Online Quickplay Suggestions/Improvements

[Jacob4444]

Here is a collection adjustments which I feel should be made to the Online Quickplay matchmaking and skill rating systems. Please let me know if you feel any concepts are missing, or if any of my suggested concepts could be better implemented or are unnecessary. I have made this because I feel that ideas which would significantly improve the state of arguably the worst part about online (Quickplay) need to become better recognised early on, before longstanding issues get overlooked. Thank you for reading!

• Areas marked with a "(?)" are especially subject to change based on feedback, though other areas may also be subject to change.
• If you do not want to read the reasonings and/or methodology for any of these adjustments, read the adjustment title (in bold) for a tl;dr of what the adjustment is.

1. Allow players to select their character in between each match in Quickplay

At current, it is impossible to select a new character against the same opponent after you have played once. The irritation of having to leave a game and rejoin a new game if you want to use a different character should not be understated.

2. Provide an indication of how good the connection is between players before a game starts

If the connection level is deemed to be low quality, players can choose to leave the lobby before the game starts.

3. For Stock matches in Preferred Rules, the following Time Limit choices are selectable:

• 1 Stock games: 2, 2.5 or 3 minutes (?)
• 2 Stock games: 4, 5 or 6 minutes (?)
• 3 Stock games: 5, 6, 7 or 8 minutes (?)

Some limitation of choice here is made due to how absurd some Time Limit choices can be given the Stock count. For example, 3 Stock games with 3 or 4 minutes will likely lead to both degenerate play (playing to time out is heavily incentivised) and the games not reaching completion a large amount of the time. Conversely, 1 Stock games with 4/5/6/7 minute matches are likely to be far too long given the stock count, making games go on for unnecessarily long (lengthening the average time taken for players to be matched in 1 Stock games, and also perhaps encouraging stalling). However, in some aspects, there is more choice - for example, 3 Stock matches can now have 8 minutes as selectable, and 1 Stock games can now have less than 3 minute matches.

4. Create an option for Sudden Death or No Sudden Death in Preferred Rules

With Sudden Death off, a game's player ranking order will be determined by percentage/stamina remaining (lower percentage means higher ranking, higher stamina means higher ranking) in the case where some amount of players are equalised in terms of Stocks (in Stock and Stamina modes) or net KOs/Falls/SDs (in Time mode). All players will be notified as to whether Sudden Death is on or off before the beginning of the match.
The reason for introducing this option is that many players, especially more competitive ones, do not particularly like the idea of a one hit scenario being the deciding factor of a game's outcome.

5. Provide options to change features of the waiting room

This would include things like allowing the player to turn off items or only have certain items on, and being able to choose Omega form. Some other options may also be nice, but I feel that these should be provided at a minimum.

6. Add an option for players to view the threshold GSP score to get into Elite battles

I feel this should not be the default for all players since, understandably, it might demotivate people with a low GSP. However, I have very commonly seen people asking "what GSP do I need to be at to get into Elite?", which I feel is a question which can and should be easily answered by the game itself.

7. Allow Elite players to opt into “Extra Statistics”

This can work in tandem with the GSP ranking system. These statistics will begin recordation once “Extra Statistics” (?) is implemented into the game. It should be noted that this will provide more incentive for players to try and reach Elite. Extra Statistics will provide the following:

• Skill ratings in both 1-on-1/Stock and Team/Stock matches (?). Skill rating can be similar to the Elo rating system, or any accurate rating system whereby a player’s skill level can easily be determined from the rating. The amount of stocks the player has played will be the thing affecting how much Elo goes up/down, as opposed to the amount of games played; for example, the outcome of a 3 stock match will affect your Elo more than the outcome of a 1 Stock match. The skill rating system will still be existent for players who have not opted into “extra statistics”, but they simply will not be able to see it. GSP is always visible regardless of whether the player has opted in or not.
• Access to skill rating leaderboard, displaying the top players in 1-on-1/Stock and Team/Stock modes, and where you stand in comparison. This could include Top 500, Top 100, Top 50 and Top 10 lists (?). It should be noted that there should be some measurement of the level of activity of a player; if their activity is too low, they should not be eligible for the leaderboards until they become active enough again. This is to prevent people from reaching a high skill rating and then not playing, so as to keep their skill rating from dropping.
• Win rate and amount of games played in each possible combination of Formats and Rules (FFA & Time, FFA & Stock, FFA & Stamina, Team & Time, Team & Stock, Team & Stamina, 1v1 and Time, 1v1 and Stock, 1v1 and Stamina).

