Let us queue for pve maps

[Blaeys.3102]

In wvw, if a map is full, you go into queue with an idea of how many are ahead of you.

 

It is time to apply that same system to full pve maps. 

[kharmin.7683]

No thank you.  The mega server system currently in place would not allow for this anyway.

What is it that you are trying to achieve?

[Blaeys.3102]

1 minute ago, kharmin.7683 said:

No thank you.  The mega server system currently in place would not allow for this anyway.

What is it that you are trying to achieve? What I want to achieve is simple - not having to wear my mouse out trying and retrying to get onto a map actively doing a meta.

[Farohna.6247]

No.  Yuck.

[Sobx.1758]

I don't think this is a good idea. The point of opening other instances of the map is to get them going, not to make them "waiting rooms" for another one, so people can conveniently ditch it at any point. Seems completely counter-productive.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Donari.5237]

I think the OP is addressing the problem of trying to assemble a large squad and wants to let members queue instead of tediously spamming join-in-map.  In that case the squad folk aren't "conveniently ditching" but in fact have no intent of doing the map if they aren't with the organized squad of their friends and guildies, and are probably just standing still in a safe area spamming the join button rather than contributing to the map they're in.

I see the downsides the naysayers are mentioning, but I do understand the OP's motivation here.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Donari.5237

[Ipomoea Jalapa.6897]

How about if  squad has enough people (whatever a good threshold is, say 25), the commander can request a new instance. It could be squad-only for a short grace period (say, 5 minutes) before becoming publicly available again.

That would address the classic situation where a squad near 50 is ready to go but spread over multiple maps.

I'm sure it's probably been suggested before and that there are ways it could be abused, but I'm curious what is feasible.

[mythical.6315]

The issue with queuing is that you run the risk of not getting into the map at all.  Think about it.  Let's say that there are 10 people trying to get into an instance for the meta but only 5 slots will open during that time.  That means unless you're one of the first 5 people to queue, your chance to get into the instance is effectively zero.  With the current system, your chance is the same as everyone else.

[Healix.5819]

What they need to fix is the problem that creates a situation where you want to queue into a specific map. Metas should either be split from the map with a public/private version, or progress should be shared between all instances to effectively fake a true MMO experience.

[Sobx.1758]

47 minutes ago, Donari.5237 said:

I think the OP is addressing the problem of trying to assemble a large squad and wants to let members queue instead of tediously spamming join-in-map.  In that case the squad folk aren't "conveniently ditching" but in fact have no intent of doing the map if they aren't with the organized squad of their friends and guildies, and are probably just standing still in a safe area spamming the join button rather than contributing to the map they're in.

Nope, re-read what OP says. All he mentions is a map actively doing the meta, not some specific group of "50 friends and guildies". If someone has that big of a squad that wants to play together anyways, they just join the empty(-ier) instance, so pretty much they go into the map -> someone joins another (=fresh/er) instance because the previous one is full/bottlenecked -> the squad joins that second instance, instead of trying to hammer into the older one.

Otherwise, it's not a "squad of guildies and friends", but just "another random squad OP thinks will do it easier/faster than his current one", which is the scenario I was talking about in the previous post. Or what did I miss here from the situation you're trying to describe?

Edited April 18, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Itsy.3186]

Having a queueing system like in WvW would definitely be beneficial. Today we have to right click spam join commander for long periods of time (I've been at it 15-20 mins at times), which is a horrible user experience. It also adds a lot of extra stress to the servers when everyone is just spamming join, it's prone for so many errors (click on block, add friend, guild invite, etc.). I mean the queueing up code is already there, just need to tweak it a bit for PVE

[mythical.6315]

 

I don't feel that private instances are a good idea for meta events.  People who create squads may choose the private instances making the maps feel more empty.  Those squads with certain requirements, such as LI and KP, would now be able to actually enforce them.

Something else that just came to mind is that some meta events may need to be rebalanced for the private instance which may not even happen.  Just look at the Marionette fight.

Edited April 18, 2022 by mythical.6315

[Hesione.9412]

1 hour ago, Donari.5237 said:

I think the OP is addressing the problem of trying to assemble a large squad and wants to let members queue instead of tediously spamming join-in-map.  In that case the squad folk aren't "conveniently ditching" but in fact have no intent of doing the map if they aren't with the organized squad of their friends and guildies, and are probably just standing still in a safe area spamming the join button rather than contributing to the map they're in.

I see the downsides the naysayers are mentioning, but I do understand the OP's motivation here.

Even if there was an automated system so one doesn't have to spam "join in map". Have the server do that for us.

 

The other irritating feature is not getting in when the map is "soft capped". If other people can coincidentally zone in, who are not in squad, why can't I zone in when I *am* in a squad?

[HonesltlyX.7164]

I don't think a queue system for maps will work well, but I do see that maps caps especially for those with meta events is just too low. I've seen squads at 20 and the map is still full.

 

I think squads of 20 or more players should have the option to be queued into their own map instance rather than the public's to make it easier. Especially if map meta's are going to be as difficult as DE in the future which would require a dedicated guild/static to get it done.

