Frontlines queue is broken.

[Aldora]

After waiting this long, the queue finally popped.
I hit confirm - and noticed it was a 24-man campaign.
After the time expired, a red message appeared on my screen saying "Your registration was withdrawn." This happened despite ensuring I hit the confirm button. (I am 100% positive I did not miss this queue as I saw the number of players xx/24).

This has happened on multiple occasions, in both solo queue and while in a party.

Frontlines queues need some serious attention.

- The queue occasionally withdraws, despite all of the party members hitting the "Confirm" button.

The thing is even though that you’ve clicked on Commit, if someone else does not click on Commence before the time runs out or clicks on Decline, you will see the same message that the registration was withdrawn.

- Myself, and 2 FC friends queued up separately 5-10 mins apart on many occasions. Often the person that queued up first, ends up getting a spot last. To test if this was job priority in action (even though it doesn't match parties by jobs/classes, and you can change inside anyway), we all queued up on the same job, and got similar results.

A good portion of the time, the person who queued up first gets a spot after a person who queued up after them.

The Duty finder queue consists of several phases: Reserving an Instance, Forming a party, finding missing members for the party and confirming/commencing the duty.

From what i’ve seen, it has something to do with when, how and how many people are queuing up for the DF.

When it comes to the “how and how many”, chances are that a premade group would have to wait longer in a queue, then someone who is queuing up Solo. Especially if the one who is queuing up solo, is queuing up with a Job which is classified as “In need”. Next to that, the composition of the group that queued up will also influence the queue time. A group consisting of a Tank and a Healer will most likely have a shorter queue then a group consisting of 2 DPS.

If you queue up Solo, it also matters if you select the Join in Progress or not. If you queue up with the Join in Progress marked, while the one who entered the queue before you did not mark the Join in Progress, you will most likely get a group sooner, since

It all depends on how many people of a certain class are queued up in the Duty Finder. There will always be an excess of DPS in the queue, compared to Tanks and Healers.

Next, you have the “when”, part of the queue. If your party is queuing up for a Duty with group of 2 and the Duty finder is still in the “Forming Party/Reserving Instance” and one of your friends joins the enters queue after your party has entered the queue, there is still the possibility that your friend will be paired/matched with a group which entered the queue before you did, filling up that last spot for their party.

- In many instances, the estimated wait time displays less than 20 mins, however myself, and some fellow players (even while solo queued) wait in excess of 40 minutes for a spot. Often we attempt to cancel this queue and retry it (which would in theory put us at the back of the line), yet we get a spot in under 10 minutes.

From my experience, i believe that the “average wait time” is based on the class you queued up with as well as the wait time of the previous player(s) with the same class that queued up for the same content. Let’s say, you queue up as a Dragoon and 3 Dragoons who queued up for Frontlines before you managed to get into Frontlines after 10 minutes. I think that your average wait time is based on those 3 dragoons who entered Frontlines before you, not an average wait time for all classes over a timespan a day.

To test it. When you queue up with your friends, ask what their wait times are. You will most likely hear quite a few different numbers.

- After attempting to "Join in Progress" while a friend's game had 6+ empty slots, I was unable to do so as a BRD, DRG, PLD, MRD, however when I queued as a SCH I got into this game instantly. After entering, I noticed the party I joined already had 3 healers and no tanks. If there is some form of job priority, it is also not functioning correctly.

This is also obvious when we join games that happen to have 4x healers in one party, and no healers in another.

What on earth is going on at the back line? Because whatever priority queue that is being used is not functioning correctly at all. It is glitchy, the wait time is extremely inaccurate and any form of job priority (since it appears that there is "meant" to be one) is not functioning.

While I know queues will naturally take longer during off-peak hours for our data centres, however it seems as if the queue is constantly trying to match people based on job priority. If this is the case, then remove it entirely - as it's not working at all, given that parties can be filled with DPS and Tanks. All it is doing is drawing out the queue times to a much longer wait time then they could be.

If rank priority is also used, then remove it. I am pretty certain a majority of the players would rather see much shorter queue times then a more evenly distributed rank match.

I posted a similar post to his on the bug forum (while including as much of the "template" that was relevant to this issue) yet it was moved to insufficient information. Hopefully one of the comm reps notice this BUG, as that is what this actually is.

I love Frontlines, but these queues are stupid.

But, in all fairness, after writing my comments above i would like to quote this from the Live letter as well:

0:26:37
Q: Similar to how the Duty Finder works for Frontline now, could you make it so that players who press “Commence” enter Syrcus Tower first and then the roles that are lacking are filled afterwards?

A: The queuing system we developed for Frontline was created in a rush, so it would be a bit difficult right now to use it for Crystal Tower. However, we've been working on the much awaited feature that will allow players to enter as a pre-made alliance, and it seems we will be able to implement it as scheduled in patch 2.35. Once we implement this, we'd like to address the Duty Finder in the following patch, and since another update will be made to Crystal Tower we'd like to look into it for that.

In that comment they said that they are going to further address the Duty Finder after Patch 2.35, so they are aware that changes or tweaks need to be implemented.

In my opinion, i would check if the Duty Finder actually matches together groups that do not follow the predetermined party Composition and forms parties consisting of more then 2 healers and no tanks.

Perhaps people are able to change their jobs when they enter Frontlines?

I don’t play Frontlines, so i have no idea if people can change their jobs during a Frontline Duty…

But, especially the 4 healer party, sounds like a bug and you should keep reporting it with as much Info as possible.

