A simple fix to PVP Queue times

[Priya]

I'm interested in doing PvP. I'm not interested in trying to get myself and my friends to decide on what GC to join that some of us will likely need to rank up in again in order to do levequests if we're working on books, and we won't be able to use GC gear anymore, and we'll need to farm seals all over again if we buy anything with them.


The short of it is, the GC restriction is terrible. Why not just randomly assign people/parties a GC to represent when they queue up, but keep the rewards specific to the GC they're currently in? Lore wise, the GCs are still fighting each other, and queue wise, the gaps can more easily be filled. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in XI ballista, couldn't someone from Sandy represent team Windy (since it wasn't a three way battle)? Why not just apply similar logic here?

[chrillix]

The biggest fix is to remove the GC restriction. When 72 people are queued, fire it up. The argument that Wolve's Den still failed and didn't have a GC restriction is a bad one, since Wolve's Den had many other serious issues that made it suck.

I would do frontline's all the time if I didn't have to wait 30m - 1hour for a queue.

[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.

[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.

[Fyce]

Removing the GC restriction won't resolve all of the issues Frontlines has for good.
It's just a small fix for occasional "PvP saturday nights" some FC could do, but it won't drive more people in.

What PvP need is a constant flow of players, mostly soloqueuing, in order to establish a solid PvP playerbase.

You won't get that simply by removing GC restriction (and destroying all of the lore attached to Carteneau at the same time).

The problem comes from the amount of time needed to be put into PvP to get anything of value, and that the rewards themselves are quite meh, besides a few set or armor made for glamour.
It's just like the Tank mount which was added to the game to make people play Tank more. It just didn't work at all, because the reward itself isn't -that- amazing and the process of getting it is way too grindy and boring. Exactly like PvP rewards.

Just look at the PvP Roulette. There is absolutly zero PvP rewards for doing that Roulette... just a bunch of tomestones. That's super lame, and with the current waiting time, nobody wan't to to it at least once a day.

GC restriction clearly isn't the core of the problem. It's just the tip of the iceberg that everyone sees because it's obvious.
Even if you remove it and can now "play with your friends", there will still be nothing but a grind waiting for you. You'll do half a dozen PvP games and then most of you will be done with it, going back to 30+ queues time.

[DoctorPepper]

Removing the GC restriction won't resolve all of the issues Frontlines has for good.
It's just a small fix for occasional "PvP saturday nights" some FC could do, but it won't drive more people in.

What PvP need is a constant flow of players, mostly soloqueuing, in order to establish a solid PvP playerbase.

The problem with GC restrictions is that it inhibits the queue times for solo queues as well though. Say you have 60 flames, 30 maelstrom, and 15 adders queued up. If there was no GC restriction the queue would pop, but because there is a restriction everybody waits and the additional flames who queued last wait even longer. People will eventually withdraw because the queue is taking so long and then you're back to square one.

I agree that it only fixes part of the problem because there still isn't a lot of incentive in terms of rewards from pvp. Grind hundreds of hours, get some really cool glamour gear (if you happen to even play a job with cool gear, some of it is terrible) and maybe a mount or two.

[Fyce]

The problem with GC restrictions is that it inhibits the queue times for solo queues as well though. Say you have 60 flames, 30 maelstrom, and 15 adders queued up. If there was no GC restriction the queue would pop, but because there is a restriction everybody waits and the additional flames who queued last wait even longer. People will eventually withdraw because the queue is taking so long and then you're back to square one.

That's correct and is a bigger problem than "I can't queue with my friends".

In the end, it all comes down to the number of people queuing and the repartition between GCs.

If you look at the lasted stats given by SE, all 3 company were fairly well populated, with only the Maelstorm being a bit behind.
So, even if a situation like the one you described would happen, it would probably be temporary (I mean, I don't see why the members of a certain CG wouldn't be less inclined to PvP than others).

Again, even if a GC has less player than the others, with a healthy PvP playerbase, this problem would not be as important as it sounds like.

PvP needs better rewards. Better incentive to be played.
Just look at The Hunt. It's crappy content, not interesting, not challenging, full of bad behaviors and so on... but people are still doing it. Why? Because the rewards are awesome, which overcomes the badness that is Hunting.

It's quite simple, really. SE just need to give a reason for people to want to go in PvP frequently beyond of the "PvP itself", and most issues will be solved that way.
After that, we can then think about getting more maps, more modes and finally getting rid of GC restriction while trying to keep the lore intact.

[Stupiduglytaru]

As to pvp not popular, I had a friend today wait 2hrs for low level rouletteeanwhile I popped 3 frontlines. GC restriction is the main problem, a lot of people unwilling to try this out solo. I've introduced PvP to various friends who have switched GC to try it out and have loved it, the que system is also a major issue with 0 info of how many per gc there are queing plus its brokenness, you can get trapped in a que of let's say 8/8/4 seeking but if a spot is clear in a fl going on already you will not fill that spot, instead you have to reque to get this

Rewards as well are pretty stupid, in a game that basically allows you to 1-50 in a day with ridiculous xp rewards from challenge log or leves or daily roulette bonus, it seems pvp doesnt have an real help. Its taken me 4 months of pvping to finally reach rank 38, but so glad o reached this

[ErikMynhier]

I wish instead of Wolf's Den or Frontlines and all the effort put into it, they had given us a simple PVP duel system. Just a simple "Hey! I challenge you!" would have been great, would have scratched the pvp itch some folks have, and would have freed resources up that are now tied to the whole PVP mess.

[SirTaint]

Last night: 34minute wait for my first match. 13 minutes for my second.

That was on a Friday night which is the second busiest PvP night each week. (Sat is first)