We need to make cross server queues a reality

[StarMagus]

Tanks have to know everything DPS needs to know, everything healers need to know, and additional things that neither has to worry about

 

No they really don't. Tanks like to act like they do, but they really don't.

[Trollokdamus]

Sigh... i'm sorry but all i see in this thread is people with no cross-server experience talking about how it won't change anything (ignoring the fact that in some other games it actually does), how the tank/healer/dps ratios on all servers are identical at any given moment and so on.

Not gonna argue with you guys anymore since it's pointless, but i'm kind of sad that the forum community has such an attitude on this topic.

[loudent]

Not gonna argue with you guys anymore since it's pointless, but i'm kind of sad that the forum community has such an attitude on this topic.

 

If you're truly right and have evidence (beyond anecdotal and invented numbers) then the failure lies on you for not communicating clearly enough with the people you're trying to convince.

[Mazikeen]

No they really don't. Tanks like to act like they do, but they really don't.

 

I have been tanking for the past 14 years. I know what I'm talking about. Don't even get into this argument with me. Tanks DO have to know mechanics DPS don't have to even think about.

[Mazikeen]

Sigh... i'm sorry but all i see in this thread is people with no cross-server experience talking about how it won't change anything (ignoring the fact that in some other games it actually does), how the tank/healer/dps ratios on all servers are identical at any given moment and so on.

Not gonna argue with you guys anymore since it's pointless, but i'm kind of sad that the forum community has such an attitude on this topic.

 

Identical? No. Fact: DPS outnumber healers and tanks by a large margin in pretty much every MMO still running. It's been like this for over a decade and will probably never change. Cross-server queues do not improve anything. In some cases, you get DPS queuing as tanks and trying to do a job the lack either the skill or gear to do and make everyone miserable simply because they know the chances they'll get matched up with those people again is so slim it's not worth calculating.

[Trollokdamus]

If you're truly right and have evidence (beyond anecdotal and invented numbers) then the failure lies on you for not communicating clearly enough with the people you're trying to convince.

As i said before, i don't have any evidence, just like everyone else in this thread who tries to present their opinions as facts.

But... i do know that in WoW, it was impossible to find a group for dungeons while leveling before the cross-server option was implemented. It was also much harder and more time consuming to find a group for heroic dungeons. This holds true even for the most populated servers.

As for trying to convince people... i've already learned well enough that if someone here believes in something, no amount of communication can make them even consider changing their minds.

[DuEldrvarya]

Coming from a guy that tanks 2/3 of his toons but does dps and heals to, this is a horrible idea.

 

Someone a few pages ago made a perfect point. If you want fast queues, be a good dps and make friends with heals and tanks. I hate nothing more than taking my NIM geared tanks into fp's and out-dpsing the randoms I rolled because I pull 1100-1300 dps. That really grinds my gears and as a result I have made a habit of only doing fp's with dps that I know will at least try not to be super stupid and bad. I don't expect people to pull 2k+ but NOTHING is more annoying than looking at your logs and seeing you (as a tank) did over 50% (even over 30% makes me sad) of the boss's health.

 

Cross server queues might make the overall queue go much faster but dps will always be waiting, and I'd rather not have BW bring in another pointless update when everytime they "fix" something here they break three others.

[Andryah]

As for trying to convince people... i've already learned well enough that if someone here believes in something, no amount of communication can make them even consider changing their minds.

 

Self-reflection is good for coming to peace with reality.

[Andryah]

Someone a few pages ago made a perfect point. If you want fast queues, be a good dps and make friends with heals and tanks.

 

/Agree.

 

Of course this takes effort, where what people want is charity through game mechanics. What every PUG DPS really wants is a pocket tank and pocket healer on demand. But they know that is unreasonable, so they want the devs to code it into the game for them through the magic of cross-realm PvE. Except the magic does not work since the % of DPS, Tank, Healer remains roughly constant.... but demand goes up with cross-server.

 

The only thing Cross-server can do is buffer some of the wait times by taking advantage of local time differences of the servers. It would also buffer off-hours waits a bit.. but not enough to make a real difference.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Andryah

[spectreclees]

There's no downside to adding it except some extra time needed to fix the engine to implement it. It will happen, eventually. But I don't see it anytime soon, sadly. A lot of people here with made up statistics and guessing games as to what X-server queueing will do and not do. It's not a bad thing.

[Trollokdamus]

Fact: DPS outnumber healers and tanks by a large margin in pretty much every MMO still running. It's been like this for over a decade and will probably never change.

Yeah, that's a fact. Never argued with that.

 

Cross-server queues do not improve anything.

And that's an assumption. You don't have any evidence on your hands to prove this point.

 

A good example of why cross-realm is helpful was given by the other poster:

Cross server queues does not solve the lack of tanks or healers, but it does help the queuing time because it takes players from a much larger pool.