 

[FartyParty]

Big agreement from me on 1, 4, 5, 7, and 8.


There are also a some things I'd really like to see improved about Arenas.

1) Going along with your #1, the ability to change character without getting out of the line to play.
2) Ability to directly invite friends to the arena.
3) Ability for the host to adjust arena rules without closing the arena and creating a new one.
4) An "average smashers" option. I find this is necessary b/c just about every arena for "All skill levels" that I've played seems to wind up with one top tier player kicking everyone's ass until they decide to leave.

 

[KetchupKaffei]

Well I found the first issue of Ultimate's online for me.
When your ranking is kinda high in quickplay(at least above 2,900,000), it tries it's best to match players in your skill level mainly, so when i don't want to play 1v1 and just play FFA or Doubles, the searching takes awhile because it's straining it's self to find 3 people in my skill level. Eventually it turns off Elite Smash and just finds anyone but it's not worth having to wait a little bit longer



So If I want to find matches immediately I would have to probably play as characters I don't play(even though the ranking is still varied by your overall points so might not work half of the time) or I would have to make a separate account that's a low rank



I love the quickplay and the preferred rules, but they need to make a ranked and unranked quickplay to prevent people like me that really enjoy playing casually, and win majority of matches whether 1-on-1 or FFA, from waiting so long to find a match



I had a feeling like this would happen when they mentioned rank before the release of the game, but I didn't think it was this effective

 

[Dunharrow]

There needs to be a standard competitive online mode. My settings are 7 min 3 stock FD.

I just got matched against a guy who had all items on high. 2 stock. 3 minutes on game and watchs level.

I lost 600,000 points from one match. Very frustrating and feels very unfair for someone who's trying to improve with hopes of getting into the competitive scene.

I find it super frustrating that I cant send an invite to play to anyone on my friends list. it makes it pointless to send nice people or good opponents friend requests. Whats the point in having a friends list if there is nothing you can do with it. Doesnt even have to have a messaging system just the ability to invite someone to a battle room or an online match.

Does anyone know if nintendo is planning to implement this? or am I just going to have to join discords to find friendly competitive matches?

 

[Syprone]

I know, it’s pretty useless. However, some online games have a “friends only” option for a filteer system.

 

[MattySlice]

I've only had the game a few days but I would like to see big improvements in online smashing.

1. Allowing yourself to change characters between matches would be ideal.
2. I would like to see who I'm playing and where they are from. Possibly provide a FC under their name for quick adding
3. There needs to be a format similar to "For Glory." I know they've patched the online some but I really get no pleasure out of playing with items or on goofy stages.

 

[Mental Surge]

This has happened at least 5 times now where I have entered a game with the default setting for my controls despite having my own setting selected. Also a third of the time it doesnt even save the skin I have selected either.

 

[lucasla]

Seriously, online in this game is a mess without direction. Beyond the bad connection issues because of the lack of dedicated servers, we have so many bad decisions.

It is beyond my comprehension how intelligent people that are able to create such great well done game can mess so much and be so lost when they just need to analise how people would feel about their decisions in regards to the multiplayer experience.

It's like they turned off their intelligence and turned on the "bad decisions button" on their brains when in reunions to decide how online multiplayer should work.

Seriously.. the game has some basic interface problems... it ignores how people would feel about selecting characters and not being possible to taunt... It makes me to question if they really know or care about what the players want or even NEED, like, you know.. quality on the connection of matches and matchmaking mainly.

 

[Sean²]

lack of dedicated servers

I know I'm picking and choosing what I'm quoting here, but I'm not going to apologize for that. But I keep seeing this notion about dedicated servers. Dedicated servers are not the end-all fix for online lag. You may have a good connection to the server, but if your opponent(s) have a terrible connection to it, you're still going to lag. Factor in general use things like lag compensation and you'll still end up with decent input lag at the least.

