Login

MongoJerry · (This post was last modified: 07-29-2006, 06:01 AM by MongoJerry.)

Concillian Wrote:I think perhaps you underestimate the queue length differences on normal servers. If I want in a WSG or AV during normal playtimes (weekends, afternoon --> midnight-ish) I can expect to get into an instance before I ride to the bank from the battlemaster. From reading the realm forum, and talking to Stormrage folk, it seems alliance can expect to make it somewhere and get some solid solo farming time in while in queue. That is not a low pool size issue, that's a pop imbalance issue. These circumstances are nowhere near "rare" on a Normal server.

Gnollguy Wrote:Yep Average queue time for my horde on Terenas (which is about 70% alliance vs 30% horde just like Stormrage) is like Conc said about 1 minute. Alliance side on Stormrage, it's about 2 hours. So 120 times longer for alliance. Yes it technically is pool size, but the problem is that even if all the horde queued up, and only half the alliance did, you would still have longer queues alliance side. So the issue really is there simply aren't enough horde, at all, to make the groups.

You have correct data, but you are both coming to the wrong conclusions. The conclusion from the data you have presented is that the problem is that the number of players queuing up for a specific battleground at any given time is not large enough. The problem is not the overall ratio of the population imbalances. Allow me to explain with some numbers.

Let BGLENGTH represent the average length of a specific type of battleground match, then in an large population scenario, the queue length for various Alliance/Horde ratios of players queuing up for that battleground will be (Alliance/Horde - 1)*BGLENGTH:

Code:
Alliance/Horde Ratio&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Queue Length

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1.0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1.2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .2*BGLENGTH

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1.5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .5*BGLENGTH

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1.7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; .7*BGLENGTH

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 2.0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BGLENGTH

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 2.5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1.5*BGLENGTH

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 3.0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2*BGLENGTH

The smaller faction will have instant queues. Let's now take some real numbers. Let's say that WSG and AB on average take around 20 minutes -- some matches are pug-stomps that only take 5 minutes and others are real nail-biter grudge matches that take longer. Then the table becomes:

Code:
Alliance/Horde Ratio&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Queue Length for WSG/AB(mins)

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1.0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1.2&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1.5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 1.7&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 14

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 2.0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 20

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 2.5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 30

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 3.0&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 40

Now, find the Alliance/Horde ratio that corresponds to your server. If you ever experience wait times longer than what is shown in the table, you are experiencing a problem caused by bottlenecks created by the small number of people queuing up for battlegrounds at the moment you are trying to play and not a problem caused by overall Alliance/Horde ratio. The table above completely accounts for Alliance/Horde ratios. Let me say that again. If you experience wait times that are longer than what is shown above, you are not experiencing a problem caused by the overall Alliance/Horde ratio on your server.

Allow me to illustrate the point with a hypothetical but realistic story of a WSG queue on a typical evening. Because integers are easier to work with, let's say that you are on a server with an extreme Alliance/Horde imbalance with a ratio of two Alliance players for every one Horde.

The story of WSG queues on a typical weekday evening:

The evening starts out with 20 Alliance players and 10 Horde players queuing up for WSG.
Average queue time: 20 minutes<>
An Alliance team decides to form up and do some WSG.
Average queue time: 40 minutes<>
The huge queue time drives 10 Alliance players away.
Average queue time: 20 minutes<>
A Horde team decides to form up and join WSG.
Average queue time: Instant!<>
The call goes out to various guild chats, "The Horde have come to play! I'm getting instant queues here!" Two Alliance teams form up to play.
Average queue time: 20 minutes<>
The Horde team and one of the Alliance teams get in a hard pitched battle with one another. The match ends up taking an hour and a half to resolve. The remaining 30 Alliance players and 10 Horde players are left to fight with each other during this time.
Queue time: 40 minutes<>
After such an intense game, the Horde and Alliance teams decide to log off and take a break.
Average queue time: 40 minutes<>
One of the alliance teams gets sick of the long queue and quits. Average queue time: 20 minutes<>
It starts getting late. 5 of the Horde players go to bed. No games pop up for a while for all parties. Finally, a Horde player decides to join and a 6v6 WSG that everyone hates comes up. More Horde players leave.
Average queue time: Infinity<>
[st]The story of level 30-39 WSG
1. Three Horde and six Alliance players queue up for level 30-39 WSG. At one point, a Horde twink team signs up and a 10v6 twink vs pug game happens that is over in 5 minutes. Alliance players quit and no other game happens for the rest of the evening.
  Average queue time: Infinity<>
  [st]What can we expect in 1.12?
  
  Why will cross-server battlegrounds in 1.12 make the queues so much better? Easy:
  1. The various bottlenecks will be wiped away so that the queues will truly only be limited by the overall Alliance/Horde imbalance as shown in the tables above. For most people, that alone will be a significant improvement.<>
  2. Extreme faction imbalances will be smoothed out. Some servers have truly awful faction ratios like 2.0-3.0. Meanwhile, some servers (like Tichondrius) actually have more Horde queuing up for battlegrounds than Alliance players do. Overall, it should smooth to something on the order of 1.3 Alliance/Horde ratio, which would correspond to a 6 minute wait time for WSG/AB for Alliance and instant queues all the time for Horde. I think most people could live with that.<>
  3. Games with great numerical imbalances should largely be eliminated. If people /afk out or disconnect, they will be quickly replaced. No more 10v6 WSG games!<>
  4. Low level WSG and AB games will happen more regularly.<>
    [st]Overall, I'm looking forward to how 1.12 will help battleground queues. Mind you, there are lots of other things to fix like the poorly thought out honor system, but I will be glad to see that the problems with battleground queues will be fixed.

Login
Username:
Password:	Lost Password?
	Remember me