 

There 59 DPS, 2 tanks, and 8 healers queuing up on server A. This can yield 2 instances of PvE.

 

There are 25 DPS, 5 tanks, and 2 healers queuing up on server B. This can yield 2 instances of PvE.

 

If server A and server B were combined that can yield 7 instances of PvE.

 

Of course, it's an oversimplified situation, but it gives you the idea. It's all about the number of tanks and healers in the queue at any given moment.

But people here refuse to consider this example, simply because they are completely sure that at any given moment on any server for any kind of PvE group activity there are more queued healers than tanks.

[Trollokdamus]

Self-reflection is good for coming to peace with reality.

If i'm given a real evidence and facts that prove my position to be wrong, i can accept that and change my position. Some of the other people here - not so much.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Trollokdamus

[DOHboy]

There's no downside to adding it except some extra time needed to fix the engine to implement it. It will happen, eventually. But I don't see it anytime soon, sadly. A lot of people here with made up statistics and guessing games as to what X-server queueing will do and not do. It's not a bad thing.

 

I think for most people they would agree that it works for PVP and brings value. For PVE it would be a waste of resources since it does not "improve" any thing (think of it as you can sit in YOUR queue or you can sit in someone elses queue, either way same time spent in queue).

[TUXs]

Let's do it...how can I help?

[DOHboy]

If i'm given a real evidence and facts that prove my position to be wrong, i can accept that and change my position. Some of the other people here - not so much.

 

See thats the problem, we don't have "real facts" based on the overall % of players (Bioware does). We can speculate and talk about probability and do some heavy math if you would like, would that help?

 

We can assume that the balance between tanks, healers, and DPS is essentially equal across all servers, we can pick (educated WAG), that the ratios are probably on the order of what a 16 man ops group would probably be made up of.

 

2 tanks, 10 DPS and 4 healers.

so 12% of the server is tanks, 62.5% is DPS, and 25% is healers (anecdotally holds true since easier to find healers than tanks, and waiting time as healer in FPs can be long as a DPS so it really is based on the # of tanks). So any given time in order for a queue to pop, it would require a tank to be queued.

 

so typically you would do a priority based search on how to fill the role

Is there a tank on my server?

Y ->pop queue and form group.

N ->Search next closes server, continue until tank is found.

 

Given that type of search (most logical) you would search your own server for a group. If there were a tank available it would queue that tank with you. However, given the mentioned premiss that a tank is required to queue it would either a) pop for a group on their server first b) pop for you (since you happend to get in queue first) at which point the other group has to wait for either a tank on their server (which you just took) or wait for a tank on another server (at which point another group is required to wait since that tank has been allocated to another server).

 

on average, no time is actually "gained" across the system, it is instead propagated (i.e kick the can) from one server to another since one server is in general stealing the tank that would otherwise be allocated to a group on that server.

 

which is why we say it will not "improve" the time for any group as in general you could have popped sooner but the tank on your server was instead allocated to another server, and you must wait for either another tank on yours, or a tank from another server.

[loudent]

But... i do know that in WoW, it was impossible to find a group for dungeons while leveling before the cross-server option was implemented. It was also much harder and more time consuming to find a group for heroic dungeons. This holds true even for the most populated servers.

 

I had originally forgotten that, initially, the queues were not cross server. The reason for that is that my queue times were identical both prior to and after the switch. Of course the caveat here is that I only ever queued as tank initially and then tank and or healer.

 

This tells me that that, at least in that game, the tank was always the bottleneck in which case there was no overall reduction in queue times. Inidividuals on servers outside of their prime time might have had some improvement but that was always at the cost of another DPS.

[loudent]

There's no downside to adding it except some extra time needed to fix the engine to implement it. It will happen, eventually. But I don't see it anytime soon, sadly. A lot of people here with made up statistics and guessing games as to what X-server queueing will do and not do. It's not a bad thing.

 

From the dev quotes they make it seem like a monumental task. Like nothing new for 18 months type thing. That's a hard pill to swallow for some possible gain.

 

I do know, from experience, that the further removed people are the more likely they are to indulge in anti-social behavior. I never truly believed people on the forums complaining on terrible people can be until cross server came in. I mean, just the worst.

 

The difference between WoW and this game is that in wow you could premake a group and you would do a random heroic. In this game, in order to get the commendations, you have to use the group finder. i.e. PUG. Once I level up and get to a point where the commendations don't matter, I doubt I'll use the random finder anymore and if cross server queue is implemented (and I can't switch it off) then I *definitely* won't.

[Ratajack]

 

 

What experience are you talking about? In WoW, Group Finder was cross-server from the very beginning, so you couldn't possibly have a chance to compare the queues.

