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I can continue to give reasons why this auto join feature is not good for the game, but I feel the points listed are enough to warrant serious concern over this mechanic.
When it was first introduced, we saw an uptick in retention for new players and less churn in the first few days (a small, but important bump.) Even now, this feature hasn't been shown to hurt us according to the numbers. This is possibly due to new players falling into helpful squads more often than not, or for other reasons. But I think we all know that landing in a dead squad feels bad.
While feelings alone aren't a great basis for decision making at this sort of level, I agree that it should be disabled (made an opt-in instead of the default,) because the landscape overall has changed a lot since its introduction:
- Mentor squads are less common
- Cohesive squads in general are less common
- New player/mentor chat has been introduced...
