The Current Problem With Quick Play(Leavers)

(Ardez1) #1

[i]This post is not about trying to convince people to stop leaving matches or offer an incentive to keep them in. This post is about how Dirty Bomb needs to be better about handling leavers during an active match.

Apologies for any spelling or grammar mistakes I missed.[/i]

Now, for people to understand this thread they will need to know the history of one particular issue with Quick Play.

Originally Quickplay had a big issue of trying to put too many players into a single server. This meant that players who joined too late would be kicked back to the menu with an error stating the server was full. This was because it wasn’t full when quick play started connecting them to the server and thought there was an open slot for them.

This caused a lot of people to just use the server browser instead and leave Quickplay alone, although many people still had issues as not everybody was aware of the problem. This issue was fixed several months ago and I personally haven’t see that issue with Quick Play since. There are the additional existing issues such as being placed in incorrect regions or server, but those aren’t why I am writing this thread.

Well, more and more I am noticing a new issue that I belive is an unintended consequence of a fix for the Quickplay issue where too many players were put in the same server. That issue is that servers with 1-2 slots open aren’t being considered for Quickplay placement. I am unaware of what the fix was for the previous Quickplay issue, but I believe the ‘solution’ implemented was to not consider servers that are nearly full for user placement.

My reasoning for this is simple. Over the last several months I have seen servers going 5v6, 6(5)v7 or 7(6)v8 for almost the entire length of the match with nobody new being joined into the game. I refuse to believe that no players attempted to use QuickPlay during that time of 10-30 minutes with filters that included that server.

With that being said, what effect is this ‘solution’ having on the game? Imbalance. The bane of Dirty Bomb since hacking was mostly dealt with. One of the biggest complaints currently is balance in casual games. While the balancing system works fairly well with no leavers, casual will always have people who leave games in progress. The problem I am seeing is that they are not being replaced quickly or not at all in some cases. This is having a huge effect on game balance that causes whichever team has a leaver to be down a man for the remainder or most of the remainder of the game.

If that team has enough leavers, say 3-4, then they are usually replaced quickly and brings the team to nearly full strength. But there is usually that 1 or 2(in 8v8 or 7v7) slot(s) open with no players filling them. The last 1 or 2 empty slots in a server desperately need to be filled, in particular in a game with such small teams where one player down can mean a lot. Those slots should be filled as quickly as possible before a match becomes one sided and even more people leave it.

The reason for my post is to hopefully incite a change and see how many other people are experiencing the same problem. It is my hope that this can be resolved in a suitable manner without bringing back the previous issue of oversubscribing a game server. So please, comment and share your experience if you are seeing the same issue in your matches or if you haven’t being seeing this. Maybe I am just perpetually unlucky in my matches.

@RazielWarmonic @stayfreshshoe @NxA_Noxie (Tagging Noxie in case this is a bug, but I believe this is functioning as it was designed).

~Ardez

(Ctrix) #2

All of this ^
I wasn’t aware of that previous quickplay change, but I do see a lot of servers in server browser that are at 11/12. I usually join those preferably. Never made the connection, but I agree that this sounds an incredibly lazy fix and shouldn’t be a thing. It almost completely removes the point of quickplay.

(SiegeFace) #3

Great post Ardez, I will be sure to keep my eye out, and post back any findings here.

I for one simply do not and will not use quick join, simply due to it throwing in me into servers in the US (US east is bearable but still too high of a ping for this UK based player) or will throw me into a completely empty server.

One method I think they should add to resolve the former would be to use the “Matchmaking Region” selection box in the Ranked/Competitive Menu tab and add that into the Quickjoin menu to “automatically” block out unwanted regions from play. I had posted this in a suggestion thread only to get flak cannoned for suggesting an improvement and will post the image here again just to clarify what I mean.

So a quick question. Does the quick join system just try to flood a server with as many people searching for x map and x gamemode? or does it work on a que system? Would it be a good idea to use the “flood” option but gather a pick of say 3 servers that match the selected criteria and if one happened to get full due to quick join users just stop trying to join that server and move on to the next one that is picked? Would probably stop you from being returned to menu and keep the search going?

(Ardez1) #4

@SiegeFace I’m unsure how the Quickplay system works exactly, that would be a great question for @stayfreshshoe to answer though or to submit it for @Faraleth Stream/Dev questions.

(bontsa) #5

I don’t use it a lot, but I’ve been attempting to use Quickjoin just to get exactly into these type of “missing 1 or 2” games from time to time. No wonder all I’ve gotten is empty servers or ones with just a handful of players.

(Faraleth) #6

I’ll see what I can do :3 I’ve noted it down anyways as one to send off in the next Q&A if this isn’t answered before I send it off!

