

PvP has been implemented very poorly in this game from every aspect. Wolve's Den had restrictions, gave terrible rewards and had tons of exploiters. Frontlines had GC restrictions which did nothing but increase the queue times and not allow people to play with friends, thereby making players less interested.

For PvP to work at all they really need to drop these types of restrictions and give more incentive, otherwise nobody is ever going to participate and in that case I would agree with you 100% that PvP is a waste of time for the devs.