Guild Wars 2

This spot has been reserved for further data/updates if needed.

Update – November 19, 2015:
We have successfully gotten a developer’s response. Thanks again Evan Lesh.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Queuing-Outside-of-HotM/page/2#post5777473

Update – November 19, 2015:
Another developer response.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Queuing-Outside-of-HotM/page/2#post5778093

Update – December 27, 2015:
With the release of PvP leagues and the addition of league divisions to the MMR algorithm, queue times have become a much larger issue for top tier players, regularly reaching 2 hours. We have new data: apparently when a queue hits 2 hours it times out and takes the player out of the queue. Keep in mind that during these multiple-hour-long queue times, players are locked in Heart of the Mists. Players are resorting to partying up diamonds and legends with ambers and emeralds to have low team MMR, or even in some cases intentionally throwing matches to lower personal MMR. This is incredibly unhealthy for the game. Screenshots attached.

I wouldn’t mind being stuck in HotM if I could at least Hotjoin while in queue. Also it really sucks if you have 20 minute queues. Longest i’ve seen is about 7 minutes while I average 3-4 min queues.

Make it so you can que in your guild hall. That way people won’t reject the que due to an event or load-screen but they can still scrimmage their guildies if they have an arena.

Who are you trying to convince Arena net or the forum warriors?

There is no secret that the reason arena net has provided is stupid. Claiming you have proof is well pointless given the fact that Arena net’s argument essential boils then to " we can do whatever we want."

Also generally, post made in a condescending tone will never get a red post other than a moderators. No dev would be stupid enough to post in any PvP topic that is confrontational, mostly because they will be insulted or mock.

PlatinumMember.5274:

Who are you trying to convince Arena net or the forum warriors?

There is no secret that the reason arena net has provided is stupid. Claiming you have proof is well pointless given the fact that Arena net’s argument essential boils then to " we can do whatever we want."

My goal is not to convince anyone of anything. There is nothing to convince, there are indisputable facts.

My goal is for ArenaNet to make a public and sufficient statement. Them finally coming out and saying “we never plan to do this,” is better than complete and utter silence. This issue has been presented thousands of times and not once have I seen a developer respond to any of those threads.

I’m fairly certain the reason you can’t queue outside of HoTM is going to have something to do with how they manage cross-server.

They would probably love to allow people to queue outside of HoTM but if the tech doesn’t allow it……

Crinn.7864:

I’m fairly certain the reason you can’t queue outside of HoTM is going to have something to do with how they manage cross-server.

They would probably love to allow people to queue outside of HoTM but if the tech doesn’t allow it……

I would agree with you had this post been asking for them to add something new to the game. Queueing outside of Heart of the Mists is how this game was launched. I am asking that we go back to that.

Power.2957:

PlatinumMember.5274:

Who are you trying to convince Arena net or the forum warriors?

There is no secret that the reason arena net has provided is stupid. Claiming you have proof is well pointless given the fact that Arena net’s argument essential boils then to " we can do whatever we want."

My goal is not to convince anyone of anything. There is nothing to convince, there are indisputable facts.

My goal is for ArenaNet to make a public and sufficient statement. Them finally coming out and saying “we never plan to do this,” is better than complete and utter silence. This issue has been presented thousands of times and not once have I seen a developer respond to any of those threads.

What incentive would arena net have for doing that? Do you honestly believe it would be beneficial from their prospective do say any more? I mean the fact that you have found their original comment unacceptable would indicate any future comment other than “you are right and we are wrong” will be unacceptable.

I don’t see them ever commenting because there is no real benefit to. I mean as a player what are you going to do about it? Quit or play another game?Stop being gems? Lost of more goodwill? But more importantly, the poor dev unfortunate enough to comment on it would be massacred.

The tech was indeed in place for a good amount of time, and from my recollection, only removed when they added the map voting system. Speculation from the community was that queuing outside of the mists was removed because players might miss the accept/voting prompts in between loading screens. This was not an official statement from Anet, but in regards to that concern, the easy “bandaid” fix is to do what they are essentially doing now, un-queuing the group when they switch out of a zone. Currently, While remaining in the mists, going to either character select screen or joining the rest of your group in their shard will unqueue you. Just make it so that if you pve in a map, then queue up, unqueue the group. While this may get annoying, this is MUCH less annoying than not being to queue up outside of the mists at all.

