[2022] Let's talk about the "broken" lobbies on PC normal games

Hey Snake!

We've been receiving reports of this for a hot minute now and have been sharing those reports with the team internally. No errors on the backend system have been found as every report we've received so far has shown that the match has eventually started normally (either through reaching the required minimum number of players in the lobby or 3 minute timer ending and bots filling the empty slots).

However, sometimes, they go up to 90+ and then we just sit there, waiting for the timer, for minutes and the timer never starts. I have literally sat in a lobby like this for 30+ minutes to test it, most people leave at some point and it never fills with bots or the other option is that we get 80+ bots in a game in the middle of prime time.

Matches start getting filled with bots after 3 minutes. Did you mean you stayed in 1 single match lobby for 30+ minutes without it ever starting? If you happen to get an example like that, I'd love it if you could forward me the server info (located below the minimap) as well as at which time did you enter the match etc. A clip of it would be great as well!

The match start countdown will start after either one of the following two conditions are met:

1) Sufficient amount of players is in the lobby (95 is the default number - it may be different / lower from region to region depending on the settings / amount of players) 2) 3 minutes have passed and the lobby starts getting filled with bots

At prime time EU when the queues have been quick and the estimated queue is at 12 seconds. You are sometimes suddenly waiting for a minute before starting to load in when it's possible that it's been a 2-second wait the whole day and goes back to 2 seconds after the "broken" lobby.

This all depends and comes down to the number of players currently looking for a match at the same time. Yes, even during prime time, where there is the most amount of players, in a rare occasion you can technically "run out" of players queueing for X gamemode at the same time due to the majority either still being in a match, sitting in the lobby, not queuing. Or, there is more than 1 lobby's worth of players queuing, but not enough for 2, or 3 or however many, but that last one, that has the least amount of players in it, will struggle / take time to fill due to the previously mentioned factors and will eventually start after 3 minutes when the timer starts and bots start filling the empty slots.

And then on top of that, you have people and their personal map preferences. Some people will leave maps they do not like. This can also cause a lobby to take its time before it fills. In the meantime while people are leaving existing lobbies for whatever reason they have, more people finish their games, more people start queuing and new lobbies are created and this is why, sometimes you will experience what you described is an instant queue all day long, then all of a sudden a slow queue that you leave and you end up in an instant queue again.

Hopefully this helps you understand it a bit better and, as I said, feel free to send me any proof you have of a lobby not starting and I'll forward it to the team to look into.

But I have had "good" maps like Erangel sit at 90+ sometimes even at 100 players for minutes without a timer. Also this is happening on Deston event lobby, where people have specifically chosen the map.

Lobbies should not get stuck without a timer when they reach more than 95 players. Please report such cases to our customer support or to our bug report channel on discord!

My buddy was AFK a few days ago, we stayed until there were 9 left, and nobody else was added, match never started.

When you say the match never started - how did you know it never started? What happened with the game lobby?