Confusion about how Duty Finder works

[Zane]

I'm curious exactly how it selects which players wind up in a party. Take for instance this example from earlier today:

I want to do Syrcus Tower, so I queue up first on my Paladin.

30+ minute wait time, 1/3 0/6 0/15.

Cool, switch to Monk, queue up.

28 minute wait time, 1/3 0/6 3/15.

It looks like a party just started getting put together, so I hop back onto my Paladin so I can go to Syrcus Tower as a tank. 15 minutes into the queue and it's still 1/3 0/6 0/15. Deciding to cut my losses, I switch back to Monk, queue up, and the party is at 2/3 2/6 8/15.

As we speak, duty finder is now at 2/3 6/6 15/15. Why wouldn't it throw me into a party that was forming when I was queued up for those 15 minutes as Paladin, seeing as how we now need a tank?

Thank you for any insight into this matter!

[Nghthawk]

Every time you leave the que and re-enter in you're placed at the end of the list.

With your examples if you are seeing the people who are qued up your place is included into it. So if the tally you are waiting for is 2/3 6/6 15/15 and are on a tanking job you are one of those 2 listed there or 1 of the 6 healers or 1 of the 15 dps When you dropped 2 tanks qued up.

[Zane]

I understand that much.

What I'm wondering is, if a Tank was needed for Syrcus tower, why wasn't I put into a forming party during the 15 minutes I was in the queue? I find it highly unlikely that in the 4 - 5 seconds I switched back to Paladin the first time a Tank and 2 DPS dropped out of the queue or formed a complete alliance, and in the 4 - 5 seconds that I switched from Paladin to Monk 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 7 DPS joined the queue.

[Canadane]

If there's a lack of tanks (and trust me, there are), there will exist multiple parties in need of tanks.
You queuing up as a tank may get into party #18 of the queue, but queuing up as a monk would perhaps match you into party #870.

Party #18 there may have a different player makeup, causing you to look at some odd numbers. Normally this wouldn't be an issue to shuffle people around until you have one full raid party to go, but when people queue up with their friends, it makes it slightly more difficult, because now if you're a DPS short in one party, but the only other DPSs that are in queue are all with their buddy in a preformed group, they cannot be shuffled in.

[Zane]

Just figured I'd post an update as I finally found the answer to this question through lots of experimentation:

The Duty Finder DOES NOT put together groups of 24. It puts together 3 groups of 8. What I mean by this is that for the Crystal Tower Raids, it will assemble the first group through Duty Finder before it bothers assembling the second or third groups.

So, using World of Darkness as an example, Duty Finder will wait until it has a full group of 1/2/5 before assembling the second group of 1/2/5, and then finally the last group of 1/2/5. This makes it difficult to tell where you are in the queue if group one hasn't been constructed and there is technically enough room for you to be in group 3.

[Amiaze]

It puts together 3 groups of 8.

Couple this with the fact that you'll have a lot of oddly formed parties (one healer, one DPS/one tank, three DPS), and it becomes a lot easier to see why our queue times can be so dreadfully long. It's not that there aren't people queueing up; it's the assortment and order in which they're queueing.

Good find and nice experimentation. I'm glad to see that people are still going into this content, as I was looking forward to running through it again for fun.