Even if they don’t allow us to queue from anywhere. They should at least let us to 1v1 for the time being or explore or any limited set of healthy&fun things

I agree, I liked it more when we could queue anywhere.

I hear the argument that if people cancel the queue because they’re in the middle of an event, it sets everyone back into queue. And it does, but the next person waiting in line will take the last spot, so after a few seconds the queue pops and the battle begins.

I was totally fine with this, I wish they at least would give us something to do, like crafting or a mini game. But no, they take things away, like the mystic forge. What’s up with that?

They say PVP is the fastest growing part of GW2, it needs a ton of stuff done to it before it’s respected. Redo the lobby area, give us something to do, and please for the love of god give us more maps to fight in, even if they are reskinned versions of foefire, a Flamelegion or Asura themed version of the same map would be stellar.

If nothing else, allow players to join hotjoin/custom servers while in queue. Waiting 5-7 minutes for a 10-15 minute game is simply poor entertainment.

>2.) The only changes to Heart of the Mists since 2012 have been changes to NPC placement or removal of NPCs. It is a dark, gloomy, boring, uneventful and depressing map.

i like all of these features except boring.

I’d play so much more PVP if this were the case. I’d probably queue all the time as I was doing other things in the world.

I used to be able to map complete when I played sPvP. Now I get to sit around bored, so I play hearthstone while I’m in queue instead. This makes me more likely to miss a queue than when I was allowed to map complete, and more likely to decide to spend my money in Blizzard’s shop.

I really don’t get it at all, and haven’t gotten it from the day they announced the change.

I love GW2, and I love PvP, but I barely spend any time in GW2’s PvP and this is the #1 reason.

The reason they locked us into HotM while in queue was so they could implement the “match ready” button. They said they wouldn’t want people to not be able to click “ready” because the queue popped while they were in a cutscene or a map loading screen, so we had to be locked in.

Obviously I don’t have any data on whether the “match ready” pop-up was really helpful in reducing AFK players in ranked/unranked arenas. But the devs must know these stats, and if the “match ready” pop-up is doing its job, I would like it to stay.

However, I would be happy for the time allowed for us to click “ready” were increased to 30" or even 45" (up from 10"), if it would allow people to ready up for their match even if the dialogue box pops up while they’re in a loading screen. Even on a slow computer that should be enough for people to load into their map and click “ready”. Unless they’re loading a massive map and the pop-up comes right after they start loading, but that should be a very rare occurrence. The only things that take longer than 45" to finish are cutscenes, and it shouldn’t be hard for them to code the “match ready” dialogue to pop up during cutscenes.

I used to roam in WvW while queueing, and I’ve barely done ANY wvw at all since the match ready dialogue came in.

It’d be nice to get some daylight or something in the lobby at least. No fun sitting in a gloomy dark map for hours.

That dull lifeless lobby gave me cancer of the eyes. I am entirely in agreement with OP.

Right, I agree that queing in the mists is annoying, and needs to be looked at because it’s boring. However, I disagree with a lot of your points.

Power.2957:

Queueing outside of Heart of the Mists is indisputably the #1 most requested (begged for) feature by the sPvP community. In fact, the requests to “bring back soloQ” pale in comparison to the requests to stop imprisoning players inside of Heart of the Mists.

Gonna need a source on this. I personally hear a lot more complaining about the MMR and team games then I do about queing in the mists.

Power.2957:

This issue is even worse at the high end of the MMR spectrum. Newer players may be unaware of the issue entirely because they get quick matches, but once you win a couple of games, it becomes really old waiting out 20 minute queues for 7 minute matches.

What is your source for 20 minute queue times? Admittedly, I don’t think I have a very high MMR, but I’ve watched streamers like Nos and Phantaram, and they definitely don’t have 20 minute queue times. It’s probably closer to five. I really don’t think the 20 minute mark is accurate. When I personally pvp, I feel like I spend more time in matches then in the queue.
Of course, Queue times can vary based on WHEN you play. Obviously it’s much harder to find matches during non-peak hours. But generally I’ve never seen a queue time as high as 20 minutes. If it ever did get that long, I’d think the system bugged and try requeing.

Power.2957:

1.) The sPvP community unanimously agrees (or at least by majority since there will always be trolls) we do not want to be imprisoned in Heart of the Mists.

People who don’t agree with you are trolls? Also agian, source? Even in your strawpole (which is bias’d towards forum users, I might add, and not an opinion of everyone who plays the game), there were still SOME people who disagree. Even if it’s as small a number as 10%, you can’t say that it’s unanimous.

