The only real way to solve DPS queues

[Altena]

I'd just love to see 3-8 player difficulty syncs for any originally 4-man dungeons...

I think it would go beyond just buffing mob levels / damage / HP in order to scale the difficulty like that - certain mechanics (if dungeon bosses could be said to actually have mechanics) are designed with 4 players in mind.

The simplest solution would be to perminately increase the DPS slots so the dungeons become 5 or 6 man. Finding that balance of how many extra slots to add might be difficult but increasing it by 1 would be a good start, and 2 would probably be even better.

------- Edit - Hit daily post limit -_-

No. Can't have much loot now, it's not to get 1 or 2 people more rolling in dungeons.
I'm not a crafter gatherer and I don't wanna spend the rest of the game buying everything from MB.

Eh? If the system remained similar, it would still prioritize 1 melee, 1 ranged, and 1 or 2 others. From my understanding the system tries to avoid matching with double of the same job and that should retain as the DPS queue still has a large pool of DPS players, it just lets more through the door.

Honestly if you were able to get 5-10 min queues instead of 20-30 min queues in exchange for a slight decrease in chance for picking up a piece of gear or 2 for your job that may or may not drop anyway? I would personally prefer faster queue times. The marketboard is there for "fill in" slots. You're not likely going to get fully geared out in the 6-8 runs of a dungeon anyway.. At least I am not in my current levelling climb for my off jobs. If it wasn't for stored gear for the loot I had greeded on other jobs during my climb I wouldn't have much gear at all..

RNG is always going to be RNG. Dungeon drops are a bonus but you shouldn't rely on them.

It would indeed go beyond that. But so has it for every game I've seen that allows for flexible member count. Some even vary according to composition. But that's a far cry from their being impossible to produce. I also don't see why we should necessarily have to remove 4-man dungeons just to satisfy a dps overflow. Allow for it, sure, but why replace entirely?

Oh I definitely don't think it's impossible (apologies if I actually said it was as I didn't mean it literally). I would be all for scaling content, and think it would be fantastic if it were fairly easy to do - however we had a very tough time getting "true" scaling FATEs when we asked for them for the "years" and still haven't recieved anything remotely close to what we wanted in my opinion. I feel like it would be another story for dungeon content as dungeons require mechanics to be scalable which may limit the ability to design some of them. Mechanics such as having to jump into a bubble when a limited number of bubbles pop in order to avoid a big AoE come to mind. I mean I am sure they could add more bubbles in this case, however it wouldn't exactly be the easiest thing to implement I imagine.

I will address your 2nd point with my first one. Similar story - I think it would be great if we could scale them, however I think it would be more challenging to do, rather than a flat increase in the number of DPS slots.

I would argue the major issue with this is that it might not actually be mechanically feasible within the game engine and even if it was it would be an epic amount of work to make the change with a questionable amount of benefit. That's not even really taking into account party balance. Healing in particular would probably need some tweaking because the increased difficulty for healers would be directly balanced off player performance so one extra good player would make little difference while one extra bad player would add plenty of additional work.

In the end I doubt we will see this happen.

I can't see how this is an issue with the game engine? I mean queues have differing numbers of players in various duties. Some are 4-man, others 8-man and others 24 man.. Some are role bound (PvE) and some are open to any roles (PvP & PotD).
How is this mechanically not feasible to pull off? Perhaps I don't have your level of programming knowledge, however it seems like a strange thing to have a problem with. How would it be difficult to increase the number of player slots? A "Light party" is anything over 4. A full party is 8. An alliance is between 9 and 24. It's not like we are going beyond 8 players in a levelling / story / end game dungeon..

I mean even looking at PvP alone - if the alliance fills up and some people fail to hit the Confirm button, they get kicked out but the queue still succeeds and you are left with a sub-24 man alliance.. If they can manage that - I am sure they can add an extra DPS slot or two to the "new" levelling / story / end game dungeons.

I do want to stress that I am not suggesting they rework all current dungeons to a scaling system in my OP. Nor am I suggesting a scaling system (as nice as that would be).
What I am suggesting is that they increase the party composition size to 5 or 6 man dungeons with 1-2 extra DPS slots, for NEW dungeons that are yet to be released - and can be balanced accordingly before being released.

As for your point regarding healers - honestly from my understanding a good portion of the community are suggesting to increase healer load for 4-man dungeons as it has been shown that *most* healers end up having too much free time, and are expected to push DPS. Some that do not wish to push DPS end up just standing there for half the time..

Either way, that comes back to scaling the dungeon difficulty based on this new composition. If that were an issue then sure, it would likely be looked at in terms of balancing that difficulty.

I imagine it would be easier to balance unreleased content then it would be to go back and attempt to balance existing content with a new system like this..

Lastly, yes it is unlikely that this will happen - however it is honestly a way to improve the queue time for DPS. Not just for Stormblood but for beyond.

I'm talking about minions and music. Those are the true endgame alongside glamour.

Buff drop rates :P

Problem solved.

If that doesn't satisfy you - default to "Greed" when the player already has said minion or music sheet. This would avoid it hitting the floor if everyone has it, while increasing the chance that those who don't have it get it.

