The amount of people queuing for Team Game DM is very low, not because there aren’t any players, but because there is no expectation for find a game
It would be really helpful if the amount of people in queue is displayed to encourage more players to queue
1 v 1 RM (xxxx players)
2 v 2 RM (xxxx players)
…
1 v 1 DM (xxxx players)
2 v 2 DM (xxxx players)
…
This is a bad idea for two reasons.
Firstly, the amount of players queued for a certain mode is not representative of the chance you will get into a game, for many of those players are likely well below or well above your rating and are therefore not viable candidates. Narrowing the criterium to players around your own rating will not solve this, because then the number count will consistently remain VERY low, if not zero. After all, the game does not make you wait through the queue for fun along with many other players around your rating, but makes the best match as soon as it is capable. When that match starts, all the involved players are removed from the queue, thereby dropping the amount of players in the queue and around that rating back to zero. Any kind of averaging only creates false illusions.
Secondly and more importantly, the displayed number can also discourage players to queue up, thereby introducing a vicious circle: ‘there are not many players queued up, therefore I will not queue up’ -> the queue remains unpopulated. Rinse and repeat. This renders your suggestion counterproductive.
I don’t believe your response is accurate at all
I can give an example with CS:GO where they constantly display the amount of people in queue, It never “drops” like you say as match making takes time to actually “match” players together. I understand the amount of players in DE is alot lower than CSGO, but I dont think its low enough to render the queue to Zero. Currently the average amount of players is around 25k at any given time
About discouraging players from queuing up, I think this is already the case where people don’t even try to queue up. It should only go up from here if numbers are displayed not the other way around
the amount of players queued for a certain mode is not representative of the chance you will get into a game
Not sure what you are talking about here, the chance of me getting a game should always be proportional to the amount of people queuing regardless of my skill set, unless the number of players is really really low which is not the case
Thanks for your reply. My first point is that the displayed number would be factually worthless. After all, whether it says 500 or 25000, most of those players will be either substantially better or worse at the game than you. In other words, the actual number does not really mean anything. It also is not indicative of the chance that you will get into a match, because the amount of matches that the system has to make increases in linear fashion with the number of players queued up. As such, your chances of getting into a match are not better with 500 players queued up than they are with 25000.
If you insist on displaying a number, then you would somehow have to make it meaningful by specifying further criteria. The example I used narrows the number down to the amount of players in the queue that approximate your rating. However, the more accurate you make it, the more the displayed number will approach zero. In the ranked 4v4 queue, for example, the system tries to match a total of 8 players. It might take a while for the system to find 8 players of the same skill. Once a match starts, these 8 players are removed from the queue. This would reduce the number of queued players around that rating to zero, until new players queue up.
Depending on which option you choose, a display of the number of players queued up is either entirely meaningless or bound to be very low. If a gross estimation of your chances to get into a match is what you want, then I must furthermore point out that the game already contains such a thing. Namely, when you are in the queue, the game shows the estimated time until a match is found.
My second point is about the player interpretation of any kind of displayed number and possible consequences. Whether a number is high or low is a normative matter that is not provided by the facts. I might find 500 players in the queue high, or I mind find it low. 500 may be much higher than what I saw it to be yesterday, or far lower. In other words, a simple number is subject to interpretation and from that interpretation may follow encouragement or discouragement. If I find 500 players in the queue low, then that discourages me from queueing up myself.
Now, your suggestion appears to be motivated by the insufficient amount of players queueing up for DM team games. The to-be-displayed number of players in the queue would hence unlikely surpass tens or hundreds. The closer this number approaches zero, the bigger the chance that I will interpret this number as being low, the more likely I will be discouraged from joining the queue myself.
You attempt to refute my second point by arguing that the game already discourages players from joining the DM team game queue by not displaying any number at all. However, it is not correct to speak of discouragement here, for it is more accurately a lack of both encouragement and discouragement. In other words, the current situation is neutral, for the absence of a displayed number also entails the absence of player interpretations of that number. After all, if there is nothing to interpret, then neither are there interpretations of good or bad.
To display the number of players in the queue, then, is to allow players to actively interpret that number as good or bad. Given that this number may be low, in cases such as DM team games, there is the real possibility that it will discourage rather than encourage players to join the queue. If one player does not join the queue because the low number discourages them, then it is increasingly likely that the next player will make the same judgment. Consequently, displaying the number of players in the queue as per your suggestion is not a measure with a guaranteed positive outcome, but is equally likely to have a negative effect.
Given that the number is both meaningless and possibly counterproductive, I conclude that it is bad idea.
I don’t think this is true – at the very least, a higher number of players in the queue increases the chances that some of those players are potential matches for your ELO range, and thus is a decent (although not absolute) indicator of how quickly you’ll find a match.
while I do somewhat agree that showing a number might create a negative feedback loop with regards to the number of players willing to join a particular queue, if a certain mode like DM is unpopular in ranked then I don’t think there’s any benefit in “hiding” that fact – if the devs want that mode to flourish then they should make it more appealing to players instead of hiding the fact that nobody wants to play it.
Atleast we could stop arguing about how many people of the 17k average players are playing in ranked MP.
This should be the case.
However right now, you might get matched up with whatever opponent, no matter what your elo is, if there aren’t enough players otherwise. There should be an ELO difference range cap that would block you from matching with people who have too high or low ELO compared to you, no matter even if it was just the 2 of them in matchmaking. Now what that cap should be, is something to talk about. Also this same should take effect in premade teams, so they cannot queue up as a team if the ELO difference between each other is too high.
This is partly true. However, if there is introduced (in case it doesn’t already exist) a priority to players who have been longer in the Q, that would keep getting higher the longer you wait, it should also make the individual player get faster into a game, the more players that you add into the Q.
To me personally, if such numbers were shown in the game, would just show to me how healthy the game is doing, if I feel like playing I’m still going to Q no matter how low the player count is, cause I want to play anyway. So I’m not really against it or advocating for it that much either.