Petition for Buddy Queue Mini's

[Usedtissue]

I am not convinced by the "population divided" argument, because you may divide population, but you also get more people who would sign in total most likely (same flawed argument that is used against the chooseable pvp/pve rule option instances). It is like a self-fullfilling prophecy until you do the maths. Also I do not see funcom fixing the tournament queue any time soon and a buddy queue would be more reasonably fitting replacing that queue (more esports, more player control) than the pug queue.
Why tamper with a system (actually the only working mini system we have now!) that works, when you have a redundant one that does NOT work? You can always go to a pure buddy queue system later, when the system is really as good as you make it seem. No one would loose anything...

Because the system that we have now does not work. From your point of view, how is the tournament mode supposed to work? It's the first I've really heard of this. Bugs aside, it does exactly as intended... Allows two teams of 6 to join up and play competitively. That was it's purpose and that's what it does (Not saying it's a perfect system by any means. Lets start with that before we go on: How is the tournament Que supposed to work in your eyes?

[Rathothis]

I am not convinced by the "population divided" argument, because you may divide population, but you also get more people who would sign in total most likely (same flawed argument that is used against the chooseable pvp/pve rule option instances). It is like a self-fullfilling prophecy until you do the maths. Also I do not see funcom fixing the tournament queue any time soon and a buddy queue would be more reasonably fitting replacing that queue (more esports, more player control) than the pug queue.
Why tamper with a system (actually the only working mini system we have now!) that works, when you have a redundant one that does NOT work? You can always go to a pure buddy queue system later, when the system is really as good as you make it seem. No one would loose anything...

See my post above (#135) for an example of how the current PUG queue works - it does not! Also, see my post #126 for reasons why tournament mode provides additional value above a "buddy+PUG" queue, whereas a pure PUG queue provides no such added value.

For this reason alone, a "buddy+PUG" queue should replace the pure PUG queue and not tournament mode, even leaving the population issue aside.

But you can't just ignore the population issue. On Crom, waiting times for minigames can be significant outside of EU prime time. Even if you are right and there is some increase in the total number of players who sign up for minigames, you cannot be sure that it is enough to compensate for the division of players.

[Kurt2013]

Because the system that we have now does not work. From your point of view, how is the tournament mode supposed to work? It's the first I've really heard of this. Bugs aside, it does exactly as intended... Allows two teams of 6 to join up and play competitively. That was it's purpose and that's what it does (Not saying it's a perfect system by any means. Lets start with that before we go on: How is the tournament Que supposed to work in your eyes?

I find the tournament queue broken, because you can not rejoin the same game after a crash or disconnect. So you spent time meeting and chatting with friends to organize 12+ players only to break it sooner or later. Also without players able to control rejoining to a point, there is no competetive gameplay possible without inbalancing or breaking it. Basically my ideal queue would be either the old one with a few extra checks (e.g. checking for premades and pugs and then dividing things up for balancing) or what you propose as "buddy queue", where the amount of prefixed players is limited to a number <6 or a true pug queue. What is important though is some algorithm to evaluate the teams, which is completely missing now. You can not balance by class or pvp lvl alone, that is why other games offer a point system that allows players to reequip themselves before a match or a ruleset, that limits power in some way.

@Rathotis: Ask yourself, what breaks pug queue for you now, how would it NOT be possible with a buddy+pug queue? Main problem now is balancing, relogging + rejoining or the quality of the players... what do you do, if you get 4 core buddy groups signing all the time? You could limit it to one buddy-group per team though.
I played hundreds of minis with the old queue, and hundreds with different pug queues after the "revamp"...and that the system is broken as you say, is not mainly the fault of the queue system imo. The old one had a broken state as do the new ones have. I am sure the buddy queue has one too. So i am only advocating to go the "no error" route, where you can justifiedly say "that system is better than the old one"...and i can only do this for buddy-queue and tournament queue. To judge current queue with buddy, you would need a test phase...because at current system the main problem is also, that it is not pure pug and people in different teams are working together. This might get better when these "buddies" sign in the same team, but it is not a necessary outcome...
You might think that it can not get worse than now and you may be right, but i reserve my right to be sceptical when it comes to pvp game design, aoc, community and funcom.

In any case, a buddy queue as you advocate would be a thing worth trying (definitely better than current tournament queue, maybe better than current pug queue and worth a queue on its own, imo), just be careful what you wish it to replace. so good luck!

[Rathothis]

I played hundreds of minis with the old queue, and hundreds with different pug queues after the "revamp"...and that the system is broken as you say, is not mainly the fault of the queue system imo. The old one had a broken state as do the new ones have. I am sure the buddy queue has one too. So i am only advocating to go the "no error" route, where you can justifiedly say "that system is better than the old one".. To judge current queue with buddy, you would need a test phase...because at current system the main problem is also, that it is not pure pug and people in different teams are working together. This might get better when these "buddies" sign in the same team, but it is not a necessary outcome...