Though I do seem to recall you talking about crafting / gathering and looting gear.

[Shurrikhan]

I think it would go beyond just buffing mob levels / damage / HP in order to scale the difficulty like that - certain mechanics (if dungeon bosses could be said to actually have mechanics) are designed with 4 players in mind.

The simplest solution would be to perminately increase the DPS slots so the dungeons become 5 or 6 man. Finding that balance of how many extra slots to add might be difficult but increasing it by 1 would be a good start, and 2 would probably be even better.

It would indeed go beyond that. But so has it for every game I've seen that allows for flexible member count. Some even vary according to composition. But that's a far cry from their being impossible to produce. I also don't see why we should necessarily have to remove 4-man dungeons just to satisfy a dps overflow. Allow for it, sure, but why replace entirely?

[Arutan]

Eh? If the system remained similar, it would still prioritize 1 melee, 1 ranged, and 1 or 2 others. From my understanding the system tries to avoid matching with double of the same job and that should retain as the DPS queue still has a large pool of DPS players, it just lets more through the door.

RNG is always going to be RNG. Dungeon drops are a bonus but you shouldn't rely on them.

I'm talking about minions and music. Those are the true endgame alongside glamour.

[GreyTigress]

This is still true. I was glad to see the Ivalice raids replace tank slots with dps slots (there aren't even any mechanics for two tanks in most duties!). I can't understand why this sort of thing wasn't expanded in Stormblood, though.

The queue times are still absurd for DPS. I main tank, and I feel bad for them. It's one of those frustratingly simple problems to fix: CREATE MORE SLOTS FOR DPS TO FILL. I have yet to hear a single reason why this shouldn't be -standard-. Five-person parties are common elsewhere for this reason.

[Jijifli]

This is still true. I was glad to see the Ivalice raids replace tank slots with dps slots (there aren't even any mechanics for two tanks in most duties!). I can't understand why this sort of thing wasn't expanded in Stormblood, though.

The queue times are still absurd for DPS. I main tank, and I feel bad for them. It's one of those frustratingly simple problems to fix: CREATE MORE SLOTS FOR DPS TO FILL. I have yet to hear a single reason why this shouldn't be -standard-. Five-person parties are common elsewhere for this reason.

Guys they released the Necromancer job early it looks like.

[Arutan]

Though I do seem to recall you talking about crafting / gathering and looting gear.

Because crafter and gatherer makes money easily and buy the 4M dungeon minion.

[xbahax92]

Eh? If the system remained similar, it would still prioritize 1 melee, 1 ranged, and 1 or 2 others. From my understanding the system tries to avoid matching with double of the same job and that should retain as the DPS queue still has a large pool of DPS players, it just lets more through the door.

Role Distribution:
Healers - 23%, DPS - 55%, Tank - 21%

Percentage of Level 60 jobs - PLD - 7%, WAR - 8%, DRK - 8%, MNK - 9%, DRG - 8%, NIN - 8%, BRD - 9%, MCH - 5%, BLM - 10%, SMN - 6%, WHM - 10%, SCH - 6%, AST - 6%Percentage ratio of Tanks: PLD - 29%, WAR - 34%, DRK - 47%
Percentage ratio of Healers: WHM - 36%, AST - 22%, SCH - 43%
Percentage ratio of DPS: DRG and MNK - 14% (28% total), BRD - 15%, BLM - 16%, SMN - 20%, NIN - 12%, MCH - 8%

Nah, I do not think this is gonna help at all for the DF and match making. Just last census is showing what people play mostly and with those restrictions (no double classes) it would just lead to more wait times instead of helping. Especially when RDM and SAM are coming, Im pretty sure you will see 80% those registring for DF.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...l_census_2016/

[Altena]

¿And help DPS? No, you asked only for DPS classes, ignoring tanks / healers desires, now eat your queues.

PD: Sorry, I'm salty because no tanks/healers new classes.

I currently play WAR main. My queues will be just fine for WAR, however I also play other jobs, considering this is a multi-class system and all..

However I will bite - we already have more Tanks and Healers than we have Caster DPS and Melee STR based DPS..

You have to look beyond the titled "role" as a Tank/Healer/DPS and look at the place each job has in the party. We have less diversity in the roles that are getting released (Caster DPS and Melee STR DPS) than we have in Tank/Healer.

Was there a big stink kicked up that we recieved no Melee DPS or Caster DPS in HW? Not really, no.. Not in comparison to the level that people are shaking their salt about skipping a Tank / Healer this round.. This game was short the roles that are getting released. End of.

Nah, I do not think this is gonna help at all for the DF and match making. Just last census is showing what people play mostly and with those restrictions (no double classes) it would just lead to more wait times instead of helping. Especially when RDM and SAM are coming, Im pretty sure you will see 80% those registring for DF.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...l_census_2016/

It's not a restriction so much as it is a priority setting that is already in the game as we speak..

The DF attempts to match you with 1 melee and 1 ranged, and if this is not possible then it will just ignore this and match you with someone of the same role or job anyway. This was confirmed by Yoshi quite a long time ago in one of the earlier 2.x live letters from memory, and I am sure has been mentioned a number of times since then.