Dedicated servers are okay when there are lots and lots of them spanned out all over the world so as many people as possible can get a mainline connection to them, but once you get that one guy who lives in the middle of nowhere who needs to connect through 3-4 different hubs to get a connection to the closest server, you're still going to see lag. Data packets take longer time to travel over a longer distance no matter if it's p2p or dedicated. It's why I think the p2p matchmaking system in Ultimate works best (at least in theory, you can't fix other people's awful internet or kids trying to play online in handheld mode while their siblings are streaming twitch or something) - they match you up with those closest to your location. It's actually the best idea they had about the online IMO. I won't speak for the ranking system, the lack of lobbies for different rules, or even the bad filtering on preferred rules even after it was modified in 1.2.[/QUOTE]

 

[Coolboy]

changing characters is just a must! sometimes i wanna rematch someone if it's 1 vs 1 but won't cause i can't change characters,
since i know of myself i can handle the character they play probably better with a different character i like to play.

and they should add the taunts back in! :l

 

["Bn"]

Sudden death, or "The Sakurai Rule" in my circle...... Should've been abolished for Sm4sh in all honesty, why it's STILL here I have no idea but if Nintendo want to actually have a competent way of ranking characters/players (and they do, else elite smash wouldn't be a thing) then this needs fixing asap. It's rather annoying to be 120% up on a last stock scenario and have your opponent run out the timer because in sudden death, they have more projectiles than you and now they all kill.

For now, I just hope that my opponent plays to competitive rules and SD's during sudden death (as I do if i'm behind), but since GSP is involved, nobody does this.

If a petition arises, I'll gladly sign it and spread the word.

 

[lucasla]

I know I'm picking and choosing what I'm quoting here, but I'm not going to apologize for that. But I keep seeing this notion about dedicated servers. Dedicated servers are not the end-all fix for online lag. You may have a good connection to the server, but if your opponent(s) have a terrible connection to it, you're still going to lag. Factor in general use things like lag compensation and you'll still end up with decent input lag at the least.

You are wrong, when someone has lag in games with dedicated servers, only the laggy player is affected. It's just like that in any game you see. Or do you think that because some player has a bad ping in a Overwatch, Rainbow Six, Counter Strike, Battlefield or Call of Duty, all players have lag too? Where did it came from? Cause only the lagged player will stay with a strange behavior. It's his problem to fix his internet connection and come back to the game without affecting anyone in the process.

Dedicated servers are okay when there are lots and lots of them spanned out all over the world so as many people as possible can get a mainline connection to them, but once you get that one guy who lives in the middle of nowhere who needs to connect through 3-4 different hubs to get a connection to the closest server, you're still going to see lag. Data packets take longer time to travel over a longer distance no matter if it's p2p or dedicated. It's why I think the p2p matchmaking system in Ultimate works best (at least in theory, you can't fix other people's awful internet or kids trying to play online in handheld mode while their siblings are streaming twitch or something) - they match you up with those closest to your location. It's actually the best idea they had about the online IMO. I won't speak for the ranking system, the lack of lobbies for different rules, or even the bad filtering on preferred rules even after it was modified in 1.2.

[/QUOTE]

There are no discussion with facts. We have tons of successful games with dedicated servers running now around the world now, all of them running properly, many of them in my machine. P2P was choosen for Smash and it can barely handle 4 players battles with no lag. Even 2 player matches may have some lag eventually (being more tolerable most of the times). If P2P is a standard for fighting games, it's just because most fighting games have only 2 players connected, that's not the case of Smash. And the fault for this is not on the players with bad connection. If you are an engineer and you choose to build a building in a mood terrain without a proper foundation, it's your fault if the building collapses, dont blame the mood, cause it was predictable. Knowing that there's no way to garantee that the internet connection of millions of people around the world will work in the extreme good conditions for Smash to run properly, only a ****** engineer would choose to make the connections for all the players of the matches dependent of the connections of all others too, cause it obviously would not work well, and it was already predictable after Brawl, and Smash 4 that suffered from the same experience. The fault is on Nintendo and the game developers only.

