PvP and queue times: something's got to give.

[MageBlack]

Interesting, I have noticed a decrease in queue times since 2.5 came out. Although I think a few factors might contribute to the varying length.

Server Limitations:
Like with Amdapor Keep at the beginning of 2.0, it wasnt a lack of people wanting to do it, it was actually the opposite. Too many people were trying to play and all available room for instances was taken up. So even if you had a full party to do and insta-queue, you couldn't until other groups finished what they were doing. Eventually they added more instance servers and this alleviated the queue time issue. To date, PvP has not been overly popular (although I have been enjoying it since its release) so they may not have allocated enough server space for this. With any luck (if server limitations are the issue) if people can continue to have a large interest in PvP, they will increase the server space for PvP instances.

Company Affiliation:
Not sure if this is still the case but for quite a while Maelstrom was the leaders in PvP winning. They were the winning team so everyone was switching to them so they could get wins. Well, with the way that FL is set up, you need to have X people from each Grand Company to be able to compete. Queue times for Twin Badders (err sorry, Adders) was the quickest and would sometimes go through several queue cuycles to the Maelstroms one because they were backed up. I switched to Adders and notied a big difference in queue times.

Data Center:
Also look at what data center you are on. I was on an EU data center because I had friends I played with over there and some days it was a 3 hour queue time. Those were the times where it was peak time for me to play but was like 3-4 am for them so very few people were playing over their data center. Same might go for a JP data center.

Conclusion:
These may not be all the issues or what the OP is experiencing but just a few things to consider when you are experiencing long queue times. I made a few changes, Switched GC's, moved servers, and poof! 10-15 min queue times during my peak play times. In addition, I do hope that SE will open up different PvP games and rules that do not have the GC limitation, I feel this is the biggest cause for any queue wait at all. If you can have the GC's mix for PvP (like in Wolves Den) and have a large scale, fun experience (like Secure or Slaughter) then you will see a much larger base of players doing PvP.

EDIT:
Also, there might be people not using the Duty Roulette (or only using it once for the daily bonus) and only queuing for the Slaughter mode. This could be why you see the 8v8v8 secure Frontlines. I like all modes with WD being at the bottom and Secure being at the top. Either way, if you tick (join party in progress) button and use the roulette, that should increase your chances. If you arent doing ti already or in a party of two that is. Best of luck to all you PvP'ers out there!

[Stihllodeing]

Jynx is actually right, not everyone like pvp and consider it as a "mandatory activity" when it come to online games. I for one really hate pvp in this game and nothing will force me to participate in more pvp activities
Final Fantasy is meant to be a PVE game at start, it's only because Yoshi-P actually like pvp and that's enough of a reason why we see pvp activities here (Also it's good for SE's wallet).

On a very personal opinion (please don't flame me), I truly think that pvp in this game is actually slowing the development of other pve contents, icing on the cake it also create more additional works for the devs when it come to balancing jobs for pve and pvp contents.

And that's fine. If you and Jynx don't like pvp (not that Jynx actually said that) I don't hold it against you. Pvp shouldn't be forced onto anyone. I hope I didn't give you that impression.

However the abnormally long que times for pvp is not due to a lack of people willing to que pvp. It's the design....it's pretty obvious it's the design.

[Curia_Regis]

my advice is if you want to pvp, wait until friday/saturday night.

The problem is, these 30, 45, 60+ minutes queues all were from Friday and Saturday, during prime time and late evenings. There's just really no excuse for it. SE needs to removed Grand Company's involvement and restrictions in Frontlines to make the queues better, but I'm pretty sure they've dug the hole so deep, they don't know how to do that without tearing up their precious lore.

[Parodine]

If I could queue and have fun with my FC mates who are almost uniformly Maelstrom, then I'd be interested in it again. But it's lonely when you're TA.

Regardless of winning or losing -- more fun with friends either way.

[Rekujin]

-Remove GC restriction
-Change the Duty Finder queue algorithm to include Japanese players, we can't communicate with the enemy team anyway? why limit us to only NA/EU players?

[Accolade]

The problem is, these 30, 45, 60+ minutes queues all from Friday and Saturday,

I can only talk from personal experience, on weekend nights, I rarely wait for 15-20min. But yes, 45+ for "Prime Time", is pretty ridiculous - and does need attention.

But theres always the detail, that PVP has been like this forever, so why is there suddenly so much bad press about the wait times. If its not been fixed in around a year, maybe we are in for a long wait.
Everyone with the pvp mounts have had much worse queue times (queues are currently faster than pre 2.5) for a months on end, and although there was some disdain, it was never taken to this magnitude. People just got on with it and have now reaped the rewards. If people expected to get max rank and a mount in under a month,im sorry.

PVP did exist before all this hype. Players used to put up with much worse queues, just because they wanted to pvp for fun, and not to (only) yield it rewards.

[ladyJ]

queue times are just fine... ( insert sarcasm here )