Power.2957:

Here are the facts:
…
2.) The only changes to Heart of the Mists since 2012 have been changes to NPC placement or removal of NPCs. It is a dark, gloomy, boring, uneventful and depressing map.

That is opinion, not fact. I can find things to do in HotM. Talk in map chat. Fight the NPCs. Practice killing Blue lord, or svanir and chieftan. Also, one positive aspect to HotM is that it is possibly one of the most social areas of the game, because people go there to wait for pvp matches. When they wait, they find things to do, such as putting down bobble head factories or playing on in game musical instruments. I’ve had a lot of fun just chilling with fellow players in the mists (Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t go there -just- for that social aspect and not because I have to. But I do think I should point out that there are things to do there, and it is fun to play).

Power.2957:

3.) Long queue times at the top tiers of MMR are in part due to the severely reduced veteran player population queueing matches. The algorithm won’t match us with new players and it can’t find any veteran players to match us with, so have fun with a 20 minute queue time. Why are there so few veteran players queueing? Because veteran players quit the game over silly issues like this that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Again, where is the source here? I’ve watched some twitch streamers, and queues are never that long. I like to think that pro players can be considered “veterans”. 20 minutes seems like a very big exaggeration, but you keep putting that number as if it’s fact without any sources to back it up. 20 minute as a queue time, if it exists, is most likely an anomaly.

Power.2957:

4.) Many people who stream sPvP tab out of the game client and do something else while waiting out queues. Who wants to watch someone run around Heart of the Mists for 20 minutes? Why is ArenaNet actively deflecting people from playing the game by not allowing them to play other aspects of the game while waiting out queues?

I know I’m beating a dead horse when I say I need a source here, but. Can you put a bit more evidence in these facts? Again, you keep saying 20 minutes, when I can personally tell you I have never watched a full episode of Batman: the animated series (a 22 minute show) on my second monitor when the queue pops. And before you call me out for tabbing out during queues, I -always- have something running on my second monitor, whether I’m in open world pve trying to do AB meta events, in the queue or even in the match itself. I wouldn’t even call it tabbing out, since my keyboard/mouse’s focus is connected to gw2, and not whatever I have playing in the background.

Power.2957:

6.) ArenaNet stated as recent as August 2015 in their blog post for raids that one of their goals with raids was to make sure players didn’t feel like they were (and this is a direct quote) “waiting to have fun.” [source] Isn’t being locked in Heart of the Mists EXACTLY what they describe as something that players shouldn’t have to endure? Why do I have to wait out 20 minute queues to play 7 minute games?

Not relevant. You said it yourself, that’s a goal for raids. No mention of pvp in that blog. And, on that topic. Name one pvp game that doesn’t have a queue, and has even teams at the start of a match. While I’m sure there are -some-, most games I have played have a queue. Even league of legends, the most popular video game of all time (http://www.statista.com/statistics/251222/most-played-pc-games/), which is a pure pvp experience, has a queue time. Sorry, queues are unavoidable.

Power.2957:

imgur.com/5q7URQr.jpg]There is absolutely no reason this should happen.[/url]
7.) The closest I’ve gotten to getting a response from ArenaNet employees about this issue was in game from Grouch in December 2014. I asked why we have to wait in Heart of the Mists to queue. He replied “It’s a 20s timer for queue accept, load times are longer than that. If you are loading when a queue pops, you’d get dishonor.” [source] I have no idea why we keep hearing about this “dishonor” system that is not and has never been, implemented in the game.

Oh wow, a source for the 20 minute queue times. I’ll be kitten ed! …Though I still think that’s the exception, not the rule. Even that screenshot puts the average at <3 minutes.

Power.2957:

2.) “People take a long time to load maps.”
- There is no way people take over a minute (the current time before a sPvP match starts when a queue has popped) to load the very low-resource-demanding sPvP maps. If anything increase the time before a match begins or start the timer only after all players have loaded into the map.

I don’t know. I’ve had some pretty long load times, and I’m running this game on an SSD with a pretty powerful computer. I can believe that some systems will take over a minute to load the maps. I can probably recall a game or two where someone didn’t load in until after the first minute and a half prep time was over.

