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Comic Book Series Queuing and General Queues

keikonamiekeikonamie Posts: 8 Arc User
edited December 2014 in Suggestions Box
Based on experiences of difficulty in getting groups for Comic Book Series, I believe that a queue option would improve quality of life for players. It can be a real pain soloing those suckers, often leading to folks getting stuck on a specific boss. I would suggest a feature similar to alerts where players would temporarily level up based on the group in the instance. e.g. level 11-20 would be raised to level 20. Increments of ten levels would allow folks to potentially use some of the items that drop from mobs in the instance as well.
To go further, I would also suggest the ability for players in an instance to also be able to fill out their ranks should members leave unexpectedly. This cuts down on frustration in games such as World of ******** and would increase flow in gameplay. Allow a button for the group leader to allow this function, perhaps even requests for specific roles for the incoming team members. This is a simple function, but will improve quality of life for players substantially, especially due to those long waits for specific instances.
Post edited by keikonamie on

Comments

  • nextnametakennextnametaken Posts: 2,212 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    I think we should do this, seeing people in a queue for a mission might encourage people to play that mission.

    However I doubt Adventure Packs and Comic Books will get much return action from people who know the content is going to take up to an hour or more of their time with a team they may not enjoy playing with. Teaming for shorter missions at least leaves you with an out if you aren't having fun, and you still are rewarded for playing the time that you played if you complete a couple of two minutes quests. Every time I try Whiteout I'm bored to sleep by the end of the first map, I get out of part one and stop playing Champions Online for a while, so I never answer anyone's call for help to run the mission if I want to keep playing at all.

    The other zones were dead or dying before On Alert arrived.
    On Alert queues were the solution to finding teams without having to bother random people or ask into the void that is zone chat, because getting no answer in an online game is like not being online at all.

    It's especially difficult to find teams when some people manipulate zone chat with their whining and crying and multiple lines of two and three word sentences that scroll any request for a team off the chat window. I won't name names, but I spy with my little eye someone in this thread who does that.

    Back to Queues.
    The reason missions and adventure packs aren't in a PUG queue system is because the problems that come with disconnects and leeches multiples with the time a mission takes to run. For instance almost every one of my attempts at running Resistance has involved one more more players, including myself, losing connection to the server at some point in the run. I've never seen the end of it.

    We have leeches in two minute alerts, can you imagine running 30 or more minutes of content while someone else soaks your xp, has drops falling for them and multiplies the mobs?

    Here's an experiment, get a team of three, put difficulty at difficult, enter Thick as Thieves or the Demonflame warehouse solo at between levels 11 or 12 and see how well you can do. That's what you or other players might experience in a PUG queue for some content. Would be even worse with five players, if some are lowbies and some are leeching or some abandon the group. Enter the Demonflame map as a level 30, ask your whatever level under 30 teammates to enter after, and have them hit all the mobs first, watch how the fights turn out, or how long each fight takes. Was that fun or a chore?

    There's a method to the madness, and On Alert is a working system, that simply lacks variation of locations and enemies. Nemesis should have provided the enemy variation, but it comes too late in the game and in an obscure e--mail that sends us to a section of town that doesn't provides only two missions for someone at that level. That one mission in a team generall involves: "Wait for me to make my nemesis", and "run this nemesis mission with me but get no mission reward xp at all". Why bother? When the same time can be used for more than 60K in Grab alert xp?
    Nemesis system problems are for another thread.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    This would get people running adventure packs and comic series more often, so I'm for it. Certainly better than trying to form a group through zone chat, and actually workable when it comes to getting people into the group mid-run (currently something not worth attempting).
    I won't name names, but I spy with my little eye someone in this thread who does that.

    ...subtle.
  • chuckwolfchuckwolf Posts: 274 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    I'd like to go a step further and make it so attempting to enter one of the 5-man instances such as Destroyers Factory, Telios Tower, Burial caves, etc. gives the option of entering a queue for that mission.
    @Powerblast in game
  • thelastsonofzodthelastsonofzod Posts: 658 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Queues need to be added for all team based content. It is very difficult to get a team together for Telios or Destroyer's fsctory without this. Doing this would actually give me a way to play such content.
  • chalupaoffurychalupaoffury Posts: 2,553 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Queues need to be added for all team based content. It is very difficult to get a team together for Telios or Destroyer's fsctory without this. Doing this would actually give me a way to play such content.

