Does the LFG Queue work on your server?

Does the LFG Queue work on your server?

Are you able to use it?

Do the average start times bear any resemblance to reality?

Do trial teams formed with the queue ever succeed?


On Victory, the answer seems to be a big fat 'No' to all the above. There is a perception that trial teams will not succeed unless they are full and that the LFG tool will not fill a trial team unless it has already been mostly filled by other players. This in turn leads players to not use it, creating a negative feedback loop on its use.

In fact, I've heard players swear up and down that it's broken altogether. It simply doesn't ever put them in trials, so it must not function at all.

What's your experience with the LFG tool?

On Union it is the same, a big fat no, it's virtually useless since all the trial runs are premade and the LFG tool won't simply just add in a few members if the trial is a few short and will only fill a trial up to minimum team size, never over that.

Does the LFG Queue work on your server?
Yes it does, dependig on how long I wish to wait. Servers I play on are Virtue or Justice.

Are you able to use it?
I am able to use it but its faster to go to global channels or to go to locations and broadcast that I'm looking for a trial.

Do the average start times bear any resemblance to reality?
No, they do not. When the trials first started out they did but now they don't really resemble the time. I have had them take anywhere from 6 mintues to about 30 minutes when I finally gave up. One of the issues with the queue is if you get exactly 12 people or 8 people and someone declines...then it happens over and over again continually dropping the rest of the players back into the queue. My gut reaction is that people are intentionally decling invites so that everyone is continually waisting their time. Kind of like how in the past people have wiped out global channels by setting it to private then kicking everyone out of the channel, and endorsing their new channel as an alternative.

Do trial teams formed with the queue ever succeed?
They do succeed a lot more now then they did in the past, but people have learned the little tricks to each trial by now.

What's your experience with the LFG tool?
My overall experience is that I like to the tool and I can see its potential, but I think its going to play out in the long run as the overall looking for group settings have played out. Broadcasts, notes looking for trials all the while staying on the not seeking setting as they either don't care to switch status to looking for a team, or they don't really know how.

The devs can make all the tools in the world, but at the end of the day its up to the playerbase to use those tools and it doesn't seem like we are doing that as a whole.

the LFG tool does work IMO, but the way it was designed to work could have been better

instead of looking for trials under the minimum, it should look for trials not full and it should give poeple the option to make a league "private" which would be invite only, or "public" which would allow poeple to join from the queue at any time as long as your league was under the max

i do think the system has a promising future as long as its fixed from its current form, in its current form i see it as being a waste of time since you could wait between 5 and 50 minutes for a trial or join a preformed league and start immediatly

Once in a while on Pinnacle I see people bumped into our trials from the LFG queue when we run not entirely full. And I have successfully used the LFG tool to form a team successfully on both Pinnacle and Liberty but it was difficult - I had no idea how many people were really joining, how long before we would be able to start, or anything else. *And* it doesn't allow people to enter "in-progress" events *unless* they drop below the minimum required.

If they add: the ability to see how many people are in the queue, the ability to truly join "in-progress" events, at least during the first stage of the trial, then it would go a long way towards making the LFG queue useful for soloers.

Average start times are very close to reality. It just happens that there's a preponderance of pre-formed groups which slant the average towards 0/1m.

The Queue system itself has a few issues that keeps it from being casually useful [as opposed to global or zone-sitting]. Unfortunately, you only get one first impression, and due to those issues I have strong reservations that the turnstile will become generally used. I'd like to be surprised that if they changed it to let you queue up while doing missions and people start using it more then, but I doubt that there will be a big change in the audience factor.

Occasionally a random extra person will pop in to a premade league I'm in. So I guess technically it's working, but as intended? Doubtful.

Does the LFG Queue work on your server?
I got it to work once when i20 first dropped, but never since.

Are you able to use it?
I am able to click on it. That's about it.

Do the average start times bear any resemblance to reality?
No, but I spend much of my time traveling close to light speed. :-/

Do trial teams formed with the queue ever succeed?
The only one I ever did failed, but that was way back in the beginning, when we had no clue what we were doing.

On Virtue, for the record.

