The state of PVP

[Maymort]

Hello,

Just started to play this game in September. I tried it before but slow global cooldowns made me quit bla bla bla. In September I decided to stick until the late game and I actually liked it. Content, people ( most of them ) , graphics , and soundtracks are good. Here is the thing pure pve does not work for me. thats why I am a little bit surprised. I know Final Fantasy series is known for their PVE but as a tank the best queue time i get for PvP is 30+ minutes. I thought maybe there weren't any PvP'ers in my server (Ragnarok) then I found out everyone in the same data center are queued up together. That was another shock because there are so many players playing this game and PvE queues are almost insta-pop for me, yet so little PvP'ers. Is there something wrong with me ? Someone said i should try healer for faster queues in PvP but I don't want to play a healer class. I just want to enjoy both PvP and PvE. Any suggestions about how can I get more PvP ?

[SuperZay]

Content should be played when it's relevant if you want faster ques. There were months of 72-man Frontlines matches, both lv.50 and lv.60, popping almost instantly one after another in prime time. Now it's only 24-men and you'll be lucky to get a few Shatters per evening. I doubt you'll ever see 72-man Seal Rock and other older modes again. Between-patch lull when many players unsub doesn't help either. If they'll release new Frontline map in 3.5 it'll be semi-active for a while.
For Shatter Adders have the shortest ques on Chaos DC but also lowest win rate. It's good to switch there if you want faster pops, you'll build PvP rank faster and get more practice.
For The Feast tank ques are fast in the evening, but it's probably a good idea to get more experience and try your PvP skills in Shatter before doing any ranked matches. DRKs happen to have the lowest win rate among tanks because they can't provide defensive support of paladins, nor offensive might of warriors, so you might reconsider your class if you are serious about PvP and wins.

[Februs]

No, there's nothing wrong with you. It's the game and the matchmaking system.

Firstly, PvP is really an end-game thing. You are not likely to get into anything below the current level cap. At level 60, the most active game-modes are the most recent ones. There's a long and troubled history which explains why that is the case, but the short hand of it is that, as of right now, the most active game modes are: Feast (ranked solo-queue), Feast (unranked 8v8 queue), and Frontlines: Shatter, in that order. Anything else is likely dead, unless the community organizes specific events or days for queuing (which is rare, but does happen).

As for increasing your own queue time, this depends on the time of day you queue, what you're queuing for, and how far in a patch we are. You should be made aware that PvP lobbies are filled based on Data Centre, not server. Each DC has a "Prime Time" in which queues tend to pop more regularly, which is typically established by region. This time is usually around late-afternoon to evenings, depending on your time-zone. solo-queue Feast is also role restricted, so you're wait time will be effected by your job. From longest to shortest, queue times are typically: Ranged dps > melee dps > tanks > healers. However, I've noticed that tank queues and melee dps queues can sometimes swap places, depending on what is popular and how many people are in the queue line. Role requirements are irrelevant to 8v8 Feast and Frontlines, so no worreis there. That said, the lobbies are bigger, so the wait is longer. Major content patches tend to slow queue times down quite a bit, as everyone will be unlocking the new stuff, and Feast seasons often have dry-spells, typically when players accumulate enough points to sit on them safely. There's also rankings within solo/party Feast. Matchmaking is supposed to separate different player ranks from one another (which doesn't really work all that well), so starting late in the season can reduce the available player pool for your current rank.

Another thing to keep in mind regarding queue times is that the average wait timer is not accurate. The varying wait times of each job and the total number of players in queue can throw it out of whack. For example, a tank queue might say "5 minutes;" however, if there are only 9 players in queue (2 full parties +1 spare tank), then the 5 minute wait timer will be inaccurate because the last remaining tank will have to wait for the current match to expire before they get into a match. That would make their wait time closer to 8 minutes, even though the timer says 5. You often end up seeing a lot of familiar faces when that happens. Likewise, the queue might actually be much faster than it says if matches end early or there is a deficiency of certain jobs. It's always good to wait it out for a bit when you first start for the night, just to see how it plays.

With all that said, I won't sugar-coat it for you. PvP does often have obnoxiously long queue times. Feast queue times tend to roll well if you wait it out, but Frontlines and 8v8 can go on forever. The game is heavily focused on PvE, so even the most active PvP'ers have to split their time. There's also a stigma against PvP within the greater community. Some of them have tried it and legitimately don't like it, but most of them haven't even tried it -- or tried it once and were turned off by a bad experience. Quite frankly, there are a lot of PvE purists who don't think that PvP should even exist, and that all PvP'ers should suffer for liking any content that isn't a standard dungeon, raid, or trial. The ranking system in Feast also scares a lot of the casual crowd away, so it is a constant struggle.

[Bartleby]

PvP is in a semi-lull right now. Hopefully in the next patch they'll be releasing a new Frontlines mode (24-72 man battleground) which will get people back into it. Right now, most of the Frontline games have very slow queues, at least on my data center (Primal). That said, you should still be able to get queues for the Feast (Ranked) which is a 4v4 Arena. Because it's ranked, it tends to stay more active over a longer period of time, but on the downside, it is usually packed with more hardcore/serious PvPers who may be upset/frustrated if you have little to no previous PvP experience.

Typically what I would recommend is start by playing Frontlines/8v8 Feast to get a feel for how PvP works in this game; practice using your PvP abilities, learn the game rules, start observing how the jobs all play in PvP (protip: All of the jobs play VERY differently in PvP, tank especially). If Frontlines/8v8 queues are too dead for you, you can try and hop straight into 4v4 Ranked Feast (or you can also try organizing 4v4 Custom Matches on your server!) but I highly recommend you watch some video guides/read the game rules and practice your PvP abilities in the Wolves Den before you do.

Finally, there is a PvP discord channel (http://discord.me/teamtryhard) you can try using which may have some other PvPers on your data center which can give you better advice tailored for your data center. PvPaissa is another good resource you can use which has a few guides up.

Good luck!

[P4X0R10N]

Shatter is atrocious.

Seal rock was great.

72 man is too chaotic. Too much damage and instant deaths and cometeor makes it not fun.

Should make all front lines 24 or 48 at most.

Get rid of shatter.

Bring back seal rock.

[Urthdigger]

I'd rather they bring back Borderland Ruins personally, either of the two modes. It was the only map one could really expect to get kills on with a WHM :P