"Average Wait Time"

[OMega_ARcane]

I've gotta ask something...You guys ever tried going into something and you get a short average wait time, but your elapsed time meets and exceeds the average wait time, so the AWT goes up a few minutes? It's happened to me a few times on duties. However, it happened last night while trying to get into the feast. I never try to get in anymore because its always over a 30 minute AWT. I decided wth and tried. My jaw dropped like when you see that one girl, you know that one? It was a AWT of eight minutes! So, I sat and happily waited...eight minutes passes and it goes to 12 minutes...12 minutes passes goes to 15...time keeps passing and I end up waiting for over an hour eventually forgetting I tried getting in in the first place because I joined a FC mates party to help them with something. I just wanted to know...Did I miss my chance to join in on some good ol feast fun like a prime time, or was it most likely just some trade winners or pre mades that made the time that low? I'm serious...It was like when you played pokemon years ago when G/S first came out and you see a entai or something and try to catch it and it just runs away only for you to not see it for a long time again lol...

[Enla]

It's happened to me, yes. Once to the tune of two hours before the queue actually popped back when T2 was still viable. The AWT lies. Or, more to the point, it's an estimation rather than a concrete time in which you'll get into the duty. Sometimes it's sooner, sometimes it's longer.

[Popotato]

Yeah, it happens a lot. It’s a prediction, and the thing with predictions is that they’re never certain.

[KisaiTenshi]

I've gotta ask something...You guys ever tried going into something and you get a short average wait time, but your elapsed time meets and exceeds the average wait time, so the AWT goes up a few minutes? It's happened to me a few times on duties. However, it happened last night while trying to get into the feast. I never try to get in anymore because its always over a 30 minute AWT. I decided wth and tried. My jaw dropped like when you see that one girl, you know that one? It was a AWT of eight minutes! So, I sat and happily waited...eight minutes passes and it goes to 12 minutes...12 minutes passes goes to 15...time keeps passing and I end up waiting for over an hour eventually forgetting I tried getting in in the first place because I joined a FC mates party to help them with something. I just wanted to know...Did I miss my chance to join in on some good ol feast fun like a prime time, or was it most likely just some trade winners or pre mades that made the time that low? I'm serious...It was like when you played pokemon years ago when G/S first came out and you see a entai or something and try to catch it and it just runs away only for you to not see it for a long time again lol...

How it works in reality: If you cross the average wait time by 2 minutes, it moves the AWT up until it hits 30 minutes, and then it just stays there. You can be in that queue for 2 hours, at that point I believe it just drops everyone.

How it works speculatively: If no needs are listed, the queue is empty. Whichever "need" listed is what the queue needs most, so in theory whatever "need" is listed should have an instant queue, but that also means that you could still be waiting since you need 2 DPS for 4-man content, and at least 4 for 8-player content and 24-player content.

In practice, the PvP queues are dead, and are always dead because of bots.

[ManuelBravo]

Extremely rare for me unless it's some type of raid or PvP.

[OMega_ARcane]

How it works in reality: If you cross the average wait time by 2 minutes, it moves the AWT up until it hits 30 minutes, and then it just stays there. You can be in that queue for 2 hours, at that point I believe it just drops everyone.

How it works speculatively: If no needs are listed, the queue is empty. Whichever "need" listed is what the queue needs most, so in theory whatever "need" is listed should have an instant queue, but that also means that you could still be waiting since you need 2 DPS for 4-man content, and at least 4 for 8-player content and 24-player content.

In practice, the PvP queues are dead, and are always dead because of bots.

Yeah I get all of that I was more along the lines of wondering that since it was 8 minutes did I miss something? I can queue anytime and it'll always be a AWT of 30 minutes, but this day it was only 8...Guess "if I understand what you said" I had just missed a match that dropped the normal 30 minute queue down, is that right?

[Tempest222]

That happens to me quite frequently. Five minutes often turns into over a half hour.

[OMega_ARcane]

Also, I guess I should have posted this in PVP threads, sorry about that guys. However, to make it "general" worthy, I often find that the AWT for normal duties is pretty close, and does anyone else think the moogle two seater mount sounds like nightmare before Christmas, and when on that mount for a long time does it look like a pair of "mountains" after a while to anyone else also? lol

[Kallistra]

Once I queued for an Expert on a tanking job and it said my wait time would be less than 5 min. I waited 5:01 minutes. Ever since then, I have refused to believe the average wait time ever again. It lies.

(edit)I figured I should throw in an obvious "I'm joking" here. For real though, PvP queues are awful and the AWT was probably from a couple parties that were running the content before you.

[KisaiTenshi]

Yeah I get all of that I was more along the lines of wondering that since it was 8 minutes did I miss something? I can queue anytime and it'll always be a AWT of 30 minutes, but this day it was only 8...Guess "if I understand what you said" I had just missed a match that dropped the normal 30 minute queue down, is that right?

Pretty much. The "average wait time" , will only be low if the queue is being cycled quickly. This is why when I queue as a healer, it's instant, even if it says "tank" needed. However if I queue for Alliance raids as healer, sometimes it will be 20+ minutes during off-peak, because of the number of players needed. The PvP tends to always say 30+ minutes because something like Rival Wings requires 48 players. It also has a fixed 20 minute time limit. So the average wait time should always be reported as 20 minutes if there is only ever one match running. If there are two matches running (eg 96 players playing), on 10 minute windows, then it will show 10 minutes.