MM why 3min queue?

Why we have to wait 3 minutes for the MM queue?
It is a huge waste of time and annoying to wait always without eny benefit.

When there are enought players waiting and they match with a decent balance it should just start.
Even if we wait longer it´s not a guarantee the balance will improve.

Let´s say there are 4 player (2v2) with 90% balance, and all are waiting, now "Mr. 5" is joining the queue,
balance rise to 92% -> game starts, one of the 4 player get screwed despite he is longer waiting,
but 90% was perfect fine in the first place.

Even with 99,9999 % balance we have to wait.

The benefit for the matchmaking is that players can accumulate so the algorithm has a better chance of creating good matches. The benefit for the players is that matching doesn't happen at an unpredictable time, so you can go grab a drink or do something else quickly and you are not forced to be ready at any time for a match.

It´s so nice of the game to give me time to go piss or grab a drink thx game!
Serious, i can do it by myselfe and abort the queue, come back and startover.

Actually it´s worse, when timer is 1:00 but my task takes 1:30, i have to abort, come back, and wait another 2:30 or so.

Like i said, there is no guarantee for a better balance. If the balance is low the MM have to wait for another player, or
start immedietaly. [Sarcastic] Why not a 60 min timer to get a perfect perfect perfect match with 99,999% [/sarcastic]

if a match has a higher rating then the avarage % it should/could start immedietaly..

Played Company of Heroes for several years, MM starts immedietaly or waits for more players in case of bad balance.

3 mins is nothing and if it helps create better matches even a small % of the time then it's worth it. Compared to trying to get a game of League of Legends started 3 mins is nothing...!

If I am not mistaken then Company of Heroes has significantly more players

the timer is so that searching 1v1 up to 4v4 que parallel can work with the small faf playerbase

@Scout_More_Often
The god old "but something else is worse" argument

CoH1 Matchmaker ( 2v2 ) starts even when there are 5-6 ppl around. Coh2 i dono.
You can be certain a game starts secounds after clicking the search button, sometimes maybe 1-2min or so.
Playerbase is littl higher in coh 2v2 but not much and none existing in 4v4.

3min are arbitrary, you could always argue, more time = more balance, but then you can say, lets set up 30min or more
for even more balance. What is the balance goal, and is this goal already reached, why waiting then when it´s reached?

Never wanted play 1v1 or 4v4 at the same time, i doubt there is even an intersection.
It´s so painfull to wait 2-3 min, when you see 15-20 ppl in the 4v4 queue or 6-10 in the 2v2 queue.

Weird thing, sometimes ppl leave the queue and the balance gets worse, game starts anyway becaus the balance is good enought after all.

@ghnaf What's your perfect solution and what's the rationale behind it?

Less countdown would be kind of a solution, maybe 30 secounds.
Like i said CoH has not even a countdown.

3mins are actually not that of a big deal, but the connection issues are.

Expl.
countdown 1 min
no match found
+3 min
match found -> connection error
+3 min
no match found
+3 min
match found -> connection error
+3 min
game found -> game connected

That basically does nothing for connection issues since you currently need to refaf which takes like 2 minutes anyway.

2min? My client needs just 2 secounds or what do you mean?

Takes like a minute of waiting to recognize it is a connection issue rather than a slow map download followed by 2 minutes of closing and refafing and reinviting people. I barely have the ability to get into the next queue if a connection problem pops up since I’d get in at like :30 seconds or less. Idk how you can do it in 2 seconds since if you close and reopen the client too quickly there’s even a bug that causes the .exe to keep running so you need to go and force close it in the task manager. At least I know I’m not the only person that has to deal with this, seems pretty common with the people I queue with.

Still, the countdown should be removed or just be some secounds, even without the connection issues.

With a smaller countdown it´s less punishing to abort the gamesearch/queue and start later again.

"I can grab a drink" is a weird argument. Without a countdown you can still grab a drink, just abort and start later.

