test content
  • Games
  • Social
  • Arc News
  • Support
  • Zen
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Forums > Home› NeverwinterPreview Shard (PC)› NeverwinterPreview - Feedback/General Discussion

Official Feedback Thread: Random Queues

asterdahlasterdahl Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 1,258 Cryptic Developer
edited January 2018 in NeverwinterPreview - Feedback/General Discussion
Edit: Random Queues received some updates since launch. You can find the Update thread at https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1236124/updates-to-random-queues/. Thank you!


Greetings adventurers, this thread is for providing bug reports and feedback on the following topic:
  • Random Queues
Due to the nature of this feature, the format of this introductory post will be a bit like a mini blog post outlining the details of random queues. I’d like to take this approach because random queues will change how everyone interacts with queues, as well as affect how bonuses are obtained. Of course we are confident all these changes are major improvements, but any changes come with understandable speculation, so I’d like to make sure everything is clear as this feature hits preview.

Please bear in mind and this is exceptionally important to note, this feature is still under development and every detail and value I outline below is subject to change. Now without further digression—

Random Queue Overview

Random queues! A new category of queues will appear in your queue list on preview. The new category random queue has within it a queue corresponding to each of the existing PvE queue categories: skirmishes, dungeons, epic dungeons and epic trials. By selecting one of these random queues, you will be matched into a queue in that category at random.

And of course, there will be incentives for queuing for a random queue, let’s take a look. Queuing for a random skirmish for the first time in a day will net you a daily bonus of 60 seals of the protector and 3,400 rough astral diamonds. Subsequent use of the random skirmish queue will net you a repeatable bonus of 20 seals of the protector and 400 rough astral diamonds.

Regardless of which skirmish you end up in, be it Master of the Hunt or the new skirmish in Module 12B—The Merchant Prince’s Folly—if you successfully complete the queue you will receive the same daily or repeatable bonus.

Goals of Random Queues

Before I dive into some of the finer details some of you may be wondering about, I would first like to talk about why we are introducing random queues. Here are the goals we set out (not necessarily in order of importance):
  • Ensure all queues are firing in a reasonable time frame, regardless of popularity.
  • Reduce burnout from running the same queue ad nauseum by introducing variety.
  • Make it clear when you are eligible for and when you receive daily bonus AD and seals.
  • Provide further bonuses for those players who can master the most difficult content.
  • Incentivize playing roles that are currently underplayed to reduce queue wait times.
  • Incentivize helping players who are new to a queue to foster a positive environment.

Queues Firing Faster & Increased Variety

Now I’ll address each of these goals individually in order to better illustrate the feature. I’ve talked a little bit about how you will be assigned to a random queue in the category if you use random queues, but there’s a little more to it than that. In order to help ensure all queues are firing, players who queue, for instance, for Random: Skirmish will also be matched with players who queue for an individual skirmish in the traditional manner.

For example, if you have queued for Master of the Hunt even if no one else manually queues for that skirmish, your queue will eventually fire with 4 other players who queued for Random: Skirmish. In that sense, if you queue as an individual the queue you end up with is not entirely random. You may see recently released queues that players are manually running more often than older more obscure queues. However, if you queue with a full party of 5, the queue you arrive at will be truly random.

Whether you’re queuing with a full premade group, or queuing as an individual, your experience will be significantly more varied, because even with a number of players manually queuing for individual content, there is a high chance you’ll be matched with 4 other players in the random queue, resulting in a truly random result. You’ll have the opportunity to play through some less common content and still receive bonus rewards thanks to random queues.

Bonus AD Rewards

Speaking of bonus rewards, many of you are familiar with the bonus AD rewards that are paid out at the end of certain queues, and some may also be familiar with the bonus cache of seals that are paid out at the end of certain other queues. Both of these systems are being replaced with the random queue daily and repeatable bonuses.

