SE, can we please have some open dialogue on the PVP queue issue?

[Turin]

To preface this, I've been an avid PVPer in nearly every MMO beyond the past decade. I've played PVP to rank 14 in vanilla WoW, exalted in many battlegrounds, and led a siege legion/guild to world and server firsts in Aion, Warhammer, and Age of Conan.

Simply put, FFXIV has a great PVP system and fun gameplay but it suffers from a major queue issue. I don't believe this queue issue is because FFXIV players don't like PVP. I believe it is because the queue system is flawed. The core feature of a functional PVP system is availability. Imagine an FPS with a lobby that took 30 minutes between matches. It would fail miserably even if it was the greatest FPS gameplay of all time. At all costs, to keep PVP relevant you have to aim for reliable queues under 10 minutes. Ideally, even faster. Last night, my queue popped at 57 minutes, today it is currently 65 minutes and counting. For PVP to flourish, that is unacceptable. Open dialogue with the PVP community will help.

Here are the current speculations concerning PVP in FFXIV and why the queues are so bad:

1. GC requirements cause the queues to be at the mercy of the least queuing faction.
2. There is speculation that only a limited number of instances can open at the same time.
3. The queues have a bug that cause people to get stuck in limbo (reset queue if you go beyond 30 minutes).
4. Rank matching slows the queue - some people get two queues under the same criteria before someone else gets one.

Here are a few things that I hope SE is considering when evaluating their data:

1. Average queue time per player, rank, and grand company
2. Queue abandon rate and elapsed time at which this occurs
3. Number of players queuing per faction per data center
4. Number of concurrent games per data center

Something is wrong with the queues. Please let us help you. We are passionate and while Seal Rock proved you are listening to some requests (randomizing start location) the queue issue remains.

Whether it is removing the GC restrictions, allowing people to queue as mercenaries for other GC, not resetting PVP rank when switching GCs, providing a smaller scale map for two GCs (or GC agnostic - flames can battle other flames), or something else, an open dialogue will help you find a solution. Because, as it remains, Seal Rock (and PVP in general) is going to slowly fizzle due to the queues being so long.

[Mayoyama]

I can attest that the queue bug is quite real... I am part of a Maelstrom PvP linkshell and everyone in there is aware of it and has been affected by it.

I could queue for Frontlines and be in queue for 45 minutes but joe blogs over there could be about to enter his 3rd match within those 45 min because he is on what I have nicknamed the "queue train". Essentially, unless you queue as soon as a match finishes, you are in real danger of missing your spot in the queue for the next match and can be literally forgotten by DF that you had even queued for PvP in the first place.... finding yourself sitting there for 30 min+ while your friends continue to get almost instant queue pops

[Turin]

I can attest that the queue bug is quite real...

I'm not even sure it is a bug. I speculate it may be something to do with rank matching and not fitting the algorithm. I know Wolves Den tries to match teams with a similar average rank level. I vaguely recall SE stating that Frontlines does not have rank matching, but something weird is going on. It's definitely not first come, first serve, which it should be.

[Februs]

I'm not even sure it is a bug. I speculate it may be something to do with rank matching and not fitting the algorithm. I know Wolves Den tries to match teams with a similar average rank level. I vaguely recall SE stating that Frontlines does not have rank matching, but something weird is going on. It's definitely not first come, first serve, which it should be.

I'm not sure what it is, but there's something wrong. I, personally, am suspicious that it's probably a bug, because it's a problem I've found is not exclusive to pvp.

Most people don't realize, because most people play as dps, and que times for dps are crap anyway. I play as a tank, and I can tell you, with CERTAINTY, that the DF gets gummed up. I've waited in a "less than 5 minute que" for 25 minutes, only to have the que pop instantly when I refreshed my que time. It's happened a few times. It's almost like the game is searching for a active duty, but not actually searching. You refresh, and it wakes up suddenly, going "oh, right, you wanted to play."

[Amiaze]

I play as a tank, and I can tell you, with CERTAINTY, that the DF gets gummed up.

I personally think that there are a lot of algorithms at play in almost everything concerning RNG and DF. For instance, there was most certainly something up with World of Darkness. We noticed that it would *only* drop DRG gear for the longest time, but it seemed to change based not so much on our party composition, but our party history, since we ran with a static. Similarly, the game liked to queue myself and my tank up with brand-new players when farming for tomes early on when we were playing our primary jobs. When we weren't, however, it tended to give us veteran players. I hope I'm remembering that correctly, but we most certainly noted that there were patterns when it came to the randomness of the game.

