Queue: still unused.
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-06-29 06:02 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Quote:
This.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Seems to me like a retread of the Team Seek interface. You see people begging, pleading and even crying for a team. Then you search for their name and they have no search comment and are set to "Not looking for any."
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All those people lf trial, arent signing into the queue.
I tried signing into the queue, but after not getting anywhere, I went to RWZ and got in one that was forming.
If people can't use the Team Seek (and I don't blame them...people flag themselves for LF Anything...with nothing in their description for exceptions...then complain when they get blind invited...they said they were looking for ANYTHING), I don't see them using the LFG Queue for trials any better.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Quote:
I disagree. It was an attempt to solve (or at least mitigate) some of the issues associated with teaming in CoH. Specifically the problems that there are, in general, not enough people willing to form teams and that Global Channels are currently regarded as the best way to form teams (which is a bit of a problem problem since finding good global channels is not something that is intuitive).|
Originally Posted by Casual_Player
The Queue was a solution to a problem that didn't exist.
So no one should be shocked that it isn't being used. |
I agree that it, mostly, failed but I think the goal was a good one.
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Actually open leagues are supposed to try not to group you with people you are ignoring. That said, the population levels that are using the turnstile with out preforming a league first is pretty low.|
Originally Posted by Ultra_Violence
Actually as long as league leader can open/close league I don't understand how this was ever supposed to work. You make a closed league invite who you want till league is full for trial, open league then queue for trial. You get credit for doing trial with Open league without ever actually having to have one.
Another issue is people are on my ignore list for a reason. I DON'T want to play with them. Truely Open Leagues let all the squirrelly players in. -- Fantastic a way to make Raiding even more painful. You wait 30 minutes for league to form only to have last 2 players be ones on your ignore list. So you can wait another 30 minutes or play with idiots. And anyone wonders why Queues are unused? |
To be honest, I only see one way that folks will really try to queue up a league instead of preforming, and that's if the players can do other stuff incidentally while in the queue.
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I find the queue pretty useless. Like others have commented, I will sometimes go into queue, but after waiting about an hour or so, I give up. I find it usually works better to go to RWZ and just ask everyone in sight if they have room for me to join. This doesn't work well, mind you, just better.
In fact, my experience with trials is largely log in, wait, ask to join a group, wait, wait, wait, log out because I have run out of time. I haven't even been able to try Keyes yet because I can't get into a team.
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That's because globals ARE the best way to form teams. Have been for years now. That's my point.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I disagree. It was an attempt to solve (or at least mitigate) some of the issues associated with teaming in CoH. Specifically the problems that there are, in general, not enough people willing to form teams and that Global Channels are currently regarded as the best way to form teams (which is a bit of a problem problem since finding good global channels is not something that is intuitive).
I agree that it, mostly, failed but I think the goal was a good one. |
Who needs a queue when you've got globals, or heck, even broadcast, for putting together a team? Nobody. It was a solution to an imaginary problem.
Statesmonkey Sez: Lighten up! It's a game, for Lincoln's sake!
Also: Six years of casual play begins to look an awful lot like one year of hardcore play.
I still don't even understand how the queues work. The interface and everything is confusing, and I have no idea what's going on and if I'm joining something or not.
Broadcast is SOOO much simpler.
--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
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I think you're missing my point. Globals being the best way to form teams IS a problem. The problem with globals is that they are not inclusive. You have to go out and find them which generally means asking someone who already knows which ones are good for your server. This isn't a particularly good method of helping a new player find teams.|
Originally Posted by Casual_Player
That's because globals ARE the best way to form teams. Have been for years now. That's my point.
Who needs a queue when you've got globals, or heck, even broadcast, for putting together a team? Nobody. It was a solution to an imaginary problem. |
The trial queue was an attempt to circumvent this by allowing people to easily form and join teams without needing to belong to global channels.
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What's compkicated about it?|
Originally Posted by NuclearToast
I still don't even understand how the queues work. The interface and everything is confusing, and I have no idea what's going on and if I'm joining something or not.
Broadcast is SOOO much simpler. --NT |
Click on LFG, click on the trial you want or the ANY option, and click a button. then wait.
Or were you being sarcastic?
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Quote:
The Queue is not a bad idea, but it was a bad fit for the Trials. Trials are some of the toughest missions in the game (especially in the early weeks, before people got fully slotted out and worked out strategies), which is the last place you want to be thrown in with a random, minimum-sized PUG. A Queue that worked for regular missions would be pretty handy: Instead of a list of Trials, you'd have various categories to check off (looking for story arcs, looking for tips, looking for scanner/safeguard, etc.), and the Queue would put you in a team with like-minded players of a similar level. I think something like that would get more use.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I agree that it, mostly, failed but I think the goal was a good one.
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This is likely because signing into the queue locks you out of doing anything productive - including getting invited to a group doing the trial.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
All those people lf trial, arent signing into the queue.
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No, I was being completely serious. Even if you do those things, you still have no idea if you're going to get to do anything or not. It's like magic or something, except without the anything-happening part. Just the waiting part. I've never successfully gotten the queue to do anything but raise my blood pressure.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
What's compkicated about it?
Click on LFG, click on the trial you want or the ANY option, and click a button. then wait. Or were you being sarcastic? |
Quote:
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Originally Posted by rsclark
This is likely because signing into the queue locks you out of doing anything productive - including getting invited to a group doing the trial.
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--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
Quote:
Agreed.
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Originally Posted by NuclearToast
No, I was being completely serious. Even if you do those things, you still have no idea if you're going to get to do anything or not. It's like magic or something, except without the anything-happening part. Just the waiting part. I've never successfully gotten the queue to do anything but raise my blood pressure.
