The amount of time I’ve spent playing online games has fallen off a cliff after forced matchmaking, particularly SBMM. They’ve legitimately ruined my enjoyment of games.
I got into Overwatch for a bit, but the SBMM meant that at lower levels it was basically a coin flip if I would get a team that wanted to play as a team, or a bunch of kill whores who only cared about their K/D ratio. I don’t want to have to drop hundreds of hours int mastering the game just to have actual teamwork.
Oh, I love skill-based matchmaking. Without it, if you’re having a good time, it means your opponent is almost surely having a bad time, rather than keeping the matches close. At low ranks, often times a single piece of knowledge can escalate your play to a higher level, which can make those low ranks feel kind of swing-y, but I don’t know that that’s a problem that can really be solved unless you remove the asymmetry. That said, I no longer wish to substitute matchmaking for the likes of a server browser.
The big problem with matchmaking is that in the long run, it kills game. When people start to move on to a new thing, the population that stays because they're attached to the game gets fucked over by matchmaking.
The less people they are, the worse it works. That's when a server browser and the ability to run community server becomes crucial. It will keep a game alive for a decade after its last update.
Matchmaking puts people into a limited number of servers. Yeah, you get the problem of realizing that those folk have been playing Tribes 2 for over twenty years at this point but you also have people to play with on that one 24 player server. Versus twelve servers with 2 players and a bunch of bots (if the game has them) each.
I always would rather both options. But from a game health standpoint… hoppers tend to have clear advantages at most player counts.
I think the general idea is that if I want to spin up a server for my friend group that’s been gaming together for 20 years, we can buy the game and do just that. That’s opposed to the money I spent on the game being useless when they decide they want to stop paying for servers.
That’s perfectly acceptable justification to shut down gameservers and profit from people moving to the next version of the game. Gone are the days of private servers, especially with client and serverside mods, that kept people engaged with an older game for years. That’s not profitable.
Still, DICE insists the Portal browser will satisfy. It does have some qualities that simulate a classic server experience, like how you can earn full XP in Portal matches as long as the house rules closely resemble the vanilla ones.
The community “servers” aren’t persistent though. They’ll only stay online as long as someone is online and using that instance. If that last person leaves the server shuts down - as far as we know, it still seems a like murky, but without being able to rent servers I can’t imagine them just leaving all of them online for free
So in 2042, if you had the premium battle pass, you could set up one persistent server. It was hosted by them but didn’t disappear without players. I don’t know how it will work for bf6.
I think the most important feature is that we have persistent lobbies that don’t disband after a game like matchmaking. That they “stay online” while nobody uses it is really not the important part imo.
Vote with your wallet and don’t buy this. Many years ago we’ve got dedicated servers and free map builders. Nowadays we get matchmaking and 3 maps and additional 3 for 20 bucks.
It’s very simple. If it doesn’t have a Server Browser, has MTX, has Gacha, has Rootkits, is Online Only/No LAN, or is made by any of the AAA studios, I don’t play it.
That’s more then a server browser. You are just being deceptive. You cherry picked the one quote in the article that makes it look like there is nothing in your post and your comments aren’t honest.
What you are talking about is a whole other debate entirely and simply not how the industry runs anymore when it comes to multiplayer shooters.
I want that stuff too but that’s not what server browser means. The finals and cod don’t have server browsers. Bf6 will have a server browser.
That limitation, and the inability to sidestep DICE by renting a server that never shuts down, made it difficult for communities to take shape in Portal.
The ideas are bound together. Same with anti cheat. Same with preservation. Removing private servers caused all of these problems at the same time. The author of the article speaks for the group who want the community that I admitted never mattered to me, that Portal doesn’t provide, but other knock-on effects of the death of the server browser do matter to me.
There is a server browser. There are no servers hosted on private machines. I would like fully private servers too but there is still a server browser regardless.
They have explained what they are complaining about several times now, so get off your pedantic horse and either join the conversation that is happening or fuck off.
It bothers me because 90% of the people in the conversation think there will be only matchmaking and nothing else because of how OP framed it.
You want to talk about how you can’t have your own private server completely disconnected for EA, fine. But that doesn’t mean the game has no browser, jfc.
No, you seem to be the only one confused here. They said a REAL browser, not just a list of servers.
“… we should be able to do what we want with it, including running those max player/max ticket servers that run 24/7 on one map. We should be able to do it without DICE/EA’s permission, …”
Does that sound like OP was whining about simply not having a list of servers? Improve your reading comprehension before you whine about how something was stated.
we should be able to do what we want with it, including running those max player/max ticket servers that run 24/7 on one map.
You can do this because the game let’s you host a server (your rules or official ones) and includes a server browser so random people can find it and join your game.
