The Current State of Group Queue BGs

Aldoss · October 1

It's been made apparent to me over the last 24 hours that most of the people on the forum commenting on the BG changes are either casual solo'ers. It's no question that the largest queuing population right now are solo'ers and as such, have no basis of understanding for what the group queue even is. This post is here to serve as a basis for understanding and perspective for them as well as for ZOS.

The current group queue is 100% supported by casual duo'ers. This is not conjecture. In this game, if someone wants to casually BG with their friends, they'll do one of three things:
- queue as a duo and possibly get a queue between 8-20min during prime time US hours
- queue as a trio and never get a queue
- queue as a quad and wait between 8-40min during prime time US hours
- ***If any of the above combinations queue between 3am and ~6pm US EST, they will never get a queue to pop

Casual 4's are unicorns. They almost never exist. Trios are extremely rare as well because their entire existence and ability to get in a lobby is dependent on the existence of someone willing to solo queue into group queue, which doesn't happen very often except by a select few known PvPers.

Coordinated, optimized 4-mans are somewhat common during prime time US hours, but honestly aren't as common as people may believe, mostly because this game and the combat team have completely neglected this community for the last 7 years and all but killed it.

Most nights, my wife and I will log on around 9:30pm-10pm and we'll get anywhere between 0 and 4 BGs in before we log off around 11pm-11:30pm.

Some nights, we'll play against the same combinations of duos for every game. Sometimes, there's clearly at least 6-10 sets of duos that are getting into different matches as we notice the names change.

Some nights, we'll experience something unique where we queue and it pops instantly, only to realize that there was a coordinated, optimized 4-man in queue and 3 other duos dumb enough to queue. We'll get trounced. The 4 man will have whatever fun they can, given that they likely waited in queue for 30-45min (or sometimes longer), our teammates will leave, and the other team might also leave. When that happens, the 3 other duos stop queuing and my wife and I will stay in queue for 20 min. After 20 min, we log off for the night, not getting the play the game that we want to play.

My plea here is that there is no combination of "coordinated, optimized" duos that ever kills the queue for the entire night. ONLY a coordinated, optimized 4-man can do that, and this idea that there will be several of these groups of weirdos that want to optimize together only to slaughter baby seals has weak evidence supporting it.

The coordinated, optimized 4-mans that we experience are not trolls. Most of them are my current or former guild mates. They just want to play the game just like us and they want to play against other coordinated, optimized 4-mans. ZOS just game them their wish. There's a queue for them.

There are currently no 4-man premades that I know about that are actually in the group queue just to club baby seals and ruin the queue. The system is not set up to support them. If they do that, all it takes is one game and the queue will 100% be destroyed.

Hell, solo queue can also result in toxic group comps. I was in a solo lobby the other night where both other teams but mine got healers in a DM. The two teams didn't spend much time fighting each other, but instead were battling it out to see which one of them could score the spawn camping killing blow on me and my teammates. One of my teammates left halfway.

Here's what I want for you to know: advocating for ZOS to include duos into the 8v8 "casual" queue, should be something everyone wants. 90% of the "groups" that exist in the group queue right now are casual duo'ers. 9% of the groups are well known PvP BGers that do not coordinate their builds at all and are just great PvPers with 1vX builds on that happened to queue together. These PvPers appear in the solo queue frequently and play the exact same way as they do in the group queue as they do in the solo, under the circumstance that they get placed on the same team. 1% of the groups are coordinated, optimized 4-mans.

The 4-mans will almost invariably stay in the mode that offers them what they want which is to fight against their friends that are also in coordinated, optimized 4-man groups in the competitive 4v4 mode.

Advocating to ZOS for the inclusion of duos into the 8v8 broadens the queuing population, lowers queue times, expands simultaneous lobbies, and comes with the benefit that you, should you ever desire it in the future, are able to share your love of BGs with a new friend, an old friend, or a significant other without having to suffer through long queue times or complete dead times where group queue literally can never pop (3am - 6pm US EST most days).

Here's my ideal queue options:
- 4v4 group (ranked, MMR)
- 4v4 casual - solos, duos (no rank, no MMR)
- 8v8 group (ranked, MMR)
- 8v8 casual - solos, duos (no rank, no MMR)
- The ability to queue for any combination of the above as a solo or duo, to make your queue time as short as possible

Wrapping Up

The dev comment on 10.2.2 said this:

They didn't say it wasn't possible. They said it was "beyond the scope" which, in my experience with ZOS speak, is them admitting that they didn't give themselves enough time to act on the copious amounts of feedback given to them and cannot implement this idea before the patch goes live. Surprise, surprise.

