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Something needs to be done about the ridiculous Q times
I've just come back to dbd after a year or so break...
I have to wait up to TWENTY MINUTES to find a match as killer, not as bad with survivor but not fast either. (I can actually usually finish TWO MATCHES of a game like MTGA while waiting in the queue).
Of course I assumed I'd be much lower rank than most people after a long break so I stuck with it in the hopes it got better. I'm sure plenty of new or returning players will simply be turned off by this and not even give it a chance.
I'm now rank 8 (nothing special I know, just some context for a few days of play) and the times have barely changed.... maybe up to 15 minutes instead. I was just in the middle of a fun game and was doing well until my game crashes out of nowhere (I have an extremely capable gaming pc and rarely have much running in the background). I was already so demoralised/discouraged by this that I wasn't sure if I even wanted to play anymore afterwards (I'd only just started and was expecting to play for hours) but, to rub salt in the wound, after waiting for the slow title screen to load and get back into the game, I see I have a penalty for leaving early and can't even play without waiting even longer... More than enough to kill any momentum or enjoyment I was having and push me to another game.
I've been playing for less than a week since coming back and I've also experienced an apparently rare (totally game breaking) bug TWICE. It was the one where a surv gets frozen on hook (game won't end until dc) and the killer, despite not carrying anyone or even appearing to, cannot interact with ANYTHING in the map and is significantly slower than all survs making every loop an infinite.
DBD has always had it's bugs and so do all games, they're not ideal but mostly an annoyance that is tolerated by fans and people enjoying the game... That was how I used to feel anyway. The insane Q times really compound any other issues the game might be having and I think that if left unchecked, will be incredibly unhealthy for the game and its community.
I.E. After waiting 10-15 mins for a game, having fun but then having the extremely unsatisfying end of a sudden crash or a game breaking bug, do you really feel like getting the Q to wait another 15 mins to try again?
It isn't limited to bugs either, long time smaller issues like toxicity or uneven matchmaking (another side of the same coin) feel a lot worse if you had to wait in line for longer than you were actually playing for.
I also don't believe the long times are a population problem, especially with crossplay, as I've seen streamers at rank 1 being consistently matched within seconds... It feels more like the ranking system is still not quite right and too many people may be getting forced into too narrow of a rank range. At a guess, it looks like survivors are still ranking up too easily and with less dropdown at reset, bubbling up to and getting stuck in the red ranks.
I know this isn't trivial to fix, I remember how bad it felt learning to play this game when I was new (and that was in the time of pallet vacuums, 'anytime during animation' stun saves, facecamping, etc). It is important to try to give less experienced players a safe space to explore/enjoy the game and get addicted before being discouraged.
I rememeber all the frequent dcs too and, as this usually ruins the whole match for 4 other people, is definitely something to be taken seriously as well. As long as the punishment for killer is totally inconsistent though, I see little value in it. I've read some people get penalties after crashes whilst other times they don't.
I've always had a soft spot for the game and think it has huge potential. I'm very impressed about a lot of the improvemtns in mechanics and balance that have happened over time. For instance, I cannot tell you how pleased I was to see that games abort now if one or more players don't load in properly!
I only took the time to write this wall of text as I want the game to keep doing well and I believe this to be an important factor in that.
TL;DR: The insanely long queue times are very off-putting and really compound any other issues the game may be having (crashs/bugs/toxicity) and I really believe that if left unchecked, it'll be incredibly unhealthy for the game and its community.
I know there are plenty of things to focus on in dbd but the ability of a multiplayer game to actually PLAY a game with people, without having to wait an eternity, seems like such core functionality that it should be prioritised above all else.
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I am a baby killer trying to learn the killer side. I am sitting in 20-30 minute queues. How the hell are people supposed to get better ?? My survivor queues are instant. Shakes fist!
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Exactly, the important iteration cycle of practicing and improving your own gameplay is also adversly affected. It's difficult enough to learn as it is, especially once a game is older and there are larger skill gaps, without making it feel more punishing and harder to cement lessons you've learned in your mind for the future.
