Guild Wars 2

Hello,

The new pvp system looks like it is definitely and attempt by Anet to alleviate some of the player base frustration with uneven and unbalanced matches. The new UI and que up system is shiny and overall a pretty tidy mechanism.

However, I am disappointed that I have to que in the Mists. I understand that this system isn’t fully in place yet, the que times are skewed, and it probably needs some minor tweaking. I also understand that if someone clicks play they should be ready to pvp and this is why they are forced into the Mists.

PVP isn’t my only goal in this game and I like to spend a lot of time crafting and running jump puzzles. With the old system I could enter a round from anywhere on the map meaning I could do a jump puzzle, pvp a match, do some crafting, pvp, etc. . .

Im a vanity kitten as well, and PVP doesn’t provide fast enough resources for me to craft and create some of the really cool armor/weapon sets in any reasonable amount of time. Being able to do these tasks in unison was part of my entire strategy, and I am sure others use a similar method as well.

Please reconsider allowing ques outside of the Mists, there is always going to be a wait time, even 1 minute allows for me to nearly complete a full jump puzzle. Not a huge deal, but thought it should be mentioned. Alternatively, you could provide better loot or money for full time pvp’ers.

If people in queue are doing other kitten, queue times will be longer. I don’t want longer queue times.

Evan Lesh.3295:

If you can queue from anywhere, what happens when the match is ready while someone is loading, in a cutscene, or talking to a scout? I doubt people want the match-ready UI to stay up for 90+ seconds while the slowest player loads and maybe decides to accept. We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

at least let us go to custom arenas. like why do we have to afk in hotm when we could be practicing our jumping on maps or dueling or 2v2s etc..

Evan Lesh.3295:

If you can queue from anywhere, what happens when the match is ready while someone is loading, in a cutscene, or talking to a scout? I doubt people want the match-ready UI to stay up for 90+ seconds while the slowest player loads and maybe decides to accept. We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

I am sure you must have some data on this…how often did any of that happen? I am genuinely curious, because it sounds like it would be an overwhelmingly minority of instances where that would occur.

I never stood and waited in queue during the old system, I was always out doing something, and never missed a match. If you guys are able to make the task bar light-up and have a global program sound play, then i am sure you can have a popup window for players during cutscenes etc. (maybe even during a load screen?!)

These people know they are queued up, so having a window pop up that breaks past these anomalies probably would not bother a player at all.

The other option (one that would require more time, thought, and ingenuity) would be to make the HotM an actual enjoyable place to be. Maybe with:

- Mini-games
- Dueling cages
- Races (player races)
- Accuracy ranges (requires mouse/camera projectile firing)
- Dodge contests
- Golem Chess
- Betting Tables (for dueling cages)
- Jumping Puzzles
- Areas for RPers and Guild Gatherings

Also please: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Suggestion-PvP-Tutorial/first#post4598054

Evan Lesh.3295:

If you can queue from anywhere, what happens when the match is ready while someone is loading, in a cutscene, or talking to a scout? I doubt people want the match-ready UI to stay up for 90+ seconds while the slowest player loads and maybe decides to accept. We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

Correct me if I’m wrong but won’t the ‘Go Now’ / ‘Wait’ window pop up even while in a cutscene? I know it did if I had the map was open and it overlapped inventory, crafting windows, etc..

If not, why can’kitten It certainly spammed enough during the 1.5 minutes or so until match start. In fact that drove me nuts, but this alternative is way worse. The Mists isnt a nice lobby to be in. I wouldn’t want to let my son read 2 minutes of text from that place and it just generally has nothing to do. If you turn off the game during a cutscene you just miss the cutscene and have to redo it, I did test that. Can’t the que work similar?

AFK people are AFK, with or without being forced into the Mists.

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

Isn’t there the option to deny the specific actions which may cause problem?
→ map change
→ relog
→ start of personal story
→ viewing vistas
→ viewing scout
→ not getting ported form your current custom arena match after it ended into the next map
→ ?

That way we could still be f.e. on a pve map and farm events, crafting materials, jps or duel in a custom arena match – just with some lighter restrictions.