[Rasimir.6239]

I'm very torn about this. In an ideal GW2 people would try to do events on any map instance they end up on, cooperating with all the other people on the same map instance. Meta events are usually tuned to not need a full map to do them, even the Dragon's End one, so the people on the map for other purposes (fishing, harvesting, hero points, map completion, ...) rarely are enough to have an impact on this equation.

 

That "ideal world" where you stumble upon events and just do them with whoever comes along seems to have gotten sidelined somewhere along the way though. At least it feels to me that more and more people like to classify maps as "meta map" or "hp train map" or "fishing map" or whatever label they have, and are not interested in trying events with just the people they encounter on their map instance. There still are maps that organize spontaneously, but especially with the more popular metas, I seem to encounter more people that try to "escape" to another map instance than those willing to try and organize the instance at hand.

 

Personally I'm a big fan of the "organic" playstyle, which actually is a big reason why I don't enjoy meta events and world bosses, and rarely participate or even actively look for them. I've been lucky in stumbling into several successful (and quite a few unsuccessful) meta attempts on all EoD maps, but it sure doesn't feel as lively as I remember it from other parts of Tyria.

 

What did I intend to say with all this rambling? I understand that trying to get into a full instance to join a party/squad is frustrating, but I'm afraid that automatic the process would kill what's left of the open world/organic/spontaneous gameplay I have loved about GW2 all these years, and turn the major map events and experiences into a kind of lobby game instead. I've long grown out of trying to make my gaming experience "efficient", and instead love that I can just aimlessly walk across Tyria, immerse myself into my surroundings, and still experience all of the open world content.

 

Automatic map queuing/private squad instances/forced map opening for squads would make the game smother for the organized/efficient type of player, but at the same time would throw the less focussed, more immersed playstyle under the bus imo.

[jcm.8921]

IMO, a number of things really need to happen:

1. The LFG needs to show an indicator of roughly how populated a map is, so that both players and commanders are better able to gauge when they should start filling up an overflow map. It doesn't need to be a straight number, it can be something as simple as just a little icon that's blue when the map's fresh and underpopulated, green when the map's got a decent population that's under the soft cap, yellow/orange when the map's hit the soft cap and the game will attempt to spin up a new map, and red when the map's hit the hard cap and will no longer accept additional players.

2. There needs to be a way to view the actual map ID rather than trying to represent it via the last octet/number of the IP address of the server you're currently connected to, and there should be a way for players to select which map they're currently in, to give players more control over which maps they end up in, and to minimise the chance that a player ends up in a legitimately dead map when they're trying to participate in a meta. I don't buy the whole "but doing so would make team work redundant because everybody would join the same map" aspect, because what we have now is just a significantly less convenient version of this with individual maps listed in the LFG, so this should have similar behaviour, except it would make it significantly easier for people to spread out across instances.

3. There needs to be a way to queue for a full map, on the off chance that you really want to get into that map, ie the rest of your guild or party is in there and you want to join. This is Guild Wars 2, we shouldn't be outright preventing friends and guild mates from running events, metas, bounties, etc together, they should 100% be able to do open world content together, and this is arguably the best way of allowing that. Even with this change, I still don't buy the whole "but doing so would make team work redundant because everybody would join the same map" aspect, especially if the above two changes are implemented alongside this. If this were to function similarly to WvW's map queuing system, players should still be able to enter and play in less populated maps while queuing for the map they really want to play in, and when a spot does open up in that other map, they should be given a choice to either move over to that other map or stay in their current map and forfeit their spot to someone else in the queue.

[phandaria.4891]

15 minutes ago, jcm.8921 said:

IMO, a number of things really need to happen:

1. The LFG needs to show an indicator of roughly how populated a map is, so that both players and commanders are better able to gauge when they should start filling up an overflow map. It doesn't need to be a straight number, it can be something as simple as just a little icon that's blue when the map's fresh and underpopulated, green when the map's got a decent population that's under the soft cap, yellow/orange when the map's hit the soft cap and the game will attempt to spin up a new map, and red when the map's hit the hard cap and will no longer accept additional players.

2. There needs to be a way to view the actual map ID rather than trying to represent it via the last octet/number of the IP address of the server you're currently connected to, and there should be a way for players to select which map they're currently in, to give players more control over which maps they end up in, and to minimise the chance that a player ends up in a legitimately dead map when they're trying to participate in a meta. I don't buy the whole "but doing so would make team work redundant because everybody would join the same map" aspect, because what we have now is just a significantly less convenient version of this with individual maps listed in the LFG, so this should have similar behaviour, except it would make it significantly easier for people to spread out across instances.

3. There needs to be a way to queue for a full map, on the off chance that you really want to get into that map, ie the rest of your guild or party is in there and you want to join. This is Guild Wars 2, we shouldn't be outright preventing friends and guild mates from running events, metas, bounties, etc together, they should 100% be able to do open world content together, and this is arguably the best way of allowing that. Even with this change, I still don't buy the whole "but doing so would make team work redundant because everybody would join the same map" aspect, especially if the above two changes are implemented alongside this. If this were to function similarly to WvW's map queuing system, players should still be able to enter and play in less populated maps while queuing for the map they really want to play in, and when a spot does open up in that other map, they should be given a choice to either move over to that other map or stay in their current map and forfeit their spot to someone else in the queue.

