An idea to help roulette queue times

[winsock]

Hello! I had an idea that would hopefully improve dungeon queue times and wanted to see what you all think.

SE currently encourages non-tanks/healers to play the less-played roles through incentives like mounts achievements and the "Adventurer in Need" bonus. In Heavensward, they tried to draw more people to the tank role through the DRK job, but stated it wasn't very effective at producing new tanks.

Queue times for dps remain high because of the number of people queuing as DPS. In my opinion, this is the case for a few reasons:

• Some player just like the feel of a specific DPS job.
• Other players may not mind the idea of playing a tank/healer on paper, are not willing to commit to the responsibilities and social pressures of tanking/healing. They have absolutely 0 intention of playing one of these classes and having their potential failures or less-than-optimal playstyles become apparent to the rest of the party.
• Current tanks/healers dont really have much incentive to tank/heal lower-level stuff when their roles become max level.
• Current tanks/healer at max-level may want to level their remaining classes, which both increases the number of DPS classes in queue and reduces the number of tanks/healers queuing.

The thing is, it would be incredibly difficult to address the problem through the first 2 points. If a player finds a class they enjoy playing more than anything else, they should continue to play that class. Getting rid of the social pressures and responsibilities of tanking/healing changes the game entirely and could ruin those roles for current tanks / healers. And while I consider the ffxiv community to be a very good community in general, it only takes a few bad apples to ensure some players never touch tank/healer again.

However, SE could help address the issue from the last 2 points. In addition to attempts to convert players to the tank/healer roles, they could provide incentives to encourage existing tanks / healers to queue more often as tanks/healers. Not only should that help with queue times, but tank/healer mains would be playing the class they enjoy more often.

My idea is this:

• A new category of consumable items called "Roulette Scroll (<ROULETTE NAME>)" are created.
• When used, this item increases queue priorty (when queuing solo) and provides an XP multiplier of 2.2 to the player for the specific queue (if the role selected is not already the "Adventurer in Need").
• To obtain a specific roulette scroll, a max-level character must fulfill the "Adventurer in Need" bonus for a specific roulette.

A working example:
A tank main is at max-level and wants to level one of their dps classes. Currently, they might put themselves in queue as DPS instead of tank, lowering the number of tanks and increasing the number of dps. In a 4 man, you might think of it like this:

• 2 dps slots lost by not queuing as tank
• 1 dps slot lost by queuing as dps
• Total score: -3

However, if this idea were in place, they could level their dps alt roughly 20% faster (+ whatever is saved via queue priority) by queuing as "Adventurer in Need (Tank)", obtaining a roulette scroll, then queueing for the roulette as the dps class. In a similar 4 man scenario:

• 2 dps slots gained by queuing as tank
• 1 dps slot gained by not queuing as dps
• 2 dps slots lost by not queuing as tank
• 1 dps slot lost by queuing as dps
• Total score: 0

^ effectively neutralizing the negative impact that an "Adventurer in Need"'s DPS alt has on the dps queue time.


Good? Bad? Ugly? Suggestions & Feedback?
What do you guys think?


EDIT:

Unfortunately this really wouldn't help. All the incentives in the world won't make me run extra roulettes.

You wouldn't need to run any additional roulettes for this to be effective.

For example:

• Player X runs leveling roulette 4 times a week to level his classes.
• Player X has all tanks + healers at 70 and now wants to level DPS classes.

Currently, Player X would need to queue as DPS for all 4 times he runs leveling roulette. (taking 4 dps slots)

If this item were a thing, he could queue as the Adventure in Need 2 times (opening 4 dps slots), then as a DPS 2 times (taking 2 dps slots) without taking any XP losses (and actually making a net XP gain).

So you accomplish getting tank players out of the dps queue sooner but long term fail to keep tank players in the tank queue.

Good feedback, and definitely true. Even though this would more than double the lifespan of existing tanks, eventually, these tanks will stop tanking low level.

There is 1 permanent and lasting advantage here though:
Currently, tanks lose incentive to tank low level after maxing their tanks. They then queue as dps, which increases the queue time for dps classes. With the proposed feature, they lose their incentive to tank at low level at the same time they lose their incentive to queue as dps at low level, which will have a lasting and positive impact on dps queue times.

[BillyKaplan]

tl;dr you want to make queue times shorter by making queue times longer for other people. The only dps who'll actually hit roulettes will be those who already run tanks and therefore enjoy faster queues to begin with.
Also, with how painful dps queues will still be, no one's going to spend time running a roulette on a class they don't want to level, and then hitting the dps queue which likely will still be painful. Not everyone has that sort of time.

