Every festivity the same, Anet please add an icon to see if the map is full in the LFG.

I'm forced to spend half an hour every time i want to join a populated instance of the maps. Other instances are left empty.Please add that icon so full instances are easily shown and i can choose to join an stance with population but i don't have to try in every lfg is posted.

Would love to see that. It's really annoying to not be able to join map and having to switch between squads. And then you're temporarily "bannedfrom entering and leaving squads for a few mins :/

We’re also majorly overdue for getting some sort of queue system for when you try to join a full map. Instead, we get an error message that makes it seem like the game is crashing.

Still, an icon showing a full map would be a good start.

The problem is that the status of the map is dynamic. It's full and then someone leaves, so it's open, but there's only one spot. It fills, so map full again. Meanwhile, there are 20 people trying to get in, and it's still first come, first serve.

They could mitigate that somewhat by forcing a cushion: once a map is "full," it remains full until there are five or more slots freed up. The downside is losing five people can be really noticeable to small maps like the Labyrinth. And once you're losing five, there's a decent chance the map will lose more before it gains any.

The other mitigation (more helpful to us) would be to add queuing. Map status could be not capped, soft capped, full, and full queue. I'd love to see, "map is full, would you like to be added to the queue? you would be 5th in line"

There should be a way to test the squad leader's map for fullness. I agree wholeheartedly.

@holodoc.5748 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:The problem is that the status of the map is dynamic. It's full and then someone leaves, so it's open, but there's only one spot. It fills, so map full again. Meanwhile, there are 20 people trying to get in, and it's still first come, first serve.I can't think of a single reason why it wouldn't be possible to make it work the same way all the other LFGs work. Squad reached 50/50? Then remove it from LFG completely. If someone leaves then the tag or an officer can list it again. No special philosophy required there.

If you are a commander, you do not want to be micromanaging the LFG for the squad. People leave all the time for various reasons and the map is going to go from full to not full frequently. That's not a "philosophy." It's different for fractals & raids, in which people are looking for a full group before beginning and literally have no room.

However, I don't rightly understand why there isn't queuing for open world maps. We had it when choice of world mattered for which instance you entered and before guesting was fixed. It worked pretty much as it does for WvW: you tried to enter a full world, you were put in a queue.

@holodoc.5748 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@holodoc.5748 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

I ran into this issue last night, but then just opted to enter the lab by myself. Within minutes someone tagged up and we had a group of 15 people which quickly grew to 30. I noticed this morning while prepping for Auric Basin meta that there were like 25 groups in LFG for lab lol (this was around 6am EST)

LFG needs a queue system and has needed it since the introduced the LFG system. The queue system already exists in game for wvw...the systems and code are already there...just extend it to the LFG world. ANet...make it happen.

The problem isn't the squad size. It's the map limit, which includes many other players than those in the squad. Usually a lot more than are in the squad.

I personally prefer to run with just me and a few others. 5 guildies and no problem. Start your own little group and done.

I personally dont understand the insistence of using a squad.

edit: Also its impossible to see if a squad is in a full instance as a squad can be in multiple instances. Though an icon or color or whichever in the party squad window on each player that is in a full map instance could be a thing.

Green, the map is populated by less than 80 people,Lime, the map is populated by less than 100,Yellow, 101-125Orange, 125-149Red, 150 (the map you are trying to join is full, do you wish to enter the queue for this map? Yes/no)

Eazy peezy

Colours are updated when opening the lfg, and when pressed refresh,

@Ayakaru.6583 said:Green, the map is populated by less than 80 people,Lime, the map is populated by less than 100,Yellow, 101-125Orange, 125-149Red, 150 (the map you are trying to join is full, do you wish to enter the queue for this map? Yes/no)

Eazy peezy

Colours are updated when opening the lfg, and when pressed refresh,

So which map is full on a tagless squad where half is in one and half is in the other instance?

I wonder what the frequency of updates would have to be in order to make this effective.

The commander of the squad would be sending and receiving information from the map instance at a certain frequency (every 10 seconds? 5 seconds?). They would then send information to the LFG server about their map's state. But, the LFG server would update other players only upon request, as players are often viewing cached information. Given that the map instance population is constantly in flux, how quickly would the information displayed in the LFG become inaccurate?

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ANET, DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!!!

If we can't have a proper matchmaking system, I'd really appreciate a heads up from the LFG menu that shows when a map is full before I join a group/squad.

It only makes sense to check the squad commander's map for fullness, because there could be many people in the squad on different maps.

So, how about a border around the squad leader's square that's colored red or green? That would also make it so you don't have to hunt for the squad leader to right-click/join map. It could be updated whenever a map's population changes.

