I prefer customs over tmm.

Before TMM was launched I always believed that it would provide the best experience for teamgames. That we could move on from custom games and global rating. However after it was released I have no longer felt that way. These days I only play custom 15x15 1800+ mapgens. Why is that? Why is the tmm experience so much worse than customs?

Here are some of my thoughts:

• as a high rating player in tmm I can almost never find a match, because the lower ratings keep getting matched against each other. However customs don't have this problem. In a custom virtually any host will let me in even if I'm far above their rating
• in customs various things can be done to fit me in if I join late: larger team sizes, closing slots to hold a spot, people being kicked etc.
• a tmm game starts immediately upon matching which means that I have to be ready to play at a moments notice for hours on end. In customs I can just say afk 10min in the chat, and the worst that can happen is getting kicked. I can play other games, shower, or even go to the store, while searching for a custom.
• in a custom lobby there's an indicator of progress being made when other people join the lobby
• you can chat directly with the players you are about to enter a game with, which makes waiting in a lobby a social experience
• I'm partial to the 5v5 format (over 4v4) and mapgens in general

Some advantages of tmm:

• it makes getting into a game very easy for a new player (as long as they can find a game within a few minutes, otherwise the game may feel dead)
• it improves the integrity of the rating system (as opposed to custom)

Could the tmm system be improved or do we just have not enough players to make it viable? Idk really I haven't thought that far I just wanted to complain x)

Why is the tmm experience so much worse than customs?

Part of the reason is that you are a member of the select few that get special treatment in customs, like you said, hosts will close slots to save one for you, open slots for you if you're in obs, wait for you to x, or kick lower rated people so you can join etc.

The more that players like you are playing custom games, the worse the tmm experience gets, as it's less likely that players will queue up for tmm since matches take longer to find, further snowballing the issue.

I think we probably have enough players to make high level tmm viable for at least a couple hours in a given 24 hour window, but that would basically require the majority of 1700+ players queueing tmm whenever they want to play instead of joining custom games, which is not very likely to happen in part because of a lot of the reasons you listed.

High level tmm was viable and perfectly fine when everyone high level did queue for it. There’s no real reason one is played over the other beyond dudes following the current trend. Only problem I had with tmm was the consistency of getting a 10 minute monkeypush map.

If any streamer like Tagada or Farm or Jagged started to queue for tmm consistently once again then tmm goes back to being played more.

i guess there is a thing of getting chain games that are filling up in about 30-50 seconds in the prime time so it's just faster

TMM often gives me big eco type maps which aren't my cup of tea. A way to veto at least one map would be great. It would probably be harder to get a match though.

I enjoy both, but I think there are things that could be done to enhance TMM.

Off the top of my head:

• An MM chat window on the MM page of the client so everyone queuing can easily talk to each other. The chat is already there, but it's only for you group afaik
• A "Confirm" button like so many other games have when it comes to MM so if you disappear for whatever reason you don't get thrown into the game
• Maybe add a 5v5 queue? With multi-queuing I could see people potentially queuing up for both 4v4 & 5v5. Though I know 3v3 wasn't all that popular so might just cause the same situation.

Also random idea, maybe as a community we could have a monthly vote on a mapgen map to add to the queue, just to keep variety up. People can submit their favorite mapgens of the month and then vote on them.