(Amerika) #7

There is also the bug where the server will report that it only has 13 out of 14 on a server but you can’t actually join it until one of the 13 people leave. Then usually that 13th spot is filled immediately. This might be the same issue or it could be a separate issue (there can always be more than one problem at the same time). Most likely the server is keeping stale player data around instead of constantly refreshing how many players are actually on the server. So the server visually reports that the server has an open slot but the server itself believes it’s full.

(Black) #8

-_-

Now you and I both know that the current balancing system in DB needs some work.

In my expereince having ONE less player has never been a noticeable problem especially in 8v8 servers, however when there are TWO missing players then we start to see a problem that only has two solutions.

  1. Wait for players searching matches to join.
  2. Take one player from the opposite team.

Solution 2 is pretty much instant gratification as waiting for other players to join isn’t the funniest thing to do.

I stopped using quick join when I was put in an empty server and servers that were close to ending. How quick join work will always remain a mystery to me however I believe the best way for it to work is simply to prioritize the right things.

  1. Connection (Mandatory, if not good move onto the next server)
  2. Balance
  3. The number of empty slots.
  4. The current time of the game.
(Sorotia) #9

[quote=“Amerika;136204”]There is also the bug where the server will report that it only has 13 out of 14 on a server but you can’t actually join it until one of the 13 people leave. Then usually that 13th spot is filled immediately. This might be the same issue or it could be a separate issue (there can always be more than one problem at the same time). Most likely the server is keeping stale player data around instead of constantly refreshing how many players are actually on the server. So the server visually reports that the server has an open slot but the server itself believes it’s full.

[/quote]

I’ve noticed this a bunch…there have been times where I’ve spent time in match…like 10 minutes or more and try to join a server like this and still can’t join, even after all of that time.

It makes me wonder if this is the reason why can go a whole game down one person on a team and no one ever comes.

(Maddpadd) #10

[quote=“Amerika;136204”]There is also the bug where the server will report that it only has 13 out of 14 on a server but you can’t actually join it until one of the 13 people leave. Then usually that 13th spot is filled immediately. This might be the same issue or it could be a separate issue (there can always be more than one problem at the same time). Most likely the server is keeping stale player data around instead of constantly refreshing how many players are actually on the server. So the server visually reports that the server has an open slot but the server itself believes it’s full.

[/quote]

Server might have a spectator?

(Feley) #11

Man, everytime my team has 2 players more, I join other team as they suggest someone to join them, or start vote shuffle…

What happenes, and I mean every time, not kidding… I join enemy team, someone joins game in my new team (so now it is from 7 v 5 moved to 6 v 7), and after all that someone from my old team leaves (5 v 7)… I am forced to change teams again, and it is balanced than…

But still, I don’t know why but it always happens to me :tired_face:

(Amerika) #12

Yup, that happens to me all the time. I usually end up leaving those servers when I realize that one team will always be a player down.[quote=“Maddpadd;136305”][quote=“Amerika;136204”]There is also the bug where the server will report that it only has 13 out of 14 on a server but you can’t actually join it until one of the 13 people leave. Then usually that 13th spot is filled immediately. This might be the same issue or it could be a separate issue (there can always be more than one problem at the same time). Most likely the server is keeping stale player data around instead of constantly refreshing how many players are actually on the server. So the server visually reports that the server has an open slot but the server itself believes it’s full.

[/quote]

Server might have a spectator?[/quote]

Nope. I’ve seen it multiple times on a stream where it clearly shows 13 players on a 14 player server and nobody can join. Not to mention I’ve joined those servers after they have gone to lobby or somebody quit out and the last spot never fills over multiple maps.

(MarsRover) #13

I’ve also played 2-3 games in one server with the last slot open all the time.

(SiegeFace) #14

Ok So I just played a 1 v 2 on chapel, me being all by my lonesome on attack. Managed to get the EV repaired and delivered all by myself, aren’t I a big boy! That took around 15 mins of Nading the spammy arty party player and skyhammer. 15 mins, all on my own, with no one joining. Once i got to the last objective only then did I get 2 people join, but I think they used the server browser since they were buddies sharing the same clan tag.

This is a one-off (so far) so can be treated purely as anecdotal evidence, but I refuse to believe we didn’t get anyone in via quickjoin, usually around this time and in the morning (6am-11am) we at least get laggy american players joining in EU, which results in some rage inducing star trek-esque warp 5 bullet soaking gameplay. But if we were to treat this as a case, then it is not just “almost full” servers that have issues, According to steamcharts.com there were 2,637 players on when that match was happening, so we should of easily been able to at least partially fill up the server.

I don’t know, just thought I’d post this. If it happens again I will sure to update.