Power.2957:

4.) “People doing other things while waiting in queues will cancel their queue to finish what they’re doing and further prolong queue times.”
- Nobody queueing on a team is going to do this because they will be yelled at by their team.
- People solo queueing won’t do this because ArenaNet have deincentivized the biggest instanced content in the game (dungeons) and no one cares about leaving uninstanced content like map completion and low priority content like activities. Even then I highly doubt anyone is going to start something important knowing they’re waiting on a queue to pop.

This is where your argument falls flat on it’s face, IMO.
I agree with the bit about queues. There is social pressure to hit that accept button.
But NO ONE will do dungeons while in a pvp queue. Why? Because you can’t queue for pvp and be in a party and not have everyone in a party queued for pvp, unless there is some bug that I am unaware of (you aren’t supposed to). Closest thing that I can think of for this is you can invite someone to your party during a match, but that doesn’t throw them into a queue, and at that point you’re already pvping. The idea that people would be doing dungeons while in a pvp queue is ludicrous.

Also, again, there is no source for people not leaving uninstanced content. How do I know this? Because the data can’t exist due to the fact that the system hasn’t been implemented post-HoT. HoT has a lot of high-value meta events. I personally know that if a queue popped while I was doing the AB meta event, I’d probably cancel it.

Power.2957:

Proof many people feel as I do:

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Please-let-us-queue-outside-of-HoTM
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Solution-to-queuing-in-HotM
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Why-are-we-still-queuing-from-HoTm
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Since-we-ll-be-waiting-in-HOTM-for-queues
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/can-we-stop-being-locked-in-HoTM/first#post5759718
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Allow-us-to-Queue-from-outside-of-Hotm
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Queue-from-other-map-besides-HoTM
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Please-let-us-queue-from-open-world
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Queue-issues-need-to-have-high-priority
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/HOTM-Restyling
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/HotM-is-boring
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Revert-Queue-Changes
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Request-Queue-from-guild-halls
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/PvP-queue-up-from-open-world-Why-not
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Is-it-possible-to-do-something-while-waiting
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Queue-times-are-too-long-nothing-to-do
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/PvP-leagues-lack-most-requested-feature/first#post5374802
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Queue-Outside-Of-the-Mist-Poll
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/HoT-wishlist
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Let-Us-Do-Stuff-While-We-Wait-on-Queues
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Things-to-do-in-the-PvP-Lobby
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/PvP-Que-s-longer-and-longer
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/sPvP-Fix-List

There are literally hundreds- if not thousands, so I will stop copying and pasting and just leave this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aforum-en.guildwars2.com+queue+%22hotm%22+OR+%22heart+of+the+mists%22+OR+%22lobby%22

Lastly, I just wanna say, have you read those posts? Cus. None of them mention a queue time of 20 minutes. In fact one of them is complaining about a 3-5 minute queue time. Another one says that he hit 17 minutes, but that was an all time high for him, beating out his old longest wait time of 13 minutes. So I do think these cases are the anomoly.

Also many of these people don’t want open world content, but instead want to queue in either guild halls, or add something else to do in HoTM (such as crafting tables), which are very good solutions IMO. However, the problem with adding queues to guild halls is that HotM might become unpopulated, or the same problem will just arrive in guild halls. And the problem with crafting tables is that they might de-populate crafting tables in major cities, and they completely de-value captains airship pass or the pass for that one place in DR.
Also, can I just point out, again, that forum users are a bias’d group. They are a vocal minority, and my experience is that the trend MMO forums are generally either playful banter or complaints about the game. You won’t often find “I’m okay with queue times” on a forum because there’s not really much of a discussion involved.

In general I do agree that something should be done, despite all that I nitpicked about your post. But I actually would rather see an expansion on HotM rather then being able to queue in the open world. I do like the sense of community that I get when I go into HotM. If I have a question about pvp, I can enter the pvp lobby and ask map chat there.

Those are my $0.02. Enjoy!

Power.2957:

Crinn.7864:

I’m fairly certain the reason you can’t queue outside of HoTM is going to have something to do with how they manage cross-server.

They would probably love to allow people to queue outside of HoTM but if the tech doesn’t allow it……

I would agree with you had this post been asking for them to add something new to the game. Queueing outside of Heart of the Mists is how this game was launched. I am asking that we go back to that.

The game didn’t launch with the megaserver system, either. You basically just ignored this concern completely, or it went over your head. I don’t even know if megaservers are necessarily the reason, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re a huge part of it.