3 min. gives no better matches. If someone wants a super perfect balance, he/she can influence it only by him/herselfe,
by waiting for a big number of ppl in the queue. You can wait 1h and the game finds a match even if there are
only 8ppl around ( 4v4 ), in another case you can wait 30 sec. and the game starts with 20ppl ( 4v4 ) in the queue and a "better" balance.

For super sensitive ppl there could be a inpute field [min. number of player to join the queue ], but i don´t
need such a thing.

Connection errors would punish less, you can half the time maybe more for another try, maybe not
that much like my example above, but still.

There is probably no intersection between the queues. Even if someone joins all ( 1v1, 2v2, 4v4 ) queues,
nothing would change.

As I already stated a countdown is needed for matching quality. The ability to get a drink is just a byproduct of this. There is no benefit to have the matching interval be really small because the average wait time is higher than three minutes anway.
I can understand that it is annoying to wait for the next match after the first one has failed due to connetction problems and you can basically expect to be matched again next round when everyone has rejoined the queue, but the time it takes to recover from a failed match has already been explained. The solution is to fix the connection problems not to provide a bandaid fix by tampering with the timer.

The benefit is, the average time would be less, thats the benefit.

"The solution is to fix the connection problems not to provide a bandaid fix by tampering with the timer."
True, but it would help instant, anyway, i hope for a connection fix.

Probably one number needs to be changed, nobody would be hurt.

About gamequality i gave examples.

As far i know the MM starts if both teams has near the same score ( 1500 vs 1489 or something),
this would be the same if he checks every 20-60 secounds.

@ghnaf said in MM why 3min queue?:

Never wanted play 1v1 or 4v4 at the same time, i doubt there is even an intersection.

I'll queue for 1v1, 2v2, and 4v4 at the same time. Sometimes just 1v1 and 4v4 because I generally like those more than 2v2 at the moment. Surely I am not the only person who does this.

Connection errors would punish less, you can half the time maybe more for another try, maybe not
that much like my example above, but still.

As FTX said 3 minutes can often be barely enough - I have the exact same experience. If anything you're the odd one out with being able to refaf in a couple seconds, that doesn't even make sense with how it works. I'm on very fast hardware and it usually takes 30s or so, and that's not including the minute to let the connection actually fail not to mention the timer is already going starting the next 3 minute window before the 1 minute to connection fail starts.

Especially at a higher level the 3 minute timer is nice - there can often only be one game at a time so if you miss it you're out for 20-40mins or whatever. With that in mind I'll second what other people saying about having some time for water or bathroom or whatever.

Also, if I am not mistaken, there's functionality that increases the allowed rating disparity the longer you wait in queue. This might just be a 1v1 thing though, but it can be something to keep in mind as you're waiting for each queue pop and if you want to requeue or not.

@exselsior said in MM why 3min queue?:

Also, if I am not mistaken, there's functionality that increases the allowed rating disparity the longer you wait in queue.

Yes, this happens for all queues

Wonder if they have experienced true lobbysim

Its like when you are stopped at a red light and you are staring at the light waiting to go....it seems to take forever when you are "waiting"....but if you stop at a red light and pull out your phone to read a quick article somehow the light changes so fast. 3 mins is literally nothing but if it seems so long just turn on a 3 min video on youtube or some other distracting task and you'll all of a sudden be canceling ques at the last moment because the 3 mins isnt enough.

@f-odin said in MM why 3min queue?:

Wonder if they have experienced true lobbysim

yeah like the other day when 12 of us waited 40 mins for a lobby to fill just for a guy to leave as the host is finalizing the balance then we wait more for the same repeat cycle, throw in a few re's and all the sudden we are all wondering about our lives choices and closet addiction to FAF. I decided to open a lobby sim live stream so if you wanna throw me a like and sub id really appreciate it so I can grow my lobby sim channel. (we all secretly love lobby sim dont lie)