[Keridwyn]

Unfortunately this really wouldn't help. All the incentives in the world won't make me run extra roulettes. Eventually you just burn out and want to do something different. Plus have you tried healing in the current climate? Folks are out for blood making it even less fun.

[Zojha]

Plus have you tried healing in the current climate?

I am actually healing my roulettes for the quicker queues. It's usually quite relaxing.

I only heal expert, tho'. I've stopped going into 50/60s because there are too many tanks doing small pulls lately, which degrades me to malefic spamming decor. I don't have a parser, but if I had, I'd have uploaded that one Amdapor Keep log where I literally only used Essential Dignity and an Aspected Helios on the Demon Wall for healing spells because that sufficed >_>

[Keridwyn]

I am actually healing my roulettes for the quicker queues. It's usually quite relaxing.

Fair enough, I just ran into a rash of runs where if I did dps I was a bad healer but if I didn't I was also a bad healer. After a month of that no win situation I am finding that RDM comes with no stress. I don't care if queues are long, not being the focus of frustration is infinitely more worth it.

[Gravton]

Unfortunately this really wouldn't help. All the incentives in the world won't make me run extra roulettes. Eventually you just burn out and want to do something different.

^This. I main as tanks. I don't enjoy doing lower dungeons because I lose all my abilities and I've done them hundreds of times. Next patch we get one dungeon, so we can get "more content". This content pulls my tank from the que. if they really wanted more tanks to que the would add more to the roulette. Like a hidden dungeon that can only be accessed through roulette or something. (Yeah it can be abused but they should know how to design around it.)

Even the incentives like tomes and cracked cluster have diminishing returns. My tanks share gear and I have one dps leveled (drg). I have 17 cracked clusters on me waiting for a gear upgrade that I can't buy till next week. The rewards are nice but only players that want to gear, meld, and lvl all jobs see the most benefit. For players like me that don't need poetics and have no intention on lvling all the jobs. I have no reason to run ex roulette more than once a day, and no reason to run the lower roulettes at all.

[Kalsoa]

Only thing I could think of is adding something super shiny for tanks AND healers (Healers don't even get mounts to encourage them to do things as healer) that can ONLY be earned by doing specific roulettes a number of times. But it would need to be separated, like 200 leveling roulettes, 200 50/60 roulettes, etc to earn the item.

Now, the problem then becomes, people farm for the item, get it, and we're back at square one. Maybe you add tiers, like do 200 more of each and now said item gets a glow or something. Another 200, a bigger effect, another 200, you can CUSTOMIZE the effect.

Maybe this item is a new mount. Maybe it's just the ability to add these glows or other effects to the mount or piece of gear of your choosing, even DPS weapons/gear. This would keep tanks and healers queuing for those roulettes for the long haul. The only thing is, you have to make the rewards juicy or you still won't encourage enough people to tank and heal.

That's my idea, anyways, but would be a lot of work to implement. But we need SOMETHING to get these godawful queue times to lower.

[winsock]

tl;dr you want to make queue times shorter by making queue times longer for other people.

No cigar.

1 tank's dps alt's queue would be faster after they push 2 dps through the queue.
In other words, the tank opens 2 dps slots and then closes 1

Currently, I have no reason to send my max level tank through less than Expert roulette.
In other words, the tank opens 0 dps slots and then closes 1

Unfortunately this really wouldn't help. All the incentives in the world won't make me run extra roulettes.

You wouldn't need to run any additional roulettes for this to be effective.

For example:

• Player X runs leveling roulette 4 times a week to level his classes.
• Player X has all tanks + healers at 70 and now wants to level DPS classes.

Currently, Player X would need to queue as DPS for all 4 times he runs leveling roulette. (taking 4 dps slots)

If this item were a thing, he could queue as the Adventure in Need 2 times (opening 4 dps slots), then as a DPS 2 times (taking 2 dps slots) without taking any XP losses (and actually making a net XP gain).

[Gravton]

I don't get it, you said we wouldn't have to run extra roulettes but then say I have to run a dungeon on my already maxed tank to get an item to run one dungeon on my dps? And I'll get more xp than running my dps through 2 dungeons without the item?

[winsock]

I don't get it, you said we wouldn't have to run extra roulettes but then say I have to run a dungeon on my already maxed tank to get an item to run one dungeon on my dps? And I'll get more xp than running my dps through 2 dungeons without the item?

correct, the item would provide an XP bonus that would give your dps alt a little more than double the XP when he goes through the roulette.
So essentially running your max-tank once on tuesday and your dps once on wednesday would be more effective than running the roulette on your dps both tuesday and wednesday