    And THIS is why we need a lair pass.

    The fact that they no longer drop anything of note doesn't help that. Easier queuing and random queues would seriously help.

    /signed on absolutely all of this.
    In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008.
    dbnzfo.png
    RIP Caine
  • theravenforcetheravenforce Posts: 7,065 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Queues need to be added for all team based content. It is very difficult to get a team together for Telios or Destroyer's fsctory without this. Doing this would actually give me a way to play such content.

    I agree.

    Its depressing how many team instances/lairs aren't used anymore or are difficult to get team members for now.

    I think Alerts are partly to blame for this.

    If certain alerts were only accessible in the zone you are in that would be a lot better...at least in my opinion (would also open the possibility of new alerts to be added).

    Come on CN, lets get some good drops back for major lairs in game! Queues would be a first step towards that I think...at least people would queue and expect something from the mission/lair.

    /signed.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    This seems to be under a fundamental misunderstanding of why you can't get a team to run these missions:

    It's not because you can't find potential teammates. It's because they don't exist.

    On the topic of lairs, doing some really crude napkin math, for someone leveling up through missions, you maybe spend 1% of your total time in-game in a state where a specific lair is appropriate to your character. There are a large number of people who are either not leveling up at all, or not leveling up via missions, so divide that by 4. Thus, for every 400 people online we would expect one 'potential teammate', and with 1600 people online being able to get a 5-man team is probable.

    I haven't seen 1600 people online in years. Which means the other choice is to pad your team out with bored 40s, or people who have let that quest languish in their queues for days. However, lairs are time consuming with poor rewards, so you'll have trouble finding either.

    On the topic of adventure packs, it's tough to find teams because adventure packs are time consuming, have poor rewards, and generally give a better reward:time ratio if done solo.

    If they actually wanted to encourage the older content, put in a daily rotation for a favored lair or adventure pack (more likely, adventure pack section or comic series issue), with a meaningful reward. I'm not sure they do, though.
  • keikonamiekeikonamie Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Perhaps the ability to queue may encourage some folks to return to or start playing Champions Online. It makes meeting new people easier as well. Think of this as an avenue for socialization rather than restricting it. And if a player feels awkward, they shouldn't feel required to socialize all of the time. Some players may suffer from various forms of social anxiety, which makes the requirement of socialization an issue. The key is to make the game accessible rather than exclusive.
    As for the earlier statement about folks being absent in zones, I was playing in Canada a few days ago and kept having the creatures I was hunting for a quest snagged by various other people in the zone. Whilst other folks might complain about this, I saw it as a sign of an active set of players in the area that I was leveling. It was quite refreshing. I also started an Awakened Automaton four days ago and noted a large group of folks with "freshies" in the starter zone. I am not sure how many of these toons were played by newcomers to Champions Online, but you can guarantee that a few of them were.
    Now consider that certain quests, such as the last stage of the Nighthawk event, have a queue option already. Why not extend this to quests with a listed group of 2 and 5? IMPO, it makes perfect sense. My only issue is the random bugging out of queues. I am not sure what causes this, but if this is not on the list of bugs for the devs to work on, perhaps it should be.

    Are there any other potential improvements folks would like to see to the queue and quest system? Feel free to post to post your suggestion with your reasoning to prompt further discussion. Perhaps we can flesh out some of the ideas to the point where the devs can implement them. *fingers crossed*
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    This seems to be under a fundamental misunderstanding of why you can't get a team to run these missions:

    It's not because you can't find potential teammates. It's because they don't exist.

    On the topic of lairs, doing some really crude napkin math, for someone leveling up through missions, you maybe spend 1% of your total time in-game in a state where a specific lair is appropriate to your character. There are a large number of people who are either not leveling up at all, or not leveling up via missions, so divide that by 4. Thus, for every 400 people online we would expect one 'potential teammate', and with 1600 people online being able to get a 5-man team is probable.


