Briefly:
I spent 40 minutes of fun gameplay trying to beg the matchmaker for a game mode other than Conquest. Naturally, I lost to the matchmaker and it was silent and dominated me.
Mindflow:
In addition to noted higher the only possible game mode, the statistics revealed a “time line” during which the same map appears. Even when I change factions and campaigns. At the same time, periodically, matchmaker login the same matches from which the player just left. Something like an analogue of auto login after an accidental gamecrash / game bug / connection problems. Perhaps the same gamemodes and maps are not an accident, but a feature that allows devs to somehow optimize server load consumption and / or collect the statistics that they want for certain maps / gamemodes. Nevertheless, it pretty much spoils the QoE.
Suggestions:
Light version (for the time of small online):
Provide to player the ability to customize preferred gamemodes / maps, while the settings will be desirable, but not mandatory for the matchmaker to make a matchmaking decision. Add the matchmaker timer setting (till 1 minute max) so that the server searches for the game in accordance with the player’s desired settings until the time expires. After the expiration of the time, the player automatically joined the first game that came across, ignoring the desired settings.
Hard version:
Provide the player full control to choose maps and gamemodes that he wants / does not want to play. Do not connect the player to sessions that do not match settings at all, but no more than 10 minutes. After that, ignore the settings and connect to the first available session.
In addition to the matchmaker customization:
Do accounting the maps / gamemodes played by the user in the last 5 games. When matchmaker do desicion to selecta mode / map for the next battle (if the player does not change the campaign), DO NOT allow this:
- more than 2 times in a row the same map
- more than 5 times in a row the same gamemode