By selecting a random queue in the queue window you will be able to clearly identify ahead of time whether you are eligible for your daily bonus. In addition, upon reaching the end of the queue, your bonus reward will clearly be displayed on the scoreboard. Where before you would have to run two skirmishes or dungeons a day to receive the maximum daily skirmish bonus, you will now only need to run one. At the same time, categories like epic trial and epic dungeons now also have a daily bonus. These changes will make daily bonuses much easier to understand.

Some of you are certainly wondering about the total amount of bonus AD that may be earned. One of the goals I mentioned above was that we wished to provide additional bonuses to those who have mastered more difficult content. As such, the total amount of bonus AD that may be earned is going up! With the introduction of the new epic dungeon and epic trial category, the amount of total daily bonus rough AD that can be earned is increasing from 19500 to 28000.

Here are the details:

Rough AD per daily bonus run (before → after):
  • Skirmish 2250 → 6000
  • Dungeon 4500 → 7000
  • Epic Dungeon N/A → 5000
  • Epic Trial N/A → 5000
  • Hero’s Accord N/A → Jadeite (2,500 RP (25,000 by current live reckoning))
  • PvP 3000 → 5000
Notes:
  • PvP is not part of the random queue system, but you can earn bonus AD from running a PvP match and the amount of matches that can be run for that bonus is being adjusted down to one bonus match per day, to be in line with other categories.
  • The nature of Hero’s Accord will be addressed further on in this post.
  • Please note that the bonus AD values displayed are slightly lower than what is displayed in game, because the repeatable reward of a few hundred AD is paid out even during the player’s first run, and the lump sum is displayed.
For example, if you run 1 PvP match, 1 skirmish and 1 dungeon, in the old system you would net 9750 bonus AD, whereas you will now net 18000 bonus AD. In the new system, however, if you cannot run epic dungeons, epic trials or the special hero’s accord queue, you have reached your limit for daily bonus AD. In the old system, you could have run another PvP match, skirmish and dungeon to get to a total of 19500 bonus AD. Although you'll be earning 1500 less rough AD, the bonus seals you will also receive as part of random queues will more than make up for that value in salvage.

However, if you can run an epic trial and epic dungeon you will get to 28000 bonus AD. If you can also complete hero’s accord, you’ll have earned a total daily bonus of 28000 bonus AD plus a jadeite, a refinement stone worth 2,500 RP (25,000 RP by current live reckoning.) Even if your character isn't endgame ready, you’ll be able to earn just as much rough AD per day, and in a much quicker time.

Bonus Seal Rewards

Here’s the breakdown for bonus seals. Daily value followed by repeatable value in parenthetical:
  • Skirmish 40(20) Seals of the Protector
  • Dungeon 60(30) Seals of the Protector
  • Epic Dungeon 90(30) Seals of the Protector
  • Epic Trial 60(40) Seals of the Protector
  • Hero’s Accord 10(10) Seals of the Brave
With all categories of random queue paying out seals, players will now have new methods of obtaining seals, particularly noteworthy for those characters who have just reached 70. For those in farming mode, these seals will of course also contribute to your overall earn.

Understanding exactly how these changes will affect you based on your play style may be confusing to quantify but we think that overall these changes are going to be big improvements across the board in terms of providing a wider variety of content to play for bonuses, as well as making those bonuses easier to understand.
Post edited by asterdahl on
«134567…49

Comments

  • asterdahlasterdahl Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 1,258 Cryptic Developer
    edited August 2017

    Role Bonus & New Player Bonus

    Finally, I mentioned incentivizing playing underplayed roles and helping new players in order to foster a more positive queue environment. To accomplish these goals we have implemented a role bonus as well as a new player bonus.

    First I’ll discuss the role bonus. As an example if there are currently less tanks in the epic dungeon random queue than other roles, the current role bonus for that random queue would be tank. Anyone who queues as a tank for a random epic dungeon while this bonus is in effect will receive 1000 bonus rough AD upon successfully completing the queue. Role bonuses are only in effect for those queue categories which have role requirements: epic dungeons, epic trials and hero’s accord.