[Shurrikhan]

Eh? If the system remained similar, it would still prioritize 1 melee, 1 ranged, and 1 or 2 others. From my understanding the system tries to avoid matching with double of the same job and that should retain as the DPS queue still has a large pool of DPS players, it just lets more through the door.

Honestly if you were able to get 5-10 min queues instead of 20-30 min queues in exchange for a slight decrease in chance for picking up a piece of gear or 2 for your job that may or may not drop anyway? I would personally prefer faster queue times. The marketboard is there for "fill in" slots. You're not likely going to get fully geared out in the 6-8 runs of a dungeon anyway.. At least I am not in my current levelling climb for my off jobs. If it wasn't for stored gear for the loot I had greeded on other jobs during my climb I wouldn't have much gear at all..

RNG is always going to be RNG. Dungeon drops are a bonus but you shouldn't rely on them.

It doesn't technically have to be, though. WoW is only one example, and a later one at that, of "personal" loot, wherein each player loots from their own loot table, or "party" loot, where possible drops are limited to those that are not already possessed by each member who can use them. Similarly, there's always currency, for which we still have almost our entire "key item" space to hold, if SE would just finally transfer non-tradeable currencies to that section. Or there's internal RNG normalization, wherein your character data stores a hidden counter for loot chance, increased with each failure and decreased with each usable drop received, weighted or not according to that item's strength.

Oh I definitely don't think it's impossible (apologies if I actually said it was as I didn't mean it literally). I would be all for scaling content, and think it would be fantastic if it were fairly easy to do - however we had a very tough time getting "true" scaling FATEs when we asked for them for the "years" and still haven't recieved anything remotely close to what we wanted in my opinion. I feel like it would be another story for dungeon content as dungeons require mechanics to be scalable which may limit the ability to design some of them. Mechanics such as having to jump into a bubble when a limited number of bubbles pop in order to avoid a big AoE come to mind. I mean I am sure they could add more bubbles in this case, however it wouldn't exactly be the easiest thing to implement I imagine.

FATEs have a few disadvantages that dungeons do not. They spawn in waves, and therefore can only check player count and/or composition accordingly. Chances are, early leavers will do so at the tail of a wave, but not so quickly as to remove their contribution to the next wave's "sync". Etiquette itself does little to prevent that, but as relative party contribution required for a gold has been decreased it shouldn't be a necessary issue by any means.

Further, they provide few opportunities for assessment. You could, for instance, (this bit irrelevant to player count scaling) have a dungeon mechanic that increases in speed with each failure to damage the party and lasts until someone screws up in order to provide increased rewards, but FATEs, as with most open-world content, have tended towards a slightly more zero-sum idea of rewards. It would take time to remove those habits completely to allow for more detailed cooperative play.

And the last of course is that open world parties rarely function as such. Even in instanced 24-man raids, there's little expectation of per-party positioning coordination until they would be lethal to each other, smaller benefits be damned. This also works contrarily to the 'join freely' concept of FATEs, for which only parties have access to AoE heals, etc., making it difficult to tailor healing needs to the healer count involved, because their hps could be tripled or cut to a third just depending on whether they are in a party, and of how many people in range.

In dungeons, however, you can make benchmark assessments of DPS, etc. in order to alter later content (and its rewards) accordingly because you have a more or less set party. A portion or degree of these would have to be scrapped and returned to normal should a player abandon, and be replaced by a player of any or the same role, respectively, but on average you are free to tailor.

The only real design limiter I can imagine is that either boss arena sizes would also have to be scaled, which still has a mild additional impact on (especially melee) uptime, or player-marked AoEs and the like would have to be scaled smaller to allow for the same level of safety possible as in a 4-man party in the same limited area, which also may impact uptime.

I will address your 2nd point with my first one. Similar story - I think it would be great if we could scale them, however I think it would be more challenging to do, rather than a flat increase in the number of DPS slots.

Either way, that comes back to scaling the dungeon difficulty based on this new composition. If that were an issue then sure, it would likely be looked at in terms of balancing that difficulty.

I imagine it would be easier to balance unreleased content then it would be to go back and attempt to balance existing content with a new system like this..

Lastly, yes it is unlikely that this will happen - however it is honestly a way to improve the queue time for DPS. Not just for Stormblood but for beyond.

I truly believe any opportunity they can take to work towards a long-usable intuitive design now is entirely worth its effort, so long as they don't drop into the red, content-release-wise (and even then, if something like this refreshes enough content, such as by being temporarily framed into random daily bonus dungeons, perhaps even for different player counts, it would still absolutely pay off). Composition-based scaling, allowing for, say, greater avoidable damage and swap-mechanics in the case of an all-DPS party, as to make it highly challenging but technically survivable, or giving reason to use 2 tanks in a 5-man 2/1/2 party, may not be worth designing for the time being, but allowing at least for an inflated DPS count, with slightly increased requirements on heals and tanks indirectly atop greater mob and boss health, due count safety mechanics, targeted AoEs, etc., should be an amazingly strong QoL increase in the early days of the expansion, and with lasting benefits.