Just look at Super Adventure Box. On our end, there’s nothing really different about how our characters run and jump that should preclude it “just” being reactivated. But ANet basically said that there have been significant changes in the behind-the-scenes mechanics, and it’s not as simple as just putting it back into the game. Something as innocuous as a self-contained instance with no combat whatsoever is too much of an issue due to recent changes — and yet, you act like it’s a simple matter to just “go back” to server-level functionality from the game’s launch.

Also, people will absolutely miss and/or pass on their PvP queue pops, given the chance to be distracted by other open-world game events, map chat, crafting, leveling an alt, story missions, achievement hunting, map completion, etc. You can’t seriously say that won’t happen. Have you never queued for anything in any other MMORPG before? Weighing the pros and cons of such a change is a worthwhile debate to be had, certainly — but if your response to a very realistic concern is basically just “Nah, that won’t happen,” then I just can’t take your argument seriously.

Aroswing.9217:

Lastly, I just wanna say, have you read those posts? Cus. None of them mention a queue time of 20 minutes. In fact one of them is complaining about a 3-5 minute queue time. Another one says that he hit 17 minutes, but that was an all time high for him, beating out his old longest wait time of 13 minutes. So I do think these cases are the anomoly.

I’m just going to add, for perspective: when I played FFXIV, I never even got into a PvP match. I queued a couple of times, but gave up after a 30-40 minute wait each time. And never mind the dungeons — if you play DPS, get ready to reliably wait 75+ minutes every time. And yes, people will either miss/decline on their end when the queue pops, or join and then immediately quit for any number of reasons.

I just want to complete the map with my elementalist while i queue for PvP. I did that with my mesmer long time ago

Yes; because Heart of the Mists is the ugliest map in the game and sitting around idle in it definitely deters me from PvPing as much as I would prefer to.

Really wish a dev would put this issue to rest. It has been brought up numerous times. I already know this is not possible and it is too lengthy to write why.

In layman terms sPvP is instance based. But it would be nice if they could change up the map for a change. It’s only been 3 years! Give us a gladiators pit or something.

Its only proof that anet doesnt play their own trash game…
Most of the time que is as long as game so 50% of time PVP player is literally not doing anything at all…

If someone is taking kitten when que pops then its hes fault if someone is in loading screen when que pops then it is hes kittening fault too… not everyone is as kittening dumb as anet so most people would go where they want to be before queing up.

And not getting put against premades all day when soloquing would be nice too.

Before giving big espahts money make this game somewhat playable.

Not just that:

• spvp should queue where ever
• spvp should switch characters in between standing in queue without breaking it.

What’s even worst? WvW queue:

• 60 man queue is frustrating, you wait more then 30 minutes, stuck on 1 character without being able to swap to other characters, else you break..
• Swapping character in WvW kicks you out of WvW and you have to queue again, which is rather frustrating.

There is so many minor things to tweak to make this game much better in terms of gaming experiences.

EDIT: looking at strawpoll, there is 10% voting for NO, i’m sincirely asking those people, give me one reason, why would you not want to queue outside of HoTM, why?

This is the main reason I stopped streaming. lets hope the Devs actually listen and let us do 1v1s/ other useful stuff when queuing

Yes either add 1v1 or let us at least queue from guild halls, it’s redicilous how they just cant answer us on this. Hotm is still the same boring after over 3 years time. Why do i have a feeling that their lead dev is reading all our feedback and giggling while drinking his morning coffee? The social experiment is a success i guess..

yah, nothing to do in hotm its really sad how a simple thing can get so many new players to pvp but they are not bothered to queue because they have to waste time in hotm

Thanks to author! Great stuff. Lets vote guys) How many votes to we need to reach to get HOTM-Jail freedom?

Well Anet can look my account up. 10300 hours playtime, the ones i did in pvp was when hotjoin still was fun, when queueing was still no burden.

I’m all for playing pvp again, but not with the current state. For someone with this many play/afk hours it may sound weird but ‘waiting and wasting time’ is the last thing i wanna do in this game.

So yes i fully agree with OP. They should stop with excuses ‘doenst work with dishonour,’ wouldn work with pop-up screen. Would scare ppl to much. Yeyeye, now ppl are scared of queues.

Least you can do is allow hotjoin (wich technically is pvp, wich technically should account to ‘being in heart of the mist’). I used to do hotjoin between matches, sometimes earning some favor if the match ended in synch with the join pop up. And even without reward, your fingers practised a bit of pvp while waiting. It was great. And pvp felt, smooth, as a non stop experience. It’s way far from that now.