This lock almost killed pvp for me.. although i like everything else of the changes.. the fact that we get LOCKED in hotm is unacceptable.. waiting 10 15 min without been able to do anything… will kill PVP slowly.. unless you really enjoy the trash talk going on in the map

Evan Lesh.3295:

If you can queue from anywhere, what happens when the match is ready while someone is loading, in a cutscene, or talking to a scout? I doubt people want the match-ready UI to stay up for 90+ seconds while the slowest player loads and maybe decides to accept. We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

I’m for making HOTM a better place

Like for example, crafting stations, Big JP with final Chest in the HOTM, 1vs1 Duel Like Pavillon with spectators above ^^

Csele.1647:

This lock almost killed pvp for me.. although i like everything else of the changes.. the fact that we get LOCKED in hotm is unacceptable.. waiting 10 15 min without been able to do anything… will kill PVP slowly.. unless you really enjoy the trash talk going on in the map

10-15 minutes, really?

I have NEVER had to wait longer than a 5 minutes to get into a match, no matter what time of the day I have tried. 10-15 minutes sounds extreme.

Since they also have added the flashing to the program with this change it is also fully possible to just tab out and do something else while you wait if it is such a big issue.

I agree, having to be in the HotM while waiting for a match is extreamly boring. With the old system, I didn’t mind having to wait for a match, because while waiting, I could go get some map completion done, maybe do some crafting, etc. So while waiting for our team to assemble, we spent about 20 min just hanging out. To the point, where when we finally got our team, nearly everyone was bored and ready to move on to something else. Granted matches started quickly, and that was great. But it was WAY too much down time.

I can understand the concerns of starting a match when people are off doing other things, but what about increasing the time before the match actually starts. As it is now, when you get into the map, there is a 1 minute wait. Move that up to 2 minutes, and include the option of starting the match once everyone checks in. This gives enough time for someone to “port” in from another area, gives more time for organization, and last minute build/character changes, and the ability to bypass that if everyone is all in and ready to go.

Teutos.8620:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

Isn’t there the option to deny the specific actions which may cause problem?
-> map change
-> relog
-> start of personal story
-> viewing vistas
-> viewing scout
-> not getting ported form your current custom arena match after it ended into the next map
-> ?

OR

- design a “Ready” pop-up window that overrides these special states, and pops up even over a loading screen, cutscene, vista, scout cutscene or whatever? I don’t know if there are any technical obstacles to this, but the old queue pop-ups could override map screens, and I don’t see why scouts would be any different?

OR

- increase the ready-up window to 60" so you could finish your load screen, vista, or whatever? I personally wouldn’t mind the extra waiting time since I’d be able to occupy myself with other things anyway.

Evan Lesh.3295:

If you can queue from anywhere, what happens when the match is ready while someone is loading, in a cutscene, or talking to a scout? I doubt people want the match-ready UI to stay up for 90+ seconds while the slowest player loads and maybe decides to accept. We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

I thought in this regard the old system worked fine. There was a 2 minute countdown before the match started, which, it seemed to me, was enough time for everyone to get into the game.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I thought in this regard the old system worked fine. There was a 2 minute countdown before the match started, which, it seemed to me, was enough time for everyone to get into the game.

Would it be frustrating if AFK players caused you to wait 2 minutes at a time when the match is ready only to place you back into queue?

If there isnt’ anything to do in HoTM then people are going to afk there and people are going to be waiting anyways.

Also… Did you fix it so that costume brawl wins count for the “King of the Costume Brawl” while in HoTM? (I submitted an in-game bug report quite a while ago about that)

If you fixed that then people can costume brawl while waiting and work on that achievement…

If it still doesn’t count while you’re there then I’ll just have to forgo PvP because there are other things I’d rather be doing than standing around waiting for matches.

Teutos.8620:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

Isn’t there the option to deny the specific actions which may cause problem?
-> map change
-> relog
-> start of personal story
-> viewing vistas
-> viewing scout
-> not getting ported form your current custom arena match after it ended into the next map
-> ?

That way we could still be f.e. on a pve map and farm events, crafting materials, jps or duel in a custom arena match – just with some lighter restrictions.

This to me sounds like a fine solution. Basically allow you to play the game minus these few things that would prevent you from clicking ready. How feasible is this to program?

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I thought in this regard the old system worked fine. There was a 2 minute countdown before the match started, which, it seemed to me, was enough time for everyone to get into the game.