If you replace tournament mode, you lose the opportunity to set up competitive premade matches. Even if that option is not used a lot, replacing tournament mode thus results in a clear loss of options available to players.

By contrast, replacing the PUG only queue does not result in any clear detriment. You seem to point to the risk of handholding (guildies on different teams not attacking each other), but I don't think this is a major issue in the current state of the game, nor do I think that a team of 2 persons max would have an appreciable effect on that risk. Bear in mind that the scenario you have in mind (rigged minigames under the old queue, with guilds signing up in teams of 6+2, with the 2 on the other team refusing to fight) is quite low if you can sign up in teams of no more than 2. Also bear in mind that rigged games only became a problem when Funcom introduced the ridiculous gear grind with Bori, which gave people incentives to rig games in order to get PvP T3 gear as fast as possible. It was wrong to address problems arising from vertical power progression by not allowing people to play as a team, and it is still wrong to perpetuate this ridiculous state of affairs.

But if you're still not convinced, I don't think many people would be opposed to a test phase.

[Usedtissue]

I find the tournament queue broken, because you can not rejoin the same game after a crash or disconnect. So you spent time meeting and chatting with friends to organize 12+ players only to break it sooner or later. Also without players able to control rejoining to a point, there is no competitive gameplay possible without in-balancing or breaking it. Basically my ideal queue would be either the old one with a few extra checks (e.g. checking for premades and pugs and then dividing things up for balancing) or what you propose as "buddy queue", where the amount of prefixed players is limited to a number <6. What is important though is some algorithm to evaluate the teams, which is completely missing now. You can not balance by class or pvp lvl alone, that is why other games offer a point system that allows players to reequip themselves before a match or a ruleset, that limits power in some way.

In any case, a buddy queue as you advocate would be a thing worth trying (definitely better than current tournament queue, maybe better than current pug queue and worth a queue on its own, imo), just be careful what you wish it to replace. so good luck!

So it seems like your bone to pick is with the bugs and not the concept of the system itself. No one is advocating that the system should not allow you to rejoin a premade game when someone DC's. That does not however, make the inherit idea of the Tournament Que broken. The tournament Que as it stands provides a place for full coordinated Premade teams to fight. In addition to the bugs it also seems you are criticizing the balancing system, which does not take into account class or PVP level. We are not saying that this is not a problem. I don't think anyone is saying the system is perfect, but we have to be realistic with what we are asking.

Saying that you don't want improvements unless the whole system can be fixed is a farce. Also requesting a third Que and revamped balancing system is unrealistic at best, and impossible at worst. You can't just ignore the population factor either. I can confirm Rath that Fury is also hurting VERY badly during Non-EU hours. This isn't something we can disregard. Our proposed solution is only to allow playing with friends while providing absolutely no negatives. Unfortunately this fix will not fix world hunger, and create world peace but it does provide a great way to play with friends easily without having to deal with the "broken" tourney system.

Maybe I'll make a commentary video talking about this.

If you replace tournament mode, you lose the opportunity to set up competitive premade matches. Even if that option is not used a lot, replacing tournament mode thus results in a clear loss of options available to players.

By contrast, replacing the PUG only queue does not result in any clear detriment. You seem to point to the risk of handholding (guildies on different teams not attacking each other), but I don't think this is a major issue in the current state of the game, nor do I think that a team of 2 persons max would have an appreciable effect on that risk. Bear in mind that the scenario you have in mind (rigged minigames under the old queue, with guilds signing up in teams of 6+2, with the 2 on the other team refusing to fight) is quite low if you can sign up in teams of no more than 2. Also bear in mind that rigged games only became a problem when Funcom introduced the ridiculous gear grind with Bori, which gave people incentives to rig games in order to get PvP T3 gear as fast as possible. It was wrong to address problems arising from vertical power progression by not allowing people to play as a team, and it is still wrong to perpetuate this ridiculous state of affairs.

But if you're still not convinced, I don't think many people would be opposed to a test phase.

Nailed it. Well said. To add onto your point about hand-holding... It's even worse now! When two friends or guildies are on different teams, a lot of times they will literally not attack them. This would be remedied by the ability to be on the same team.

[Suctum]

Buddy system is already a compromise. I still think it needs to be reverted back to full groups. It's not unfair at all. You can only bring 6. Everyone gets the dame exact opportunity to bring the same make up and classes. The whole point is that people make multiple groups because playing solo is not rewarding. That's how you fill the queue, at least that's how it was done when we came up.

Now from a bussiness standpoint, this is not viable because they want a system where everyone has a chance of winning at anytime of the day. The best argument so far is that a geared player can protect someone trying to level, but really it's rather ridiculous that anyone should have to come to the forums and ask "can I please play with my friends".

[Usedtissue]

Now from a bussiness standpoint, this is not viable because they want a system where everyone has a chance of winning at anytime of the day. The best argument so far is that a geared player can protect someone trying to level, but really it's rather ridiculous that anyone should have to come to the forums and ask "can I please play with my friends".

