I think the common theme is entertainment.
Make your lobby fun, give players something to do in the intermission and when they die.
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combine the lobby and host match making together
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As much as I want to agree with that (I do very much agree it is wonderful) It doesn’t seem to help the main question of my players don’t know what they want and I don’t know how to get the idea for their wants, it’s like asking someone what they want to eat and they say: “I dunno…Food?”
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I may have poorly worded my question. I will edit it to clarify the question at hand.
Players are just stating their painpoints. It is not that they are indecisive on features that they want. Though, it can be true that players don’t understand the ramifications of game design decisions. That is because it is your job to find solutions and implement systems that provide the best experience.
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They want to socialise and be entertained.
An important thing to remember is that, as a developer, you are often in control. In many cases you are completely controlling what your players do and how much they spend (mobile industry is really good at this in a bad way.)
Just do something interesting that makes them feel good - give em some of dat dopamine.
Things you could do:
- obbies
- exploration
- secrets (achievements)
- easter eggs
- practice areas
- hangout areas
- minigames
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So Instead of being boring like “AAA FPS: GOTY EDITION - DIRECTORS CUT” where you get 2 menu options and get thrown into a game, Do things that will get them interested and entertained such as a more social hub?
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Yes
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Great idea, This might actually help me with making a matchmaking system in the future. Marked down as a good answer and bookmarked FFR.
Thanks!
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Sometimes you need to take the feedback, and really boil it down to something simple. It can open up more avenues for solutions. Similar to how EmeralSlash gave a possible solution to the problem in their first post here. There are many ways to improve the lobby experience instead of trying to remove it.
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It’s often much better to watch someone play your game (i.e. “over the shoulder”, Youtube videos, or just playing with remote friends) to see how they experience the game and where they may do something you didn’t expect them to do. You could also collect data on player behaviour (like when do they leave the game the most, during a round, before a round, after a round?) and looking at how these metrics change when you perform certain updates.
Players are not game designers so don’t expect their feedback to be a 1:1 on what the game needs to solve their issues.
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One thing that you might want to watch out for with social hubs, is that the players sometimes expect to return to the same hubs with the same people to be able to continue conversations. There are some ways to address this, but I am also still trying to sort out how it works with some select few problem cases.
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I feel like that would be a rather simple fix:
If they want to return to their original hub, keep a copy of the JobId and use Teleport to bring you back to that server (as long as the server is still active/they intend on going back to that server)
Yep, but you run into a few issues. I don’t think that you can teleport to places via their JobId at the moment.
Issues that I have found are that after your game hits daily peak, then player count starts to drop for the day, players will be returning to hubs with less and less people and it is possible to land in a dead server.
I guess that the opposite may happen aswell, when the game is ramping before peak, it is likely that the hub will fill up before the players return from their match. Especially if that server dispatches matches fairly frequently.
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This idea wouldn’t work in my opinion for two reasons:
- The players may leave/join the server inconsistently, when including things like loading times and round times. This means interaction will be sparse and constantly broken up.
- The players’ overall experience may be simply less social and boring because of the above, and even in the times that they could talk, there isn’t much to talk about to do with the game (aside from trading if you have it.)
Using the generic in-game lobby style while changing it up a bit to make it more interesting is probably your best bet.
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While I have never made my own game, whenever I make a lobby I try to make it visually stunning, nice bright colors, big and fun to explore.
I personally love when the lobby has a lot to explore while not being overwhelming, I think that is a good way to keep players entertained during the intermission or waiting for a new game.
( Doesn’t hurt to add minigames too 
)
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TeleportToPlaceInstance claims to use JobId according to the wiki
For some reason the parameter was named “instanceId” and now all the wiki pages have to clarify that this is actually a jobid…
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WOOP
I’ll have to look into this bad boy. Thanks!
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I think a great example of this is “Death Run” and their lobby
Death Runs lobby has plenty to do so you don’t get bored, and they don’t really use minigames bar the core game.
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Why don’t you give your players the ability to select? I mean, get an awesome lobby, but put some kind of settings menu in there, which lets them decide how do they want to enter the game next time.
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