CRAZY QUEUE TIMES!

[Cynric]

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I'd say there's at least 100+ active pvpers per data center and more incoming when new modes / items release. The queues are just too long for frontline to be worth it. If gc restrictions were gone more people would play. Its rough to wait 30+ mins for a single match without being able to do much of anything while waiting.

As for incentive. It'd help if wolf marks were actually worth something. More items bought with the currency would be a great start.

[Eorzean_username]

So the basic idea behind the argument that 'Remove GC restrictions will fix it' is that you have 100 NA PvP players that all want to play right now (hypothetically).

But the distribution is so skewed that the queue isn't something like 19 / 20 / 23 at any given time, it's actually more like 15 / 20 / 65 for Adders / Maelstrom / Flames.

So even when the queue finally gets 9 more Adders and 4 more Maelstrom after, say, 20 minutes, it pops but still leaves 41 Flames players stranded at 0 / 0 / 41 waiting for the current match to finish (15-20 minutes) and then enough Adders and Mael to fill out the next queue (another 15-20 minutes), at which point the last batch of Flames players is now sitting out a third match in a 0 / 0 / 17 queue.

So that's why some players end up with enormous queues relative to others. Basically, the NA GC population is skewed much more heavily toward specific GCs, while the JP population is either more evenly-distributed, or just much larger, and thus doesn't have the same queue issues.

[kensatsu]

don't calculate the GC member if you don't have GC restriction XD,
No GC restriction just mean : when 72/48/ or 24 players is reach, the game will start
no matter how much mael/flamme or adder you have.
if we have 100 active players, it mean some players will have to wait the other games finish exept if the games tend to make 48 players happen because the current players playing is 100.
I think without GC restriction the queue with 100 players will be something like 20 minutes of queue, when now flammes wait for 1 hour.
We ask GC restriction to be removed, because the playerbase from every GC is not balanced.
You are right the community is small but also not divided right between the 3 GC.
Now we all know the playerbase is small, there no miracle but make flammes or mael wait for 1 hour will not make the pvp community to grow up, because who want to wait 1 hour except a crazy pvper ? XD
Also japanese players is asking for this GC restriction to be removed too, so even if the pvp is more active in japan, it's still asked...

[Eorzean_username]

Also japanese players is asking for this GC restriction to be removed too, so even if the pvp is more active in japan, it's still asked...

I do appreciate that reality. It seems a majority of dedicated PvP players (or at least the vocal ones), NA EU and JP alike, are frustrated by GC restrictions.

What I'm trying to parse out for my understanding though, is that there seems to be an important difference:

• JP dislikes GC restrictions because the restrictions are inconvenient and annoying. However, JP PvP is still healthy and active regardless.
• NA dislikes GC restrictions because the perception is that the restrictions are almost breaking the entire PvP system from functioning at all (low participation, uneven and bloated queue times, and fragmented community).

[Cynric]

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JP don't like pvp restrictions because it forces you to switch GC to play with friends.(Also does slow down queues however gonna detail why JP isn't affected for you)
We don't like them for the exact same reasons.


The difference is more or less everyone on JP is running on JST. A lot of people get home at the same time and play at the same time. Western times are erratic for many players.

Eastern players (not just JP) tend to enjoy pvp more, or at least wish to enjoy every portion of a game. They don't generally try to limit themselves to one aspect.

Western players have been complaining for years whenever pve and pvp overlap with one another, and this is true beyond just the scope of ffxiv.

Eastern players typically help out new players and try to get them used to the game. Increasing the population of people playing at any one time. Positive experiences shape positive players.

Western players typically yell at new players or anyone the moment they make a single mistake and will rage to no end even if absolutely nothing is on the line. Causing many new players to see pvp as a negative thing and not wanting to participate. Many western players always tell me they're afraid of pvp and pvpers.

I'm sure they switch GCs far less than we do as well.

When you look at how negative we are, how high our standards are, how little help we are, and how not fun we make pvp for other players because we only care about winning? Is it really such a wonder that the community is small. Every MMORPG has the same types of pvpers. We have an absolutely toxic pvp community.

The GC system would work for us too if new players didn't feel like they should quit right after their first match and we didn't switch to the winning GC every month.