Like I said above, it also likely feels a hell of a lot worse to lose when you have to wait so long to try again... There's a reason that the 'instant restart' has been a mainstay of challenging games for years - focusing ahead on the fun of playing again distracts from how bad it just felt to lose (or whatever happened) whereas forcing players to dwell on the previous unpleasant experience is likely to drive them away.
Post edited by Jimmy22666 on0 -
Did you try playing at diffrent times of the day?
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Yup.
Morning = 20-30 mins
Mid morning = 5-10 mins with half the matches with red ranks as a 17. They were nice in post chat.
Mid afternoon = 1 -5 mins red swf reds as Steve tbagging and telling me to quit the game.
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@Jimmy22666 I'm sorry that you are having such a negative first experience. What platform are you on, and what time zone / times of day do you usually queue up?
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Sadly I've had consistent 10-15+ min waits, nomatter what time I play (from morning to evening but mostly just the afternoon)... I'm in the UK and play on windows.
I just played my first game of the day (made and finished breakfast in the queue) and was heading towards a 4k when again I crash for no apparent reason with no error/log and am given another penalty for both sides... Probably done for the day again tbh and I barely even got started.
I hate dcs and it really does ruin the match for multiple people but as long as there seem to be so many bugs, crashes, and ridiculous wait times, I don't think the penalties are okay yet... at least on killer side - I've never had any issues on survivor side (except minor bugs and teammates, haha).
It just saddens me that, as a long time fan of the game (I've owned it for almost 4 years) who has taken breaks, I WANT to come back and play. I WANT to get hooked again and enjoy all this great content and improvments that have been added. The rifts/tomes are exactly what I was looking for in terms of more things driving me to keeping playing each day past the daily quest.
Instead I feel I'm being driven away, I've been resisting buying other games as I don't want to lose my interest in dbd again but if the same thing happens again tomorrow... I might just give up and if I move on to another game, that will likely be it for another 6 -12 months.
Again, all these issues would usually be minor gripes but when combined with the mind-numbing wait times, they become deal-breakers.
How many other people are in the same boat as me and simply lose patience for these kinds of isssues completely nullifying any enjoyment they might be having with the game?
Post edited by Jimmy22666 on0 -
I took a break for a couple of days and tried 4 games today...
- a surv dc'd near the start of my first one (killer game) - a swf member told me they had crashed.
- The next game (surv) had someone I legitimately thought was a bot, they followed me around, standing behind me as I did gens (actually blocking me from leaving a gen) and literally taking no game actions whatsoever, game didn't last long.
- The next game had a wraith who I guess was making a point or maybe they just went afk when waiting for the lobby... Either way, we never saw the killer, just did our gens and left... 1 person dc'd (either boredom or another crash).
- The last game actually looked like it could be fun... until I get a sudden crash with a stacktrace. I was alone, healthy, on a gen and the spirit was chasing a teammate, no idea what could've caused it.
That's FOUR out of FOUR games I tried (even referring to them as games is generous). Yes, a small sample size but it can often only take one or two bad experiences to put someone off, at least temporarily, let alone every single time! As I crashed during my first and only game the previous times I tried to play, you could even count it as 7/7 games in a row being ruined (spread over killer & survivor)
Why would anyone want to keep playing this game when these matches are not the minority or a small fraction but instead seem to be the expected result.
No one wants to slog through countless boring or uninteresting 'games' until they finally get a rare chance to actually play and have fun...
P.S. Forgot to mention before but why on earth can you not select your rift challenge (or even look at the tomes) while searching OR once in a lobby? Again... kinda minor issue but when combined with waiting for 20 mins only to realise there's no way for you to select a challenge even when you have plenty of time before the game starts, it's infuriating. It even seems like the perfect place in dbd to kill time while waiting for a game... The bloodweb and loadout being accessible seems like a clear acknowledgement of giving ppl things to do while in the lobby so I'm baffled that the same wasn't done for the rift. Maybe it could be abused in some way but I can't think how.
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