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The Queue #15: Flee Timer

June 13, 2014 by 38 Comments

The Queue

What is “The Queue”?

Wait times between matches have always been good opportunities to reflect. The Queue is a ‘question’ column by Psylent Night, where he asks readers their opinion on various PvP topics.

 

Thoughts on the Flee Timer

Picture 2014-06-12 09-43-10This is probably going to be old news to many of you, but I haven’t seen much discussion about it.

It’s been a long time (months, I’d say) since the last time I fled a PvP match. As far back as I can remember, though, I’ve never run into the Flee Timer (pictured right). It’s not really a bad feature, though I have to say that I was surprised at the 5 minute wait time to get into another match. I’ve been brainstorming for a while why they would implement this feature, and why the wait is so long, but I’ve come up short. My first thought was to slow downranking, but that’s still going to happen regardless.

Anyway, that’s today’s question. What do you think of this Flee Timer? Good? Bad? Too long? Too Short?

Question

What are your thoughts on the Flee Timer? Is the wait period too long? Do we need a Flee Timer at all?

 

Let me know in the comments!

 

 

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  • jacob dark blood

    it is just because of many people will flee and w101 dose not want want coward wizards and they want to make brave wizards who can face anything but never flee

    • WizFanaticz

      Genius Jacob! That’s definitely the answer.

      • jacob dark blood

        lol ty

  • ~Joseph~

    Its honestly really annoying. Since it counts it as a ‘flee’ if you don’t confirm your match in time. I am fine with it if the person actually fled, but I don’t think its right because you were afk and didn’t confirm in time

    • jacob dark blood

      it almost test my patientce to the core

  • Blaze Raven

    Pointless. Fleeing does nothing to stop downranking, and would be a poor substitute for the proper way of doing it. We don’t really need one, but overall it isn’t too bad. I mean, it could be worse.

    • Aaron S.

      It’s about people watching the queue

  • Chris DrakeFlame

    The invented the flee timer because remember in the past? When you got matched, both you and your opponents were removed from the queue during confirmation. This let people who monitored the queue see who they were about to fight, thus prepare. The flee timer is a good way to prevent people from declining their match, seeing who returns to the queue with them, then instantly joining the queue again to get matched against that person.

    • izabera

      plz delete this comment i was wrong

    • jacob dark blood

      hmm i guess soo

  • heathertitanbreaker

    I like the flee timer and length. It prevents people who watch the board and stack their decks against potential matches and rejoining only to get the same team. (especially when the board is not that full.).

  • Aaron S.

    The timer simply discourages fleeing. Whenever one flees, it’s basically an automatic win for the opponent, and if EVERYONE could flee whenever they wanted to, it would shatter the value of the ranking system, since people would be able to rank up through wins by default. Although, true, you do lose rank by fleeing (which should be enough discouragement) it doesn’t really do much for the fleer since essentially they can jump into another match and bounce right back without a timer. By discouraging fleeing through the timer, PvP rank still has value (to most people).

  • ~Justin LightShade~

    It can be really annoying sometimes, when you have to get off, hours later you have to wait 5 minutes. We technically did not flee.

    • jacob dark blood

      yeah this one of the main things i hate flee timer. one day i had get off wth in 20 minutes it wasted almost 15 minutes and i fled again in the 1v1 match cause time was not enough and i log off

  • Merciless Jean Percy

    I have a love hate relationship with the flee timer. I love it as it stops people from just leaving, coming back, leaving again and being annoying in pvp in general. I hate it as i go afk alot, and sometimes i have to randomly leave a pvp match. It’s bad enough i’m losing rank for something outside of the game, but then i have to wait and waste my time to join again? It works, but it just doesn’t feel right.

    • Toothpick

      5 minutes may be too much for the a punishment for the first time it happens. I think it should go up after each flee not start at 5.

      • jacob dark blood

        it could be 2:50 minutes it would be fair

  • Robinrocket

    I think it’s good since people can’t just join and flee all the time to get free arena tickets

    • Blaze Raven

      You don’t get any tickets if you flee, and you lose rank, of course.

      • Toothpick

        Losing rank makes gaining tickets easier by getting easier opponents.

      • jacob dark blood

        he says the enemy gets arena ticket

    • jacob dark blood

      yeah it is also one good reason

  • Eric Stormbringer

    I wish the flee timer extended for every consequtive flee within say a 24hr time period. When I go into the arena, I go to duel not dance. Perhaps my view is colored by how I played when I first started this game. For the first 2 years of wizard 101 I was a crowns player, I would buy the day pass if I could but oftentimes I only had enough crowns left over for 1 or 2 battles. Whenever an opponent fled I would lose my crowns and it would feel like an absolute waste of time and whatever limited money I had at that time. I also feel slighted by a fleeing opponent, when I step into the arena I want and expect my opponent to throw his best at me. I consider my opponent an equal and respect him/her as such. When an opponent flees it’s a slap in the face, as if said person refuses to acknowledge that I am worth dueling. I can understand the bad connection issue etc, I have experienced that myself but I cannot respect a player who constantly flees just to gain easy tickets or for personal gain.

