negative experiences with random queues (beginners and intermediate)

motu999

Generally my experience with Random Queues (RQs) is good. I mostly play random intermediate queue (RIQ), due to the current experience / item level of my toons. When I have spare time, I also play the random beginners queue (RBQ) - not really fun, just for the AD. Unfortunately, my experience with RBQ has been rather mixed. These are the situations that I encountered:

Problem 1:
Player X leaves the dungeon and quests elsewhere (Protectors Enclave for example)
The intent of X - obviously - is to get kicked by the other players after 5 min, thus avoiding the 30 min leaver penalty for abandoning the dungeon.
However, kicking X (after a forced 5 min wait) does not always work:
- You only have one chance every 4 hours to initiate a vote to kick a player.
- If one had to kick another player for the same reason in a previous dungeon run, one cannot initiate a kick vote in the next four hours
- If the other player(s) failed to vote (often happens because they use the 5 min forced inactivity for real life stuff), the vote fails.
In such cases it is impossible to proceed:
- all other players are taken hostage indefinitely by player X. Player X neither has the intent to return to the dungeon (in order to complete it), nor is willing to abandon the dungeon (taking the 30 min leaver penalty). In my experience tells that kindly ask the player to return are ignored.
This has already happened so many times and the frequency of these events seems to be increasing.

Possible solution:
- the (rational, but selfish) reason for the behavior of X is, that (s)he is rewarded with a much smaller "leaver penalty" (5 min vs. 30 min)
- the rational way to counter such and related behavior is to give the 30 min leaver penalty to everyone, who leaves a instance by any means

Problem 2:
2-3 characters join the RBQ as a team, but only one does the work (usually the other teamed players are on follow or afk)
The intent is obviously to gain twice or triple of the rewards with the same time investment, letting the other players do most of the work.
This usually happens in 5-man skirmishes.
Kicking a team of 2-3 controlled by just one active player (after 5 min) does not work, because the team can turn down any negative vote.
Furthermore, some dungeons (in particular skirmishes) are completed in less than 5 min.
This behavior happens more and more frequently.
It is most noticeable in the 5-man skirmishes (Master of the Hunt, Dread Legion, Illusionist Gambit).
It likely happens in the 3-man dungeons as well, we just don't happen to see it because a team of three that lands in a 3-man dungeon effectively has a private run.

Possible solutions:
- difficult, because it is not easy to determine whether a team of players is actually controlled by a single human being
- Private queuing for RBQ might be a solution, but this would defeat the purpose of the RQ to quickly fill up a requested (beginner's) dungeon
- one possible solution could be, that teamed players (queuing together) only get one vote. It is difficult to foresee, if this can be abused.

I find myself more and more only queuing for RIQ, because the intermediate dungeons seem to be less affected by the two above mentioned problems. However, in particular in the intermediate skirmishes (Merchant Prince Folly, Throne of the Dwarven Gods, Prophecy of Madness) I already noticed occasional occurrences of Problem 2)

In order to ensure a fruitful and rewarding experience for all players, it seems necessary that such behavior is curtailed. It seems to be currently on the rise.

kvet

I think it shouldn't be possible at all to leave a dungeon manually and still be part of the instance, so yes, I agree completely with apply the penalty to anyone that leaves for any reason solution. Disconnects don't actually kick you from the instance unless you remain disconnected for a while - so a typical disconnect or client crash usually won't result in your removal from the instance right away and therefore no penalty, but you can't use it as a means to avoid the penalty. At the end of the day, this is just uncool behavior that has a direct penalty that simply needs to be enforced a little more consistently.