Bingo. Broadcast is SOOOO much simpler. --NT |
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Agreed. As long as the pool is the size of a foot bath, and it's full of people I'm probably already talking to anyway, the automatic system won't be of use to me.
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Originally Posted by LISAR
Queue will be more useful when we get cross server teaming going on ^_^.
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Ah, something for non-forum-readers and noobs then. OK, that's fair. But I'd still put more emphasis on getting the info on globals out to those folks than stuffing them into a randomized team generator.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I think you're missing my point. Globals being the best way to form teams IS a problem. The problem with globals is that they are not inclusive. You have to go out and find them which generally means asking someone who already knows which ones are good for your server. This isn't a particularly good method of helping a new player find teams.
The trial queue was an attempt to circumvent this by allowing people to easily form and join teams without needing to belong to global channels. |
I would find the ability to click on an info terminal and get a list of global channels on your server far more useful than the queue. Maybe even ranked by number of members, so you can see which ones are crowded.
Statesmonkey Sez: Lighten up! It's a game, for Lincoln's sake!
Also: Six years of casual play begins to look an awful lot like one year of hardcore play.
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The problem here is how do you regulate it? Global channels are not linked to servers so there's no way for the game to know which ones to show. That means the devs (or someone) would have to go through and manually add them to lists.
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Originally Posted by Casual_Player
I would find the ability to click on an info terminal and get a list of global channels on your server far more useful than the queue. Maybe even ranked by number of members, so you can see which ones are crowded.
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And then segmentation as global channels reach capacity. It's really a subpar solution. To be honest, using the Help channel would prolly be a better solution that using globals. Server wide chat, easy to get to [automagic], and not population limit.
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Originally Posted by Casual_Player
Ah, something for non-forum-readers and noobs then. OK, that's fair. But I'd still put more emphasis on getting the info on globals out to those folks than stuffing them into a randomized team generator.
I would find the ability to click on an info terminal and get a list of global channels on your server far more useful than the queue. Maybe even ranked by number of members, so you can see which ones are crowded. |
Let's Dance!
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The problem with the Help channel is the same problem that you get with "City Chat" in multiple other MMOs. Our Help channel isn't as bad as most of the other examples I've seen (although I also expect that to change once Freedom comes out) but for some reason a wide-scale multi-zone all-inclusive chat channel seems to bring out the worst in people.|
Originally Posted by reiella
And then segmentation as global channels reach capacity. It's really a subpar solution. To be honest, using the Help channel would prolly be a better solution that using globals. Server wide chat, easy to get to [automagic], and not population limit.
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The conclusion I've come to over the years is that chat channels (of any type) are the second worst way of forming teams (the worst is sending blind invites). Unless you have decent moderation you get an off-putting chat environment and channels that do have moderation are not inclusive.
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Oh, I agree. I like the premise of a team matchmatching tool. It just needs a bit more functionality to well function |
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
The problem with the Help channel is the same problem that you get with "City Chat" in multiple other MMOs. Our Help channel isn't as bad as most of the other examples I've seen (although I also expect that to change once Freedom comes out) but for some reason a wide-scale multi-zone all-inclusive chat channel seems to bring out the worst in people.
The conclusion I've come to over the years is that chat channels (of any type) are the second worst way of forming teams (the worst is sending blind invites). Unless you have decent moderation you get an off-putting chat environment and channels that do have moderation are not inclusive. |
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Let's Dance!
I've only tried the queue once post 20.5. I was in there for about half an hour while marketing, crafting, chatting, and tabbing out. Then I decided to actually go do something - run some tips. Had to figure out why the door wasn't working, because I forgot I was still in the queue. This was on Pinnacle.
I totally agree that the queue needs 2 things, and can use 1 more.
1. We *need* to see how many people are in the queue. There is no real way around this, if you can see how many people are in the queue, more people will use it. period. Even if the number is 0, you enter it and it goes to 1, and you can see how long it takes for it to go to 2, etc.
2. Wait times of less than 1 minute *need* to be removed from the average.
3. Players should be able to enter missions while queued.
Giving an Emp merit for using the queue would go along way in getting people to use it.
Just saying
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
As others have posted and said before, I'll post again...
The queue won't be used a whole lot (by many) until the following happens (I think at least 
):
1.) You can do everything you can do normally (missions, tailor, etc) WHILE in the queue waiting.
and
2.) You can see how many people are in the queue already.
2a.) Also see what ATs/powersets/name of person/etc who is in the queue.
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What does the wait time even mean? It doesn't seem to signify anything. That's one of the frustrating parts of the queue: when you've waited 5 or 10 multiples of the "average wait time", it's meaningless.|
Originally Posted by Bubbawheat
2. Wait times of less than 1 minute *need* to be removed from the average.
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--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
Quote:
Well, I wouldn't say it's meaningless. It's simply the average wait time. It's just not a useful number due to people predominantly prefabricating leagues.|
Originally Posted by NuclearToast
What does the wait time even mean? It doesn't seem to signify anything. That's one of the frustrating parts of the queue: when you've waited 5 or 10 multiples of the "average wait time", it's meaningless.
--NT |
That problem should solve itself if the queue system gets more directly utilized. However, baring that, trimming the extreme results [the <1m results as suggested] would be a far more useful number.
Let's Dance!
While it would be best if the LFG tab showed the number of players in each queue (Any, Lambda, BAF, and Keyes, currently)...
A short-term solution (one that doesn't require UI work) could be to receive a server message when you enter the queue that tells you how many are in the queue you just entered.
Queue will be more useful when we get cross server teaming going on ^_^.