No incoming fix for long arena queues
by John Himes 
Dec 5th 2007 at 11:30PM
With the popularity of the new arena season, queue times across the servers are getting pretty long. This is especially noticeable in the 2v2 bracket, which is the most popular team size. When a player posted his complaints about the long queues today, Drysc chimed in to give indication that there will be no quick fix incoming. Instead, the devs are going to wait to get the big picture on the influx of PvPers instead of making rash decisions.I don't know what your experiences have been like lately, but the queues on my main server seem to be getting longer and longer rather than diminishing. The new season has only been out for about a week now, so perhaps it's too early to expect interest to be fading, but I hope there is some sort of solution soon. I've contemplated moving up to the 3v3 bracket, but I've heard via word of mouth that those queues are getting pretty lengthy as well. Perhaps it's time to give 5v5 a chance once again, if I can corral some of my guildmates to chose a specific time to do our matches and stick with it.
What has your experience with the arena queues been like since the new season began?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Clinton Dec 5th 2007 11:37PM
I dont get why when there are more people the queues are longer, unless there are only a limited amount of arena's that can be active at once, in which case why dont they add more arena server boxes ?
Ubercharged Dec 6th 2007 12:21AM
because that 500 million in profit isnt enough for a few more arena servers
Richard Dec 6th 2007 9:42AM
That's exactly what they say the problem is... there can only be so many arena matches being run at one time. More people queuing, longer the wait, which is absolute garbage.
The lowest queue times I get now is 5 min... but it's usually closer to 10 on Nightfall.
Well, thank God for 1 hour poisons now.
Marsh Dec 6th 2007 12:26AM
I qued for 2v2 yesterday and the estimated wait time was 44 minutes...
If WoW is the most popular game on the internet then why can't they upgrade their arena servers? It won't be that popular for long if this continues.
Dan Dec 6th 2007 12:48AM
In my experience the wait time is longest for 2v2 and fastest with 5v5. Short wait times and better point rewards. The longest wait time I've ever had for a 5v5 queue was 2 minutes. Estimated wait times are usually just over a minute and are largely accurate.
Josh Dec 6th 2007 1:22AM
Had a few 10 min 2v2 queues in the Stormstrike battlegroup last night. Not something I would have expected on a Tuesday night, but rather on a Sunday or Monday when everybody is trying to get their games in. Times were cut in half today though.
Nethriil Dec 6th 2007 1:58AM
Waiting is boring!!!! 5 min + queues should not happen. Allocate some of the 5v5 server space to 2v2. This might double 5v5 queue to say 2 min but may alleviate some 2v2 queue time. I mean 2v2 is the most popular arena setup. Why on earth would Blizzard screw with the biggest size of the arena population.
me Dec 6th 2007 2:59AM
I wonder if the truth is not too many people wanting to do arena's, but just the opposite. Maybe it's because I'm on a pve realm, but very few people I know of do pvp on a regular bases. I would be very surprised if 1/10 of 1% do battlegrounds or arena on a regular bases.
Thous that I know that do battlegroups only do it because they want the welfare epics, not because the enjoy the pvp experience.
When blizzard announced welfare epics, I thought it was to try and generate more interest in PVP.
pontus Dec 6th 2007 4:57AM
I think it is only people wanting to get the best weapons out there, and once they have that, queues will be smaller. Maybe the long queues is blizzards respons to all PvE'ers (myself included) complaints about S1-3 weapons being somewhat overpowered. The queues are just being the equivalence to a shitty long raid :P
Tridus Dec 6th 2007 6:28AM
Thats basically the problem.
All kinds of people who didn't used to do arenas are now, because the item stats are completely out of sync with the time invested compared to anything else in the game.
If you compare the time investment in arenas to the time investment in raids for the same rewards, it basically rains welfare epics.
Marsh Dec 6th 2007 5:29AM
Raids shouldn't be shitty and long either. 3+ hours 4 nights a week? No thanks. They need to reduce trash mobs so raids take 2 hours tops.
pontus Dec 6th 2007 5:41AM
I think you are right about that. The real difficulty should be in the bosses themselves, and maybe a few packs of trash. I'd rather they increase the difficulty of the bosses, or stop nerfing them, and remove some of the trash. It should not take 1-2 h's for a good group to get from one boss to another.
Nick Dec 15th 2007 10:51AM
I kid you not last night 2v2 queues were 1 hour and 7 minutes on Skullcrusher.
chillis Dec 6th 2007 8:20AM
Jeez I feel for some of you.
I was complaining last night because on Nathrezim we had 10min. 2v2 wait times.
tmklein Dec 6th 2007 8:28AM
i don't quite understand how some of the BG queues get so long either. its up to about 35mins for AV all the time.
porovaara Dec 6th 2007 8:43AM
Hey it could be worse, on Stormstrike Alliance have simply stopped queuing for AV since the changes. Having gone from winning roughly 70% to something in the low teens, the packed up their ball and went home. We have about 1/3 the AV games we used to have during peak playtimes with AV queues now typically in excess of 35 minutes horde side. These queues were < 1 minute a few weeks ago. In fact the only instant queue we now have left is EOTS... oh woe it is to know the pain Alliance have felt for years.
tmklein Dec 6th 2007 9:09AM
yeah i'm on stormstrike horde side too, so is it only our battlegroup getting this with av?
jtrain Dec 6th 2007 10:33AM
My thought exactly. I'm Stormstrike Hordeside, and since 2.3, I've lost maybe 2 AV's total. Why would alliance want to suffer through defeat after defeat in AV unless they need the marks? It's the worst case of faction imbalance in a BG I've seen, and I'm on the winning side!! I'm almost thinking we should let them win every now and then just so more alliance will queue for it!
CaffeineRage Dec 6th 2007 9:48AM
Perhaps, I have just been lucky to not really notice. The past two weeks, I haven't had a wait time over 6 minutes, with my 2v2 team. Yesterday, it was roughly 15 seconds.
NH2 Dec 6th 2007 10:40AM
My 2v2 team just converted into a 3v3 team because of the queue times. Blackhand's queue times for 2v2 are sitting around 8 minutes while 3v3 is only 1 to 2. I just assumed that the queue times were longer because less people were playing but I guess that was incorrect...