 

[Sean²]

You are wrong, when someone has lag in games with dedicated servers, only the laggy player is affected. It's just like that in any game you see. Or do you think that because some player has a bad ping in a Overwatch, Rainbow Six, Counter Strike, Battlefield or Call of Duty, all players have lag too? Where did it came from? Cause only the lagged player will stay with a strange behavior. It's his problem to fix his internet connection and come back to the game without affecting anyone in the process.


There are no discussion with facts. We have tons of successful games with dedicated servers running now around the world now, all of them running properly, many of them in my machine. P2P was choosen for Smash and it can barely handle 4 players battles with no lag. Even 2 player matches may have some lag eventually (being more tolerable most of the times). If P2P is a standard for fighting games, it's just because most fighting games have only 2 players connected, that's not the case of Smash. And the fault for this is not on the players with bad connection. If you are an engineer and you choose to build a building in a mood terrain without a proper foundation, it's your fault if the building collapses, dont blame the mood, cause it was predictable. Knowing that there's no way to garantee that the internet connection of millions of people around the world will work in the extreme good conditions for Smash to run properly, only a ****** engineer would choose to make the connections for all the players of the matches dependent of the connections of all others too, cause it obviously would not work well, and it was already predictable after Brawl, and Smash 4 that suffered from the same experience. The fault is on Nintendo and the game developers only.

How can you say there's no discussion with facts? The facts are how these games work. Most game companies have loads of dedicated servers all over the world when they use them. Your software is going to be programmed to look for the closest one. Say someone is in an area where they have to make several hops to get to the closest server, but you have a mainline to it. Your gameplay may be affected in some way. Whether it be the other player not functioning correctly within the game if there's no lag compensation, or other slightly weird things possibly happening if there is lag compensation involved. I never said dedicated servers wouldn't help at all, but they come with their own share of issues that would just make people mad as well (e.g. your hype online tournament grand finals set gets cut short for emergency server maintenance). They just aren't a cure-all. And would you trust Nintendo to choose the best locations to house server farms?

 

[lucasla]

How can you say there's no discussion with facts? The facts are how these games work. Most game companies have loads of dedicated servers all over the world when they use them. Your software is going to be programmed to look for the closest one. Say someone is in an area where they have to make several hops to get to the closest server, but you have a mainline to it. Your gameplay may be affected in some way. Whether it be the other player not functioning correctly within the game if there's no lag compensation, or other slightly weird things possibly happening if there is lag compensation involved. I never said dedicated servers wouldn't help at all, but they come with their own share of issues that would just make people mad as well (e.g. your hype online tournament grand finals set gets cut short for emergency server maintenance). They just aren't a cure-all. And would you trust Nintendo to choose the best locations to house server farms?

The facts that I was reffering are the facts that the game is not running properly. I'm not saying that you are wrong about how the technology works, but the fact that the game is not running properly anyone can just check starting now a new 4 player match any time. And since all other games in my house run perfectly, I can't accept the excuse that this is the best they could do.

 

[Xquirtle]

The facts that I was reffering are the facts that the game is not running properly. I'm not saying that you are wrong about how the technology works, but the fact that the game is not running properly anyone can just check starting now a new 4 player match any time. And since all other games in my house run perfectly, I can't accept the excuse that this is the best they could do.

Its definitely not the best that they could do. The entire online mode is destroyed by their attempt to make it some sort of feel good safe space with big meaningless numbers. You don't get to discriminate against players with bad connections, which is the main issue here. I definitely get games that run really well, so i wouldn't say that it always sucks, but theres no way to mitigate it playing like total garbage either. You can't even get out of the match without eating a loss and DC warning when the game is running at 1/4 speed.

The best part of all of it is that they have miserably failed at achieving their fun for all safe space in spite of their efforts. GSP swings wildly and starts high enough that new players will see their huge number shrink down to 5 or 10 percent of its starting value, only to still get matched with people 25 times their 100k GSP. People that are trying to play FFA or stupid fun crap still get matched against competitive players, and vice versa... all of it counting towards your ranking.