Would taking the restrictions away help us? Of course it would help our queues in a band-aid sort of way. But usually any problem specific to western servers is the fault of the western community, and our gaming communities have only gotten worse over the years.

[Guesswhat]

wall of text

True. In my case I quit The Feast, 'cause in 70-80% of all my matches, someone would rage no matter how well we played (me too some times xD). I don't mind it that much in casual PvP (that's actually, imo, most times just fun), but when prestige is on the line you kinda feel different about it. I was prepared for it, and had kinda decided beforehand I wouldn't participate for that reason.

Some rage though is probably not actual rage. I know I can come off as totally pissed when I'm actually only want peeps to listen. But for all intent and purposes that is "rage", so... yeah... Eastern players don't forget to be polite about it. Or, rather, are more used to being polite.

When it comes to queue times there have been plenty of suggestions to work around the GC system. SE refuse to let go of it. I'm guessing the main reason is that it's too much work involved to do anything about it, taking their PvP budged/resources into consideration. The official reason is that the GC system is an anti win-trade/match-fixing assurance. Which is somewhat understandable... I guess...

Making a system where anyone can flag themselves as a wildcard GC, with restrictions, could ease the queues (I've made this suggestion like 3 times before). For example: Have a leve that costs 5-10leves that, when accepted, flags you as a wildcard GC (frontlines only). It requires you to finish 1 frontline. When it's turned in/abandoned, the wildcard is nulled. Reward should be appealing to PvE players as well.

Or have a separate PvP DF... At least do something SE...

[awesomega]

I dont really care about the gc restrictions since I have no problem playing for the worst gc at any given time. Also to be honest I kind of like associating people with different gcs. Quite frankly I dont think the system is that bad because it makes people pay a price for jumping ship to the top grand company. However a suggestion I really liked was to see what gc needs to be filled for the que to pop. Currently my mael pops are 4-16min and my flame pops are 26-45min.
However, I appreciate the utter bs of playing all night and only getting 4 games in. I vote change it up!

[Freyar]

Tried to queue, estimate was "25 minutes", queue time spent was 90 minutes.

[Eorzean_username]

Tried to queue, estimate was "25 minutes", queue time spent was 90 minutes.

This is another frustration, the 'Average wait time' indicator is usually completely wrong, which only adds to the demoralization of trying to get queue pops. You can't plan your playtime around it at all, because '20 minutes' can easily become '120 minutes' and then you give up with not much to show for it.

I've read speculation that 'Average wait time' isn't tracked separately per Grand Company. So if Adders or Mael is getting in 15-20 minutes and Flames is waiting 45-60, it all gets averaged together into a meaningless blob that doesn't indicate an accurate time for any of the GCs.

Many western players always tell me they're afraid of pvp and pvpers.

That's an interesting point. For me at least, it's absolutely correct — once I realized PvP even exists in FFXIV (a separate issue that also doesn't help the population size), the number one issue that caused me to avoid FFXIV PvP for as long as possible, until absolutely forced to do it (because I needed a Wolf Mark weapon) was just fear of the PvP community.

Which is weird in retrospect, because once I resigned myself to the need to farm Wolf Marks and started asking questions and joining matches, I was mostly met with patience, encouragement, support, helpful answers, etc — and I've had a lot of genuine fun. (When the queue actually pops.)

For me personally, the PvP community's reputation was a lot worse than its reality. But that reputation definitely did discourage me from trying out PvP until forced to.

A factor that might contribute to this is that FFXIV doesn't offer any consequence-free PvP where you can casually try out PvP without the pressure of messing up someone's match. That's intimidating and discouraging, and it also impedes the ability of veteran PvPers to mentor and train curious new players.

[Ahnthistik]

Speaking of the JP community's opinion about the GC restrictions, you can see (here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...81%8B%EF%BC%9F) that they want SE to remove GC restrictions too. +230 likes already... Why is SE so stubborn?

Yoshida explained one of the reason which made v1 a failure is that they were stubborn and entitled to their own opinions... Please don't do the same mistake twice. Please put your ego aside and remove the GC restrictions. We know it's possible because of the 3.3 glitch when players from different GC were in the same party. Even on a populated server like Balmung the queues are dead as 3.0 NPCs. I really love PvP and for me it's the only nice time sink in this game, if I can't PvP I'll probably leave and I don't want to do that...