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:

@"Ayakaru.6583" said:Green, the map is populated by less than 80 people,Lime, the map is populated by less than 100,Yellow, 101-125Orange, 125-149Red, 150 (the map you are trying to join is full, do you wish to enter the queue for this map? Yes/no)

Eazy peezy

Colours are updated when opening the lfg, and when pressed refresh,

"Population indicators appear only when a squad is commanded by a player with a Commander tag." easy

@Imperadordf.2687 said:

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:

@"Ayakaru.6583" said:Green, the map is populated by less than 80 people,Lime, the map is populated by less than 100,Yellow, 101-125Orange, 125-149Red, 150 (the map you are trying to join is full, do you wish to enter the queue for this map? Yes/no)

Eazy peezy

Colours are updated when opening the lfg, and when pressed refresh,

That was my intent, yes, or the 'dedicated founder' of whichever squad/party

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@holodoc.5748 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:The problem is that the status of the map is dynamic. It's full and then someone leaves, so it's open, but there's only one spot. It fills, so map full again. Meanwhile, there are 20 people trying to get in, and it's still first come, first serve.I can't think of a single reason why it wouldn't be possible to make it work the same way all the other LFGs work. Squad reached 50/50? Then remove it from LFG completely. If someone leaves then the tag or an officer can list it again. No special philosophy required there.

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." ;)

Seriously though, the commander (one person) having to micromanage a squad or the many people trying to enter full map instances. I know who I'd cater to. Sure, every now and then someone leaves. But it's not as if one person leaving poses any kind of difficulty for the remainder of the squad. If the map is full, one or even a handful of people leaving still means you've got a big zerg capable of managing everything that the map offers.

On the other hand, browsing the LFG during Halloween is a nightmare. Listings keep popping up and disappearing in the space of seconds. The list is incredibly long. There are always more than a few listings from full maps. And if you join too many in too short a time, you are temporarily blocked from joining any other squad. It's several obstacles piled on top of each other that makes finding a group to farm more of a hassle than it should be.

And yes, of course, you can make your own listing. But that is anything but comfort, knowing that yours is drowning amongst the dozens of other listings, making filling up your instance more difficult than it would normally be. So yes, automatically removing listings from full maps should definitely be a thing in GW2. The LFG system recognizes when a party or squad is full and removes your listing. Why can it not also recognize full map instances?

@"TheNecrosanct.4028" said:On the other hand, browsing the LFG during Halloween is a nightmare.Scroll to middle or bottom of list. Choose a group with a relevant description ("no doors" or "all doors" etc) and with 12-17 people.

That's a tiny amount of additional effort compared to frequent micromanagement by the commander (who would also suffer from spam suppression, so ANet would have to adjust that, too).

In terms of the "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," I think leaving things alone does that, at least for now. Because implementing this would mean that ANet wouldn't be working on some other festival improvements, which also affects "the many."

LFG system could use a lot of improvement. I'm just not convinced that this is the best bang for the effort or the most important to work on first.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"TheNecrosanct.4028" said:On the other hand, browsing the LFG during Halloween is a nightmare.Scroll to middle or bottom of list. Choose a group with a relevant description ("no doors" or "all doors" etc) and with 12-17 people.

A small squad does not equal a map instance that isn't full. I've tried to join small squads, only to find that their map is still full. There are always plenty of people who do not bother joining a squad (after all, it's not difficult to follow a marker on a map, and being in the group or not makes no difference).

It's not that I have much understandig of game development, but the only thing they'd have to do is make the LFG system recognize full maps and remove the listing accordingly. Just as it does with full parties and squads. That would solve this entire problem that people have been pointing out for years now.

@"TheNecrosanct.4028" said:A small squad does not equal a map instance that isn't full. I've tried to join small squads, only to find that their map is still full. There are always plenty of people who do not bother joining a squad (after all, it's not difficult to follow a marker on a map, and being in the group or not makes no difference).What size squads are you joining? I've never had a problem joining 10-person groups. 17 is borderline, especially at certain times. I believe a full lab map is around 40-50, so I always assume that squads of 25+ are on full maps.

It's not that I have much understandig of game development, but the only thing they'd have to do is make the LFG system recognize full maps and remove the listing accordingly. Just as it does with full parties and squads. That would solve this entire problem that people have been pointing out for years now.Again, I think it creates other issues, so, to me, it doesn't solve "this entire problem."

Plus, maps are only full in the moment. The population is dynamic, constantly coming and going, even if the commander plus 15-20 are farming for hours. So in the instant the game notices the map is at capacity, someone might leave and by the time the game removes the listing, it might have space. Thus it's not just about "recognizing a full map," it requires creating a working definition of "full" that doesn't result in false positives, every bit as bad as the false negatives we have now.

A different solution, which would bypass the adjunct issues (relisting LFG, spam suppression, listings for full maps, restoring listings for not-full maps, etc) would be if ANet re-enabled queuing for PvE maps. Rather than have to "join in" repeatedly, you could see that you were 1st or 20th on the list to get in. That gives us the ability to choose to wait or look for another group.

In an idealized scenario, it might even possible for the LFG to show how many slots left. (ANet probably doesn't want to show actual capacity for a variety of reasons.) For example:Lab farm, no doors, 28/50, slots remaining: 5

LFG is not Looking for map.It is just that the players have created the "taxi" process through LFG and the party join in map functionality.Didn't squads used to un-list their "taxi" group when maps got full?

@"PseudoNewb.5468" said:LFG is not Looking for map.It is just that the players have created the "taxi" process through LFG and the party join in map functionality.Didn't squads used to un-list their "taxi" group when maps got full?

Good commanders do unlist their group when its full, but that requires more effort than alot of farmers are willing to put out.