We should be able to do it without DICE/EA’s permission
You can’t do this because although there is a server browser, you can’t run private servers disconnected from eas infrastructure.
I am correcting OP because most of what he said in his post and what people are repeating in the comments implies that there is only matchmaking and implies that the first part isn’t possible.
Or, hear me out, people are whining about their own experiences, complaining in general about how they hate matchmaking only games. Several people even specifically mention other games before they go on to complain.
This is mostly basic commiserating that you seem to be mistaking for misunderstanding.
IMO it’s the opposite, what exists now is less than a server browser. I’d call it a custom games browser instead. Whichever one you pick will be on the official servers.
I agree it isn’t how the industry is now, but it isn’t going to improve if everyone just accepts it.
Yep. This is the correct answer but that’s not what this thread is about; it’s a nostalgic circle jerk mixed with a sprinkling of “back in my day”.
Don’t get me wrong here, I like the suggestions in this thread but literally one of the suggestions being upvoted is how the game is planned to handle servers (quick join is random and then there will be a list of community servers).
I’m fine with the official servers being random join, as long as I can pick and choose a community server. Which to state again, is apparently planned.
I’m still waiting for reviews on release to make sure they hold true to their marketing though. Can’t trust shit from large studios.
Server browsers and dedicated servers are subjects that make me want to start with the old man “back in myyy day” style comments.
I saw somebody mention CS, which is a good one, but for me the peak was in Quake 2 because of personal circumstances like getting into overclocking and then moving to a university network connection when modems were the norm at home.
Certain servers running certain mods were awesome late-night hangouts. I have a few really fun memories of all of us coordinating to do goofy stuff rather than play whatever the game at hand was. Then somebody new would join the server and start wrecking us until we caught their attention with the text chat and got them involved too, lol.
Based on the article, a server is probably a docker container or something like it they spin up and replace each new match. Sounds to me like they deliberately designed around a system that makes a server browser impossible.
The way I interpreted that part was that they were trying to smooth over the frustrating part of finding a server, because at large scale, you end up in a spot where it’s difficult to actually secure a slot on one. That might be their reasoning, but it’s still an excuse to omit a key feature.
I always liked going into older BF servers that weren’t so populated just to be able to get a lay of the land without being destroyed in three seconds.
Or to be able to use the vehicles and get used to them without as much threat.
Maybe I just want a mode that lets you free-roam maps…
I do! I enjoy camera modes in games a lot, too. I like to look at the architecture in games because I think it’s fascinating.
For BF, though, I do think a little playground would be great. Since they have that map builder tool, I may end up just having to make one myself.
Especially for adjusting piloting controls. If you try to do that while playing a normal match you may not ever even get to fly a chopper to see if you made a good change, for example. I played the beta all day on Saturday and didn’t get a chance to fly anything during that time.
I really disliked bioshock 3. So I have little hope.
The story was over the top but without saying anything interesting or iconic.
Gunplay is a weird mix between call of duty and bioshock and it doesn’t work.
Upgrade system along with only two weapons felt weird. Topics are less useful and less common than in previous games.
“Choices” in story are not choices, completely useless.
Companion AI is bland, they promised a revolution with Elisabeth but it’s just a fly tied on a cord, there’s zero AI in it. It can’t die so there’s nothing to interact. It just moves around you, pretend to seek supplies and to hide from bullets but it’s all fake, it cannot be hurt and she just tosses you supplies on scripted events.
The bird is hyped and have zero impact in the gameplay.
And I could go on…
Bioshock 1 is a thousand times better game in every single aspect.
“Choices” in story are not choices, completely useless.
That, at least, is a staple for the series. Otherwise I mostly agree. I was enjoying the story and worldbuilding until about the time when the portals to other dimensions started appearing and the plot went sideways. From then on it was mostly bullshit they tried to explian by repeating “quantum mechanics” over and over.
Making Elizabeth invincible is the only way that game is playable for me. There’s no chance in hell I’d play an entire game that’s one long escort quest where I’m constantly worried about the useless sidekick that I’d rather be without. She may not have added much, but a superficial narrative device is a thousand times better than a crippling gameplay decision.
Having long played some old CS, there was so much sense of community from connecting to a personal server instance, regularly seeing the same people, familiarize with specific rules to that server, getting to know the admin etc. I’m sure you feel a sense of community from match making, but it can definitely exist outside of matchmaking IMO.
And I’m not advertising for one over the other. But I’d be very happy to see the persistence of accessing personal servers for a game.
It would be nice if we had both options. Let people matchmake for the default experience and let those that prefer custom servers to use those instead. There are problems with using only community hosted servers, such as game rules and less ideal admins.
That being said, the longevity that community servers offer is likely the reason they have been scrapped by EA. They want everyone to move to the next title that comes out like what people do with CoD.
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Aktywne