Would it be frustrating if AFK players caused you to wait 2 minutes at a time when the match is ready only to place you back into queue?

It would be annoying, but I’d accept it as a trade off for being able to pve while waiting. Perhaps another option is to have the matchmaking queue pop also be the “I’m ready” button. The match would start when everyone is loaded into the arena. You can then start worrying about dishonor AFTER everyone is already loaded into the arena.

I understand the need to avoid having the queue pop while a player is in the middle of a loading screen.
After having seen this explanation in an earlier thread, it was good enough for me.

But now, seeing the quoted proposal below:

Arisal.9740:

Teutos.8620:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

Isn’t there the option to deny the specific actions which may cause problem?
-> map change
-> relog
-> start of personal story
-> viewing vistas
-> viewing scout
-> not getting ported form your current custom arena match after it ended into the next map
-> ?

That way we could still be f.e. on a pve map and farm events, crafting materials, jps or duel in a custom arena match – just with some lighter restrictions.

This to me sounds like a fine solution. Basically allow you to play the game minus these few things that would prevent you from clicking ready. How feasible is this to program?

I agree that this proposal sounds like a good way to avoid the loading screen problem while still allowing the player to be elsewhere than the HotM.

Here’s how I see that working:
Once queued, the player may not take any action that would cause a loadscreen (e.g., trying to travel to another zone).
Attempting such an action would result in a message flashed onscreen informing the player of the restriction.
The player would have to leave the queue in order to take a loadscreen-inducing action.
The player may not attempt to queue for sPvP while in instanced content such as a dungeon, personal story, or living story, since those could force an involuntary loadscreen after certain scenes.

A technical hurdle to this solution however is that some open-world or WvW situations can still cause involuntary loadscreens. For example, in WvW, while lying dead, if you time out, you are force-waypointed. After beating the Steam Ogre Champion in Thaumanova, you are forced to exit the area by jumping off a platform into a portal. In both of these cases, there is a very brief loadscreen while you transition to somewhere else in the same zone, but for players with low end machines, this loadscreen might actually take a while to disappear.
I do think, however, that these cases are situational and rare enough that they are not worth coding a fix for, and that if they cause a missed queue and accidental dishonor, we as players should accept that consequence because it is a small risk that we willingly undertook.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I thought in this regard the old system worked fine. There was a 2 minute countdown before the match started, which, it seemed to me, was enough time for everyone to get into the game.

Would it be frustrating if AFK players caused you to wait 2 minutes at a time when the match is ready only to place you back into queue?

Respectfully, I would be much less frustrated by these AFK players resetting the queue if I could be out in PvE/WvW doing something while I wait. I’d consider increasing the Match Ready accept time from 20 seconds to 1 or 2 minutes. I’ve had groupmates rage at me for resetting the queue as I went into literally the room next to me to get a drink (taking only ~30 seconds) while waiting for the queue to pop for several minutes at that time.

If necessary:

-Remove players from queue if they enter a dungeon/personal story instance (simply because these may cause a conflict of interest for the player, causing them to delay or ignore the queue altogether).
-Remove them from queue if they change zones (ideally I don’t think it would be necessary, it only takes me a few seconds to load personally).
-I think Vistas/Scouts are fast enough? Or could the popup window be given priority and appear onscreen during these?

I hope you’ll agree that it is important to find a solution here.

For me it is good as it is now.
Changes are right.

If you are a PvP oriented player, you just stay in the Lobby.

• You don’t have to wait that much for the match anymore
• You’ve got NPCs there to quickly share things between characters or get something from the market
• You can also learn something new regarding PvP from players being over there

If you are doing PvE, don’t bother other people and don’t queue, because they are not going to wait for you nor take the risk that you might not join the match at all.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I thought in this regard the old system worked fine. There was a 2 minute countdown before the match started, which, it seemed to me, was enough time for everyone to get into the game.

Would it be frustrating if AFK players caused you to wait 2 minutes at a time when the match is ready only to place you back into queue?

Ppl are more likely to be AFK being forced into mists rather than being able to pve while you are in queue, and it doesn’t bother me at all I’ll just be farming that 2 minutes away.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I thought in this regard the old system worked fine. There was a 2 minute countdown before the match started, which, it seemed to me, was enough time for everyone to get into the game.