I'm also not stupid and I'm operating on the understanding that ZOS will push 44 live and then completely neglect BGs existence for another 5-7 years. 5 years of reading PTS notes has taught me this.

However, I'm not going down without at least making it known that we as a united community can advocate for something that benefits everyone, solos and casual duoers, as well as coordinated, optimized 4-mans included, and maybe there's a glimmer of hope that ZOS chooses to work on the functionality 3-40 patches from now.

If you're going to applaud ZOS for making this solo queue change, I'd at least appreciate some acknowledgement that you realize that the community of casual duo'ers is getting shafted by this bandaid fix.

licenturion · October 1

OMG another thread about this.

Do you try to drown out other people their reactions by making more threads so you look like the 'overwhelming majority'?

We have had solo queues for years. Stop trying to take our fun equal playground away and go queue in the group queue if you are not playing solo you have an advantage, even if it is tiny, it still is an advantage. It is very simple.

We solo players have no effect on your group queue times because a lot of us rather not play battlegrounds anymore instead of being forced into something we are vehemently against. The reason we got our solo queue back is because there was massive feedback and discussion on this topic and they made changes accordingly.

And you make it sound oh so cute and romantic with 'share your love of BGs with a new friend, an old friend, or a significant other' but the hard reality is that a lot of people would just use the system to farm the system for rewards, medals and stomping grounds. PvP in any game is never roses and butterflies. And most people know this will happen, hence the debate.

You also seem to have a lot of insider knowledge since you are fencing with player base percentage data everywhere lol

Necrotech_Master · October 1

in the current system, queueing with 3 people is the worst because the max team size is 4, so going in with 3 is praying to the RNG gods that a solo player is queuing into the group queue

with an 8 person team, max team size of 4, going in with 3 could still match with another full group of 3 and a duo

i would also say i definitely have done 4 person semi casual group queues in the current BG system, because as noted a group of 3 is impossible to get into the queue, so i either do 2 or 4 person groups for queuing

the biggest problem with queuing into the current BGs with a full group though, is two part problem: part 1 is low population, so the MMR cant work properly, and part 2 is because of the lower population, matches are still imbalanced because our casual group would get matched against at least 1 group of heavily optimized sweaty players

CameraBeardThePirate · October 1

licenturion wrote: »

OMG another thread about this.

Do you try to drown out other people their reactions by making more threads so you look like the 'overwhelming majority'?

We have had solo queues for years. Stop trying to take our fun equal playground away and go queue in the group queue if you are not playing solo you have an advantage, even if it is tiny, it still is an advantage. It is very simple.

We solo players have no effect on your group queue times because a lot of us rather not play battlegrounds anymore instead of being forced into something we are vehemently against. The reason we got our solo queue back is because there was massive feedback and discussion on this topic and they made changes accordingly.

And you make it sound oh so cute and romantic with 'share your love of BGs with a new friend, an old friend, or a significant other' but the hard reality is that a lot of people would just use the system to farm the system for rewards, medals and stomping grounds. PvP in any game is never roses and butterflies. And most people know this will happen, hence the debate.

You also seem to have a lot of insider knowledge since you are fencing with player base percentage data everywhere lol

There would be virtually no difference between solo only and solo + duo queue, especially in 8v8. A duo queueing into a 8 person team would not have any more effect on the balance of the match than 2 solo queuers that know what they're doing.

Thumbless_Bot · October 2

"If you're going to applaud ZOS for making this solo queue change, I'd at least appreciate some acknowledgement that you realize that the community of casual duo'ers is getting shafted by this bandaid fix."

No.

Nothing has change for you except you won't have solos to gang up on. If that bothers you then it only shows that you were a fan of imbalance.

I believe you can still queue for group as a 2 person band.

Actually can you queue into group as duo or solo or 3 or 4 or 5?

Necrotech_Master · October 2

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

"If you're going to applaud ZOS for making this solo queue change, I'd at least appreciate some acknowledgement that you realize that the community of casual duo'ers is getting shafted by this bandaid fix."

No.

Nothing has change for you except you won't have solos to gang up on. If that bothers you then it only shows that you were a fan of imbalance.

I believe you can still queue for group as a 2 person band.