    The role bonus will update dynamically based on those players currently in the queue. If healers or DPS are underrepresented, the role bonus will switch to those roles. With that said, the role bonus is locked in for your character once you join the queue. Even if the current role bonus changes before your queue pops, you will still get the bonus for the role you signed up as, as long as you do not drop from the queue. Role bonuses may be earned an unlimited number of times per day.

    Next I’ll outline the new player bonus. Although I’m mentioning it here in this thread about random queues, the new player bonus is technically independent of the random queue system, but it’s coming as a part of these changes. Whenever at least one player is present in a queue who has not yet completed it, a new player bonus will be in effect for all players in that queue who have already completed it.

    The new player bonus will be announced to the group via a system message upon entering the queue, though the specific player or players who have not yet completed the queue will not be specifically named. If the queue is completed successfully and the new player or players are still present at the end of the queue, all eligible players who had already completed the queue will receive a new player bonus reward.

    The new player bonus will be commensurate with the difficulty of the queue, with difficult queues like Tomb of the Nine Gods paying out thousands of rough astral diamonds for a new player bonus. New player bonuses may be earned an unlimited number of times, though each player may only trigger a new player bonus once. If the new player is kicked from the group, disconnects (and does not reconnect) or leaves, the bonus will not be awarded.

    Along with the addition of new player bonuses, a quality of life improvement has been made that prevents new players from backfilling an existing match. If you have yet to successfully complete a queue, you will always start from the beginning, and never join a match in progress. We’d like everyone to be able to experience a queue from start to finish the first time. With the improvements from random queues, the wait should be significantly reduced, regardless.

    Please keep in mind that as I mentioned above, all of the bonus values I outline in this post are subject to change. Particularly when it comes to role bonuses and new player bonuses, we will be watching how these affect player behavior and making adjustments.

    Remaining Questions

    That about covers it for the broad strokes of random queues and how they fit into the goals we set out to achieve. I’ll now spend a little time going into some of the finer details such as: ‘what is hero’s accord?’, ‘what about item level requirements, prerequisites and other restrictions?’ And ‘how are leveling queues impacted?’

    Hero’s Accord

    Hero’s accord is the tentative title for the random queue that includes the current most difficult content in the game. Whatever queues currently share the highest item level in the game—whether one queue or many—will make up hero’s accord. For instance, with the launch of Module 12B, The Tomb of the Nine Gods has the highest item level requirement at 12000, and it is the only queue with this item level requirement. Thus with the launch of Module 12B, Random: Hero’s Accord will only include the tomb.

    However, with the release of Module 13, a new queue will be added with an item level 12000 requirement, at that time, hero’s accord will include two potential queues. Queues that are present in hero’s accord will not be included in their standard category’s random queue. For instance, Random: Epic Dungeon will not currently include The Tomb of the Nine Gods at this time. If an item level 14000 dungeon were to be introduced, that dungeon would be part of hero’s accord and the tomb would now appear normally in Random: Epic Dungeon.

    Think of hero’s accord as the random queue for the game’s current hardest content. It can be a bit strange that this queue may only include one piece of content, however, we’d like to keep things straightforward to understand. If the hero’s accord random queue came and went based on the number of matching item level contents, and bonus rewards were moved back and forth between individual queues and the random queue, we think that would ultimately be more difficult to understand.

    Prerequisites for Random Queues

    I mentioned item levels above, so I’d like to talk about how item levels and other prerequisites play into the random queue system. In order to queue for any category of random queue, you must meet the prerequisites for all queues in that random queue. For instance, if the highest item level requirement for any epic dungeon in Random: Epic Dungeon is 11000, you will need at least an item level of 11000 to queue for the random queue.