100% agree to all of this. A lot of DE Meta difficulty (and other map metas) can be easily circumvented by better infrastructure in LFG/Grouping as a whole.

Many commanders have been using discord to navigate grouping and mapping problem, as well as grouping in Arborstone. But there is no excuse that Arenanet should improve player experience by better Mapping/Grouping functions.

Let's not stick to spamming right click -> join map.

Edited April 20, 2022 by phandaria.4891

[Holykitten.3064]

On 4/18/2022 at 7:03 PM, Blaeys.3102 said:

In wvw, if a map is full, you go into queue with an idea of how many are ahead of you.

 

It is time to apply that same system to full pve maps. 

Pretty sure that's what it used to be before mega-servers, as you'd have to actively server swap to see if a particular map was full, and keep trying or *shudders* endure the overflow map. It was awful, and I do not want that to return.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Haleydawn.3764

[Blaeys.3102]

I didn’t anticipate the range of reactions and criticisms this would generate, but definitely understand a lot of the points many are raising.

 

let me revise my premise to simply state that the map joining interface could use some attention and improvements. With how many metas work, you have a lot of players trying to either join friends or an organized commander on a soft capped map on a very regular basis. The mechanic for doing so currently feels very rudimentary and can lead to frustration. Maybe a queue system isn’t the answer, but I would like to see them explore better ways of doing this.

 

hope that is a clearer description of my intent with the original message 🙂

[mythical.6315]

A better system would be good. I can’t even count the number of times I have accidentally invited someone to a guild, or added them as a friend, because their position shifted in the squad as players joined causing the options menu to shift as well. 

[Fuchslein.8639]

I would rather want the option, to see when a map is full on the LFG instead of trying to get on a map and then getting the "you have to wait 5min before you can join another squad" crap.

[kharmin.7683]

42 minutes ago, Blaeys.3102 said:

I didn’t anticipate the range of reactions and criticisms this would generate, but definitely understand a lot of the points many are raising.

 

let me revise my premise to simply state that the map joining interface could use some attention and improvements. With how many metas work, you have a lot of players trying to either join friends or an organized commander on a soft capped map on a very regular basis. The mechanic for doing so currently feels very rudimentary and can lead to frustration. Maybe a queue system isn’t the answer, but I would like to see them explore better ways of doing this.

 

hope that is a clearer description of my intent with the original message 🙂

There have been other threads on the needs to improve the LFG system.  Have you read those?  You can use the forums search to dig 'em up.

[Holykitten.3064]

42 minutes ago, Blaeys.3102 said:

let me revise my premise to simply state that the map joining interface could use some attention and improvements. With how many metas work, you have a lot of players trying to either join friends or an organized commander on a soft capped map on a very regular basis. The mechanic for doing so currently feels very rudimentary and can lead to frustration. Maybe a queue system isn’t the answer, but I would like to see them explore better ways of doing this.

UI tweaks to the party/squad would be welcomed.

I don't think the squad should "grow" in such a janky way. I think there should always be groupings of 5 players and each row would become visible as soon as the squad filled to that level, so on and so forth. Now that many skills affect 5 players now, rather than ten, automatic grouping should happen. The commander of the squad should also either have a different colour to the rest of the squad health bars OR (possibly as well as) a unique border frame to distinquish with ease who the commander is and who to taxi on.

[Gehenna.3625]

1 hour ago, Blaeys.3102 said:

I didn’t anticipate the range of reactions and criticisms this would generate, but definitely understand a lot of the points many are raising.

 

let me revise my premise to simply state that the map joining interface could use some attention and improvements. With how many metas work, you have a lot of players trying to either join friends or an organized commander on a soft capped map on a very regular basis. The mechanic for doing so currently feels very rudimentary and can lead to frustration. Maybe a queue system isn’t the answer, but I would like to see them explore better ways of doing this.

 

hope that is a clearer description of my intent with the original message 🙂

Yeah the thing is that you focused on a possible solution without explaining why you wanted it. That rarely goes well here 😉

The solution also isn't really a solution. WvW maps have queues because they are single shard maps. PvE maps can have multiple shards and that alone makes it a different situation entirely. The truth is, I'm not really sure there is a solution. You see the other issue is that entire maps are used for meta's, but there are many different reasons why a player might be in such a map (story, map completion, gathering, etc.) And these people generally are not interested in the meta of that map. Some might join but others just wanna keep doing what they're doing. That complicates matters even further.

So I hear you, map opening and closing is a long-time frustration of mine as well. I just don't have any good idea of how this could be accomplished, at least not on the opening side if things. Though, I might have a thought here...

Perhaps the solution could be something where you could make a squad of say 40+ players as a requisite to create an instance for your squad. So a tick box that you tick (create instance) and once you hit the required number the entire squad is teleported to their own instance. And the remaining spots could be filled by random people. That could be a solution. However, there might very well be some considerations why ArenaNet might not want to go there.