Can anyone explain how the BG queue works?

[Merlin]

As all of you must already know, BG queues are especially long (excluding the 10s and 20s BGs), taking on average more than an hour to pop. I tested the following: I opened several accounts and set one level 35 to queue for a BG. When the BG popped and I entered, there were only 3 to 5 players inside. Immediately, I queued 3 or 4 more level 35s for the same BG. 99% of the time, these additional characters did not get a pop, even though the BG wasn’t full. The remaining 1% of the time, they did get a pop and entered the same BG. Why is this happening? I tested this multiple times with level 30s and 40s BGs and found it strange.

Another puzzling thing is that 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s BGs don’t pop at the same time. I queued for all brackets using multiple accounts, and most of the time, they did not overlap—meaning no two BGs were running simultaneously, regardless of level bracket. Occasionally (very rarely), one would pop when another was near the end of the game.

So my question is: Do BGs not pop automatically when there are enough players? Or is Blizzard limiting the number of BGs running at any given time? Even with the current low player count, a 7-hour wait for a BG doesn’t seem possible… right?

 

[shanker]

if there is a problem, it would take players coordinating from both factions to test the BG queing and player finding system

blizz had problems filling BGs in the past after expacs/patches when multiple players were in que, a WSG would pop 10 vs 6. one of the 6 knows the others in que, verifying they are in que, thru the BG the others that would fill the short side never got added. we had to mass report to get past their slick teflon responses like players are not accepting the ques, not enough are queing, or are AFK, etc. before it got fixed

XPoff BGs - right now 20-29 gets pops, but the ques can be 30min to 1 hr plus depending on time of the day, day of the week, and players, not sure is those who are DF capped are getting pops

XPon BGs - 10-19 does pop, avg 12-30 min+ ques, blizz pops and starts lop sided BGs. worst i have seen to date was 10 vs 3. i suspect after new to wow players that are ill geared, no enchants, or BOAs get to experience blizzard allowing 80s with full tool kits and god mode scaling (complaints on this going up to five years back), leveling disposable twinks built to various degrees, the OP imbalance that priests, MM hunters, res druids, and to some degree res sham and des locks have along with the negative comments in BG chat. i seriously doubt they want to level in 20 to 70+ BG brackets.

i have rolled 16+ players now 10-20 in the last month alone, i use MOP ilvl-25 vendor gear at 10 to get to 16 then use ilvl-72 to 20. i do get some minor enchants that total about +17 main stat, 2 crit, and 3 stam. if i do a hunter i use BOA gem bow with two +1 agi gems, caster i do the wotlk +SP wpn. even with that, BGs can be rather rough for me.

this expac has been worse than BFA which was nicknamed Beta for Azeroth, DEVs have been putting out fires near constantly at times in the Beta Within expac. they are spread thin and spread between 4-5 other versions of the game that are active, next two versions, and the next expac.

you look at wow forums, which i rarely do, imo seems the complaints are shots into a void, when you see comments and reminders that X, Y, Z, etc. has been or still is broken for times from 1 to 2+ years. a few blizz will acknowledge it's a bug but have no fix or state if it's in work.

 

[BANKONE]

I guess some folllow up questions:

- were the 35s xp on or xpoff?
- what BG popped that you couldn’t get to pop on the others
- what faction were the 35s? What faction was imbalanced?
- inside the BG were there other cross faction players on your/opposing team (ex horde player playing in group on alliance)
- were your 35s grouped or solo ?

 

[Merlin]

I guess some folllow up questions:

- were the 35s xp on or xpoff?
- what BG popped that you couldn’t get to pop on the others
- what faction were the 35s? What faction was imbalanced?
- inside the BG were there other cross faction players on your/opposing team (ex horde player playing in group on alliance)
- were your 35s grouped or solo ?

All the BGs I’ve played in for the past two years have been XP-unlocked. Both Horde and Alliance queued separately and individually, meaning they were not grouped. (I mainly played Alliance, but for testing purposes, I also opened my Horde accounts.) In some cases, the characters I queued were placed on the team with fewer members. I know this because I already had one character inside the BG—for example, when the Horde side had 7 players and the Alliance side had 4, I immediately queued 3 Alliance toons. All of this happened before the BG started (before players could jump off the flying ship). Also, strangely, 8 out of 10 times, it was always Seething Shore for level 40 and higher.

The game ends after 5 minutes, excluding the 2-minute pre-start time on the ship. So, in total, the BG system takes 6 to 7 minutes without detecting or allowing players in the queue to join.

From the long wait times, I initially thought nobody was queuing for BGs these days. However, that seems doubtful because there are still so many players in WoW. In some level 35 BGs, it’s a full 10v10, while level 40, 50, and 60 BGs have far fewer, and after a full 20 players bg ends you would expect these players to requeue, rarely would 20 players play once a day and say enough right ? and the next 35 bg pops a long time later with the same number of players complaining they waited an hour, question is, WHY? Why didnt it pop 15 mins later? The average wait time is shown isnt it? After testing this over the past year, I’ve realized that’s not the case—people do queue. Instead, something is happening on Blizzard’s side, whether it’s a software issue, coding problem, policy change, or something else.

 

[BANKONE]

Right yeah idk. I do think there is something wrong with Seething Shore, I think that it definitely allows an imbalanced number of players to get started, kind of like the lowest threshold - even though it’s under the threshold needed to automatically end the BG due to lack of players

Another consideration that would be hard to measure are players that are qued and don’t accept pop

I floated the idea of having seething shore be some kind of lobby “holding zone” while the real BG gets started, no timer, no resources, leave if you want, cross faction sides for a somewhat even pregame lobby death match. Once enough players enter, a real BG pop will be initiated

 

[Merlin]

we had to mass report to get past their slick teflon responses like players are not accepting the ques, not enough are queing, or are AFK, etc. before it got fixed

was it fixed ? it seems like it is still ongoing

 

[shanker]

my comment was years ago, yes it was fixed twice in CATA, once in MOP, and after that anything it was reported it was fixed.

today, you would need proof, 10 players each side coordinating ques then seeing what happens, get SS etc for proof of players not being found by the system, and BG not filling at start, time into the game, or worse at the end,

now another problem twinks and levelers had in the past and maybe occurring again...blizzard had random BGs on a fixed cycle such as BG that is 15 v 15 and it won't pop because only 19 players are in que, enough for a 10 v 10 BG but the sytem is fixed on filling and waiting for an amount near 30. believe this issue occured in WOD or Legion, unsure.