On the other issue you mentioned... that's tricky because people exploiting the game are notoriously hard to identify effectively. I've seen many cases where a toon was clearly a bot, and others where he's maybe a bot or maybe just not a very good player, and other cases where it did seem a few were running as a pack like you described. Lucky for me, though, I can solo any RLQ instance in a matter of minutes, so I don't need them. I do get annoyed, though, that I'm basically rewarding bad behavior. Once, when I was fairly sure all 4 other toons were bots, I just did nothing... interestingly, they all died repeatedly because their logic clearly depended on someone like me carrying them through. Once I was satisfied they were basically stuck, I dropped the instance, took the penalty, and did dailies on other alts for a while, happy in the fact that I, in some very small way, got to flip the bird at a cheater.

sgtpostal

i agree but can forsee a problem already..... ppl will jus disconect an stay that way till either they are kicke oir removed by the game itself hence still acioding the penalty

wintersmoke

sgtpostal#4408 said:

i agree but can forsee a problem already..... ppl will jus disconect an stay that way till either they are kicke oir removed by the game itself hence still acioding the penalty

I have spotty weather fearing wifi. I am often disconnected in the middle of a dungeon run. Even if it takes me less than 5 mins. to log back in, if I am not delivered back to the dungeon, I find myself in PE with the penalty active. And I agree with the OP... if you leave the instance for any reason... penalty should apply.

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rickcase276

They are random queues. Random queueing people should take what they get, and stop being childish. If you do not want a certain dungeon or a certain party composition then don't random queue. It is quite simple.

greywynd

spunkmeier said:

Did we not have some variant of this thread last week as well?

All stopping people from leaving does is make them sit in the content doing nothing instead, next weeks problem is people sitting in the dungeon doing nothing...

And if they do it often enough they should be banned from queuing for any random content.

namelesshero347

Banning is a bit harsh. I think it's better if penalty increased with each leave until you complete a run. A long multi hour penalty may convince the more capable players to stay and carry if they can.

aixis2000

Next thread in the same direction...u guys put ur own expectations over other player and think 2/3/4 ppl consense is already enough to be judge, jury and executioner... banned from queuing for any random content. really? I guess those guys are mean in rl as well...so why not get their adress and finish them off forever,right?...just meh as always...

greywynd

Worrying about your 15 minutes does not allow you to waste an hour of other peoples time.

rickcase276

But that is the whole thing, it is a random queue. Emphasis on the word random, so it should be either leave take your penalty or stay and help the dungeon get completed. AFKing does neither you nor the other players any good, and honestly should not be rewarded.

wintersmoke

aixis2000 said:

Next thread in the same direction...u guys put ur own expectations over other player and think 2/3/4 ppl consense is already enough to be judge, jury and executioner... banned from queuing for any random content. really? I guess those guys are mean in rl as well...so why not get their adress and finish them off forever,right?...just meh as always...

This sounds suspiciously like work 0,o

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mentinmindmaker

It is a big difference between sitting idle doing nothing in a dungeon, and spending that time productively outside the dungeon even if you block the teams progress.

If you leave the dungeon prematurely, you certainly should get the penalty.

If you have to be inside the dungeon anyways, it is probable most people will try to contribute or abandon.

greywynd

spunkmeier said:

greywynd said:

spunkmeier said:

Did we not have some variant of this thread last week as well?

All stopping people from leaving does is make them sit in the content doing nothing instead, next weeks problem is people sitting in the dungeon doing nothing...

And if they do it often enough they should be banned from queuing for any random content.

Do what? Sit there doing nothing?

If you mean this then the step after this is for players to move a pixel every few minutes, or fake a disconnect to reset things completely.

There is already an afk kick timer in the game, somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes, so it would be easy to change it for random queues but the devs have decided not to do this (...when we first moaned about this problem of AFk'ers over a year ago now).

If people dont want to run content and dont want to take an unjust penalty (when the game tries to force you to carry fail players or fail geared players) then there is nothing you can do to make them. They will attempt to avoid the penalties and I dont blame them.

We all know this is selfish behaviour but this is what the abomination of random queues has turned this game into.

rickcase276 said:

But that is the whole thing, it is a random queue. Emphasis on the word random, so it should be either leave take your penalty or stay and help the dungeon get completed. AFKing does neither you nor the other players any good, and honestly should not be rewarded.

AFK'ing was never a problem until random queues. Prior to this player policing would see you kicked very quickly. People whined about getting kicked for them being scummy players and this is the result.

