What I think about the timer in the Ladder/TMM?

@Sheikah said in What I think about the timer in the Ladder/TMM?:

Unfortunately this is not possible currently while sitting in queue as watching replays on an older version would prevent you from having the correct version of the game when the matchmaker game starts which would cause either a crash or a desync of the game. The experimental feature of watching features while in the game lobby currently does not support launching a new game while watching a replay

Maybe its possible to allow watching replays that were played on the current game patch and have an error message for others. Depends on how often people want to watch games from a different patch...

People reported from the beta that even that caused the game not to start due to file locking issues

@Katharsas said in What I think about the timer in the Ladder/TMM?:

Maybe its possible to allow watching replays that were played on the current game patch and have an error message for others. Depends on how often people want to watch games from a different patch...

How often they would want that would depend on how long it has been since the last patch release.

@Eternal said in What I think about the timer in the Ladder/TMM?:

@FtXCommando I'm infuriated by these 3 minutes, and the list of players who can't connect because they're not queal.

Go host a custom game and play lobby sim for 30 minutes then.

Noone has bought it up, but it's a requirement for further down the line wherein there will be mutiple queues.

(That's why the 2v2 queue button looks so randomly big, there could be up to 5 other queues there for you to join)

We're really not trying to blue-ball you for no actual reason. It's a constraint, not a feature.

If the player base massively increases with dozens of people in the queue, the timer could be reduced.

TMM 4v4 Full Share is super FUN! Great job!

I was so wrong thinking that No Share for TMM 4v4 would be better, not to mention my false assumptions about premade teams abusing the queue...

Regarding the three minute wait time:

The three minute wait time kinda sticks a stick in a spinning wheel of TMM 4v4, because given specific circumstances it sometimes manages to drive people away from the queue.

Here are some examples:

1. There are more than 8 players and less than 16 players in queue, after the three minute wait time eight lucky players get automatched and the rest (less than 8 ) are left to wait again, at this point, quite often, some of those who didn't get automatched leave the queue. The three minute wait time is one of the motivators for leaving in this situation. Doubts that other players will join the queue - another motivator.

2. There are 8 players in queue, wait time expires and nobody gets automatched, and the three minute wait time kicks in, again (!) - often players leave at this point, not wanting to wait that long again (!), considering that there still is a big possibility of not being automatched while having enough players in the queue, again (!). Not to mention the time spent waiting for the eight players to gather in the queue to begin with.

3. There are 20+ players in queue, after the three minute wait time only 8 of them are automatched, and the rest 12+ are forced to wait another three minutes for no reason. At this point the three minute wait time combined with the perplexity caused by the fact that there are still more than 8 players in the queue and they still didn't get automatched drives people away firmly.

I think these examples are the most prominent ones.

Also the long three minute wait time indirectly causes more failed automatches.
Because just sitting and waiting is boring, people start other games, and when they're automatched, the Supreme Commander process fails to start because active processes get in conflict over the available resources of the system, what leads to an failed automatch (encountered this with some games while being in the queue, totally not on purpose).

Anyway, hope this information will help the developers to make the 4v4 TMM even more good!

@fiercelv said in What I think about the timer in the Ladder/TMM?:

Also the long three minute wait time indirectly causes more failed automatches.
Because just sitting and waiting is boring, people start other games, and when they're automatched, the Supreme Commander process fails to start because active processes get in conflict over the available resources of the system, what leads to an failed automatch (encountered this with some games while being in the queue, totally not on purpose).

The client shouldn't let you join games while being in a queue if this happens send me a log as it is a bug.

I think he means other games, like OSU etc.

@fiercelv said in What I think about the timer in the Ladder/TMM?:

The three minute wait time kinda sticks a stick in a spinning wheel of TMM 4v4, because given specific circumstances it sometimes manages to drive people away from the queue.

I can understand the frustration, but the alternative of having no timer would in fact not solve these problems. Some examples:
Two 0s are queued up as a team, over time a 2k and mulitple 1ks join, all solo. Once we reach 8 players in the queue we could theoretically get a game, but it would be terrible, because it would be the 2k + the two 0s + a 1k player against 4 1k players. So the match doesn't start and everyone is confused why it doesn't. Over time another 2k and a 1k join, then a game starts with a 2k + 3 1ks in each team. The two 0s get left behind. As you can see, we still have the same problems as described in your example 1 and 2.
It gets even more confusing as the time bonus for waiting in the queue would tick up at intervals that are unknown to the players. This can lead to edge cases where there are enough players for a match in the queue, but the game quality would barely be too bad, so no match happens. After a short while the time bonus is big enough to lift the game quality above the threshold and the match starts while the number of players in the queue didn't even change.

To address example 3 we have reduced the people in queue that are needed to make the pop timer start at less than three minutes. This should reduce the queue time during busy hours and alleviate the problem a bit that tons of people pile up in the queue. It will be in the next server patch, but there is no ETA yet when it will come.

@Sheikah

What I meant is a game besides Supreme Commander.
Important to note that playing "not so demanding hardware-wise" games does not cause any issues while being in the queue and getting automatched.
Automatch notification -> ALT + F4

@Blackyps

While writing my previous post, I had thoughts that the general reduction of the pop timer to something less than three minutes would improve the queue.

What is this time bonus you mentioned? How does it work?

Solution to the example 3 sounds super effective.

Every time you are in the queue and you don't get matched you get a small bonus that makes the matchmaker prioritize games that include you in the next round. The bonus ticks up over many rounds until it reaches its maximum, so it makes sense to continously stay in the queue if you want to find a game and there is not much activity.