The current queue system is lame

[diogenes]

Dear Nostalrius,

Instead of starting my post by being negative and listing the flaws of the current queue system, I'm going to list some positive things I can say about it.

1) It is significantly harder (but not impossible) to dodge premades, making the afkmades nearly impossible and almost nonexistent.
2) Due to the artificially increased queue times, world pvp is at an all-time high for people who are actually trying to rank

The first positive point is totally legitimate it really was a job well done; however, the second positive point is really just a byproduct of a negative point of the system: it is a silver lining (unless you're leveling in wpl/epl/searing gorge/blasted lands/burning steppes/winterspring).

But honestly, the system sucks for both horde and alliance (although it probably sucks for horde more, and the alliance don't realize how bad it sucks because the problems for them are not as readily visible). There are three reasons why it sucks:

1) Artificially increased queue times for both factions.
2) The queue system promotes 24/7 afk on horde, and a 24/7 roflstomp in a premade on alliance
3) Premade vs. premade match ups hurt alliance honor farm marginally but are unproductive and verging on not being viable as horde.

Now that I have identified the three claims as to why this queue system is terrible, I'm going to make the strongest effort I can to justify it.


1) Artificially increased queue times for both factions.

We have, more or less, figured out the way the queue system works--even though you did not tell us how it worked. Essentially, the way this system works is that it is based off of the average queue time of the last 10 players' queue time (exactly how that is determined, we don't know, but it is pretty irrelevant). When you queue as a premade, you will wait at least that average time plus an additional five minutes if there is no premade available to queue against. Once that condition is met, the premade has priority for the next 10 or 15 players (depending on whether or not wsg or ab).

As a result, and due to there being a significant amount of players queuing as a premade on alliance side, the queue times are artificially increased. While the actual numbers of players of the two factions might be (on average) roughly equivalent, the number of players who premade on both faction is in fact quite disproportional. This disproportion leads to an artificial increase in queue time because solo queuers must wait an additional 5 minutes just to get into a queue with a premade--in addition to waiting for their turn in the queue.

For example, if both sides have an average wait time of 3-4 minutes, then the side that does not have premades running, are eventually going to have their queue time increased to 8-9 minutes just simply because a premade is queuing and waiting for their "premade priority" to expire. Therefore, more often than not, a group of players are going to have to wait an extra 5 minutes just to get into a game thereby increasing queues artificially. This problem exacerbates the queue times for premading simply because if a horde premade does have to show up, and the ally premade is in a game, then the horde premade will now have to wait 13-14 minutes just to get a game.

Further, this is assuming that the faction balance is always identical. Sometimes, horde do have more players pvping, sometimes alliance do. But in either case, the queues are going to be artificially increased for the side who does not have premades constantly running, which is, without a doubt, always horde. This is a bad system for both pug solo queuers, party group queuers, and full on premades. It's not fun from a gameplay standpoint. If you're horde and a solo queuer, you still have a significant chance to queue up against a premade, and this queue system has only created the illusion of protecting pugs from being farmed.If you're a horde premade, then you just have to accept your honor gain is going to be completely sub par, because by the time that you almost get past the window of "premade priority" an alliance premade is finished with their game. If you're an alliance premade, well there's a small inconvenience, with waiting, but since you're almost garaunteed to fight an unorganized team it is worth the wait. If you're an alliance pug, you get good queues, but frankly, you lose quite often because most of the horde who actually are trying to rank are queuing as solo queues anyway so you're almost always playing against players who significantly out gear you. That covers all the options for people who participate in wsg and ab.

2) The queue system promotes 24/7 afk on horde, and a 24/7 roflstomp in a premade on alliance

Now, the vanilla pvp honor system is 100% flawed, and while there is a skill component involved in becoming a premade leader or being granted a spot in a strong premade, it is still based on play time. There is no way to remove that. However, that component of skill and determination has been almost completely removed for both sides. First, horde doesn't even bother to premade generally. Only since the horde has figured out the very basics of the queue system have they made an attempt to even form some premades. However, in general, the players who did not play in the premade, were generally able to farm at a reasonable amount of honor compared to those premades. Simply put, there really is not even an incentive for horde to premade, as its a lot more work for very little to almost no gain in honor.

Alliance, on the other hand, queue almost exclusively as a premade (except this past wsg weekend, where at times, but not all the time, it was simply more efficient to form small groups as horde usually does). Their queue times are generally low enough that it isn't a big deal at all that they have to wait an extra five minutes to get a queue to pop. As a result, they do not even need to use prepared consumables, engineering, or even to out play, as they can simply just be better coordinated than the pugs, because people will either listen to what the raid leader says or get kicked from the group, a luxury that horde does not have.

As a result, there's not really even a need to form a strong premade with good players. As long as people can do simple things (just basic things that many players don't know to do or refuse to do,) call out where efc is, guarantee there is sufficient healing and dispels in the game, have people spin flags and call out incoming, ect, they can nearly guarantee relatively quick and easy wins.

