Zarhym speaks on Battleground queues and uneven team numbers
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Jun 18th 2008 at 9:00AM
It seems to be a complaint that comes up quite often lately: Many people on both sides of the aisle are finding that when they queue up these days and get into a battleground, one side or the other starts at a distinct disadvantage, numbers-wise. Whether it be a 15-7 Arathi Basin, or a 10 to 3 Warsong Gulch, I'm sure most avid Battleground PvPers can tell you that it is extremely hard to recover when you start at a great imbalance in numbers like that.
Zarhym chimed in to offer his own view on the situation on a recent forum thread, and to tell us that Blizzard may still be open to a bit more tweaking to try to solve the problem.
Zarhym first clarifies how the system works: A match only begins when an equal number of people on each side are plucked from the queue and chosen to play the match. However, they are given a grace period before entering the match. If they don't join, but don't decline the invitation to the battleground right away, the server must wait for that decline or for the grace period to expire before they can invite a replacement, even if one is ready and waiting in the queue. Of course, by that time, the match will have most likely already started. But, as he said, most of us know this, he just wanted to make sure that we knew he knew.
The problem, says he, is that if they simply left the gates closed until both sides had the full complement, they would risk lagging people's game time incredibly. It would not be fun to sit behind a starting gate for 5 minutes waiting for people to get in if multiple people in a row leave a battleground invite hanging on their screen. Because of this, Blizzard isn't convinced that simply suspending the game indefinitely until both sides have a full team is the right thing to do to fix the problem. At some point, Zarhym says, a lot of people will likely prefer to just "get through the match and move on with their gaming."
However, they are not satisfied with the queue system as it currently stands, and Zarhym has promised to watch the thread for suggestions, even if it can't comment on every specific one. So if you have some ideas of your own, this thread would be a good place to start.
Me, I'm honestly thinking that saying that some people just want to "get through the match and move on with their gaming." sounds a bit cynical. I think if you're truly there for a good, challenging match, waiting an extra minute or two to make sure the teams are fair isn't that bad. Of course, if you're just there to farm marks, maybe you really do just want to be on the losing side of that 3v12 Eye of the Storm, just to get it over with so you can queue again and get another mark. Still, I'd hope we could be optimistic about people still playing Battlegrounds for the fun of them. I know I still do. Then again, waiting 10 minutes behind a closed gate for the teams to get equal might dampen the fun too. It's a tough balancing act, I suppose.
And a final word to the conspiracy theorists: No, the queue system is not different for the Horde and the Alliance. It's the same one. Seriously.
Filed under: Horde, Alliance, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Battlegrounds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
sephirah Jun 18th 2008 9:13AM
"And a final word to the conspiracy theorists: No, the queue system is not different for the Horde and the Alliance. It's the same one. Seriously."
LIEZ!!!
Ahriman Jun 18th 2008 9:21AM
It seems to me that we need to identify the reason that people join a queue and then don't join the battle. As far as I can tell, the reason is that they are in some other BG at the same time and decide to stay there.
Given that, IMO, they need to remove the ability to join multiple queues. I believe that was added way back before the battle group concept was introduced and the AV queue, for example, could last for hours on some servers, so you needed something to do in the meantime. Nowadays, at least on my servers, no queue for any BG is more than 5 minutes at peak times and no more than 10 minutes even at empty times.
Of course there would still be people not joining the battle on time, but it seems likely it would drop dramatically.
Another solution that could be done instead of or in addition to this, is making the accept time shorter. Why do we need 2 minutes to decide whether or not to enter the battle? I would gladly give up most of that time if it meant more balanced starting matches.
Chelon Jun 18th 2008 9:51AM
Also, if on multiple queues, accepting a BG automatically de-queues the other BGs.
souvlaki Jun 18th 2008 9:56AM
I hate when people leave BG after the first turn-around. When I play a BG i'm there for good or for bad and i make my greatest effort to make it so it wil be for good.
You shouldn't be able to skip to another battleground if you already joined one. If you leave a BG you're a desserter, but if you leave one to join another you're cool?
superfrank Jun 18th 2008 10:45AM
Battleground queues can be very slow late at night and in earlier brackets than L70.
rrrrarr Jun 18th 2008 11:03AM
I think joining multiple queues is fine, the problem is keeping you in the queues when you're in another BG... I want to do AV, AB or WSG. Which ever pops first. Once I commit to a BG, is where things need to change.
I see three options beyond the current behavior.
A) When you join one BG, you're removed from any other queues you're in.
B) When you join a BG, your queues for other BG's are suspended until you leave.
C) When you're already in a BG, the accept window is only available for 15 seconds.
The problem with A is, if you jump into the final seconds of a BG, You're back to the end of the line.
The problem with C is, you can't leave a BG while in combat, but I'd think Blizz could allow you to leave once you go out of combat if you choose accept.
I like B best. If you get brought into a cruddy match where the scoreboard pops right as you get in, you go right back to where you were in the queues for the others. It also prevents people abandoning without penalty. If you really don't want to do a BG, don't queue.
Ikarus Jun 18th 2008 3:58PM
If the game starts and one side greatly outnumbers the other, the system should end the game in a relatively short amount of time (2-3 mins?) and give each team 1 token
jrb Jun 19th 2008 7:56AM
you do get a debuff for leaving a BG which prevents you from joining another for a period of time. So how come i can join multiple queues, and hop battlegrounds 3 times (each BG)? surely leaving a BG debuffs me from joining another, and this should kick and prevent me hopping from one to the other.
or as has already been said, when i join a BG it automatically de-queues me from the others. That way you prevent BG hopping, and you also get more realistic queue time information for those guys that are still in the queue.