    People don't crunch numbers, they just see a mission and they want to do it. I've seen people asking for groups for lairs.. they do exist. The problem is that they don't exist in the right amounts at the right time in the same place. A que can help to solve that issue by extending the window.

    gradii wrote: »
    If you want to see people out in the zones, stop adding everything to queues.

    All that's needed is to return the rewards, and this silly idea of making every little piece of content something you do while standing in one area in rencen becomes UTTERLY and COMPLETELY redundant.

    #HELL no to more existing content changed into queues.

    Queues are the better design option though. The novelty of "actually walking to that part of the zone" wore off for the majority of the gamer population years ago. Now it's just dead time during a play session. That's why people by and large prefer queues - nostalgic people cling to dead walks.
  • thelastsonofzodthelastsonofzod Posts: 658 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    gradii wrote: »
    If you want to see people out in the zones, stop adding everything to queues.

    All that's needed is to return the rewards, and this silly idea of making every little piece of content something you do while standing in one area in rencen becomes UTTERLY and COMPLETELY redundant.

    #HELL no to more existing content changed into queues.

    Personally, I don't want to see people out in zones, I want to see them when I'm doing a mission. As it stands, this doesn't happen. If it were brought up to On Alert standards, maybe that would change.

    I do agree with you that the lairs need worthwhile loot. I think that should be addressed as part of a revamp of the lairs system. It wouldn't be out of line to add some devices and costumes exclusively available to these lair runs, in much the same way that Vikorin the Blind has his costume bits, or how all the Alerts have specific loot associated with them.

    I'd also like it if lairs worked like Alerts, but set you to the proper level for running that Alert. So, your level appropriate guy doesn't get changed, but the level 40 who was bored that day doesn't just steamroll the content.
  • crypticbuxomcrypticbuxom Posts: 4,585 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    They could just advertise that the content exists. Whatever happened to the content page that features how to play APs and get to VB?
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    spinnytop wrote: »
    People don't crunch numbers, they just see a mission and they want to do it. I've seen people asking for groups for lairs.. they do exist.
    Way to miss the point. The basic issue is this: a queue helps if your problem is "I know there are other people out there who want to run this mission, but I can't find them". That, however, is not the problem with lairs and comic book series -- the actual problem is that the other people aren't out there.

    Fix that problem, and the queue might help, but you really do have to fix that problem first. A mission rotation system might help there, as would changing the lairs and comic series to scale more coherently for mixed level teams (just give everything in them skull scaling, say) and creating incentives to actually do them as teams.
  • gandalesgandales Posts: 340 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    They could just advertise that the content exists. Whatever happened to the content page that features how to play APs and get to VB?

    and we will been having this discussion again in one year.

    Having Queues is not ideal but it has turned into a necessary evil given CO's special population characteristics.

    We have pretty little content and we need to be able to use it as much as possible. Neverwinter has an activity page with a queue tab, it is pretty helpful for players.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Way to miss the point. The basic issue is this: a queue helps if your problem is "I know there are other people out there who want to run this mission, but I can't find them". That, however, is not the problem with lairs and comic book series -- the actual problem is that the other people aren't out there.

    They actually are out there though. That's the point I was making.
  • keikonamiekeikonamie Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Yes, there are certainly folks out there. However, there could be a lot more players as well. This is where lack of game promotion is so important. Between folks blogging and posting on social networking as well as active communication by the developers and various distributors we can establish a larger community.
    One thing that I have noticed aside from this issue with some of the non-queuing stuff, is that PvP has low participation. When the main rewards are action figures for a lot of the content, it doesn't necessarily offer solid rewards. Sure, I like pets, but who wants to spend weeks at a time trying to earn enough points for some top level pet? If they added in a pet fighting system as well, then perhaps this would have added benefits beyond the initial "look at that Luchador doll - he's so adorable!" This of course goes to an earlier comment somebody made about rewards in content such as the Comic Book Series. We want to feel that our efforts have meaningful rewards for all of the hard work that we've put in.
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