Queues and Needs. (Suggestion)

[Magnedeus]

Take care of your buisiness before queing. How hard is that?

[Dustytome]

I'm all for something like this with the number of times I've missed the queue for something like MSQ roulette as dps. If I'm at the computer it will take the 30m+, but if I step away at 10 minutes to get a bottle of water, use the washroom, snag a quick snack or deal with whatever the pups need, I swear it's watching and pops immediately after I leave.

[Rongway]

a feature that auto-accepts (Commence)

An auto-accept feature would be a horrible addition. Once you accept the pop, any time you spend AFK is eating into real people time. You should absolutely have to be at the computer to confirm your participation in the duty so people don't have to wait for you.

a feature that ... pauses your place in the queue

People should absolutely take care of business before queuing, be ready to confirm the pop, and take the penalty if they miss or decline the pop. In the current system.

A brb button would inarguably be an improvement to the system.

To clarify further, this shouldn't hold back the queue for others that's not in your party, instead it should let other people overturn you. Let's say you're #23 in the queue and has went on a bathroom break. #24 would simply become #22, bypassing you. Once you're back, you start moving up the queue again.

It wouldn't need to punish someone this much for using it. They could continue to advance up to #2 without significant concerns to fairness.

Pausing only backs up the line for other DPS ready but waiting.

It doesn't back up the line. It's like being at a fast food place and telling the people in line behind you to go ahead, before you stop to stare at the menu.



The biggest issue here is not whether something like this should be implemented. The real issue is I honestly don't see the devs successfully implementing this in the way described, even if they chose to implement it (they won't). There are so many simple changes they refuse to make that should be simple for a third year computer science major to make that they cite as impossible.

[Tint]

There is already a workaround to this problem, at least on PS4: A wireless controller wich vibrates (the PS4 controller even has a speaker) when the queue pops.

Just take the controller with you into the bathroom and accept the invite from there.

[Gula]

In OP's defense, that 30 minute queue can suddenly turn into 30 seconds. I've had it happen before, multiple times actually. It's not common, but possible. If I'm queuing for, say, pvp and it says 11 out of 23 minutes has passed, then I'll just do what I need to do (not necessarily bathroom related) and come back. Can't blame some people for thinking the robot was honest.

[SomeRandomHuman]

Real World needs/issues/problems =/= FFXIV needs/issues/problems

If you miss the que then, if I may be frank, too bad. Just reque.

Ideally take care of everything prior to the que if possible. If you're unable to then you just gotta try your luck.

Sorry pal, the Devs already have enough pressure on them from all sides about stuff more concerning than a lowly 1st world problem.

[Ronduwil]

Would it be possible to implement a feature that auto-accepts (Commence)

Please, no. That defeats the whole purpose of the Commence button. I don't want to get stuck in an instance with a player who will be AFK indefinitely.

or pauses your place in the queue

Yes, please! It would be great to have a pause button that we can press again upon returning to resume the queue. Sometimes queues are long, and things change. It sucks to wait for 10 minutes of an 11 minute queue only to be called away by the wife for a two-minute errand (Hold the ladder while I change the bulb/Can you check the doneness of the roast while I run to the store/Please handle the bee that made its way into the house/etc.). I would love to have a pause button that held my current position in the queue until I could return to resume my wait. I don't even expect it to put me at the front. Just resume the position where I was prior to pausing. For example, if I was #21 when I paused, then I would still be #21 when I came back.

[Akonyl]

Implementing a queue pause seems like it'd be simple enough, but who knows with how weird SE's code seems to be from how they talk about it sometimes. I'm surprised so many people are against it, when it wouldn't even affect anyone else in the queue. It's extra development work sure, but I don't think it would mean we don't get an ultimate in a patch or something silly like that.

What does affect other people in the queue, and is something I've definitely seen before, is zoning into a duty and having someone (sometimes the tank) immediately say "hey brb" because it's easier to take a small break inside of a duty while you're wasting peoples' time than it is to take a small break while you're in queue and impacting nobody. If a pause was implemented, those people would probably feel less need to wait to afk until they were in a position to inconvenience other people.

[Niwashi]

Would it be possible to implement a feature that auto-accepts (Commence) or pauses your place in the queue for a certain time, 2 minutes or so before resuming it?

Auto-Commence:
Definitely not. You may have talked about taking just a two minute break in your example, but once the system put you in the dungeon, you could just as well take twenty minutes to come back, and far too many people would, leaving their team stuck there short-handed. It should only commence when everyone is there and ready to go.

Pausing the queue:
This, on the other hand, I think would be a useful feature. Some of the queues can get quite long if you're trying to get into a less popular instance at a slow time of day, and the ones you'd least want to miss are the ones that have the most chance of getting interrupted. So long as others pass your queue position at the same rate as instances are forming, so you maintain your relative position rather than moving up while you're AFK, it shouldn't be exploitable.