Would it be frustrating if AFK players caused you to wait 2 minutes at a time when the match is ready only to place you back into queue?

Thing is though, we already have to wait 2 minutes after we log into the match. And that pre-match time isn’t used for anything now that we can’t character-hop to change professions. Could the pre-match time not be reduced to 1 minute and increase the ready window to 60 seconds up from 20?

Instead of PvE, you get to play the Mists Minigame: accept the match ready prompt every 30 seconds until you eventually get a game or fall asleep.

There’s no good reason to have to queue in the Mists. Afks gonna afk, no matter how much you change the UI. If someone knowingly queues for pvp, why is there even an option for them to not enter the game? Give people 10 seconds notice then just boot them into the pvp map.

If player is in a load screen or cinematic, redirect them. If afk is still a problem, increase the afk dishonor penalty exponentially until people get the point. Anything but this.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I thought in this regard the old system worked fine. There was a 2 minute countdown before the match started, which, it seemed to me, was enough time for everyone to get into the game.

Would it be frustrating if AFK players caused you to wait 2 minutes at a time when the match is ready only to place you back into queue?

At the moment there are AFK players in que who aren’t getting kicked out of que when not accepting the Ready Up check box. People who ARE active should be able to check the box when it’s in front of their screen, where ever they are, and that checkbox should minimize to the side somewhere.

This is how strong PVE players casually PVP when in the living world, instead of being forced to join Hotm and stand around for a match.

entropy.9613:

Instead of PvE, you get to play the Mists Minigame: accept the match ready prompt every 30 seconds until you eventually get a game or fall asleep.

There’s no good reason to have to queue in the Mists. Afks gonna afk, no matter how much you change the UI. If someone knowingly queues for pvp, why is there even an option for them to not enter the game? Give people 10 seconds notice then just boot them into the pvp map.

If player is in a load screen or cinematic, redirect them. If afk is still a problem, increase the afk dishonor penalty exponentially until people get the point. Anything but this.

I strongly agree with this.

There’s actually probably MORE players queuing but afk now – simply because they have nothing to do.

At the very kittening least allow ppl to queue from hotjoin or w/e you call it now.

I have had a single 4 v5 match since the patch, so I believe right now we have the lesser of the two evils. Queue are also popping fast but that might just be the influx of more players since the patch.

Disconnecting doesn’t load you through 3 maps now, which is a definite plus.
Ques are really fast now, much faster then ever before. Partly because of the new system.
No 4v5s, unless it’s courtyard.
I can alt tab and not miss a match because of sounds.

All in all, this is what we were asking for, this is what we got.

The Q’s pop so fast now that you barely even see HotM.

I really like the system as it is now. Not nearly as many 4v5’s as before and that to me is exactly what we needed to get fixed first. Now that they have that out of the way they can address other issues. I really think bringing the Mystic Forge back, adding crafting stations among other amenities being added to The Mists map should be seriously considered. If we have to be there, then we should have a bunch of things to keep us occupied while we wait.

Last night the que was fast, rarely getting the dreaded empty last spot, fairly balanced and fun play. I prefer to mix pvp and pve with the old system but the pvp’ers have spoken and Anet responded.. well.

Ill probably just have to get over, overall a good patch, just forcing me to stick in that stupid lobby will likely mean less desire to play. But Im just 1 random person, who cares.

honestly it feels like sPvPers are being punished. “if you want to pvp then you have to stand around and do nothing until its your turn.” WvW and PvE don’t have to deal with it at all. And the reasoning below is just backwards imo.

Evan Lesh.3295:

If you can queue from anywhere, what happens when the match is ready while someone is loading, in a cutscene, or talking to a scout? I doubt people want the match-ready UI to stay up for 90+ seconds while the slowest player loads and maybe decides to accept. We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

simple solutions.
1) if you enter an instance (personal story/dungeon) you should be automatically taken out of queue. and vice versa. the only cutscenes i have come across that are longer than 10 seconds are the personal story or dungeon.

2) why does it have to be 90+ seconds? 20-30 seconds seems fine to me. if i am killing a npc and cant finish it off before the timer runs out i need to make that choice. if i say “no” then i deserve dishonor and a short time out from queue. if i select “yes” then when i am done with the match i can retry to kill the npc.