[Vaer]

Perhaps people are able to change their jobs when they enter Frontlines?

I don’t play Frontlines, so i have no idea if people can change their jobs during a Frontline Duty…

But, especially the 4 healer party, sounds like a bug and you should keep reporting it with as much Info as possible.

It's apparently set up to be a role-less queue. Theoretically you could queue into a party with 7 healers or an all DPS party, and yeah you can change your job as many times as you like as long as you are in your GC's safe area while in Frontlines.

Getting booted out of the queue when it withdraws even if you yourself hit commence is most likely a bug. They fixed a bug like that in one of the hotfixes, there might just be another one. It was somewhere along the lines of if you hit commence right as someone withdrew, it would count yours as a withdraw.

An issue wherein players were withdrawn from a Duty when selecting Commence at the same time another player selected Withdraw.

[Altena]

The thing is even though that you’ve clicked on Commit, if someone else does not click on Commence before the time runs out or clicks on Decline, you will see the same message that the registration was withdrawn.

I was solo queued.

In another instance I was queued in with a friend. We both saw 70/72 players, and the registration was withdrawn. It is nothing other then a bug.

Queues don't work like they do for CT - if some random in another party withdraws - it doesn't depop the queue. In frontlines it enters those that hit confirm, and replaces those that withdrew.

The Duty finder queue consists of several phases: Reserving an Instance, Forming a party, finding missing members for the party and confirming/commencing the duty. etc

This is all irrelevant to the part of my OP that you quoted..

All 3 of us queue up solo and on the same class. The one that queues up first does not always get the pop first.

To test it. When you queue up with your friends, ask what their wait times are. You will most likely hear quite a few different numbers.

As mentioned earlier in this thread (mainly by others), the average wait times are shared across GC's, which is a poor oversight.
I have already "tested" this as you mentioned by doing just that - asking what their wait times are (on the same class) and they are the same. Different on different classes also - despite Frontlines not actually taking role into account.

In my opinion, i would check if the Duty Finder actually matches together groups that do not follow the predetermined party Composition and forms parties consisting of more then 2 healers and no tanks.

Party composition is ignored, as mentioned within this thread.

Perhaps people are able to change their jobs when they enter Frontlines?

Yes, at the spawn point players are freely able to switch to any class. Hence why what job you queue up for is irrelevant.

But, especially the 4 healer party, sounds like a bug and you should keep reporting it with as much Info as possible.

This is very normal, and not exactly a "bad" thing from a strategic point of view. Issue here is that the "wait times" appear as though there is a job priority when there is obviously not, which is partly why I think the queue system is not functioning correctly.

It often feels like there is a job priority when you actually queue, but once the duty finder starts putting the actual parties together it just shoves people in where it can. I could definitely be wrong as no one can really tell what is happening behind that little queue box.

[Zell1226]

It sure is annoying being Maelstrom since 1.0, and getting stuck with these garbage queue times because apparently they win a lot. I'm not switching GCs because I like the Maelstrom gear.

Frontlines should not be GC based. It should just be 3 different teams going against each other. Who the hell cares about lore behind PvP anyway?

[Tupsi]

Who the hell cares about lore behind PvP anyway?

You have Wolves Den. Frontlines is all about lore..the entire area is lore based.

[Zell1226]

You have Wolves Den. Frontlines is all about lore..the entire area is lore based.

I get that. My question was, who the hell cares? Anyone that wants to PvP is there to PvP. Not to roleplay.

[Tupsi]

I get that. My question was, who the hell cares? Anyone that wants to PvP is there to PvP. Not to roleplay.

Hence: "You have Wolves Den."

That's purely about PvP. You don't even have to 'roleplay', the fact it's lore based Grand Company vs Grand Company gameplay means it's a bit silly to complain about that when the alternative has been there for ages

[Zell1226]

Hence: "You have Wolves Den."

That's purely about PvP. You don't even have to 'roleplay', the fact it's lore based Grand Company vs Grand Company gameplay means it's a bit silly to complain about that when the alternative has been there for ages

You don't get it. Frontlines shouldn't be special "non-PvP" roleplay zone for Grand Companies. It is still PvP, and a larger scale PvP than Wolves Den. Some people prefer that, I honestly find large scale PvP more fun myself, having played RO for god knows how many years. Let me put it this way, if you take the grand companies out of it and make it "Team A, Team B, Team C", does it change anything? No, but it sure makes queue times a lot faster by throwing in 72 people in random groups together. It also makes fights not completely one-sided. I also would like to do frontlines because it gives massive experience and wolf marks. Win trading in PvP is not fun, and doing it the normal way is beyond slow.

My point is, this system is clearly not working. I'm not sure who they're trying to appeal to at the moment.

[Kinseykinz]

I get that. My question was, who the hell cares? Anyone that wants to PvP is there to PvP. Not to roleplay.

I don't exactly roleplay...but I AM proud to be a Twin Adder. I really DO like playing with other folks that are 'Adders' because it gives us something in common, even if it is a small thing. Also, because I'm not in the GC that everyone 'hops' to hoping for an easy-win ratio, every win I get I can be proud of my team/adders because they remained dedicated to the Adders vs. just leaving for the 'winning' side. Also, now that they made the PvP rankings public, I don't worry so much about my win:loss ratio, as well, It's within the ave rate for my team AND I pug every match...so I don't have the slightly better odds of the power of pre-made communication.

Lastly, I LIKE the adders lore/city/gears/horse better. I don't want anything else....even my alts are Adders because I just can't be anything else. Tree Hugger for life I guess.