 

 

 

This is actually incorrect. The current LFD tool was cross realm from the start, true. The first implementation of a "group finder" was not, though. It was single server and functioned much like the original "looking for group" option in SWTOR did/does. It did not automatically port you to a given location, or port you back. People actually had to travel to the instance or "heroic" location.

 

I think this implementation ultimately failed for a couple of reasons, neither of which are the fact that it was cross server. As I said, it did not port you to the instance or "heroic" quest area, or when finished, port you back. Many people just didn't use it, preferring to advertise in general, either while sitting in a city or while questing.

[RandomXChance]

Sigh... i'm sorry but all i see in this thread is people with no cross-server experience talking about how it won't change anything (ignoring the fact that in some other games it actually does), how the tank/healer/dps ratios on all servers are identical at any given moment and so on.

Not gonna argue with you guys anymore since it's pointless, but i'm kind of sad that the forum community has such an attitude on this topic.

 

People are not saying nor is it the issue that the ratios are identical. All servers suffer from a shortage of tanks. Some probably have a higher ratio at times than others, but all suffer. I can only speak for my server (Harbinger), but any day, anytime I queue on a tank toon it is an instant pop (ok, there have been very rare occasions I wait a minute or two).

 

Cross server would not reduce the overall (all servers) average of DPS wait times. Instead of DPS one one server waiting 20 minutes and DPS on another waiting 2 hours, they would all be in the same pool and have equal wait times. As others have said, it would probably reduce the pool of people in queue as tanks since with cross server they would only want to group with friends/guildmates to avoid the way people tend to behave with cross server PVE.

[illgot]

This shows the lack of attention most people have.

 

This post was created because GS will have a heavy impact on standard PvP and Arena queues because GS is a PvP based game. This is why I wanted to see more support for cross server queues.

 

Now that we will be splitting the PvP based queues further, wait times during off peak hours will get worse and the complete lack of PvP games will happen sooner rather than later in the night.

 

The primary goal of this thread was to get support for cross server queues mainly for PvP. If they add it for PvP they can then use that same tech to work in PvE later.

 

GS is a PvP based game, I do not know why everyone is fixated on arguing about PvE.

Edited November 19, 2013 by illgot

[Aiobhill]

Currently we don't have x-server. Currently - at least on my server - the vast majority of people you meet in pve queues are if not courteous at least civil. Currenly at least now and then I list my excellently geared healer and at least consider listing my meh-ish tank once he gets better gear.

 

Implement x-server and I am out - given past experiences in WoW. I have no strong feelings about this either way, but I wouldn't expect x-server queues to lower waiting times, rather the opposite if a) many people stop using the system or b) tanks and healers as the ones more likely to see abuse are more likely to stick to guild groups than dps. Might actually be fun to see it implemented, watch it fail and at least shaddap a few people till they find another dead horse to beat.

[gorstram]

Cross server queues will increase the amount of FP pops for DPS, but it won't do anything to relieve queue times.

 

The crux of the issue is, there is no carrot for tanks to PuG FP's. Have the GF reward tanks and healers and you'll get more of them popping into GF.

[Andryah]

The crux of the issue is, there is no carrot for tanks to PuG FP's.

 

Plenty of stick though.. with all the indifferent and selfish players that queue into random PUGs.

 

Have the GF reward tanks and healers and you'll get more of them popping into GF.

 

Some, perhaps even many, tanks and healers will likely tell you there is not enough reward to put up with /random_dps_in-PUGs. Not when they can play with guild mates and build a friends list of dps they actually respect and enjoy playing with.

Edited November 19, 2013 by Andryah

[loudent]

GS is a PvP based game, I do not know why everyone is fixated on arguing about PvE.

 

Because most people are interested in PvE over PvP and you didn't specify this was solely for PvP

 

I have no interest in PvP. If they need to implement x-server for PvP queues I don't have a problem with that.

[RandomXChance]

This shows the lack of attention most people have.

 

This post was created because GS will have a heavy impact on standard PvP and Arena queues because GS is a PvP based game. This is why I wanted to see more support for cross server queues.

 

Now that we will be splitting the PvP based queues further, wait times during off peak hours will get worse and the complete lack of PvP games will happen sooner rather than later in the night.

 

The primary goal of this thread was to get support for cross server queues mainly for PvP. If they add it for PvP they can then use that same tech to work in PvE later.

 

GS is a PvP based game, I do not know why everyone is fixated on arguing about PvE.

 

For starters, let me remind you of the title:

 

"We need to make cross server queues a reality "

 

You should be more specific if your intention was to only discuss PvP cross server.

 

I am sure for at least the first couple of months the queue for GS will not be an issue. I for one rarely PvP, but will be doing a lot of time in GS. I think it will draw many people in who do not normally PvP.

In the long run in may be an issue if interest in GS wanes since it does require 12v12. Hopefully it will generate more overall interest in PvP.