With the introduction of random queues AFK'ing became profitable. The problem, as always, is that random queues gave the scummy players all the power and the attempts at fixes by the devs just keep making things worse.

What's the point of queuing random if you are only willing to run one instance out of the list?

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greywynd

And if the suggestion that when a person leaves for any reason they get the leaver penalty, then it is a non-issue, as someone has already left and you can walk out behind them.

plasticbat

I said that many times before RQ was started, RQ is a bad idea. The idea is to force people to do dungeon they don't want to do. That is a bad idea. It makes players vs players. Pointing fingers to each other. That is why I don't do RQ unless I have a party of 5 (but the new RQ can dump you to 10 player queue now).

They cannot force people to help. People needs to be willing to help instead. They need to give people incentive to help such as a bounty.

Put everything almost back to before RQ was introduced. Add a bounty system.

If a particular group has been waiting for a really long time for a special dungeon (say FBI), gives more AD like a bounty for someone to come to help. The bounty can be calculated based on the item level of the current party members and how long they have waited, etc. The bounty hunter knows which dungeon, how much AD bounty, average item level, party composition, before he decides to accept. First come first serve. If he decides to leave or AFK or ...., put him to a penalty box for a long while. He decided to accept bounty. He needs to live with it.

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rickcase276

Then wouldn't the simple solution be, if a player does not do a certain percentage of the damage/healing etc then they get no reward? It would then be the same result if they take the leaver's penalty. That would stop incentivizing AFKing.

greywynd

spunkmeier said:

Except they wont leave if there is a penalty associated with it. They will just sit there doing nothing until you either kick them or abandon the instance.

If they get kicked, they left. Leaver penalty.

checkmatein3

I have another solution (although it was RAQ), and this actually happened.

Player X rage quit at 2nd boss in FBI because team told him not to knock the runes off before turtle appeared. Thinking himself right, he cursed us out, and moved to PE. He waited. He told us to kick him over and over. And, we did not. Instead, I took screen shots of his conversation, made tickets in game and through Arc Support with his character name, handle, and time of play, with specific details as to his behavior. Then, we waited. Yes. You see, when the badly behaving player leaves, they want you to kick them so that they can keep on playing. But we did nothing. He raged more and more because he could not do anything. Then, this player logged off, we waited 5 minutes and abandoned the instance. We requeued without penalty and did FBI in 20min with another party.

Sometimes, you can teach them a lesson by waiting, and using the in-game reporting system.

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mentinmindmaker

You cannot stop people that want to just sit around and do nothing.

But you *can* make their time unproductive by not letting them leave the instance and do other stuff. Leaving instance should be treated like an abandon.

It is not a 100% solution, but it should contribute towards making people abandon instance or play.

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namelesshero347

spunkmeier said:

Sounds great until someone who is kicked for no reason starts complaining about the unjustness of it on the forum.

This doesn't happen. The 4 hour timer means no one will waste their kick vote for no good reason because it is likely to be voted down

spunkmeier said:

This idea of kicking people would also make people intent on doing bad stuff more likely to queue as 3 person groups, many already do of course, and in this case you can never kick them but they can always kick you.

People queue with other people for better runs, not to grief other players.

Our current environment is the occurrence of people abusing kick to avoid penalty is much greater than unjust kicks. The solution is obvious, give penalty to remove the incentive to abuse.

cherryman1

namelesshero347 said:

People queue with other people for better runs, not to grief other players.

