Greetings, Lobsters I appreciate the developers experimenting to improve the game, but I feel the recent lobby changes have had a severe negative impact and wanted to offer some constructive feedback. The core issue is that large-scale battles, the main draw for many players, are now essentially dead. The 22-player cap forces more people to spectate, and the queue system creates a frustrating "dice roll" for anyone wanting to play consecutive games. The automatic 32-player split into 8v8s doesn't help, as the lobby rarely reaches 32, and players have consistently shown they would rather wait for a big match than be forced into a smaller one they don't want. This new system is incredibly frustrating. When I lose the "dice roll" to stay in the game, my impulse is to just quit for the night. Why would we expect a new player to do anything else? Imagine their first experience at peak time is playing one game, then being moved to the waiting list. It just happens, and they have no idea why. A great experience. While things like the map pool add to the frustration, if the goal is to retain players, I believe the focus is misplaced. The single biggest barrier to player retention is not our lobby system; it's community culture. I recently witnessed a veteran player dismiss a newcomer, saying "I don't care if new players learn or leave, I want more Palla players." That toxic mindset does infinitely more damage to player growth than any lobby mechanic. Honestly, it feels like we're trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. What exactly was the goal here? It feels like we're compromising on player satisfaction, retention, and the large-scale battles that make Zero-K unique, and I'm not sure why.
+2 / -0
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Honestly, it feels like we're trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. |
Not sure how I would call dismissing other peoples problems or preferences, but yes, this probably is part of the same culture issue where player of both sides of the spectrum just don't acknowledge the others. I personally don't like the current experiment (because I don't think it's "fair" for everybody, which is the problem we started with), but I also personally avoid what I think are large boring games, which sometimes results in just quitting playing for the day. So, not doing anything also affects retention, just for other people.
+2 / -0
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The thing is, small games, if they are your preference, are much easier to form. Is the problem that small games are not easy enough to form? Does this somehow help that change? Its less that I'm trying to dismiss an issue, more that I wish to understand what precisely the issue is seen to be. Palla games happen when/because people want them to happen. There are small game lobbies, but they are simply not as popular.
+1 / -0
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quote:
This new system is incredibly frustrating. When I lose the "dice roll" to stay in the game, my impulse is to just quit for the night. Why would we expect a new player to do anything else? Imagine their first experience at peak time is playing one game, then being moved to the waiting list. It just happens, and they have no idea why. A great experience. |
What about using a visible priority score to possibly move players to the end of the queue? Waiting or spectating would increase the score and partaking in a battle would reduce the score so it shouldn't force some people to stop playing after just one battle. The possible changes wouldn't necessarily be only 1 and -1. quote:
The thing is, small games, if they are your preference, are much easier to form. Is the problem that small games are not easy enough to form? Does this somehow help that change? |
I don't care for small games personally. I want to play big team games, but 16v16 battles are generally silly in my humble opinion.
+2 / -0
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I really liked the matches I saw so far in TAW. It's nice that newcomers can go directly up in the player list and get a match.
+2 / -0
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If small team matches were so popular, then they would happen much more often. If people really wanted to play 4v4 or smaller, then those rooms would be full and people would spectate those matches instead of joining the big room. It really lookss like a very small number of players prefer small matches over large matches. If I'm wrong, then I expect the 4v4 room to constantly be full. It's not. I really think the issue is that more skilled players do not like playing with less skilled players. The more skilled players have less ability to impact the match. The larger the match, the more diluted the efforts of any one player. The more skilled players tend to blame their less skilled teammates - forgetting the fact that the matchmaker balances the games very well. The larger the match, the better the balance. It's human nature to blame somebody else when something goes wrong and when a less skilled player clearly plays worse than more skilled players, the blame game becomes all too tempting - even if they do not blame anybody openly - they think it (I've done it). It's also true that the pressure to perform well is greater in smaller matches so people do tend to perform better, which is what more skilled players like to see. Is the goal to increase player count, is that secondary to creating a game that current core players want, or some other priority? I think that regardless of the stated goal, the primary goal is something other than increasing the player numbers, because the numbers are tiny. If 2.2k ELO players were numerous enough for constant small matches and the overall numbers enough for multiple 32 player matches all at the same time, then this discussion would not happen.
+3 / -0
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if 50vs50 were an option, that would be my preference. Ever since the earliest days of playing both ZK it's earlier incarnation as CA and on other spring engine games before that, I have longed for the biggest pot of lobster.
+2 / -0
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   QuietMuteThe difficulty is that small teams in a high elo variance environment are mostly a shitshow. A 2v2 will rarely have good balance. As team size increases, it becomes easier to make more even teams. So it's quite difficult to get a game off the ground. Once a game does get off the ground, people will see it, join it, and turn it into big teams. If you limit it to small teams, you will get calls from spec to join TAW. Essentially, anyone committed enough to getting a small team game running risks having it diffused if successful. This disincentivises room seeding. A small teams room will either die out or turn into big teams, it's almost inevitable. But big teams can't die out, and only turns into small teams at specific times of day when populated timezones ticks over. TLDR small team play data is incongruent with their espoused popularity for a reason. I'm not saying people are right to hate big teams. Personally I like 4v4-6v6ish which is neither small nor large. I don't like really big teams because you get no metal and the game state often stagnates then takes forever to finish (e.g. we have an eco advantage, let's make 6 singu and then start pala, finishing the game maybe 45 minutes from now). It's not about blame, it's about agency, of which I feel none probably 3/4 the time in v big teams.