Coming from Justice here, and I agree that the LFG queue system is a broken mess. I have tried, on 5 different occasions, to get into a league using the queue. All 5 times I waited for a minimum of 25 minutes and a maximum of about an hour as I forgot I was in the queue when I logged out. All of those times, the highest "average wait time" was 2 minutes. I don't use it and simply head to the "pre-formed team areas" of Pocket D and RWZ which seem to be the hot spots on Justice, and also rely on global channels. Never had an issue with that method, but the LFG is completely useless to me.

I understand the mechanics behind it and that entering a pre-formed team into the queue to get into the trial messes with the "average wait time". And I understand that the queue system puts you in a trial when the minimum threshold of players is reach for that trial. All those things considered are just poor design decisions.

If I were to do it? I'd make a queue system available as I like the idea of putting up the flag from anywhere in creation in the game and eventually getting into one while I'm marketing, street sweeping, etc. However, here is what I would change about it all:
- Pre-formed teams never go into the "queue". Pre-formed team leaders can simply say "Take league into trial X" and that's it. That way their entry time does not affect the queue "average wait time".
- The queue should have an option that you, the character, set as what the minimum number of people would be that you would be ok with when the league auto-forms and begins. I've been on 8 person Lambda's and 12 person BAF's that failed miserably. I'd rather only try with 12 and 16 as my minimum, but that's just me and I should have that choice.
- The "join in progress" function actually needs to work. I have 2 accounts and fiddled with this the other day. I was in a BAF that only had 18 people on it and it started. I waited for the load in and still counted only 18. I loaded up my second account, LFG > Join in progress event for BAF. ... Nothing.
- Change the name to "LGL > Looking for League." That's what this thing is for, leagues. A "Looking for Group" menu on top of another "Looking for Group" menu is just confusing.

I can only speak for my experiences on Protector but here is what I've noticed.

Does the LFG Queue work on your server?
Yes.

Are you able to use it?
Yes. I've done a couple of trials using the LFG Queue

Do the average start times bear any resemblance to reality?
No. They are not even close. I've waited as long as 45 minutes before entering a trial, despite the queue saying the wait was only 2 minutes.

Do trial teams formed with the queue ever succeed?
Yes. Most of the ones I've been on as a result of the LFG Queue have been successful.

What's your experience with the LFG tool?
I like the idea, just wish the start times were more reflective of the actual wait.

No, not on Freedom from what I've seen. It is so half-arsed right now, the function (team forming portion) should be removed from the game entirely until it is improved. Right now it's more of a nuisance than helpful.

Most people don't like complete unknowns. The current LFG team forming is akin to being tossed out of a helicopter into the wilderness and then being told "there's a bunch of complete strangers over there, hook up with them and survive." Such an idea might make a decent TV show that lasts for many episodes but it is a horrible idea for MMOs. At the least the TV show version tries to give you enough people, tools and guidance to survive while the helicopter pilot (LFG queue) would tell you "this is what you have and whether it is enough or not, I do not know nor care."

Here is what they should have done with the LFG queue.

1. Let the player *see* the other players in the league which they've been placed into once you open the interface window. In fact, make it just like the league/team tabs. Name, AT and so on. It's not a whole lot of information but it's still better than clicking the queue button while praying that the tool doesn't toss you into an under strengthed/sized league with 10 melee types with no heals, buffs, debuffs or controls. This leads into the next option.

2. Give the players the option to back out of a league they've been placed into. However, instead of exiting out of the queue entirely, you will instead be cycled into the next league on the list. Maybe you're not thrilled about the AT composition of the current league. Maybe you saw the name of someone you don't like. Whatever the reason, it will be better for the league and the players to let someone who doesn't want to be there the ability to walk away before you get the "<trial> is ready" pop up. Player can quit pre-formed leagues in order to search for a new one so why not this?

3. Add an additional question for the queue process which is "Do you prefer to be the league/team leader?" It could be a radio button before you click queue or a pop up after you click, whatever. The point is to make sure the stars only goes to someone who actually wants it. If multiple people click "yes" then just randomly choose the league/team leaders between them.

