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Waiting for multiplayer games to start....countdowns to countdowns...

M. Wallace

M. Wallace

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,484
Midwest
Maybe I'm losing patience but I don't get having a lobby countdown, followed by an overlook of a map countdown, followed by another 5-10 second countdown, just put me in the fucking match.

I get the whole "loading" thing but nowadays loading is incredibly fast. First world problems, I know.
 
Edward850

Edward850

Software & Netcode Engineer at Nightdive Studios
Verified
Apr 5, 2019
1,000
New Zealand
Direct examples are typically better to work with but here's a generic overview as to what's possibly going on and why:
  • Lobby count down to start is to get users attention. This usually plays a sound effect and lets people know that the menu state is about to transition out. Either a user could be focused on another application or task, or they may be sorting through menus, a sound effect and a count down makes sure users are less likely to push through menus before the game transitions over.
  • Overlook of the map is situational, but in some cases this is the catch-up state when moving from loading to play. Your client has loaded the map (and likely the server as well) so it's waiting for everyone else to signal as loaded before moving across. Some games may do this as a fixed timer for presentation reasons, as being the last couple of users to load in map make for a very strange flash from overlook to action. Funnily enough, even on consoles equal load times are not guaranteed, even as far back as the PS2 and Xbox, as environmental factors with the discs themselves can add read retry attempts.
  • The countdown will be connected to above and part of the same action. This may also be a load-out selection screen (the later Halo games for example) though I suspect you wouldn't be complaining about that, as it rather sticks out as an obvious concept. In Quake2 EX I had a waiting for players screen here (that finished the moment all players loaded) to make sure all players started the same map at the same time. Network conditions usually meant the host loaded far before everyone else so it was more or less to slow the host player down specifically, otherwise a lot of players would start a good couple of seconds behind.
That's as about as generic as I can explain it, but should cover the most standard cases. These things can get rather necessary when trying to organize a group of people in the same game, due to different states of player readiness.
 
OP
OP
M. Wallace

M. Wallace

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,484
Midwest
Edward850 said:
Direct examples are typically better to work with but here's a generic overview as to what's possibly going on and why:
  • Lobby count down to start is to get users attention. This usually plays a sound effect and lets people know that the menu state is about to transition out. Either a user could be focused on another application or task, or they may be sorting through menus, a sound effect and a count down makes sure users are less likely to push through menus before the game transitions over.
  • Overlook of the map is situational, but in some cases this is the catch-up state when moving from loading to play. Your client has loaded the map (and likely the server as well) so it's waiting for everyone else to signal as loaded before moving across. Some games may do this as a fixed timer for presentation reasons, as being the last couple of users to load in map make for a very strange flash from overlook to action. Funnily enough, even on consoles equal load times are not guaranteed, even as far back as the PS2 and Xbox, as environmental factors with the discs themselves can add read retry attempts.
  • The countdown will be connected to above and part of the same action. This may also be a load-out selection screen (the later Halo games for example) though I suspect you wouldn't be complaining about that, as it rather sticks out as an obvious concept. In Quake2 EX I had a waiting for players screen here (that finished the moment all players loaded) to make sure all players started the same map at the same time. Network conditions usually meant the host loaded far before everyone else so it was more or less to slow the host player down specifically, otherwise a lot of players would start a good couple of seconds behind.
That's as about as generic as I can explain it, but should cover the most standard cases. These things can get rather necessary when trying to organize a group of people in the same game, due to different states of player readiness.
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Hey, thanks for the detailed response. I felt like older games pretty much went straight from the lobby into a match without much wait but I am probably wrong lol

I posted this thread because I was playing 2042 earlier and joined in on a new match/map starting.

5-10 second countdown in the menu
Loading screen
Other players joining
10-20 second countdown from there
Map screen with dialogue and another 20-30 second countdown there to begin the match
Then another countdown when you're boots on the ground

Seems a bit much.
 
thetrin

thetrin

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,737
Atlanta, GA
M. Wallace said:
Maybe I'm losing patience but I don't get having a lobby countdown, followed by an overlook of a map countdown, followed by another 5-10 second countdown, just put me in the fucking match.

I get the whole "loading" thing but nowadays loading is incredibly fast. First world problems, I know.
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Man, if you think that's bad, sit in a DPS queue in an MMO.
 
Richietto

Richietto

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,182
North Carolina
I remember growing incredibly impatient with Splatoons multiplayer specifically because of how much time is wasted between matches. They kinda fixed it in 3 but it's still not great.
 
srylain

srylain

Member
Jun 15, 2018
426
Horde in Gears has always had this issue moreso than PvP, there's always been a large wait between rounds since they need to give their services enough time to make sure everything from the previous wave gets registered before moving onto the next one.
 

yhgtu

Member
Sep 12, 2021
1,724
M. Wallace said:
Maybe I'm losing patience but I don't get having a lobby countdown, followed by an overlook of a map countdown, followed by another 5-10 second countdown, just put me in the fucking match.

I get the whole "loading" thing but nowadays loading is incredibly fast. First world problems, I know.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

COD had gotten brutal with this, and most battle Royale games as well.
 
CountAntonio

CountAntonio

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,909
I love Street Fighter 6 having a goofy online lobby with people's abominations walking around to keep me entertained while i find a ranked match.
 
Spoit

Spoit

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,093
I still hate how console certification started this "click any button to start" thing, where it loads up to there, but then doesn't bother doing the actual loading of the game itself. It adds like another half a minute every time I load genshin
 
haradaku7

haradaku7

Member
May 28, 2018
1,848
Loading fornite, queue for fortnite, in a lobby to play fornite, on the bus waiting for it to reach the place you want to land, leave the bus, do the dive, do the slow glide, don't get a weapon, get killed.

Rinse and repeat.
 
Rizific

Rizific

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,978
Growing up on PC fps games, I always hated exactly what OP is describing. Just load the next map, skip the bullshit.
 
SickNasty

SickNasty

Member
Mar 18, 2020
1,285
ck3kmr4w5lk51.png


We used to do a little trolling.
 
Nocturnowl

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,241
Rainbow 6 siege when you gotta sit through the map and operator ban phases, then the character select/load out prep, then the defenders setup phase, then dying immediately because you were spawn peeked and having to spectate the entire round
 
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