Help Queue Times, Save PVP--Ideas Inside, SE we need you to respond please

[PlumpyMcduff]

A few ideas:


A GC-Unrestricted "fill queue" (random GC assignment, enables friends of differing GC's to ally together finally).


Change PVP Roulette to include Bonus PVP Exp./Wolf Marks.


Remove queue-based 72man Slaughter (all it does it cause the client to delay to begin a match in hopes of filling a 72man instead of multiple 24mans; 72man Slaughter could still occur in a 'guaranteed format,' outlined below).


Have, at minimum, one virtually guaranteed 24-72man Frontlines occur every hour of the day (possibly, alternating between Secure/Slaughter).

For even odds & equitability, these matches could be up to Light Party queue only & assign a random GC to each entrant/Light Party group.

It could work like Chocobo Racing, you'd opt-in & then it'd put you in regardless of player count once the timer expired. Latecomers could join-in up to a certain time into the match.

If 100 players opted-in, both a 72man & a 24man would start on time.


The remaining 4 players would be put on a hold (this' where the "virtual" comes in) until enough additional players opted-in, in which another 24man would begin.

Heck, it could be designed such that if that queue were taking too long, a prompt could appear on-screen notifying players that enough have queued to fill a Wolve's Den bout instead & if they'd rather like to participate in that in place of continuing to wait.

Client could even show how many active, guaranteed Frontlines are taking place & how many have queued for the pending one... so those 4 have a way of telling if it's just not going to happen for them right then (current FL queues should show this anyway, they should show how many are queued up for each individual GC even).


Lastly, SE should design a rectangular 8v8 map to help combat this rare scenario too.

Besides, it'd be fun, could do like Capture the Flag or something.


Also, revivify Wolve's Den...

Make Leaderboards & have Arena Seasons with special PVP armor/weapon rewards or something.

Have separate Leaderboards/Rankings for Solo Queue & Light Party Premades.

And do a Daily Roulette: Wolve's Den (solo) & Wolve's Den (light party) for bonus PVP Exp & Wolf Mark's.


NOTE TO SE REGARDING FFXIV'S PVP:

I know you guys get a lot of crap from people regarding its design... but I tell you, haters gon hate. I play a ton of competitive PVP games & have PVPed competitively in nigh every MMO in existence.

Yes, I did WoW PVP religiously for a while... and I mostly loathed it for reasons you guys legitimately solved. You've implemented things I've been asking for in other MMO PVP environments for ages.

PVP-Specific Actions & Traits as well as PVP-Specific Balance Changes chief among them. You guys are on the right track with this machine, you've just handled the queue's & restrictions wrong.

Your current system shoots PVP in the foot by making it unfriendly for play-with-friends (e.g. GC Restriction) & by severely hurting queue times by things like GC Restriction & multiple formats too soon.

I'm not saying remove GC Restriction anymore, but ease it up... let people who don't care about GC-centric PVP fill the ranks unrestricted or ally with their friends of differing GC's somehow.

There's merit to GC loyalty & fighting under your GC banner, so keep it sure... but allow those who could care less to have their positive social experience aligning with friends of differing GC's in Frontlines.

Lastly, it's utterly imperative that you untie PVP Rank from GC's, that you use some of the added character data from 3.0 to save PVP Loadouts by Job, & that you add a "Swap Alliance" Feature for PVP (so if one Alliance has 4 Healers but another has 0, 2 Healers can trade-out).

Each of these things highly dissuade people from switching Jobs in PVP which can be hugely detrimental (no healer alliances) & deincentivize people to switch GC's in a negative way (I hate pirates but my friends love them, just because I don't want to be Maelstrom or they do want to be Maelstrom, I shouldn't be locked from Frontlining with them... it's just silly, let us have the GC we want & still Frontlines alongside our friends of differing GC's).

I love you SE & please don't take this the wrong way, I mean this with all my love for the developers & for the game--but your stubbornness with regards to GC Restriction is killing PVP. I say this with utmost passion for the PVP you've implemented (I honestly love it, so much so that this must be said to you, because it's dying a slow death).

So please, for the love of PVP, reconsider how you're handling this.

[Buff_Archer]

I will endorse this thread. Also would like to add- most of us who have been been providing repeated constructive feedback via the forums (or call it complaining, whatev) would really rather spend that time playing the game itself. Make it where we can actually get back to doing the latter activity once more, and we won't have time to be doing the former. Could have fooled some people I'm sure, but complaining about PVP on to forums to no end actually isn't a favorite hobby of mine.

[Yaltus]

I don't think removing/fixing the GC lock will help PvP if it doesn't improve the queues. If I could regularly get into a Frontlines match in 5-10 minutes and actually play a decent number of games I think I'd be far less concerned about the GC issue. Mostly it seems to just be one more element affecting the queue times. They really need to figure out what is going on with the Duty Finder and fix it. It is incredibly frustrating to wait 45 minutes for a match and see a 72 man pop - it feels like you should have already been in and finished at least two 24 man matches instead of waiting for the larger format.

And of course, the rewards from the PvP roulette are absolutely baffling. It is pretty simply to cap Poetics already, and I have to imagine most people have practically no use for soldiery anymore unless they are doing relic weapons. I just don't see it as drawing more people in. Honestly, even MGP would probably be a better reward, and it is pure vanity points. PvP Roulette offering bonus XP would go a long way in helping with the surplus Wolf Marks you get well before you can equip any gear. I personally would like to see a buyback NPC as well, maybe at 50%, so buying lower rank PvP gear doesn't feel like a complete waste of points.

[Lorielle]

I don't think removing/fixing the GC lock will help PvP if it doesn't improve the queues.

Stop. You are underestimating this big time. I have SO MANY FRIENDS. That I could bring into PVP just to sit there and have fun. But I cannot because we are different FCs. They don't bother playing it otherwise. I can't be bothered to switch from my GC because I would lose my rank entirely. In turn, access to my PVP Armors I worked hard for.

[Cidolfas86]

I don't think removing/fixing the GC lock will help PvP if it doesn't improve the queues. If I could regularly get into a Frontlines match in 5-10 minutes and actually play a decent number of games I think I'd be far less concerned about the GC issue.

Keep in mind that not all GC populations are equal on each data center. The people currently experiencing fast ques is the result of being in an understaffed GC. Removing GC restriction would positively lower the que times people experience for everyone, so we'd all get the benefit.

[Stormrider]

I approve of most of the suggestions. I think you over estimate their party matching system. I believe it is so borked and that is why they never say anything. So instead of getting the pve response of it is a server limitation we get no response.

But if we could get a consistent que, people might bring more friends to try it.

[papichulo123]

Wouldn't random gc work???

[Adrian74]

I hope they'll take this kind of topics in consideration... Though, I admit I don't care much about wolves den.... But, please, remove that damn GC restriction!

[Guesswhat]

Good ideas there. The que is the main problem with PvP. I dunno how stubborn SE really is about this GC thing; it may as well only concern frontline. If that is the case, frontline should also award company seals, or something to make it more attractive in the rise of other PvP modes.

With 3.0 (or 3.x) new PvP modes will most likely come. "last man/lasy standing" and "capture the flag" type PvP would be intresting.

[Stupiduglytaru]

Of course removing GC restriction would solve queues overnight, if 50 flames/mael are seeking yet only 4 adders no game can take place remove GC lockout and now 2 x 24 can freely whack away at each other.

Each day that goes by with GC lockout is killing pvp