    Additionally, if there are any other requirements for queues such as campaign completion, you must meet those requirements as well. Simply put, you must be eligible for every queue in a random queue’s full list before you can queue. The full list will be displayed in the description of the random queue, with queues you are ineligible for sorted to the top in red. As always the specific reason you are ineligible can be viewed by selecting that queue manually.

    These restrictions are in place to prevent abuse, such as players specifically removing equipment or failing to unlock certain quests in order to avoid certain dungeons. Additionally, we would like to provide these bonuses as additional motivation towards progressing your character. As you have seen with recent updates, we continue to make adjustments regarding gearing up your character. So we do not believe that meeting the requirements for anything save hero’s accord will prove too difficult.

    One important note to keep in mind: as I mentioned above, as new queues are introduced, old queues may be moved down into existing categories. That means that with the introduction of a new patch, you may be temporarily unable to queue for a random queue you had previously been eligible for. Please keep this in mind as new patches roll out. However, even if you cannot queue for the random queue yourself, the existence of the random queue will help you gear up as a larger pool of players will be available to play with you regardless of what queue you choose.

    Group Size & Team Composition

    The final notes on meeting the requirements for random queues: team composition, team size and private matching. It is impossible to use a random queue when creating a private match. Private matches do not go through the queue system, so it is technically impossible. Additionally, we would like the incentives in the system to encourage as many players to play together as possible. If you muster up enough friends to queue with a full group, we absolutely want all of you to receive your bonuses, including role bonus for the eligible player or players. However, we don’t want players intentionally playing through with undersized groups when more players could be going through the queues with them. So, for random queues you’ll need to use a public match.

    As I mentioned, you’ll be able to public match with a full group, however, your group will be restricted to the requirements. In addition to every individual player needing to be eligible for each queue in a category, the group as a whole must be eligible for every queue in the category. For instance, Random: Epic Trial includes both 10-player content such as Assault on Svardborg as well as 25-player content like Temple of Tiamat. Even though Tiamat supports up to 25 players, a premade match group of only 10 or less players may queue.

    If 11 players were allowed to queue, that group would only be eligible for one queue in the random queue, and that would cause strange behavior. If you have more than 10 players and would like to queue for Tiamat, you must do so manually. In addition to team size requirements, any role requirements are also enforced. For instance, in order to queue for Random: Epic Dungeon your group must have no more than 3 DPS, 1 healer and 1 tank.
  • asterdahlasterdahl Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 1,258 Cryptic Developer
    edited August 2017

    Random Queues for Leveling Up

    On to the last question! ‘How are leveling queues affected?’ Both Random: Skirmish and Random: Dungeon will be available for players below level 70. There are currently some rather poorly messaged experience bonuses at the end of leveling dungeons. Those XP bonuses have been moved into the random queue system.

    Now, when a player completes a random skirmish or dungeon below level 70, instead of seals they will receive a large amount of XP. The XP will be clearly displayed in the random queue window. Overall the amount of experience points earned from dungeons and skirmishes has significantly risen as a result of these changes, especially for those players in the level 60-69 range.

    I mentioned earlier that a player must be eligible for all of the queues in a random queue, however, there is in fact one exception: level. If a player is ineligible to queue for a certain queue in the random queue because they are too low level, they will still be able to queue. Basically, this means that even if you are level 30 and only have access to a limited subset of the dungeons in Random: Dungeon you will still be able to queue for a random dungeon.

    Leaver Penalty

    We’re nearing the end! One final note: along with all of these additions and quality of life improvements, we have re-enabled leaver penalties on all queues. Leaver penalties were originally disabled due to some issues that were present at the time. Those issues were resolved, however, we have held off on turning them back on in anticipation of random queues.

    We know that as players get used to the new paradigm many may consider trying to leave if they don’t get the exact queue they wanted. Please make sure you have time before selecting a random queue and that you are willing to complete whatever duty appears before you. If you decide to leave the queue early, you will be unable to queue again for 30 minutes.

