City Queue Dodging

[Phantasm]

City dogging is not the main problem. Issue lies much deeper, in the game design. Lets start from the vertical progression...

Thats basically one of pillars of mmorpg. Thats why you log in and keep playing.
Besides, devs made it quite easy to get sov and invader tokens only doing RvR and skiping fort/cities. Vanq+ gear on 90% of classes is totally enough to make a contribution to group effort. So correct issue is - you agree to create or take a part of coordinated via discord group/warband and try to play around pairing system to get easiest effort/reward by dodging competition.
Pugs are totally different story. I played many times in 20 dps vs 20 dps cities and some of them were totally fun.

[mynban]

I agree with those saying issue is exacerbated with low population. When you know there is going to be 3 instances, dodging makes potential benefit from doing so makes so much more beneficial.

I see 3 criteria that has direct impact in the issue:

- Low Population
- Numbers per instance
- Ability to dodge queue

Low Population
We cant help with how low population is; but one thing that can be done is putting city at set-predefined times on weekend (independent from oRvR activity). This will mean a lot of people will log on just for that, and we can have many instances going, where dodging is less impactful. And honestly, I think city being tied to oRvR is really promoting worst behaviour. Potential defenders for last keep/fort have two options hanging in front of them; attempt to win it and prevent city; or throw defense and go to city. There should be absolutely no incentive for wanting to lose. This was a design mistake, and still is. I think it is a separate discussion, but it makes things a lot worse by promoting multi account xrealming as well.

Numbers per instance
I think city is a really bad game mode, and there is nothing fun about it. It all boils down to that one fight in middle BO, and that decides the game. But it is sandwiched with 20 mins of PvE and just waiting around. But even then I dont want to say lets change it, and same applies to numbers going in.

Ability to dodge queue
Complete separation of queue period /from/ period pairing order&destro; would mean devs have control over coming up with a mechanic that pairs similar wbs from a big pool, instead of making it one by one as they become available.

I hope this conversation leads to some improvement, because player pop will not go up anytime soon for the issue to solve itself.

[Tonkatruk]

Just make it a massive solo ranked type thing - Even if you get queued by the warband leader, or if you queue solo.....

"The heat of battle and confusion of the siege finds you split up from the rest of your warband"

Then you get auto-sorted into 2/2/2's from those queuing. You might get teamed up with a few in your guild etc but each instance will more or less be 'fair' on each side. Those that don't get a pop, get a city star based reward. Removes the premade issue some were talking about and fills up the instances balanced on each faction (more or less) Would probably encourage more to queue too.

[Brakh]

City dogging is not the main problem. Issue lies much deeper, in the game design. Lets start from the vertical progression...

Thats basically one of pillars of mmorpg. Thats why you log in and keep playing.
Besides, devs made it quite easy to get sov and invader tokens only doing RvR and skiping fort/cities. Vanq+ gear on 90% of classes is totally enough to make a contribution to group effort. So correct issue is - you agree to create or take a part of coordinated via discord group/warband and try to play around pairing system to get easiest effort/reward by dodging competition.
Pugs are totally different story. I played many times in 20 dps vs 20 dps cities and some of them were totally fun.

It is hard to find any decent MMO these days, however current standards are more like to have vertical progression up to certain level which can be obtained in reasonable time. When reaching this treshold overall powerlevel should be rather capped but from then you can participate in some attractive endgame activities which are offering only cosmetics and minor power level increase. This should extend longevity of the game. Coz now, there is a rush to 80/Sov or warlord, when done you are just rolling next alt.

[Scottx125]

Just make it a massive solo ranked type thing - Even if you get queued by the warband leader, or if you queue solo.....

"The heat of battle and confusion of the siege finds you split up from the rest of your warband"

Then you get auto-sorted into 2/2/2's from those queuing. You might get teamed up with a few in your guild etc but each instance will more or less be 'fair' on each side. Those that don't get a pop, get a city star based reward. Removes the premade issue some were talking about and fills up the instances balanced on each faction (more or less) Would probably encourage more to queue too.

Honestly that's what my guild tends to do now. We just all solo queue and then group ourselves if we end up in the same instance. Reduces the chance of being paired with some horrid destro WB that's max geared with ST focus. And I'll be honest the quality of city's has been better for it. Even if we are losing, fights are very close and it's actually fun.