In the case of Seize, I noticed that I tend to get the same players pretty frequently, no matter what time of day it is. Surely there are more than 40 or so Malestrom players going in, but I think it tries to match people not based on rank, but perhaps how often they play. I've ended up in parties that had just played a round together without partying up beforehand, and knew none of them. Yet when I requeued later on, I ended up with the familiar faces again.

But I digress. On another note, how often does the community receive any acknowledgement from moderators or the development team concerning PvP? They seem pretty active in other areas, which is great, but it seems that this is abysmally low on their priorities list.

[Iagainsti]

I click join party in progress and only one language grouping, ie if you're English speaking, only click English, and that seems to work for our groups. If you're solo, always go with the roulette for quicker joins.

[Turin]

I click join party in progress and only one language grouping, ie if you're English speaking, only click English, and that seems to work for our groups. If you're solo, always go with the roulette for quicker joins.

I queue solo under English only. Roulette tends to take longer than Seal Rock queue only, in my experience. I suspected it is because a roulette may pass you on a Seal Rock trying to get into a level 50 match that others have queued for. Odd that you have the opposite experience.

Yesterday's 57 min queue and today's 72 minute queue were both the exact criteria you specified - roulette, in progress, english only. My subsequent queues were Seal Rock only and took between 20-30 minutes.

[Amiaze]

Yes, I really hope SE does something about the current issue with PvP.

As someone who really, really wanted to get into PvP when Wolves' Den was released, I don't want to see Seal Rock die off the same way all previous PvP attempts have. Someone else said it best in another thread: PvP needs continual support and updates just like PvE content does. Not as frequently no, but releasing it and only updating it once or twice throughout the course of Heavensward (as was really the case in ARR) will leave it to become a barren wasteland. I'm mainly a PvE player, but I sincerely enjoy PvP when I want something to do besides run a dungeon for the thousandth time for a single grind before doing it all over again for the next grind.

The queue times are the number one killer. When we only had Wolves' Den, all PvP players just stood out in the Den staring at the sea. We all looked like Piccolo, standing around with our arms folded and waiting for the queue to pop. All of us did. And the queue was never anything less than 45 minutes, even when all of us queued up at the same time. We'd get matched with the same people, go a round, immediately requeue, and yet nothing would pop for nearly an hour. Even with a dedicated linkshell, it was just impossible to get into rounds. This doesn't factor in people that were queued and then had another duty pop, or perhaps an S-rank hunt once those were introduced, and who prioritized those over PvP.

Because a lot of players are simply using Seal Rock to cap tomes (which is understandable), I can see a large number of current players raiding other content once it is released, and leaving Seal Rock behind altogether. Coupled with GC restrictions and rank matches, that will only make the queues worse.

Unless I play during peak times (which is late at night for me), I don't even see all the alliances being filled on a regular basis. We're oftentimes missing at least four people. Considering that Seal Rock released only recently, this should not be.

[JubjubTubs]

The reason they won't remove GC restrictions, longer ques. Longer que times to them means it takes longers for players to get achievements and r50. More time players stay subbed.

What SE doesn't get... cause I don't believe they truly understand a PvP mindset at all (and should hire someone that does to run that dev team...)... is they need to keep feeding us. I can get over PvP gear being pointless... I can sorta get over how vanilla/'fair' they try and make it when pitting vets against scrubs... these que times I can't get over and makes me stop pvp'ing. Makes a lot of PvP vets stop. We aren't getting our fix. And you know what, SE? When a PvP'er doesn't get their fix... we go somewhere else to get our PvP fix. We go to other games. And you know what happens then? Other MMOs/games take our money, and you stop getting it.

Wake up, SE. Faster ques = more money for you.

[Turin]

Wake up, SE. Faster ques = more money for you.

Basically. PVP is what keeps people subbed when they get tired of the PVE. But it's not going to keep people subbed if they are sitting 30+ minutes between matches. I just don't understand why their first and foremost focus isn't to get the queues moving at an acceptable pace.

PVP queues need to flow like a river, unrestricted.