    With the release of random queues we will be monitoring the queues closely and watching how everyone interacts with the system. If there are any truly egregious queues we will obviously watch and consider making adjustments.

    Closing Thoughts

    And with that, I think that’s everything there is to say about random queues and the accompanying quality of life changes coming to queues in Module 12B! Phew! That was a doozy, I apologize for the length of this forum post, but I hope you found it informative!

    Random queues are something the team has had planned on our schedule for some time so we’re very excited to finally show them off. We hope you’ll keep an open mind about this big change and try them out on preview!

    As always, thank you all for playing and taking the time to provide feedback! Your feedback is invaluable. See you on the preview shard!


    ----

    Formatting Your Feedback and Bugs

    For posting feedback and bugs, please follow the following format to ensure your feedback and bugs are seen clearly and processed in a timely manner, thank you!

    Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
    If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use CYAN. If you are replying to another user's post, or just engaging in general discussion, please do not color your posts, general discussion is welcome and we will read all of it, regardless of color! You can use BBCode to color your text:

    <font color=cyan>This text will display in cyan.</font> <font color=red>This text will display in red.</font>

    Examples:
    Bug: When I click on a random queue for the first time after opening the queue window the rewards don't display any values.

    Feedback: Hero's Accord is a silly name, name it something else!
  • valnoledvalnoled Member Posts: 38 Arc User
    I personally fail to see the benefit of increased RAD earning. Mains always have thousands of AD waiting of being refined into AD.
  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    fizgigtiznalkie#4436 said:

    Why not just add this to the current setup instead of replacing it? 2 quick shores and 2 quick etos could be replaced by POM and Throne, Cragmire Crypts and Grey Wolf Den, turning 20 minutes into an hour, it's not predictable if you have time to max the daily RAD. I'd say keep bonus AD on 1 picked dungeon run at least.

    Undisclosed reason for doing it this way is an anti-botting strategy. I don't know which-all content has bots, but I'd say it's a pretty effective way of killing their ability to leech runs.
    Guild Leader - The Lords of Light

    Neverwinter Census 2017

    All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
  • panteleeleepanteleelee Member Posts: 289 Arc User
    edited September 2017
    turtlemanjay said:

    Removing daily RAD rewards from all non-random queues feels like a huge blow to new players who are not able to queue for all epic dungeons yet, or even more down the line all epic trials. MSVA does need a lot of time to unlock.

    Why only for new players?
    I get my AD from my alts i play everyday ct with my alts(no boting ofc!) now how i get AD? how upgrade my main? Why should i pay real money?

    With 36k salvege everyday? dungeon keys from vip is not unlimited...

    Taylor DC/DO & AC Buff/Debuff - Guild Gutbusters Brigade - PVE
    May the Torm of Understanding guide us!
  • fluffy6977fluffy6977 Member Posts: 291 Arc User
    @asterdahl

    My SO quit playing regularly after an unexplained ban on Xbox. When she does play, we enjoy running dungeons with friends, but since she does not keep up with the campaigns she will not be able to queue for the Epic Dungeons tier. Any chance we could split that queue group into one that has T1&T2 dungeons for less bonus AD (proportional to how much easier they are to run) and one that includes all Epic Dungeons not unlocked in the current module? Or better yet, get rid of the unlocks for new dungeons? It only serves to split the playerbase and dilute the population running this content further.

    Thanks for the Random Queue changes, I really like the direction this is going in overall.
  • asterdahlasterdahl Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 1,258 Cryptic Developer
    darthtzarr said:

    beckylunatic said:

    Question about quitter penalties. (I hate "leaver" and you can't make me use it. Get off my lawn.)

    Are these going to be in place when the player/party gets matched into content they can't succeed at? I mean, does the system double punish you for failure?