Dave H. Jun 18th 2008 9:23AM
That's hardly a cynical statement. It's really just stating fact. Like it or not, the player base has proven time and again that they're in it for the material rewards and not the challenge itself.
Besides, as the system is described here, you really could end up waiting for a very, very long time for a match to start if they were to make you wait for a full group to load. A particularly unlucky group, and you know it would happen to somebody, might have 15 Horde waiting to go, and 14 Alliance running their mounts into the gate in anticipation, while player after player is asked to join and chooses to decline or simply isn't around to click the button.
Also, an edit: In your fourth paragraph, "Because of this, Blizzard isn't convinced that simply suspending the game indefinitely until both sides have a full team." That's not a complete sentence. I believe you meant something like "...is not a good idea." at the end.
Jammy Jun 18th 2008 9:42AM
How about using an airline seat booking system? They usually oversubscribe every scheduled flight (if they can) because they assume 5% of people aren't going to turn up.
What this means is sometimes more people turn up for a flight than can fit on, so people are shunted to other flights etc.
In BGs what you would be doing is trading off a more even start ratio against some people who have been accepted then not getting in.
Irshalthra Jun 18th 2008 10:14AM
I like this idea, of course it would cause the initial BG wait time to be longer - waiting for more people, but I think most people have figured out ways to spend the extra time.
Freelier Jun 18th 2008 10:57AM
I like this a lot. The dialog could say how many slots were still open so you wouldn't be shocked when your opportunity to join disappeared.
robotrock Jun 18th 2008 9:34AM
One way to help is to remove the "Hide Queue" button and change it to Leave Queue. Too many people multi-queue and just hit the hide button when it pops up. This stays in their minimap for 2 minutes, preventing a willing player to join.
I have no idea why it was setup like this in the first place. Stupid.
Iamnotalie Jun 18th 2008 1:40PM
Ireally think this is the root of the problem. The game encourages you to just hide the queue instead of leaving it if you don't want to join.Adding a leave queue button on the pop up would go a long way toward a fix.
Combine that with a shortening of the time up from 2 minutes to 1 and i don't think we'd see many shorthanded starts anymore.
Callandra Jun 18th 2008 9:38AM
What about reducing the grace period if you are already in a BG to 30 seconds?
Currently it runs at 2 minutes to accept a queue, just about the same delay it takes to start a match. This is fine if you are up getting a drink, or tabbed out.
However if you are in a PvP match, and active, you should be given 30 seconds to make a decision because you should be attentive to whats going on.
This way, almost 4 times as many people will be given a shot at a BG instead of just 1 (4 x 30 seconds = 2 minutes)
wolfy Jun 18th 2008 9:42AM
"Of course, if you're just there to farm marks, maybe you really do just want to be on the losing side of that 3v12 Eye of the Storm, just to get it over with so you can queue again and get another mark."
Is that not a contradiction in itself? surely it'd be better to wait that extra 2 minutes and be on the winning side receiving 3 marks than to charge in with half a team, lose and only receive the one mark.. obviously having to rinse & repeat that process 3 times to gain what you would have gotten had you waited an extra 2 minutes?! (ie 3 marks) surely even farmers can see thats more beneficial than collecting marks 1 at a time!?!
And maybe reduce the confirmation timeout of entering battlegrounds from the ludicrous 2 minutes down to 30 seconds.. giving more people a fightin chance to join a battleground.
The amount of times I've joined an AV queue when my friends have already been in one with space on our team and its ran for another 20 minutes, still with said space and ended.. meanwhile my queue has started a completely new AV instance?!? err.. why did it not let me join the ongoing one if there was space and no one filled it?!? obviously there is a major flaw in the current queing system that needs to be addressed.
I think to start with the best way forward is to reduce the "Join Battleground" confirmation times to 30 seconds OR LESS. which in my honest opinion is more than plenty of time to scroll a mouse pointer across the screen and click on the ACCEPT button. (if you've had to leave your pc for some reason than its your own touch luck, maybe you shouldn't have joined the queue in the first place if you knew you didnt have the time to stay!)..
wolfy
Lars Petersson Jun 18th 2008 4:19PM
It's not a contradiction at all.
If you just stand back and let the other side win a match can be over ina few minutes and you get your mark.
Or you can have a long drawn out match where you *might* win and get three marks in, say, 30-40 minutes...
Depo Jun 18th 2008 9:42AM
I think an easier solution would be to give people less time to join the queues. Maybe a 30 second window? I know it'd be annoying to have to switch your game choice so soon after entering, but that's what you get for queuing up with multiple BGs, y'know?
Dan Jun 18th 2008 10:40AM
I've almost completely stopped PvP because of this issue. I don't think I've been in a single EoTS or AB since I hit 70 on my server where the Horde weren't out numbered by the Alliance at the start.
Aurion Jun 18th 2008 9:49AM
In Rampage's 51-60 AV it's always 40v20 for the alliance, not because of the queue system, but because there is not enough horde to join the AV, that's what a GM told me. How am I supposed to kill Vanndar for my Polearm on my Pally alt now?