So I typically play tank classes, but I decided to play a little Rogue for a change of pace. As a tank, my queue times are usually close to zero and never more than a minute. But for a DPS, I was expecting a bit of a wait. I queued in for a random Lich King dungeon and the timer was 5 minutes. As the clock approached 5 minutes, the timer jumped to 7 minutes. Then when that approached, it went to 9. And then 13 and then 17. At that point I gave up.
So my question is… What’s up with that? Is the timer not working? If I had known it was going to be a 20 minute queue, I’d have gone a done some questing somewhere, but when it said 5 minutes, I just hung out in Orgrimmar checking people out. But then it just dragged on and on. Very annoying. Like when the airline keeps delaying your flight by 15 minutes over and over so nobody has a chance to go do something else (or make other arrangements).
The ratio of DPS, even though there are 3 slots, is still far greater than the number of tanks/healers that queue. That is why, as DPS, you’ll have longer queues.
I know that my friend who plays on his unfunded license and thus plays a lot of 20s always complains about how the queue timer extends way beyond what it estimates and that the timer changes quite often.
Not sure why it behaves that way though, as it is not what I see on my end (here on my NA license). I have, however, noticed odd queue timers and longer than anticipated waits on my Starter EU license.
Honestly it is very Germain to your question. It all depends how many DPS are queing vs how many tanks and healers are! If you have a few tanks and healers then your que will go up by a lot. But if there is a lot of tanks and healers then you will have quick Que timers.
Again… I understand what the words AVERAGE and WAIT and TIME mean. You gotta read the question. I know DPS have longer queues. It’s the creep of the timer that is the issue.
That said, a long time ago the system was adjusted to place priority on those with paid accounts. So, playing DPS on an unfunded account is going to put you at a disadvantage to those on a paid account.
Additionally, unless there was a change, I believe that the unfunded accounts were placed in the queue with accounts that have frozen XP (thus a longer queue too).
I GET IT!! There are way more DPS than tanks! I ALREADY KNOW THIS!! That’s why I love playing a tank. The issue is the fluctuation of the timer. If it said 20 minutes, then fine. But why does it say 5 minutes, then jump to 7, then 9, 13, 17, etc.
#dfmb
I don’t understand. Why does that make the timer creep?
#dfmb
That’s actually interesting information. Not necessarily relevant to the timer creep issue, but really very helpful. Thanks for that. Do you have a source for that? Because if true, I will definitely not be playing a DPS anymore and go back to my tank classes. Don’t get me wrong, I accept second class status as a F2Per. Just want to be sure this priority really is a thing.
Because if the timer for dps is based on the average wait time of the previous groups that have been formed, and those groups are now taking longer to form than at the time you queued because of a lack of tanks, then the average wait time will be increasing. You theoretically will only ever see the timer increase (never decrease) because there are people ahead of you in queue that have been waiting longer. It’s when the timer is stalled that you should be worrying, since that means groups aren’t forming.
The “timer creep issue” isn’t really an issue. If you think that you’ve found a bug (which I personally don’t believe is the case here) then you’ll want to post in the Bug Report forum.
It happened a very long time ago. So I do not have a source at hand. You’re welcome to go through the Patch Notes and see if you can find it though.
At the end of the day, even if the timer is changing, you have options. Play a tank or healer or accept that as DPS your timer will always be longer than you want it to be.
Because everyone doesn’t queue solo. There aren’t always 3 dps slots for every tank or healer. My guild tanks grab as many of us as they can to lower our queue times. If you enter at a time when lots of partial groups are queueing together, even if that wasn’t the case 5 minutes ago, your wait will go up, and the wait time will go up.
It’s the same reason that when 1 person doesn’t take the invite the queue doesn’t pop again 3 seconds later. All of the open spots aren’t the same.
But more than tripling? Is the algorithm that loose? I mean if the timer was 40 minutes and crept up to 52, it’s not that far off. But from 5 to 17 is huge. It’s the same 12 minutes, but the wait time is more than triple. That seems really out of whack.
#dfmb
Um… maybe not to you. But it is to me. Which is why I posted about it. I did NOT post about DPS queue times being long, which people here seemed to seize upon.
Very well then. I’ll take your suggestion and submit it (via the in game feature) whenever I see the timer behaving wonky like that. I’ll skip the bug forum to avoid that same misunderstanding of my post.
Oh. Ok.
Indeed I do. But again, the longer time wasn’t the issue. It’s the creep that doesn’t make sense to me.
It having tripled isn’t relevant. 12 minutes is 12 minutes. The average will be more prone to fluctuation at lower values as those previous groups likely got lucky and had tanks/healers queue up quickly so they weren’t waiting.
There could have been 10 tanks in the queue when you started, granting a 5 min dps timer.
3 tanks finish their tasks and decide not to do more dungeons. No more tanks have joined the queue, so now there is 7.
2 more tanks decide they really like the group they matched with and want to do more dungeons with them, taking them out of the random dungeon finder.
So now in the span of 7-8min dungeon run you’ve lost half your tanks. You’re original 5 min timer is now doubled to 10 mins. But better up it another couple of minutes, more dps joined the queue.
Of course it is. A queue timer of 5 minutes creeping up to 17 minutes (and probably more) is a bad presentation of the estimated wait time. It misleads players into thinking a dungeon is imminent and so we may choose to wait rather than go off an engage in other activities. If you knew that the queue time was going to be about 25 minutes, you might, for example, hop on a ship to Northrend and do some old quests. But when it tells you it’s only 5 minutes, it wouldn’t make sense.
The queue timer is not giving an accurate picture of the wait time. And that ought to be fixed.
).
I GET IT!! There are way more DPS than tanks! I ALREADY KNOW THIS!! That’s why I love playing a tank. The issue is the fluctuation of the timer. If it said 20 minutes, then fine. But why does it say 5 minutes, then jump to 7, then 9, 13, 17, etc.