Actually can you queue into group as duo or solo or 3 or 4 or 5?

the way it was described is the group queue will allow solo, 2 person, 3 person, and 4 person groups, but nothing larger than 4 person

Thumbless_Bot · October 2

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

"If you're going to applaud ZOS for making this solo queue change, I'd at least appreciate some acknowledgement that you realize that the community of casual duo'ers is getting shafted by this bandaid fix."

No.

Nothing has change for you except you won't have solos to gang up on. If that bothers you then it only shows that you were a fan of imbalance.

I believe you can still queue for group as a 2 person band.

Actually can you queue into group as duo or solo or 3 or 4 or 5?

the way it was described is the group queue will allow solo, 2 person, 3 person, and 4 person groups, but nothing larger than 4 person

Thanks.

So yeah, no loss for duos except their ability to queue up against solos.

Duos can be incredibly toxic with a pair of meme builds. So glad they won't be in solo queue bgs

cptscotty · October 2

To chime in here...Please...fix group queue for BGs. Its so broken right now. It takes forever to get into a BG as a group which is what a lot of PvE players want to do....which is needed to get more PvP players as they get converted over time when brought/dragged in as a group.

The queue is so broken that the strategy one night was to have everyone queue solo at the same time and get put in the same BG within a couple minutes. This worked every single time to get into the same BG...yet we couldnt do it the proper way as a group.

Aldoss · October 2

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Nothing has change for you

That's the whole point.

The group queue is laughable. Did you read my post? It's a tragic waste of resources for the brunt of the changes from over a year's worth of investment to only affect the QoL for casual solos and coordinated 4-mans, completely missing the point of what it means to be a social mmorpg.

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

If that bothers you then it only shows that you were a fan of imbalance.

99% of my game time is group queue as a casual duo and group queue doesn't get solos, except for the random time that @SkaraMinoc and a few others decide to queue in.

Please tell me, how is this proof that I was a fan of imbalance?

The queue is a disgrace to a social game.

licenturion · October 2

Aldoss wrote: »

Please tell me, how is this proof that I was a fan of imbalance?

The queue is a disgrace to a social game.

To me it just comes across like you are campaigning very hard as a non-solo to take the option away for solo players because it would benefit you in some way. (queue times, difficulty, etc).

The fact that we want a fair equal playground when we queue solo does not mean we are anti social. I do dungeons and trials all the time with the group finder as well and I am in trading guilds. But when I queue solo, I want to play against solo's too.

If you don't play solo, you should leave the options for solo players alone.

Thumbless_Bot · October 2

Aldoss wrote: »

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Nothing has change for you

That's the whole point.

The group queue is laughable. Did you read my post? It's a tragic waste of resources for the brunt of the changes from over a year's worth of investment to only affect the QoL for casual solos and coordinated 4-mans, completely missing the point of what it means to be a social mmorpg.

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

If that bothers you then it only shows that you were a fan of imbalance.

99% of my game time is group queue as a casual duo and group queue doesn't get solos, except for the random time that @SkaraMinoc and a few others decide to queue in.

Please tell me, how is this proof that I was a fan of imbalance?

The queue is a disgrace to a social game.

What Lucenturion said, and... having solos queue with groups, of any size puts them at a very clear disadvantage. I mean, are you going to nerf your duo by not optimizing between yourselves? I find that hard to believe. Even casuals want to win and x.

So you are literally right back where you started before the patch.

My life also hasn't improved.

We both get two sided battlegrounds that maybe one guy using dial up on a deserted island wanted. Like, seriously, where did this even come from...

We both get rounds and sigils and transformations that turn bgs into a circus. I'm just waiting for a trapeze to fling us into the bg map like old school jungle hunt and a clown walking around selling cotton candy that uniquely buffs our stats.

And we both get the joy of the inevitable lopsided spawn farming that every single bg will likely devolve into after everyone gets their feet under them in this new format.

Lastly,

The game is designed to let players play the way they want. I have a very busy life and do not have the time to coordinate even a pug. Solo queue is my only option. It is not a disgrace, it is an option and for me a qol thing. And, quite frankly, if bgs were that popular with groups in this, as you say, social game, you would think your queue time would be like mine.

Aldoss · October 2

Thanks for both of your opinions. I'm happy that you'll have a game that works for you. The game doesn't currently work for casual duos and that won't be fixed next patch.

Cheers.

