Can we do anything about AB wait times?

So, A-Net... can we do anything about the wait times in AB? restarting the countdown 30 times is a bit much, i think.

Probably not. It's pretty expensive.

I think its a problem of synchronization or Max games at a time. Seriously i had twenty attempts before i got into an Alliance battle game.

I love Ab as much as the next guy but when it gets that insane.... And note this is the double weekend... While i didn't check the Luxon side.. im sure they are there. Come on Arena net, check the problem out and then extend our weekend =D

And hello Countess once again.

HI there. =)

Do a barrel roll!

Find out which side has less people in AB and go there.

I would love to hear the new explanation from the people who always say that there is no server limit. 5+ districts full on both sides and a 20 minute wait for a match.

woot, wait times have dropped. Maybe someone did something. oO(I wonder)Oo

All of a sudden? Doubt it. Funnily enough, I think a bunch of people just got tired of waiting.

Yeah, an explanation from Gaile would be nice.

It's obvious there is some limit on how many games can be going at one time. Wether it's a server limit or just a limit placed to stop the line moving too quickly, there's still a limit. When there's multiple full districts on each side and both sides are waiting a long time, it's quite obvious.

I'm told there are no server limitations. I have spoken to the programmers enough, over six years, to understand the way this is set up. So, understanding that, it seems that the wait times are almost certainly connected to alliance. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, if 80% of the players are Kurzick, and 20% are Luxon, the 'Zickies are going to have a longer wait.

If you have statistical evidence of a problem with the AB setup, please do let me know and I'll pass it along right away. I'm inclined to appraise this as imbalance of player counts, as I've been told it is. However, I know the designers will see this thread as well -- we'll be sure to include it in the weekly Community Summary. So if there's more to this situation than meets the eye and they're able to cast some light upon it, I'll let you know!

Edit: Loki's comment that there are lines "on both sides" is interesting. Is there any way you guys can grab some numbers on this? If we can present "XX Kurzick and YY Luxon all waiting at [this hour]" the team can probably research that to learn if there's a glitch. That would be great, if it's possible to do!

I'm fairly sure there is a max game limit, because I AB on both sides, and there have been numerous times I've been on the Luxon side waiting for a game with 3-4 servers and decided to have a look what is happening on the Kurzick side. Both sides are packed and have the same "No opposing party" message whenever you try to enter, despite clearly having enough players to start a game.

The most logical answer is that there is a maximum amount of games that can be played at once but there doesn't seem to be any conformation on this.

Just because there are a lot of people in district, it doesn't mean they have all pressed the enter battle button.

I played AB(luxon) from around 21:30BST -> 00:30BST last night and the longest we had to wait was 3 counter resets. Most of the time we got in as soon as the counter hit 00:00 on the first time round.

I agree with you Gaile, I AB quite a bit and I almost never have to wait, it is typically a bit when we are in etnaran (at morning times), but then you see kurzicks appear in the luxon side of the keys (I must admit that this is mainly deduced from titles, but i know some people too). I don't think there will be good statistical evidence, as I can already include my data that show, that there are hardly wait times on Luxon side. You would need quite a number of observations to make my data become an occurrence of chance (in statistics). For each observation like mine you would need at least 19 others that state that Luxon have long wait times as well, in a statistically significant way that is. Even more, the data need be gathered around a similar time frame in a reliable fashion. I don't think player statistics can give any answer due nature of people to fabricate data. The only reliable data would come from the servers themselves, and I don't think that you are gonna find them, besides from a few spike events maybe. I have taught quite a number of student in practicals and way too much of them are overconfident of their own ability to observe, handle correctly, and their conclusion, self-criticism is a virtue many lack. (think of all the wild stories like powercables inducing cancer, cell phones inducing brain cancer, etc. even scientists are often prone to such idiocy)
for the above stated reason I disagree, might have maybe more to do with parties that are scheduled for battles breaking up, and making the battle cancel to search for another party. WHy this is more likely? Well you might state that there are enough other parties to join, but u must consider that they are also scheduled for battles, so breaking one battle to fix a broken one is not a solution. Yesterday night parties disappeared in rapid succession supporting there is no limit on amount of battles staged. Rather you have bad connections due the amount of activity.

My question to you is how can you be so sure? there are many options you didn't consider and discuss, be more critical towards your ideas

I think it some of it could not all are even trying to enter AB. I see bunches of people hanging around and flaming each other, or having a dance party. Who knows if they are even trying to play.

i thought i recalled seeing that there was a max of 5 games (without citing update notes from several months ago). i also recall after that patch, there was absolutely no getting into ab...shortly afterward i remember seeing an ha guild with a name like, "no opposing players" winning hoh. might just be remembering incorrectly since i'd just come back from a terrible wow experience when factions came out.

also, i think the balance of players vary depending on who's winning. people are wusses like that.

Though I haven't AB'ed on the Kurzick side in awhile, the last time I was there there were definitely wait times as have been said. Given that, I am now in a luxon guild, and I can say that our guild has been heavily ABing this weekend, and I have had at least 1.5-2.5min waits most of the weekend, with wait times of up to 6minutes at the max. If the kurzick side is having the same problem right now, it seems there is something wrong other than simple player imbalance.

Uh, What?

As far as statistics are go, it doesn't take a genius to realise that people aren't going to want to play when they're disadvantaged hence huge wait times on maps like Ancestral Lands. Couple that with reduced faction for losing and you can just forget about it.

Leading Kurzick Alliance 75 Mill
Leading Luxon Alliance 25 Mill

Sherlock says nerf FFF. The numbers may even out a bit more.

Join Luxons. That is what my guild did and you get in real quick on the Luxon side.Also try and amuse yourself like start arguements and what not in local chat. My personal favorite is "Subway Sucks" so many people get angry over that one and fists fly over Quiznos and Subway and many other Hoagie restraunts and which is the best. Make the best of your time

Just got sick of waiting on the Luxon side of Kaanai Canyon. There were 7 districts and we waited through 40 resets. No luck.

Honestly, with the nerf to losing side faction gain I can't see why any appreciable number of Kurzicks would be playing on the Kaanai Canyon map, which probably explains the excessive wait time.

So, the latest AB update makes it so that players who would otherwise want to participate in ABs see no gain (minimal faction gain per unit time) to playing on the extreme disadvantaged side. Similarly, the other faction has the extreme advantage and so more people from that side flock to ABs. The result is a very low number of available players on the disadvantaged side and grossly inflated number of players on the side with the advantage - the disparity causing huge wait times to those with the advantage.

So, the net result of the recent AB faction update seems to be that, on maps where one side has an advantage, very few people _want_ to play on the disadvantaged side, and very few people _can_ play (due to excessive wait times) on the advantaged side. Or, in other words, everyone is unhappy. Sounds like an effective update to me.

Well, on the Luxon side, I never had to wait more then a miniute this entire weekend. That is due to two reasons

A) More Luxons AB for faction since they do not have as easy of a repeatable FFF quest (thus if the AB map is against the Kurzicks, those hard core Kurzick faction farmers switch over to quests instead of ABing for efficient faction gain)

B) There are more Kurzicks to Luxons overall. I really do believe this is true, judging from the armor amounts I see all the time (Kurzick armor is more common then Luxon) and the number of districts in Cavalon and HZH back when Factions was still new.

There is no point in abing when you are guaranteed to lose. Spending 15 minutes for 100-150 faction is a waste of time when you can just walk over some enemies in factions and get 500 in 10 minutes. It's not even like it's fun being at that much of a disadvantage, you just get rolled over and hunted.