Some people queue into IG to run so that they control the vote to continue. I have had the unfortunate experience of getting into it with someone who was farming it for the better companion gear. This person got on their tank which wouldn't die and ran around doing next to nothing in damage. There would then be 2 other characters that were new toons that were hardly geared at all that would just die at the start and vote to continue so the vote would always have 3 to continue. The other two toons in the event would then have to do all of the damage in the event which was horrible if they were lower item level. These were the events I would take the leaver penalty to get out of those situations. Especially, since I believe that one player in the event was playing 3 toons. While I haven't see this in a while that is one of the reasons that IG is so controversial for players. Especially when the +4 items were needed to get that second slot.

therealprotex

Solution attempt:
1. Remove random queues from the game. Public and private queues remain.
2. Remove rAD rewards from queues. Instead give every account 5-25k rAD (range arguable, but depending on the char with highest item level) daily at first login.
3. Remove kick timer.
4. Remove leaver penalty.

greywynd

therealprotex said:

Solution attempt:
1. Remove random queues from the game. Public and private queues remain.
2. Remove rAD rewards from queues. Instead give every account 5-25k rAD (range arguable, but depending on the char with highest item level) daily at first login.
3. Remove kick timer.
4. Remove leaver penalty.

...and return to the days where some things never popped. Which was the point of the randoms to begin with; to get unpopular content to pop.

nunya

greywynd said:

therealprotex said:

Solution attempt:
1. Remove random queues from the game. Public and private queues remain.
2. Remove rAD rewards from queues. Instead give every account 5-25k rAD (range arguable, but depending on the char with highest item level) daily at first login.
3. Remove kick timer.
4. Remove leaver penalty.

...and return to the days where some things never popped. Which was the point of the randoms to begin with; to get unpopular content to pop.

I can't see that unpopular content is popping now. Four days out of seven last week were Illusionist's Gambit in the RLQ, while two days were Dread Legion, and the seventh day was Master of the Hunt. The week before was much like this, though we did happen to get exactly one Cloak Tower with the rest being one of the three mentioned skirmishes.

What about the RIQ, you ask? I'm glad you asked! I forget the number of days for each, but all we have seen, for at least the last month, has been Prophecy of Madness, Tiamat, and Merchant Prince's Folly, with the only exception being Demogorgon last night.

Do you really expect people to believe that those who are not queueing into a random queue are only queueing for one of those six dungeons? Somehow, their logic is giving preference to skirmishes. I think their logic is assembling the party before selecting the dungeon. So it sees there are currently 25 or more people queued and realizes it can clear or nearly clear the queue by dropping those suckers into Tiamat again. There is definitely something wrong when this is happening with such regularity that I can actually guess the dungeon it's going to drop us into with at least an 80% accuracy rate, and I would say I'm probably closer to 90% accurate.

plasticbat

nunya#5309 said:

greywynd said:

therealprotex said:

Solution attempt:
1. Remove random queues from the game. Public and private queues remain.
2. Remove rAD rewards from queues. Instead give every account 5-25k rAD (range arguable, but depending on the char with highest item level) daily at first login.
3. Remove kick timer.
4. Remove leaver penalty.

...and return to the days where some things never popped. Which was the point of the randoms to begin with; to get unpopular content to pop.

I can't see that unpopular content is popping now. Four days out of seven last week were Illusionist's Gambit in the RLQ, while two days were Dread Legion, and the seventh day was Master of the Hunt. The week before was much like this, though we did happen to get exactly one Cloak Tower with the rest being one of the three mentioned skirmishes.

What about the RIQ, you ask? I'm glad you asked! I forget the number of days for each, but all we have seen, for at least the last month, has been Prophecy of Madness, Tiamat, and Merchant Prince's Folly, with the only exception being Demogorgon last night.

Do you really expect people to believe that those who are not queueing into a random queue are only queueing for one of those six dungeons? Somehow, their logic is giving preference to skirmishes. I think their logic is assembling the party before selecting the dungeon. So it sees there are currently 25 or more people queued and realizes it can clear or nearly clear the queue by dropping those suckers into Tiamat again. There is definitely something wrong when this is happening with such regularity that I can actually guess the dungeon it's going to drop us into with at least an 80% accuracy rate, and I would say I'm probably closer to 90% accurate.

That is not what he mean. For the player A who wants to play dungeon X, he could not do it because nobody else comes. i.e. the unpopular dungeon X is not popped for player A. With RQ, other players will be send to dungeon X so that player A will have dungeon X popped. That was the idea and I don't like that idea (as forcing players to help). In addition, it does pop but it does not mean it will end well.