Sylosi · October 2

Aldoss wrote: »

...completely missing the point of what it means to be a social mmorpg.

Not really.

Let's start with "social". Grouping does not magically equate to a social MMORPG. For example I've been in guilds where we've kicked people who were grouped 24/7 (in their own little group), basically for barely interacting with the rest of the guild. Typically this was either a couple in a relationship or two/three real life friends. Essentially they wanted the benefit of our guilds (like a once a week raid or simply the buffs they got) without really partaking in the guild, continuing to play with their own tiny group with only the barest of interaction with the rest of the guild and presumably anyone else in the game. They should be playing a co-op or normal multiplayer, not an MMORPG, where frankly they are anti-social.

Whilst contrary to that I've been in guilds where we've had someone who played mostly solo, but were always fun in guild chat so we kept them, their sociability kept them in our guild.

Now let's go on to it being an MMORPG, I hate to break it to you, but BG's aren't very MMORPG in the first place. They aren't massively multiplayer and they are set in their own instance outside of the persistent world, basically the opposite to what would be actual MMORPG PvP - open world, or at push something like Cyrodiil back when how well your faction was doing in Cyrodiil resulted in buffs to your faction across the entire game.

Which is why I find it amusing when people playing BGs or doing 4-man dungeons start crying about MMORPGs catering to "solo players", ignorantly oblivious that these MMORPGs are also catering to them who are more interested in game play that is akin to a co-op game or a normal multiplayer rather than that of an actual MMORPG.

In regard to duos in BG's, I think they should at least try out letting duos queue in the 8v8. But they absolutely should have MMR in casual. It is not accident that small team PvP games with millions / tens of millions of monthly active players use MMR even in unranked, albeit a less strict MMR than they use in ranked. MMR reduces both the number of uneven matches and the degree of unevenness, uneven matches are not fun for anyone who is not a bit "special".

MincMincMinc · October 2

Somehow people think zos can afford to do 30 separate game mode ques with solo/duo/trio/quad teams and different game modes etc.....Guys there isnt enough population for that.

As it stands there isnt enough population to fill out group ques. Even if they did fill out mmr means nothing since the pop is so low that new players group queing will have a horrible experience and just never que again.

It doesnt help that the daily rewards only incentivize playing any bg.... so people login que for solo and afk for the round or just solely run the objectives without gear slotted. It would be healthier for the que system if zos forced daily rewards to only be granted on whichever que system needs population. Which would at least dilute the group que system.

Thumbless_Bot · October 2

Aldoss wrote: »

Thanks for both of your opinions. I'm happy that you'll have a game that works for you. The game doesn't currently work for casual duos and that won't be fixed next patch.

Cheers.

It definitely stinks. Fwiw i would love it if we had worlds like Fallout 76. My wife sits on her laptop and I sit next to her on mine and we both play our own games. She would join me in eso if we had that and it would be awesome couch coop.

huskandhunger · October 5

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

Thanks for both of your opinions. I'm happy that you'll have a game that works for you. The game doesn't currently work for casual duos and that won't be fixed next patch.

Cheers.

It definitely stinks. Fwiw i would love it if we had worlds like Fallout 76. My wife sits on her laptop and I sit next to her on mine and we both play our own games. She would join me in eso if we had that and it would be awesome couch coop.

but at least you still game together by each other's side awww 💖

Techwolf_Lupindo · October 5

All I want is to be able to que solo or group and NOT get deathmatch. Every guildie and friend rarely plays battle grounds due to no way to NOT get deathmatch. The last BG I was in had one pre-made deathmatch group that dominated by killing everyone and not playing the objective against my team of four and later found out the last team was just 2 players. Had to just wait out the 10 minutes to finish the match.

Thumbless_Bot · October 5

Techwolf_Lupindo wrote: »

All I want is to be able to que solo or group and NOT get deathmatch. Every guildie and friend rarely plays battle grounds due to no way to NOT get deathmatch. The last BG I was in had one pre-made deathmatch group that dominated by killing everyone and not playing the objective against my team of four and later found out the last team was just 2 players. Had to just wait out the 10 minutes to finish the match.

It's a BATTLE ground. The best way to ensure victory is to win the battle and then take whatever the objective is.

Agree there is usually one group who just runs around x-ing and doesn't care about objectives. This comes with the territory and this will only be exacerbated with the new rounds and lives format. Death will always be first, then secondary objectives.