Quality of Life: Match making, UI and more...

Hello,

Here is a list of things to add to the game to make it more enjoyable and less frustrating:

Interface/UI

  • Match making: Automatic queuing at the end of a round
  • Match making: If you quit a match before the end make the player wait until the end of it before entering a new one (or a long period of time to be determined).
  • Match making: Let the match begin like it is now. Restart it when 16 players or more finally make it into the server. That way we avoid starting a round with 6 peoples only.
  • Match making: Stop assigning slot to a server with less than 3 minutes of match. (or even more). Better, make it an option. I want to be able to refuse entering in an ongoing match.
  • Votekicking players: Enable us to get rid of immature elements/trolling players (teamkilling on purpose, insulting on VOIP, etc...)
  • Loadout preset: Customizing our loadout outside match. Name and save it.

Gameplay

  • Make the map line more visible (darker maybe ?). Sometimes it's hard to see the coordinate on it. Add subdivision to the map grid. I want be able to pinpoint a building with coordinates like "3-delta-4". Right now coordinate include several buildings. It's not precise.
  • Add callsigns in front of player name on the rooster. This way a commander/player can ask "Alpha-3" or "Bravo team" to watch the west sector. It avoid problems with player's name which are not readable/pronounceable (foreign language, alphabet or outright dumb ASCII characters).
  • For immersion, include map coordinate for observer and commander's voices: For example "Calling for artillery strike on Echo 4 coordinates!". Better than "Calling for artillery strike on this position!"

Bugs
Well this one is a never ending battle I guess. Right now for me it's the brightness bug.

Overall: In the current state the game is not ready for release. It's a good game and I have fun but I won't recommend it to my friends without, at least, part of the aforementioned improvements. In particular the match making aspect of the game which is, right now, really crude and basic.

Thanks for reading me.

last edited by jokari

Loving the callsigns and map coordinates. +1.

Pretty sure that on release, we will have map voting on official servers, atleast they've said theyre doing it like this because they want us to try all the maps in the game.

Is there a list of things and/or a source of what will be there at release please ? I didn't see anything like it yet.
I am a bit sceptical when it comes to hopes and rumour, especially from a product in beta.

@jokari

I would agree on most of these points, have comments on some of them:

  • Map lines more visible so that all squares are visible is good I agree, an even smaller grid might make a bit of clutter on screen, with current grid you can say/write callouts like "enemy coord b3 nw building" to get around problems with multiple buildings in same area - If I understand you correctly.

  • Restarting of match when reaching 16 players will be frustrating when joining early if you have already started an intense fight, at least for me it would sometimes - There could be a free-play time when less than x players is in the match, definitely, but that limitation could be set a a lower value like 8 or 10 imo.

  • Punishing people because they are quitting a match is frustrating for the player being punished by being forced to be inactive, even though I agree it is unnecessary behaviour - The people who quit early is often not very experienced, and are often the same people who often switched teams in Ins2 when they felt they played on the losing side - Those players are not too vital to team strength, and most people stop doing this when they get more experienced. Therefore they will not break games even if it may feel annyoing (just speculating they might be very young/ and/or very impatient - a customer segment in these types of games that must also feel welcome).

  • When it comes to the bugs, I am sure NWI will continue to work on making the game a smooth experience even far after release, as they have done with previous games. I also think the game looks playable on many better rigs - But I wouldn't consider it game of the year to put it mildly - That would be dishonest when so many players are experiencing issues with it.

last edited by Pacalis

@jokari said in Quality of Life: Match making, UI and more...:

Match making: Automatic queuing at the end of a round
Match making: If you quit a match before the end make the player wait until the end of it before entering a new one (or a long period of time to be determined).
Match making: Let the match begin like it is now. Restart it when 16 players or more finally make it into the server. That way we avoid starting a round with 6 peoples only.

No personal offense intended, but these are some of the dumbest things I've ever read. They're like anti-qol. Everything else sounds good.

  • I'd much rather click a button to queue for the next round than the game auto-place me in a new match because I didn't click out fast enough... then I need to wait for it to load, plus the game I join gets semi-fucked by me leaving.

  • If I quit a match because I'm rubberbanding everywhere (even though my ping is 15, thanks Ins: SS) then I have to wait (sometimes 30+ minutes) for the round to end??? Da fuq?

  • Restart the match once full count is reached?? So if the server fills up, the game fucking restarts, then a guy leaves bc ppl always leave, another joins and the game restarts again! There should be a critical mass larger than 6 players but reloading the round is just a waste of time and massively annoying.

These 3 suggestions combined give me an aneurysm. Once more, not trying to personally attack you...