3) the matchup screen trumps all, so if you are looking at the map it would be on top of the map. so it shouldnt matter talking to a scout or any other npc,matchup window goes right over the top.

4) so we are left with the slow loaders. i cant imagine there is a large player base that takes longer than 20-30 seconds to load. and if there is well that sounds like another issue all together. the matchup screen should just popup after you load. i have played other games were this is common place.
and since i am pretty positive the grand majority of the community doesnt take forever to load, why should they be punished with nothing to do for a small minority?

5) and honestly, what is “unfair” is those players who are waiting 30+ minutes doing absolutely nothing in the mists, just so irresponsible players don’t get dishonor for their poor choices.

6) or how about you make something to do in the mists?

The post above me pretty much sums up what I was going to say. The new look and feel is very nice. I look forward to seeing how matchmaking fairs as the system matures (ratings stabalise). The idea of unranked matches is also very nice as a next step up from hot join (although it if often exactly like hot join without the auto-balancing spam, but that’s not something developers can help), and relieves some pressure for players that just want to play a game without worrying about damaging their rating.

However, a large focus of the new system is to protect players from getting those who have gone AFK in their teams, yet being unable to anything while waiting in a queue makes people want to go AFK - including those who were more mindful and responsible. No one’s idea of playing a game involves stewing in a chair watching time tick away.

We should definitely be allowed to hot join and or join custom arenas while waiting in queue. Players that are actively engaged in other tasks in open world such as achievement farming, world vs. world roaming, leveling a craft etc. shouldn’t be prevented or dissuaded from participating in PvP while doing so. They are only trying to make the most of their free time. This should be realised and the ability to do so not prevented for a huge area of the game. It is definitely unfair to be made to sit on your hands for unknown minutes - more unfair than waiting an additional 90 seconds for someone to accept, but that is besides the point because it’s not necessary. A sound solution and logical next step - as the post above points out - disable queuing while in an instance, and force an exit from a queue if a player enters an instance while queued. That makes sense from their perspective as well, because they’d lose progress if they got pulled from it and popped into a PvP game.

Make it available to que from any zone, but when leaving that zone you would be removed from queue. Just like certain zone buffs that are removed upon loading a new map.

This isn’t rocket science, you guys can actually think these things up right?

- No queue available from inside personal story or dungeon instances.
- Queue available from all open zones, removed from queue when changing maps.
- Queue window takes priority over map/scout/etc. screens.
- Queue remains active inside Practice Match spvp rooms.

…done

I don’t mind queuing in HOTM. Queues are rather short and now with the game announcement, you can read the forums or go on Facebook while waiting =)

Thoth Divine.8642:

I don’t mind queuing in HOTM. Queues are rather short and now with the game announcement, you can read the forums or go on Facebook while waiting =)

Except that is exactly what Anet wanted to prevent when making this system, they wanted people to be more ready when queuing, instead of being more inclined to afk (check facebook, read the forums)

It is, actually, the opposite :P

Since HotM has nothing to do in it at all, now more people are more likely to afk and to go surfing the web lol

Which is why we have a sound alert now

SonofNoob.3102:

Which is why we have a sound alert now

which isnt exactly that much of an alert. could easily be drowned out by TV, music, etc.
honestly, if their best defense for why this system is better is there’s an alert and now you cant do anything else but wait while in queue, its a cruddy one.

i’d gladly wait 5minutes for a match to start if im doing something.
doing nothing for 2 minutes for a pop gets really old after it happens over and over and over again. it encourages me to do something else not game related or leave the mists to do something else.

oneply.9586:

SonofNoob.3102:

Which is why we have a sound alert now

which isnt exactly that much of an alert. could easily be drowned out by TV, music, etc.
honestly, if their best defense for why this system is better is there’s an alert and now you cant do anything else but wait while in queue, its a cruddy one.

i’d gladly wait 5minutes for a match to start if im doing something.
doing nothing for 2 minutes for a pop gets really old after it happens over and over and over again. it encourages me to do something else not game related or leave the mists to do something else.

I completely agree. HotM is the most boring place ever! I liked being able to run around Silverwaste during queue time. If the queue was long I really didn’t mind. Now if the queue is over a 2 minutes I don’t even bother, and leave the queue, and I’ve even logged out of the game. I like farming while queuing.