Casual servers being emptied between rounds and how to fix it!

(tiki) #1

Casual play means people hop in and out of servers all the time. This means there doesn’t need to be a between-round lobby where you lock in your mercs. You can change your mercs outside of the server. Locking in and lobbies should be reserved for the much more tactical, MOBA-style competitive matchmaking rather than casual play.

Two things would massively improve the flow of the game and solve the issue in the title of this thread.

  1. Remove the lobby between rounds that takes up a large part of the time so players on a server can get back into the action faster. This is what drains servers of players, and is a boring wait between games which ruins casual play for me and most people. PLEASE consider this above all else!

  2. Allow merc switching in-game, once per map in casual play. This means a player can switch their cards once per map while in game so they don’t have to back out and rejoin the server to switch to a new merc. However, they will still have to back out to open cases and such, which is fine.

This game would do a lot better to focus on both casual play for mindless fun as well as the competitive play. Right now, casual play has a lot more players for a reason – because it’s what attracts the largest amount of players and almost any game will show you this. I really, really love competitive play, but it’s not always the thing I turn to on my weekends.

(tiki) #2

Bumping this. I still think it’s one of the most important things to the gameplay experience now.

(triteTongs) #3

Here are the reasons why I would leave a server:

  1. Teams are stacked
  2. I have to open a case
  3. I forgot to pick a character
  4. I have another daily to do on stopwatch, etc.
  5. My buddy says the server is full but it’s really not.

Notice how I don’t leave because the time in between is ‘too long’?
In fact, it gives me just enough time to take a break.

I tend to do stuff during that time. Like not touch my keyboard or mouse, grab something to drink, have a chat with someone about the past round.

If you remove the timer in between rounds then I’ll personally be going AFK for the same duration.

Going from 100% trying your hardest to immediately having to 100% try again will honestly wear people out. It’ll wear me out.

They could tweak around what everyone is waiting FOR, but you still should wait.

(GregHouseMD) #4

Being able to open cases without leaving a lobby would definitely help. After getting a few of them, curiosity always gets the better of me.

I also think it could be a good idea to reward people for staying on the same server for several consecutive games. Credits whenever you play x games without leaving, you know?

(Ardez1) #5

Things that need to change with the current lobby system IMHO

  1. Randomize teams after during map load, not lobby load.
  2. Remove lobby completely ~ Require a player to load the map every time they join the server instead of having a lobby room between. This means the servers will jump from map to map never touching the front end except to record credits/cases/exp earned.
  3. When you load a map sit at the deploy screen during the warmup always
  4. Remove tutorial per map ~ Make it a static loading screen image
  5. Short 15 second deploy timer OR stop spawning players but locking them out of playing when deploy timer is active. I have clicked deploy and been killed(spawncamping/forward spawn) before I am able to view anything or move.
  6. Shorten Stopwatch waiting time between halves to 15 seconds ~ You can’t change loadouts or merc already. Why wait 30 seconds? Every player should be ready at that point.
  7. Add the map voting panel to a tab of the end screen and allow players to change mercs and loadouts during end screen.
  8. Allow inventory viewing/case opening at end screen WITHOUT showing the opening animation. ~ Simple visual sacrifice that will let you open a case quickly while in a server instead of potentially not getting to see what was in the case if your timer runs out.

I know none of this is as easy as I make it sound, a lot of scripting and a longer loading time will be required ~ but I believe it is all worth it personally.

(brawnyJester) #6

Allow merc loadout/order change during warmup.

(PogS) #7

You already can change your Merc at anytime in game pressing F1 to F3 even if it is not displayed on the screen. Your merc will be selected for next spawn (even in warmu)

  • Removing the tutorial for the map is a good idea. May fasten loading time but only for players above 5 for example or have it an yes/no setting in the Game menu.

  • Do you really need to open cases in middle of games ? This is more an excuse for leaving we give to ourselves than a real reason. If the game or server is cool, I would not leave just for this reason.

  • I agree the Merc selection in lobby is not user friendly. The interface should be lighter

(tiki) #8

I agree that team stacking is a problem but the reason valve can keep their TF2 servers populated round the clock is the lack of time between games. Sure, sometimes you need that time to take a break and get something to drink. But the vast majority of players want to keep playing, keep earning money, and keep levelling up. If you need a break, you can just quit to the main menu and open some cases and stuff.

A good take-away from that is also to silently scramble the teams on casual servers before the rounds start, and factor in friends playing together so they don’t get split up as well as how many rounds a certain team has won in a row before scrambling.

I appreciate the competitiveness built into the very soul of this game, and I can’t stress that enough, but it’s a free to play game, and you want a sizable community to pick the competitive cream of the crop from, which is why casual play needs to be more streamlined and focused towards progression and easy, fast fun rather than the same kind of structure and wait periods competitive has.

(disguisedRocket) #9

[quote=“carefulMaw;22190”]I agree that team stacking is a problem but the reason valve can keep their TF2 servers populated round the clock is the lack of time between games.

The vast majority of players want to keep playing, keep earning money, and keep levelling up. [/quote]
True

(Ardez1) #10

That isn’t the same thing that we are talking about. What was said aboive is that IF the lobby system is gone, you will need to be able to change your base 3 mercs without returning to the front end, which means there needs to be a time inbetween the matches that you can use to modify your 3 man squad.

(Eox) #11

Just give some exp or credit bonus for staying on the same server. Simple fix.

(Amerika) #12

Mostly what everyone else said. Let people open cases while in the lobby. Also, fix the bugs with the servers saying they are full when they are definitely not full. That really needs to be addressed soon as it’s a very annoying bug that screws things up constantly for people trying to play together.

(pepperyPalm) #13

Increase time between games, unless most people ready up.

(misspo) #14

Yep, the major problem of this game are all the wait and loading stuff…
When the tuto pop, i just want to kill myself :slight_smile: Plz at least, give us the possibility to remove it. Or maybe, create server for level 5 max with the tuto and delet it for the rest. WE ALL KNOW WHAT TO DO :slight_smile:

(tiki) #15

Yeah the brink/ET style tutorial vids are getting a little redundant and will definitely piss me off in the future if I stick with this game. Please make them go away for players who know what they’re doing somehow.

(Aazhyd) #16

How would you do that if there are still new players in the server? They need that tutorial.
If you’d skip them, you’d still have to wait for them to finish.

(Ardez1) #17

[quote=“Aazhyd;22368”]How would you do that if there are still new players in the server? They need that tutorial.
If you’d skip them, you’d still have to wait for them to finish. [/quote]

From what I can tell, most of them don’t listen to it anyways. Too many people are already ignoring the uhb-jek-tivz

(MoFragn) #18

Allow Barracks and Store in lobby would help as well.