Hypothetical: I join a match. While capping last obj the round fills so it fucking restarts. I rage and quit the match, except I now have to wait till it ends, but I was also autoqueued for the next round, which I can't join, so now I get to watch the counter run up to 30 mins and I cant even go to the customization screen cause I'm queued.

last edited by thehappybub

It's easy from a dev point of view I think to avoid those pitfalls (except the netcode part :-p):

  • For the auto-queuing: Well, if the auto-placement is instant I am agree it will be a problem. If it is near what we have now it won't be. You'll have plenty of time to leave the queue. But the solution is obvious: Make it an option. A simple box to tick for those who want this.
  • For the match quitting while rubberbanding: Well, if they can detect packet loss I guess they can avoid this pitfall. If not you are right. But I think/hope they can very well detect it. Another way is to detect this behaviour and see if it is a trend or just a one time incident.
  • Restart the match: If you have a big annoucement which say "Free time - Waiting for players" you wouldn't mind I guess (I wouldn't). Another way to see it is: You are allowed to play for free instead of:
    • a) waiting in front of the screen like now
    • b) Starting a round with 3 players running to the obj and 3 others coming behind late to the party because they don't have SSD or just enter the server later. That way we avoid entering a server with 8 players already on the B objective (and often it's worse than that), and/or with 12 guys against 8.

Basically restart the match it's just the same as now but you can have your fun waiting for the others instead of waiting in a static lobby.

For the raging quit part in your example: I get what you mean. The timer can be way lower of course and/or be increasing with repeated offence.
For the part where a player quit then another join then the server restart: Well, I didn't mean that. When the server has the minimum viable count of player it start the match and let it unfold to the end of course.

We can ignore players rage quitting/quitting/losing connection/whatever if we have the option to not be queue in server with ongoing matchs. If we have that, we can safely ignore those who quit a server.

After saying all that, I should add that I don't have fun in a match with 6 people on those maps. Maybe I am the minority or even the only one, I don't know.
If everybody think t's not a problem to start a match with so few people so be it. But I, for one, think it sucks big time.

last edited by jokari

@jokari

  • For the first point, a tick box sounds like a great solution. I tend to not like countdown timers for the next round because sometimes I want to customize a bit before proceeding to the next round without quitting out to the home menu. But yea, ticking a box in settings and having both options would be awesome.

  • The rubberbanding is just an example of a situation which happens for me and others, but there are plenty of reasons why punishing people for quitting a match is a bad idea. The most obvious for me is that its a game and people have lives. Maybe you gotta go take a shit, maybe your parents/spouse/kids/pets are screaming at you all of a sudden and you just gotta go, etc.

Trying to discourage quitting midgame is just something that should be avoided, maybe unless its a ranked match. It doesn't happen that often anyway, and increasing the critical mass for starting games would reduce the impact of quitting anyway.

  • The game restart thing also still doesn't sit with me, even with the qualifications you added. No one likes sitting in a long lobby or, even worse, a long loading screen. I think increasing the minimum players "collected" for a match is optimal. Maybe make the minimum 8 or 10. It shouldn't even attempt to ready the server for a game at all until it collects that number. After that, while in the loading period it could collect additional people. Once the game starts it really shouldn't inject anymore players, maybe in the first few minutes at most.

I agree that 6 player matches are lame sometimes, but sometimes they're not. You can always leave a game if you see no one's joining. In my eyes that will always be preferable to some kind of intrusive matchmaking mechanic.

last edited by thehappybub

@thehappybub said in Quality of Life: Match making, UI and more...:

Trying to discourage quitting midgame is just something that should be avoided, maybe unless its a ranked match. It doesn't happen that often anyway, and increasing the critical mass for starting games would reduce the impact of quitting anyway.

I am not sure but Overwatch has something like that or not ? I can't remember well but I thought it had. If someone remember/knows. But overall I agree with you. The bugs will punish too many people for nothing. As for IRL calling the player to reality: Well, if he has an occupation the wait is not a problem for him anymore 😉

@thehappybub said in Quality of Life: Match making, UI and more...:

  • The game restart thing also still doesn't sit with me, even with the qualifications you added. No one likes sitting in a long lobby or, even worse, a long loading screen. I think increasing the minimum players "collected" for a match is optimal. Maybe make the minimum 8 or 10. It shouldn't even attempt to ready the server for a game at all until it collects that number. After that, while in the loading period it could collect additional people. Once the game starts it really shouldn't inject anymore players, maybe in the first few minutes at most.

That would be perfect. If the server doesn't spin up a match before having the players it would be ok I think.

P.S: Is there a way to make proper citation on this forum ?

EDIT: Thanks. I am blind I guess 😃
EDIT: Add proper citations

last edited by jokari

@jokari highlight what you want to quote and click the quote button next to the person's name.

I'm not sure about overwatch, never played it, but if you're right that's probably bc its a competitive game. I get it for ranked I guess, but this doesn't make sense for regular matches. Overwatch is really an esports game so I don't think that's a good comparison.

last edited by thehappybub

@jokari

I definitely see where you are coming from and this is why I agree on the most part, as there is several ways to make your solutions work. 8 players would probably be in the minimum of what I would enjoy as a match start, and this should of course only go into effect if servers are not filling up to avoid the wait/ as a best outcome in a not preferable situation.

EDIT: By 8 players I am talking about 4 players on each team

last edited by Pacalis