As a result, you can literally stealth around the bg and leech hk honor as horde all the way to bracket 1 each week as long as you have the play time to do so, and you can just rofl stomp your way to the top as alliance (although on alliance you do have to be skilled enough to end games quickly, so there is a little more of a skill component involved alliance side). In either case, it is readily apparent that alliance has the advantage here, as their brackets have been CONSISTENTLY higher (by 250k-500k) than horde every single week since the queue change. This is not because horde has better organization with the brackets. This is because it is almost inhuman for horde to get any higher given the queue system.

3) Premade vs. premade matchups hurt alliance honor farm marginally but are completely unproductive as horde.

This point is simple enough. Horde is discouraged from premading even further because of the queue system. First, since alliance is likely to face a a pug, since there are nearly no horde premades, you are capable of dodging a horde premade if they do show up. This can be done simply by dropping queue if you get a pop before the "premade priority" ends. Horde cannot do this, because even if there is only one ally premade running, the queue times are generally too long to be able to dodge until you get rid of "premade prioirty."

Second, if you're horde, you're sucking away a premade from the afk leech warriors who wear beaststalker mantle and increase the likelihood that they're going to get more honor, while you're stuck in a game with half competent players on the other side. Last, if your premade can beat the alliance premades, they can much easier just switch to the other bg, leaving you wait in a 15-30 minute, or even worse start queuing in small groups while you're stuck with the extremely high wait time because horde solo queuers didn't get a pop from the premade they were waiting on to pop their queue.

Those are the three main reasons the current "premade priority" sucks. It sucks for pugs, it sucks for premades. Ally premades are the only ones who have any sort of marginal benefit from this system (I guess afk leeches horde side benefit too).

If you disagree with any of these points, please point out my flaws, as if the system is a good system, and it is us who are shitting on it, then let us know so we can change our behavior.

[Jurary]

tl;dr

[Ana]

This is a lot to digest at this late hour so I'm just going to provide a tl;dr version for other people as extra food for thought (it may be relevant to your points, I'm not sure tbh )

So, yeah
This system sucks because the vast majority of pvpers are in fact shitters interested in rank rewards instead of actual pvp. Hence "no incentive to premade" etc

[diogenes]

This system sucks because the vast majority of pvpers are in fact shitters interested in rank rewards instead of actual pvp. Hence "no incentive to premade" etc

Since we're speculating about other people's interests, I'm going to say that most people in favor of this system are in fact shitters interested in being carried in solo queue for rank rewards instead of earning a spot in a good group.

[Ana]

That's probably also true

[ceen2]

This system sucks because the vast majority of pvpers are in fact shitters interested in rank rewards instead of actual pvp. Hence "no incentive to premade" etc

Since we're speculating about other people's interests, I'm going to say that most people in favor of this system are in fact shitters interested in being carried in solo queue for rank rewards instead of earning a spot in a good group.

Sure everyone is a shitter expect you - as usual.
In a pug fight you have to put atleast some effort in order to win, joining a "good" grp makes you insta win vs any pug and all you did to earn this honor was accepting an invite. Congrats.

[redleader]

close all battle grounds and just have world pvp at this point is the only solution.
the admins will never find a way to have pug vs pugs and that is really fucking obvious now,I would actually vote for a complete server reset where everyone is lvl 1 and just go from there because the last 6 months of pvp threads are exactly the same.

[Ohhgee]

close all battle grounds and just have world pvp at this point is the only solution.
the admins will never find a way to have pug vs pugs and that is really fucking obvious now,I would actually vote for a complete server reset where everyone is lvl 1 and just go from there because the last 6 months of pvp threads are exactly the same.

u got nazjak timer mate?

[diogenes]

Sure everyone is a shitter expect you - as usual.

Absolutely unbelievable. I made a post where I didn't call anyone names (except maybe the people who are afk leeches but are you really trying to defend them?). I explained how it was bad for EVERYONE. Then someone calls me and people who want to actually be able to contest ally premades "shitters." All we want is to be able to queue for a bg praying that we dont get an ally premade. The only way we can do this is to make a premade ourself, but when we do that, our honor gain goes down the drain unless it is on the weekend during wsg or ab holiday.

So then what I do is make a clear tongue-in-cheek response, and I get this shit. That is absolutely unbelievable.

In a pug fight you have to put atleast some effort in order to win, joining a "good" grp makes you insta win vs any pug and all you did to earn this honor was accepting an invite. Congrats.

This is actually kind of laughable because alliance premade all the time, so you're really saying its ok for ally to premade but not horde, but whatever.

But really, when I read this, I can't help but think that what I said about people wanting to be carried is actually true. If you have to put in less effort as a premade, that's probably because everyone else on your team is carrying their own weight. But really, in a premade, people are expected to have faps, engineering, an actual pvp spec. You absolutely have to put effort into being a premade, even against a pug. Sure, pugs are easier to beat than other premades, but if you go afk defending a node and a pug rogues ninja caps against you, you're kicked. End of story. This happens in solo queue, there are NO repercussions. So what we really have here is a system that blatantly encourages afking for horde, and premade roflstomp for alliance(which supposedly you're against as long as it is horde doing the premading).

I understand it is 100% frustrating to queue into a premade as a pug. It happens to horde about 2 out of 5 queues. How often do ally pugs queue into a horde premade? The answer is less than 10% of the time because it is extremely rare for horde to premade, and when they do that premade has a 50 minute wsg queue.

[Xylon666Darkstar]

Take a break from the internet, op.