This is 100% Nintendo elitist mentality on game design decisions (like clearly they think this is awesome) when they could just copy virtually any ranked system in any other game and it would be perfectly acceptable. The smash community would actually be THRILLED if it were just sub par normal since we are used to such trash from them!! Ughhh

 

[DDRC]

A large amount of members of the community can agree that GSP is a pretty god awful ranking system. Its inconsistent, excessively difficult to maintain and doesn't actually give the player accurate information on whether or not they are improving. I feel like this system could be overhauled to become more consistent very easily. One idea that would work very simply and (in my opinion) much better would be just flipping how it works. Make it so that the best player is #1 rank and it counts down as you get better instead of up. A simple change like this could fix a lot of the consistency problems with GSP while maintaining a similar system to the original and it would give players a more accurate idea of where they are on the skill ladder. They could also use a ranking similar to anthers ladder and other competitive online games with ranks such as bronze, silver, gold etc. If you guys have any thoughts on GSP/ideas on how to fix them please share them below!
TLDR: i think GSP is a busted system with many flaws that could be fixed very easily

 

[Luigifan18]

I'm pretty sure that the way GSP works (counting the number of players you outrank rather than the number of players who outrank you) is intentional, as it provides more encouragement to say "you're better than X number of players" than to say "X number of players are better than you". This positive reinforcement serves as a safeguard against frustration, especially for players who can't fully dedicate themselves to improving at the game (i.e. casuals). The traditional way of ranking (i.e. number goes down to signify improvement) definitely has its advantages, though; while showing a player how far away they are from the top could be intimidating to those who aren't able to invest themselves in the game, those who do play to win would appreciate knowing just how many people currently outclass them. Actually, this could be a pretty good subject for a psychological study; what style of ranking satisfies the greatest range of personality types?

 

[DDRC]

I'm pretty sure that the way GSP works (counting the number of players you outrank rather than the number of players who outrank you) is intentional, as it provides more encouragement to say "you're better than X number of players" than to say "X number of players are better than you". This positive reinforcement serves as a safeguard against frustration, especially for players who can't fully dedicate themselves to improving at the game (i.e. casuals). The traditional way of ranking (i.e. number goes down to signify improvement) definitely has its advantages, though; while showing a player how far away they are from the top could be intimidating to those who aren't able to invest themselves in the game, those who do play to win would appreciate knowing just how many people currently outclass them. Actually, this could be a pretty good subject for a psychological study; what style of ranking satisfies the greatest range of personality types?

I think a good solution could be incorporating a countdown rank once you get in elite?Also overall i agree that it exists to bar off intimidation and frustration but god damnit i just want to know how good/bad i actually am.

 

[YarnGames]

Just wondering how other people see how the online should work.

IMO: I think it should work like Street Fighter 5 or maybe Sm4sh

 

[Wyoming]

Host migration in arenas.
Host can alter the rules of their arenas. People in it will get a notification saying the rule changes.
Ability to play doubles with an online friend.
Addition of online co-op modes like Mob Smash
Addition of Smashdown and Squad Strike with online friends
Online tournaments with good rules, good frequency, and good prizes
Ability to make custom tournaments
Separation of ranking for competitive FFAs, doubles, and competitive singles. Any match with items on and/or below 6 minutes do not count towards any GSP - they are thus considered unranked matches.

Will they happen? No.

 

[Fell God]

Making your tag actually show up in online matches. Allow two players on the same console to enter battle arenas together. Add elite co-op battles. Not like any of this will happen either...

 

[YarnGames]

Host migration in arenas.
Host can alter the rules of their arenas. People in it will get a notification saying the rule changes.
Ability to play doubles with an online friend.
Addition of online co-op modes like Mob Smash
Addition of Smashdown and Squad Strike with online friends
Online tournaments with good rules, good frequency, and good prizes
Ability to make custom tournaments
Separation of ranking for competitive FFAs, doubles, and competitive singles. Any match with items on and/or below 6 minutes do not count towards any GSP - they are thus considered unranked matches.

Will they happen? No.

I think all of theses should be added but maybe have a system for online like smash 4 with for glory as ranked and everything else unranked

Making your tag actually show up in online matches. Allow two players on the same console to enter battle arenas together. Add elite co-op battles. Not like any of this will happen either...

I feel like the tag thing is not needed because people would trash talk with it in smash 4 and nintendo wants a family friendly area

 

[Wyoming]

I think all of theses should be added but maybe have a system for online like smash 4 with for glory as ranked and everything else unranked

I'd like a For Glory mode but I have a feeling they'd just make it BF/FD only and call it a day. I don't trust them to know the competitive hazardless stages or include them in some way.