    I thought the same thing. The best option for that in my mind would be something like a "Vote to surrender" option, where if everyone agrees, everyone can leave the queue without penalty.
    We do plan to provide ways for the group to decide they cannot successfully complete a queue after making a serious attempt, a vote abandon option like you mentioned. However, there will have to be some restrictions on this option to prevent abuse. We would like your feedback on if there are any queues which currently require an item level too low to be successfully completed.

    Assuming a group meets the entry level requirements and role requirements, (which it will if it goes through the public match system) they should be able to clear the content in theory. Then if enough time has passed with attempts, a vote abandon could be attempted. That being said, if one player leaves in frustration, others will be able to leave without a penalty.
    darthtzarr said:

    Am I understanding this correctly?

    Given the new system, we will be unable to get our daily AD bonus from epic dungeon (level 70 dungeons) until we are 11k item level? Or is there a separate category for "Dungeon" that includes level 70 dungeons now?

    Will we still be able to queue for low level dungeons on level 70s?

    You will absolutely still be able to queue for the Random: Dungeon queue even if you are level 70. There are currently no plans to divide the epic dungeon queue into something more granular than epic dungeon and hero's accord.
    beckylunatic said:

    fizgigtiznalkie#4436 said:

    Why not just add this to the current setup instead of replacing it? 2 quick shores and 2 quick etos could be replaced by POM and Throne, Cragmire Crypts and Grey Wolf Den, turning 20 minutes into an hour, it's not predictable if you have time to max the daily RAD. I'd say keep bonus AD on 1 picked dungeon run at least.

    Undisclosed reason for doing it this way is an anti-botting strategy. I don't know which-all content has bots, but I'd say it's a pretty effective way of killing their ability to leech runs.
    While it's certainly true that there is an added benefit of this feature making it significantly harder to farm AD from dungeons with bots, this was actually entirely a bonus that fell naturally out of the design. Random queues is something we've wanted to implement for a while to improve the play experience.

    I know that there are many players are thinking of things in terms of loss of efficiency right now. Many of you have gotten over the idea that you'll run Temple of the Spider twice a day for eternity. It's not the case that everyone who runs Temple of the Spider passionately loves that dungeon though. Keep in mind that for every player who had accepted that fate, there's another who upon learning that running Temple of the Spider twice a day for eternity was needed to max out their AD, said "no thank you" and stopped playing.

    It's not the case that we are being cynical here, we honestly believe that running the same exact content over and over when there are lots more options is, well, not great. We can't blame those players who quit because of that. We play as well and we'd like to mix it up and play more content. We understand that for those of you who tolerated running the same content over and over for efficiency are feeling a bit of a sting by having some of that freedom removed.

    However, as I mentioned the numbers are not yet final. We are going to keep watching this feedback thread, and even once the feature goes live, we're going to observe how you all play. This isn't a clandestine plan to dramatically reduce the amount of AD everyone is earning, so we'll definitely be adjusting the numbers so that this is a feature everyone can appreciate.

    I can say that we don't have plans to make any of these daily bonuses available twice. We'd like to keep things simple. If anything the bonuses themselves might be moved around or increased. We may also consider moving some of the daily bonus AD value into repeatable AD bonuses that come straight from the queue regardless of whether it was queued randomly. Ideally we'd like random queues to be something you want to run once per day. Additionally, if you don't have access to a certain random queue because you haven't met the requirements, we'd like there to be motivation to unlock and play those new contents. However, we don't want people to feel like running a queue manually is pointless.
    pointybagels said:

    Have you considered the major negative effects that this will cause from a community standpoint? By requiring people to use the queue to get daily AD guilds have a lot less incentive to run content together.

    It is still possible to run a random queue with a full guild group. There are no restrictions that prevent this. If you're referring to the idea that some players may not have unlocked all of the queues in a random category, you can still manually queue for a piece of content.

    Additionally, with refinement adjustments coming soon as well as the ease of acquiring new equipment both with Module 12's updates to seals, and new ways to obtain seals with random queues in Module 12B, raising your item level has never been easier.

This discussion has been closed.