    • Toothpick

      I agree, if an opponent intentionally loses a game or flees he is not just wasting your crowns and your time, but he is wasting everyone’s time. The crown cost is real and hopefully it provides incentive to fix this problem. There is no reason you should have to pay for another player’s bad manners.

  • Blaze MeOut

    I gonna agree with everyone here … flee timer discourages fleeing for various reasons preserving rank Pvp … this actually very common in online games like world of warcraft and is not exclusive to wizard101 … I would rather have this than other penalties like in league of legends where going afk or leaving a game could suspend or ban your account

    • Blaze MeOut

      Keep the timer guys … for those who complain about it … you guys seen nothing honestly wizard101 gives a good penalty… try playing other games and see your account get banned or suspended for fleeing or going afk … its not a good thing …

      • jacob dark blood

        maybe we had to got to restroom we need to go afk

  • Mark shadow

    People usually don’t flee now a days but if they do its because they went against a jade and they kept healing and shielding and they have had enough. I think what they have going on right now is ok but the 5 minutes should be shortened

  • Victoria AnvilBlade

    If you are worried about setting there deck for your pi
    If you are worried about a particular person setting there deck against and clothes you. The way to beat that is do not accept the match right way wait till the timer goes down and then they have no time to set the deck/clothes. Besides W101 gives us fifteen seconds to setup your deck at the beginning of each match, learn to sue that time instead of using emotes.

  • Jose Breeze

    KI is too soft with the flee timer IMO. In League of Legends the time to wait increases by double each time you “flee” over the course of a day eventually leading to a suspension or ban. The problem in wiz is that you can actually see who you get. The game would be much better off not knowing your opponents or anyone in queue. Topping it off, it should also be considered a “flee” if you quick join a match just to avoid the one you got. In the end you are making your potential opponents wait longer than 5 minutes for your cowardliness, wasting everyone time(legit excuses excluded).

  • Anonymous

    I use it to rank down, everytime I hit rank of 1300+ I tend to wait 30+ minutes for a match, that’s just a June for me…. So I either flee (if I’m facing a person who takes time to kill) or I simple take off gear and die easily to colossal spells cause no gear means fast kills and I don’t have to wait 5 ( much more efficient)… Then once i’m back in the 300-500 ranks i gear up again and get matches within 2-4minutes after clicking on the find a match button thingy cause thats just the point of pvp for me: to get a match asap and hace fun. And yah… For all the flee-ers, taking gear off makes rankingdown soooooo much faster

    I wonder if my comment is gong to get deleted for giving away another, much more eficiente way of rankingdown

    • Toothpick

      I think this problem can be solved two ways:

      1. Replace the flee time with a loss timer. Starting at 30 seconds, by adding 30 seconds for each loss and subtracting 30 seconds each win then it will be more or less manageable, while still punishing people who use the rapid ranking down to game the system.

      2. Make the tickets won proportional to your opponents’ total rating (divide the total rating of the opposing team by 100 … or another factor if that is too much or too little). Split the ticket gain/loss in a team proportional to their relative ratings (the fraction of tickets gained/lost is the fraction of your rating in the total team rating).

  • Oh joy

    Personaly I feel the whole reading the queue thing,mic you face the opponent, and win, then face them again, isn’t it, in a way, the same? Except now you know strategy and stuff. Also with the reshuffle change, I ran out of cards and fled not want to spend forever in the match and had to wait forever which stunk

  • While You Read My Name I Took

    I don’t really see a reason for it other than how you can prepare for a match-up.

    HOWEVER, this simply could be fixed if they made it so you can’t face the same person again within a couple of matches. At that point when you get matched with the same person it’s pretty much whoever goes first has a better chance of winning. It’s kinda ridiculous.

    • Toothpick

      I agree with this, placing some sort of “recent opponents” variable in their matchmaking formula to make the same matchup unlikely, at least unless there are no other players in the same level (in that case those two players would be playing each other over and over).

  • Shadowmancer

    It is really annoying as a lot of things trigger the “flee” timer (losing connection, afk, etc.) If you want to rank down, all you have to do is take off all gear and put only one spell in a deck. Then you automatically lose.

  • True Fire

    Because a five-minute time out always teaches the bad little kids a lesson…
    Meh, I really don’t care. If I flee a match, it’s either cause I lost connection or didn’t have enough time to finish the match. In either of those events I doubt I’ll be logging into Wizard101 within the next 5 minutes. Even so, it seems like an unnecessary system that serves no real purpose.

  • Toothpick

    If players are using fleeing as a tactic to get good match ups and the flee penalty timer is effectively making it less rewarding as a strategy I wholeheartedly support the system. Also, if it prevents people who rank down with the intent to easily rank up and getting tickets by playing weaker players, then that is an amazing bonus.

    My idea of a balanced fleeing penalty timer:
    1. starts at 60 seconds for the first time a wizard flees,
    2. cumulative increase of 30 seconds every additional time,
    3. caps at a maximum wait of 5 minutes,
    4. starts only when the player attempts to enter the queue (by placing them in a pre-queue wait)
    5. subtracts 30 seconds from penalty for every match completed successfully.
    6. resets every 24 hours.

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