4. We don't really know what factors tell the LFG tool to start the trial (at least I don't) but whatever the reason, it isn't working right now. Turn that control over to the players instead. In the new LFG interface window I mentioned above (where you can see the other player's names, AT, etc), include a check box that says "Ready for Trial". Once a certain threshold has been reached, let's say 50% of players in the league has clicked, a timer (2 minutes for example) would then start. The remaining players would have to click that box in that span or be removed. The timer would also serve a dual function of giving a bit more time for additional players to hop into the league from the turnstile. After which, you get the trial is ready pop up, so on and so forth.

These are just really conceptual ideas for a better LFG turnstile system and I have no illusions that some of it would require tweaking and streamlining. However, the point is that the inclusion of any these options (or others) is still going to be better than the unbridled mess of a tool/system we have now.

the whole system reminds me of the arena que when i used to pvp except that in that case there were a ton of empty matches that noone was joining whereas here everyone joins one pool but there is no instance open for them to join.

they should have just repurposed all the unused arena kiosks(thanks i13 :/ ) or info terminals and gave this raiding system a real UI. this LFG button makes no sense in the lore of the game(so we just magically teleport?) and having to sit idle waiting for a timed green button is the least fun possible solution.

i've stopped doing raids unless a friend asks for help. ive got t3 on most and t4 on a few but its just not worth dealing with the unfunness to get the latest shiny on more than a couple favorite toons.

The average time is perfectly representative. For *average* time.

Yes - Yes - No - Yes

Nope. The LFG has never, ever worked for me. Wait times are listed between 2 to 4 minutes, yet I've waited upwards of 40 minutes without ever being picked up for a league.

What's worse, is that I can't go into my supergroup base, I can't go into a mission, nor can I join friends who are currently on a mission while I wait, as doing so kicks me from the queue.

Overall, the LFG, in my opinion, is a failure.

I think the primary failing of the LFG system is/was that it goes as soon as it finds the minimum number of players, and won't add more players once it has the minimum. That fed into the other main issue which is the system needs a decent number of people using it for it to work.

When the trials first came out a minimum sized league of random archetypes had a low chance of success, so people started preforming to improve their chances, and that meant even fewer people using the LFG system, which meant increased queue times for those still using it... so more people abandoned it to ensure they got onto a league in a reasonable amount of time so even *fewer* people were using it. And so on.

So for my personal experiences, on the first couple days I could queue and saw a wait time of around 5-10 minutes. Most of those leagues ended in failure - we rarely got more than a couple more than the minimum size, nobody was incarnated out yet, and most people were running their scrappers/brutes to start with so not much buff/debuff/mez going on. On the few times I've tried the queue recently, I can easily sit for an hour and not get a hit (when I do it's because I get lucky and get assigned to what I assume is a nearly-full preformed league, but never a league composed entirely of people using the queue solo). That's on Freedom and Virtue, so goodness knows what it's like on low pop servers.

At this point I'm doubtful as to whether it can ever really be salvaged - the devs could go in and fix the problems, soup it up a bunch, make it the system it should have been, but it won't mean much if most people have settled on the manual method and won't go bother to go back to the queue system in the numbers it needs to work.

To the OP: No, it does not.

No LFG doesn't work on Liberty because every trial either starts out full or leader doesn't want any more people for lag reasons.

Times given by LFG are only accurate if you are like heavily drugged and can't tell time anymore.

My experience has been they have a lot of trouble succeeding because as soon as you have minimum it starts and doing Lambda with 8 is hard unless people really know what they are doing. It is especially hard since 2 people will always skip the whole search portion for grenades and acids so that they can get in the cut scene. Doing a BAF with no Controllers/Doms to slow and group mobs is near hopeless.

LFG doesn't work on a number of levels. Trials are not as simple as any 8-12 people. Regular missing might work with this tool or Task Forces, but not trials. So the only thing they can be used for is the one thing they can't do. Using this for Task Force of the Week teams would be VERY sweet. Also LFG was sold with "You can do whatever you want while you wait" which isn't true. You can't enter missions which basically means other than play the market or doing emotes you can't do anything. You can street hunt but the fact is at 50 most greatly prefer to be in missions because the rewards are better and faster.