Imo if Anet can waste 200 000$ on an overstated ‘e-sports’ event, then they can throw another 200 000$ to implement the feature we ask here. They shown they can easely waste money, then they might as well do this too. They wasted 4445 Heart of Thorns copy sales for just ONE (that will most likely be repeated) ESL event. I Inquire they do the same for this feature.

Aroswing.9217:

What is your source for 20 minute queue times? Admittedly, I don’t think I have a very high MMR, but I’ve watched streamers like Nos and Phantaram, and they definitely don’t have 20 minute queue times. It’s probably closer to five.

Ironically the screenshot of a 20 minute queue time is from Nos. Anyway, you are correct that it has to do with MMR. I have never had a queue anywhere close to the average and have gotten quite the number of 14 minute queues. I’m sure the average is skewed to the lower ends of MMR simply because there are more players.

Aroswing.9217:

…your strawpole (which is bias’d towards forum users, I might add, and not an opinion of everyone who plays the game), there were still SOME people who disagree. Even if it’s as small a number as 10%, you can’t say that it’s unanimous.

Unanimous or not it’s been almost 24 hours and 1300 votes and the poll hasn’t budged from 86% yes. That is an overwhelming majority. And while the poll was advertised on the forums it was also advertised in game several times (in fact I had lengthy discussions about this thread on map and guild chat yesterday), mailed to many top tier streamers, advertised on reddit and other places.

Aroswing.9217:

I can find things to do in HotM. Talk in map chat. Fight the NPCs. Practice killing Blue lord, or svanir and chieftan. Also, one positive aspect to HotM is that it is possibly one of the most social areas of the game, because people go there to wait for pvp matches. When they wait, they find things to do, such as putting down bobble head factories or playing on in game musical instruments. I’ve had a lot of fun just chilling with fellow players in the mists (Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t go there -just- for that social aspect and not because I have to. But I do think I should point out that there are things to do there, and it is fun to play).

You’re going to call me biased again but I cannot read this comment and take it seriously without calling you a white knight. The idea that you think that running around HotM and auto attacking AI and talking to players is acceptable entertainment when PvPers spend as much time in the lobby (if not more) as they do in matches blows my mind. Looking at your forum post history it appears you’re new to the game. The thing is this is what we’ve had for entertainment, for years now.

Aroswing.9217:

Power.2957:

6.) ArenaNet stated as recent as August 2015 in their blog post for raids that one of their goals with raids was to make sure players didn’t feel like they were (and this is a direct quote) “waiting to have fun.” [source] Isn’t being locked in Heart of the Mists EXACTLY what they describe as something that players shouldn’t have to endure? Why do I have to wait out 20 minute queues to play 7 minute games?

Not relevant. You said it yourself, that’s a goal for raids. No mention of pvp in that blog.

This absolutely is relevant. I see no reason why ArenaNet should find it unacceptable for PvE players to “wait around to have fun” but find it acceptable for sPvP players to do just that. They’re a business, we’re all their customers.

Aroswing.9217:

Oh wow, a source for the 20 minute queue times. I’ll be kitten ed! …Though I still think that’s the exception, not the rule. Even that screenshot puts the average at <3 minutes.

The average is very rarely correct, at least in my circles. I also find it odd that you said a thousand times in your post “where is the proof of a 20 minute queue time,” eventually found that proof, and left all the requests for proof. What was the point?

Aroswing.9217:

I can believe that some systems will take over a minute to load the maps.

Which is why I also suggested that if this is a real issue they should not start the timer until everyone is fully loaded.

Aroswing.9217:

Lastly, I just wanna say, have you read those posts? Cus. None of them mention a queue time of 20 minutes.

I have read most of them actually. Your entire comment seems to be fixated on queue times and I don’t know why. You’re missing the goal of my thread entirely or I’ve done a poor job explaining it. The goal of this thread is to do something about the state of the game where we are imprisoned in HotM, regardless of queue times even while they could be better. Even if I got 5 minute queue times like you do, which I don’t, I still wouldn’t want to be locked in Heart of the Mists. Those threads weren’t focused so much on queue times. They were focused on queueing somewhere, anywhere else, other than the lobby and that is precisely why they were included, because that is entirely what this thread is about.