+0 / -0
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Once a game does get off the ground, people will see it, join it, and turn it into big teams. If you limit it to small teams, you will get calls from spec to join TAW. Essentially, anyone committed enough to getting a small team game running risks having it diffused if successful. |
I have to disagree with this assessment. Small games don't grow into big ones because they are intentionally kept small by the player cap. The people playing in them chose that format and have no incentive to leave. When spectators call for TAW, they aren't trying to break up the small game; they're trying to start the large game they want to play. They are simply recruiting from whatever lobbies are active. The only real forces that work against a dedicated small-team game are poor balance or players consciously choosing to join a lobby with a higher player cap. It's a matter of preference, not an inevitable diffusion. I'll also add that I'm finding "Big" and "Small" team sizes are seen as vastly different numbers by people, and are not actually that useful as a metric.
+2 / -0
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Its less that I'm trying to dismiss an issue, more that I wish to understand what precisely the issue is seen to be. |
There is no simple way at this point for people that would play smaller games to organize, because there is a high risk that you will miss the next game or wait indefinitely. Waiting in TAW almost guarantees a game. Splits rarely happen (and are forced so people don't like them). Queues do not show you who is in the queue, even if you join the queue you can't say "I will play if there if 4v4". Even if you would start a smaller game, the risk that it will die after is harder (so people will not wait and will prefer to join TAW). All these are organization restrictions - that's why I think people liked the 2 waiting room proposal in the other thread. You play whatever you can ("large game in TAW") until you find something that you like ("smaller game in backup host"). Bonus, you have some option if for example you hate the map (or some players) in TAW. I am sure it would be to (too) complex to implement, or unfeasible for another reason, but the idea seemed better on average than "lets just all wait in the largest host" ... quote:
The people playing in them chose that format and have no incentive to leave. |
The people in them have intention to play, and they might make a trade-off between playing something they don't particularly like and risking waiting without any hint that another game will start.
+1 / -0
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There is no simple way at this point for people that would play smaller games to organize, |
I agree that more could be done to help smaller games organize, and I'd love to see those improvements. The proposal to allow waiting in multiple rooms at once, for example, is a great idea. However, I don't believe the recent changes address this problem at all. An 8v8 auto-split isn't what most players mean when they ask for 'small games'. A suggestion I saw with more promise was to simply add more rank-bracketed rooms for smaller team sizes; that alone would do far more to encourage balanced, small-scale play. This might be an extreme stance, but I would rather see TAW disabled entirely than have all lobbies capped like this. I honestly believe players would just create their own custom rooms for large games rather than being forced into smaller ones—the demand is that strong. It feels like the reasoning behind the caps has changed for the worse. The old 32-player limit seemed to be a reasonable compromise for performance. This new 22-player cap, however, appears to be an arbitrary rule based on peak player numbers, which is a flawed foundation for lobby design.
+1 / -0
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Imma be real it didn't change a damn thing about the amount of lobbies or when the lobby's played, TAW's still the primary lobby everyone joins bar some private 1 player lobbies doing whatever on their own. As long as there's little players overall, there won't be a bunch of small games, it's all gonna congregate into one lobby regardless, especially if no one seems to care to play smaller teams to begin with (both new and experienced players tbh, one coming for big battles, other not having enough patience to deal with new players having an impact on the team).
+2 / -0
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I truly think the problem is population. We already have the 2v2, 3v3, matchmaker, but I never see it used. It allows for evenly matched small teams - just not enough players to populate it. Edit: The way to entice more people is through marketing with those game influencers that have millions of subscribers/followers regularly promoting Zero-k.
+2 / -0
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Maybe, and I'm spitballing a bit here, it would also be better if you could keep waiting in a lobby while at least being able to play a skirmish against AI. Cuz especially now there's a ton more of waiting and it's agonising. quote:
Edit: The way to entice more people is through marketing with those game influencers that have millions of subscribers/followers regularly promoting Zero-k. |
Not possible by the way, mostly because of BAR taking all the attention and being far, far more of an enticing game to cover just because it looks (and is) new, or just covering whatever early access strategy game is getting popular atm, but also Zero-K not having that one fancy thing all modern players are so attracted to, high fidelity, pretty graphics. xd
+2 / -0
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So I just had the first lobby limit hit (my timezone doesn't really allow for it usually), and it turned out great? There was a 22 player room and a 14 player room. The rooms seemed to sort themselves loosely by elo too.
+0 / -1
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Yes, so far the changes seem to work well, even though I dislike the UI of having to pick a lobby. I think the waiting time has reduced drastically. When I fire up ZK, I can just join and play. And spectating after a couple of matches feels pretty healthy.
+0 / -1
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quote:
So I just had the first lobby limit hit (my timezone doesn't really allow for it usually), and it turned out great?
There was a 22 player room and a 14 player room. The rooms seemed to sort themselves loosely by elo too. |
quote:
Yes, so far the changes seem to work well, even though I dislike the UI of having to pick a lobby.
I think the waiting time has reduced drastically. |
Four more players than would have fit in TAW? That's a success? How does that reduce wait time by any significant margin? Saying that the changes work well or that you liked the matches you saw is not really a metric to measure by, I would think. I don't see what's working particularly well, there's just two smaller rooms. Is this really just "smaller games are good??"
+1 / -0
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THE GOOD I have more metal and feel like I have a bigger impact on the game THE BAD However, I forgot about the possibility that there exist other rooms besides TAW. My mind is becoming TAWed the longer I play TAW. The longer I play TAW, the less possibility of finding another lobby. I want to play NOW, so even if I wanted to change gametype, I cant, because the other Futurewars or Zerowars games are already underway. I must stay at my seat at TAW. The next TAW way is underway in 2 minuts
+0 / -0
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Currently lobpot at 24/22 and palladium at 14/12. So far the Best-K I've seen.
+0 / -0
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