 

[YarnGames]

I'd like a For Glory mode but I have a feeling they'd just make it BF/FD only and call it a day. I don't trust them to know the competitive hazardless stages or include them in some way.

I would be ok with that tbh

 

[Fell God]

I feel like the tag thing is not needed because people would trash talk with it in smash 4 and nintendo wants a family friendly area

Sure but people could just change their switch username to something offensive and get the job done that way. And it's not like with the current inability to change fighters between matches that you'd be able to change your tag between games anyway. Oh and that's another must have: the ability to change to a different fighter between games.

 

[Luigifan18]

I think they should look at emulating how Brawlhalla handles online play.

 

[peekpeek]

A large amount of members of the community can agree that GSP is a pretty god awful ranking system. Its inconsistent, excessively difficult to maintain and doesn't actually give the player accurate information on whether or not they are improving. I feel like this system could be overhauled to become more consistent very easily. One idea that would work very simply and (in my opinion) much better would be just flipping how it works. Make it so that the best player is #1 rank and it counts down as you get better instead of up. A simple change like this could fix a lot of the consistency problems with GSP while maintaining a similar system to the original and it would give players a more accurate idea of where they are on the skill ladder. They could also use a ranking similar to anthers ladder and other competitive online games with ranks such as bronze, silver, gold etc. If you guys have any thoughts on GSP/ideas on how to fix them please share them below!
TLDR: i think GSP is a busted system with many flaws that could be fixed very easily

Flipping it doesn't fix any consistency issues. You still change by the same # per game, except that it maps to a larger % swing, which will just piss the hell out of people. "What? I slipped from 100 to 1000 AFTER ONE GAME!!?!?!?!?!!?" People would absolutely lose their ****, even thought that is a feature of how Rank works.

The two "original sins" of the system are that...

1) It lumps everybody around the world and across all game modes into a single Rank, because Sora and Namco don't want to make any ruleset canonical.
2) (Assuming that GSP is indeed unique per character) Players have a GSP for characters they've never played as based on multiple factors, leading to even larger numerical swings than expected as your rating swings past inactive or never-active player-character combinations.

Honestly, it isn't that hard to see how far you are from the top. Just look at the Max GSP. It slowed down a lot now that the holidays are past, so it doesn't change that rapidly these days.

I think a good solution could be incorporating a countdown rank once you get in elite?Also overall i agree that it exists to bar off intimidation and frustration but god damnit i just want to know how good/bad i actually am.

No change to how Rank is displayed, or showing Rating, would make that easier. It all has its own problems. Being able to calculate percentile fairly easily is actually a relatively good system? If it was raw Rank, people would not really mentally note the difference between being Rank 1000 oout of 500,000, or Rank 1000 out of 3,500,000.

And showing RAW rating is just always giant mess. "When I won I went up by 15, but then I lost and went down by 17? WTF!!!!!!!!"

 

[staindgrey]

• When you select your preferred gametype, search specifically for that preferred gametype. There shouldn't be a roll of the dice when you're matchmaking.
• Allow the player to switch characters without losing their partner in Quickplay or losing their spot in line in Arena.
• Allow host transfer in Arena so the Arena doesn't dissolve the moment the host loses.
• Replace GSP and Elite Smash with a standard ranking system like every other fighting same on the market; while you're at it, separate "ranked" and "unranked" based on item and stage choices. You know, like For Glory and For Fun.
• Allow matchmaking for Squad Strike so we all remember it's a thing and someone actually plays it.
• Bring back taunting.

 

[Sean²]

Allow me to quote myself:

1. Add Random Stage Select options to Quickplay preferred rules. So if you select Hazards Off stages, it will pick from a random one from your Random Stage Select versus picking from everything.
2. Make it so you can transfer ownership of an arena to another player so you don't have to kick everyone or leave your console on if you have to leave.
3. Implement a voice chat system that doesn't disconnect briefly before and after you start a match in an arena. Or fix the app. Seriously, the Nintendo Online app is kinda cool but why does it do this?
4. (sorry I need a 4th, so read 4. as BONUS!) Make Elite Smash available to everyone without having to jump through hoops and players camping their life away desperately clutching to their GSP count. Separate the lobbies, Quickplay and Elite Smash. Elite Smash will have a set time and stock count, and BF or Omega forms only (I prefer BF but w/e), items off. Quickplay will continue the current format. Elite Smash will be the ranked mode, with separate FFA, Teams and 1v1 modes. Quickplay will be unranked and will go by preferred rules.