This is literally the only game that doesn't get that. The other games all found out that letting people play together in an online social MMO might just be a good idea lol

[kalston]

You can add me to the list for what it's worth.

[Kurt2013]

If you replace tournament mode, you lose the opportunity to set up competitive premade matches. Even if that option is not used a lot, replacing tournament mode thus results in a clear loss of options available to players.

By contrast, replacing the PUG only queue does not result in any clear detriment. You seem to point to the risk of handholding (guildies on different teams not attacking each other), but I don't think this is a major issue in the current state of the game, nor do I think that a team of 2 persons max would have an appreciable effect on that risk. Bear in mind that the scenario you have in mind (rigged minigames under the old queue, with guilds signing up in teams of 6+2, with the 2 on the other team refusing to fight) is quite low if you can sign up in teams of no more than 2. Also bear in mind that rigged games only became a problem when Funcom introduced the ridiculous gear grind with Bori, which gave people incentives to rig games in order to get PvP T3 gear as fast as possible. It was wrong to address problems arising from vertical power progression by not allowing people to play as a team, and it is still wrong to perpetuate this ridiculous state of affairs.

But if you're still not convinced, I don't think many people would be opposed to a test phase.

@usedtissue, too:
Assuming they fix tournament queue, you have a good point, but to me in the bugged state it is broken, because you simply can not set up competetive premade matches under the condition that no one crashes or disconnects nowadays. The game can remember where you came from, if you do log back right in, just not in tournament queue (for example if you crash in pug, you can get back in pug).

@rathotis: the issue of manipulation will still be there in all types of queues. the scenario you mention was not in my mind, i think usedtissue adressed this already well enough in the petition and it will be harder to do when you limit the buddy number. My scenario was more a guild team of 2+2+2+2. Or with a buddy team and extra friends in the other team (similar to now, just less random for the manipulators). If you limit the amount of buddy teams it might also bring back the rejoining issue, should one disconnect there.

Basically it will not be as easy as you say to do it right (i trust you and usedtissue might get it going, i am just sceptic funcom understands and gets it done). And if there are actually people using the tournament queue, i would really go for buddy queue as third option with maybe replacing pug queue later. I am quite sure, it will not solve the quality issues, but signing with friends might make it more tolerable...

To really solve the issue and make it more attractive, you need some evaluation and balancing tools, as i mentioned earlier. These could influence rewards and balance. In the old forums i advocated a lobby, you can also do a better job there, if you do not immediately start and port people when the critical number is reached for example. With such a lobby you also would not have the problem of certain known players afking and sabotaging (like a votekick system, but BEFORE the mini starts, you would see the people signed up or lined up and could decide "i want to play with them" or "i do not want to play with them"). Guess this answers better than the last post, how my ideal "queue" would look like...

[Usedtissue]

@usedtissue, too:
Assuming they fix tournament queue, you have a good point, but to me in the bugged state it is broken, because you simply can not set up competitive premade matches under the condition that no one crashes or disconnects nowadays. The game can remember where you came from, if you do log back right in, just not in tournament queue (for example if you crash in pug, you can get back in pug).

@rathotis: the issue of manipulation will still be there in all types of queues. the scenario you mention was not in my mind, i think usedtissue addressed this already well enough in the petition and it will be harder to do when you limit the buddy number. My scenario was more a guild team of 2+2+2+2. Or with a buddy team and extra friends in the other team (similar to now, just less random for the manipulators). If you limit the amount of buddy teams it might also bring back the rejoining issue, should one disconnect there.

Basically it will not be as easy as you say to do it right (i trust you and usedtissue might get it going, i am just skeptic funcom understands and gets it done). And if there are actually people using the tournament queue, i would really go for buddy queue as third option with maybe replacing pug queue later. I am quite sure, it will not solve the quality issues, but signing with friends might make it more tolerable...

To really solve the issue and make it more attractive, you need some evaluation and balancing tools, as i mentioned earlier. These could influence rewards and balance. In the old forums i advocated a lobby, you can also do a better job there, if you do not immediately start and port people when the critical number is reached for example. With such a lobby you also would not have the problem of certain known players afking and sabotaging (like a votekick system, but BEFORE the mini starts, you would see the people signed up or lined up and could decide "i want to play with them" or "i do not want to play with them"). Guess this answers better than the last post, how my ideal "queue" would look like...

Well first of all I want to say thanks for keeping this thing civil. This, people, is how you exchange ideas on the internet. Secondly, I agree with most of those points. The easiest of all of them and the biggest gain per work I believe is the buddy Que sign-up. I say we push them to start with that. If they do make the change they should just post a feedback thread on the forums like they did for a lot of other content. If it completely backfires then fine, they will have saved the old code and the switch back will be instant. If it works then we can keep it. I think that's the best place to start. If you agree, do you want to put your name down on the petition? Again completely up to you only if you feel like we have convinced you that this is the right place to start.

You can add me to the list for what it's worth.

Done, good to see you here.