Why are we not able to have multiple queues / gamemodes at once?
@Balrog said:
I think it’s important to manage queue times whilst keeping the flavor of the different modes flowing. That said, it may limit the other fun modes players love, such as 2v8, with a three-way split to queues. That's what really makes me nervous; I think Play While You Wait helps but I would be curious to see the statistics of how often its utilized during higher wait times.
I was going to just reply to this Dev reply in another thread, but decided to make a post of my own to make it more focused on this topic / easier to see.
Can I ask, is DBD's playerbase so limited that queue times would be bad if there are more than 2 gamemodes at any point? DBD is played across consoles, Epic, and Steam, and just on Steam alone it's constantly in the top 20 daily active users, with 70k+ players a day, and that player count sometimes rises significantly (like today at just shy of 100k at the time I'm writing this) with popular gamemodes coming back like 2v8.
Other games of are sometimes able to have a dozen different gamemodes running at the same time, and while a couple of the least popular ones might take a bit longer to queue into, the main gamemode queue times are as fast as ever.
Is it maybe how spread out the DBD community is across servers? I feel like, for example, there are a bunch of people who only play the game when 2v8 is available, and I feel like having 2v8 be a permanent gamemode would just increase the playerbase, and then we could have a 3rd gamemode come out periodically. This would also give players the ability to mix it up. Bored of 1v4? Play 2v8 for a bit. You're a 2v8 only player but getting bored? Get into 1v4! I feel like this would just increase the playerbase and encourage people to play for longer.
Comments
Its the fact that asyms need the right ratio - in DbD's case 20% killers, 80% survivors. Everything else you mention does matter, but the ratio is what's unique about DbD.
You could have 100k or 1 million players playing, if 30% of them want to play killer, 10% are going to be waiting.
Game modes exacerbate this because now if either game mode has the wrong ratio, it pulls from the other mode. Given the game needs so many more survivors than killers, if either mode draws people to the killer role it can destabilize both (you could also have a scenario where killers have a long wait in one mode, survivors a long wait in the other mode, but I don't think that has happened yet). That's why whenever 2v8 comes out killer time skyrockets in both modes.
When there is a new event active, people want to play it and interact with everything it brings to the table. This will of course impact queue times for those who want to play the normal mode instead. 2v8 is the biggest outlier here because unlike the normal mode, it requires twice the number of players to fill a lobby.
Now I want you to imagine if every single modifier in this Summer Screams event stayed active throughout the three-week duration. You would be lucky if your killer queue time would be under an hour, and the biggest thing that can kill a person's interest in a game is playing a match that lasts much shorter than the time you spent waiting to play it.
The biggest draw to 2v8, aside from having a friend on killer, is that it's more simplified compared to the normal mode thanks to the class system replacing perks. It appeals to the casual player base since you don't have to keep hundreds of perks in the back of your head every time you see anything happen.
As for making it permanent, this would only work in its current state if it's integrated into Custom games. Same goes for other modifiers as well.
I think he was saying the other 10% would be waiting
Dead by Daylight queue times are important to monitor because they directly affect how quickly you can get into matches. I don't know about you, but queue times can really affect my enjoyment of the game. The matchmaking system constantly needs the right balance of players on each side to form trials, and it's just a fact that it's not fun to sit and wait.
I don't want to say that the playerbase is "that limited", but truly, the player base is finite and is getting split across modes. Three modes just increases the opportunity to spread those players.
In my post 10% refers to the overall player base, which I think is pretty obvious. He's correct though that it actually increases more than that as things get out of whack, or 12.5%.