Edit:
Also no where in my post did I specifically ask for “open world content” as you put it. I want to leave Heart of the Mists, period. They can add the functionality to play hot joins while in queue, they could add queueing to guild halls, they could add queueing to other outposts in the game, they could add queueing to anywhere in the game. It matters not to me as long as I don’t have to visit Heart of the Mists ever again.

Make it rewarding to be stuck in HoTM or redo HoTM for HoT (gliding, JPs, mushrooms, fun)

Or let us leave HoTM while queued. When Q pops, just have a dragonhunter trap graphic pop up and capture the character, making them invulnerable and force the queue.

Also, at least give me an individual sound volume slider for the “queue-pop” sound so I can hear it better if I’m AFK>

Bump

This needs to stay on the front page. I realize the latest patch full of nothing but bull kitten in regards to PvP is a hot topic, but this is still important to a lot of people.

With the new dishonor system, it seems it should be more acceptable to leave the mists.

If you dodge a queue, you get dishonored now, so there’s an incentive to accept the que. My understanding that a big part of the “que outside of the mists” issue was because people wouldn’t accept ques nearly as much as when they were forced to sit in the mists.

I think the best solution would be to utilize the dishonor system to incentivize accepting the que even when you are in open world.

Waiting to have fun is one the lamer aspects of pvp sadly.

Great post OP, I totally agree.

Notice the top right where it wants everyone to go visit Spirit Vale. This screenshot was taken today and sent to me by a friend.

For over half an hour he ran around in Heart of the Mists with nothing to do.

Power.2957:

Notice the top right where it wants everyone to go visit Spirit Vale. This screenshot was taken today and sent to me by a friend.

For over half an hour he ran around in Heart of the Mists with nothing to do.

This also links directly into why the new dishonour system (punishment if you miss the queue) is problematic.

+100000 as always. Would have map completion probably on a large number of toons if all that idle time could have been used in another fashion versus encouraging tabbing out of game to do something else while waiting. Granted right now it is advancing my Fallout 4 session as I wait for pops.

So far, only 14% want to be locked into the mists: I think trolls are under represented; but maybe I should blame the original poster for not giving a real choice. It’s like being trapped. So, in fact, only 14% tried to escape from “lack of real choice” jail.

Ara.4569:

So far, only 14% want to be locked into the mists: I think trolls are under represented; but maybe I should blame the original poster for not giving a real choice. It’s like being trapped. So, in fact, only 14% tried to escape from “lack of real choice” jail.

I’m not understanding your post. Are you saying that had the poll been worded differently more people would have voted no? How would you have personally worded the poll? It was intentionally wordy/expressive because I wanted people to fully understand what they were voting for and not get confused by the question.

Just screwing around, don’t take it seriously. :p
I was just saying it’s not a real poll: who in their right mind would say no ?

Anyway, I wish ArenetNet had community managers like Blizzard’s. I’m tired of being kept in the dark, with the feeling of being completely ignored.

Ara.4569:

Just screwing around, don’t take it seriously. :p
I was just saying it’s not a real poll: who in their right mind would say no ?

Anyway, I wish ArenetNet had community managers like Blizzard’s. I’m tired of being kept in the dark, with the feeling of being completely ignored.

The people that wanted the change in the first place? I am pretty sure that some people actually requested the current system. I seem to recall complaints about how suddenly half of a team in hotjoin would just disappear. (Not me, I want to queue from anywhere)

Bump.. Needs to happen.

This thread is currently the most viewed on the front page at the time of me posting this, and still no response, I wonder why…. There is no reason not to implement this. It’s also borderline insulting for a dev to say they don’t want players waiting to have fun, but yet the spvp community has been dealing with this crap for the longest time. It’s almost like they’re completely unaware of the situation since the pvp community is the small minority compared to the population of the rest of the game.

Countless

1) Call Out Threads will NOT get you a reply from ANET… at least a majority of the time.
2) Chances of getting infracted by constantly demanding a reply will increase
3) This has been something i’ve been reporting on since i was made a FSP
a) Haven’t heard anything back….. (shocker)

Nothing really wrong with this thread but please stay on topic and quit demanding anet to reply to this thread… the reply you may get would be along the lines of “Thread has been locked” by a moderator…

Good post OP. Took the poll – quick glance at results proves this needs to be implemented again. Almost 2k was it?

now that the dishonor system is in place this needs to happen. Really hope they implement it before ranked queues are up as HIGH level players will have hard time finding queues

+1

We need this to happen already.

It will be added eventually when they see the queue times in ranked matches when league comes out :S