Penalty for going to the toilet ...

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I wonder why me and others who have been ready for a queue have to wait for someone who is not ready and they get withdrawn anyway for not hitting ready? My time is just as valuable as yours.

[Colorful]

snip

You didn't pause your queue, you put someone ahead of you. Pausing your queue would be while you're at the very front of the line but forget to pick something up, and so you tell the clerk you'll be right back but then end up taking several minutes wasting everyone's time, that's pausing your queue. WoW lets you pause your queue in the case of a disconnection, but if you logged back in and the queue had popped while you were logged off, it would kick you from the queue and find someone else.

[Moqi]

Pausing your queue would be while you're at the very front of the line but forget to pick something up, and so you tell the clerk you'll be right back but then end up taking several minutes wasting everyone's time, that's pausing your queue.

No, that would be pausing the entire queue. I am not going to discuss this any further it is such an easy concept I can't believe someone even had to explain it. I can't type from the embarassment.

What content are you doing that takes "hours" to queue for?

Plenty.

[StouterTaru]

Jumbled words

5 minutes to unpause or you are removed from queue
can't use pause again for another hour
can't use pause if you are in the pairing/reserving instance stage

Where is the abuse that would come from this?

[Kerii]

If I queue up for something, but suddenly need to feed my cat, I shouldn't be kicked from the system when I don't confirm, right? My cat's ability to enjoy her kitty snacks is far more important than any of you, and you know it. :P Seriously no, I tell her to wait until I'm done. (Which she does with a great deal of complaining and whining)

[Lexia]

5 minutes to unpause or you are removed from queue
can't use pause again for another hour
can't use pause if you are in the pairing/reserving instance stage

Where is the abuse that would come from this?

Based on se putting in a system and then adding those anti abuse measures later in a different patch like they have done in the past

[Jamillion]

meaningful contribution...

This is my first MMO but that sounds like a brilliant queuing system, thanks for putting such a well thought out post and explaining the details of how such a system would work. I'm still not sure how it would work in ffxiv since there's a lot of underlying systems in place but I can appreciate how it works in WoW after seeing this

[StouterTaru]

Based on se putting in a system and then adding those anti abuse measures later in a different patch like they have done in the past

Such as? Vote dismiss while loot was up, which could be done for 5 whole weeks?

"Someone might be able to slightly abuse the system for a few weeks" is a poor reason not to implement a QoL change. Every patch has had bugs, does that mean they shouldn't have ever bothered to release them?

It would be a QoL adjustment not just for the people that use it, but also for those that don't by reducing the amount of "One or more party members timed out, please wait a few more minutes" messages.

[zosia]

Or they could, you know, let you pause your queue and resume when you're back.

HAHAHAHAHAH

OHOHOHOHOHO

OMG!

This is the OF, the fault ALWAYS lies with the player. Get out of here with good ideas that make sense. We simply accept things as they are and wait for all the ff fan pretenders to quit. Pfft, please make sure you understand these things before bringing your practical and decent idea to the forums.

Based on se putting in a system and then adding those anti abuse measures later in a different patch like they have done in the past

See? This guy gets it. Don't change anything ever if there is a possibility that a chance exists for a problem to occur... maybe.

We need more of these type of people calling the shots around here.

[Vandril]

Queue pausing works fine. At least in WoW.

Imagine you're in a store queued up waiting to pay your stuff. The queue is long and you need the bathroom. In stead of taking your shopping cart to the toilets, you leave it in the queue. As the queue moves forward, your trolley is pushed forward with it. Either you come back before your trolley has reached the cashier, and everything is just as if you never left your spot. Or, your trolley has reached the cashier. In stead of being shoved to the side to wait for your return and requeuing, your trolley remains in first place in the queue and people simply move past it if you have not returned yet.

Let's say 10 people get past you (letter A) in the queue. The queue would normally pop for people in this order: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N... In stead it looks like this: B C D E F G H I J K A L M N... Players L, M, N and onwards will have the exact same queue time as if A never went afk and players B - K have the same queue time as if player A withdrew.

WoW implemented this queuing algorithm alongside with the ability to queue up for multiple things at once. If a queue popped, the other queues would be paused while you did your instance (allowing other queued people to get in past you). When exiting the completed instance, you would quite often get an instant queue pop for the next thing. Yet, I noticed no increase in queue time for the first queue. It was soooo convenient.

The only downside to this would be that the queue doesn't get shorter by the small amount of players who get withdrawn. But like I said, it's not a noticeable amount of time and if multiple queues at once were allowed, chaining all the instances you want to run would be super efficient. This is certainly one of the (many) quality-of-life things I miss from WoW...

OMG, thank you. It was driving me up a wall watching so many people not understanding how a queue pause could work. I was afraid I was going to have to write a long post explaining how queue pausing DOES work, but you managed it much more eloquently than I could have.

This is how queue pausing is done. It has no noticeable detrimental effects and is beneficial to those who are in long queues and need to step away from the PC for a moment. It is a thing, it has been done before, and it can be done here.