 

[Omnos]

Preferred rules needs to hold more weight when matchmaking. If you don't have items enabled, you should NEVER be matched with someone who has them on. I don't care if it increases wait times.

It would be nice to be able to see your and your opponents ping or at least some kind of representation of how good the connection is (like a 1-5 bars system) before the game starts. With no punishment for leaving if it's a bad connection before the game starts.

Other people have said it as well but instead of just basic Omega or BF filter, let players choose a pool of stages they'd prefer. Obviously this might be one of the hardest things to implement but hopefully between 2 players there would be a least 1 stage that both selected. Perhaps there would be a set number of stages you must pick to make it easier.

Overall I'd rather wait a bit longer for better matches than wasting time vs wifi warriors who shouldn't be allowed to que up in the first place.

 

[FartyParty]

Vipermoon
This thread belongs in the Smash Ultimate Online forum where there is already a thread on the same topic.
https://smashboards.com/threads/online-quickplay-suggestions-improvements.467037/

 

[Sucumbio]

Now that I've logged some serious hours I've thought about this topic in particular.

We all started out new. This is definitely a different game in matters that... matter. But some things never change. Even as they do.

Such as Ike is the new marth for me. Going back to Brawl online (which this is basically a hybrid of Brawl and Sm4sh online) I played marth to the point I could actually play competitively and got destroyed in 1v1s until I got better. There were several good online matchmaking options.

In For Glory I didn't need one. Teams is where the better brawl era wifi thugs hung out so eventually after joining here and other ladders I played team battle exclusively and though told it made no difference set my items to none and the stages to fd bf and sv. Good times.... I was mad when they shut it off and I didn't have a wiiU yet.

For Glory teams was pretty much a godsend with marth once again being awesome at picking apart someone's skill.

That's what Ike does for me now.

But why oh why Nintendo have you got the typical hurdle that great Nintendo games always end up with?

I mean..? After this many years you should have it down.

Easy code fixes really if you think about it.

It doesn't jumble the teams. (add)
It encourages one hit wonders instead of lobbies lasting hours like before (subtract)

I dunno... Maybe its design really is deadlocked and Quickplay is doomed to be its own mode and not an updated version of previous versions. I can live with that.

Background Matching!

Except give it more time. It's so hungry to feed you a match quickly it bypasses preferred rule if a sweet connection is found.

No!

Wait.... Let it do what it says. 5 min. Can be in training mode while I wait.

You do that I think tons of problems will be solved.

 

[TeamChevy86]

Most of it comes down to wanting to change your character. Want to switch up your control scheme? Yeah nope you lose your place in the queue.
Want to change your character while spectacting? Nope you have to back out and lose your place in the queue to do that too.
Want to change your character between matches? Nope there's no window to change before the next match starts, so you're left sitting there unable to spectate.

The way online play is set up, really makes you wonder if anything about it got play tested at all. You can't even play Co-op Battle Arenas. Like ... What? Found that out the hard way last night. We tried to set up a battle arena for the my friend and I, and have the rest of our crew to join to spar. Turns out we couldn't have two controllers going on the same console for it. We had to trade off every match, and our control scheme, which led to the frustration above.

 

[ALiBi212]

Another thing I wondered about battle arenas is: why not have the ability for 2 simultaneous matches? When you have a 1v1 lobby with 8 people, there’s 6 people waiting in queue at any time. It would be nice if there could be 2 queues and 2 matches, that way the lobby would rotate more frequently and give spectators a choice of which match to watch.

 

[Oneiros5321]

Battle Arenas SHOULD* be much better
Mostly, I think it should have more game modes. I don't understand why I am not able to play Squad Strike with a friend.

 

[Robin Lucina]

What happened to Arena room?
Arena room freeze and shutdown about 20 times a day!! Anyone knows how to fix this?
I am suffering this error after 2.0.0 update!!

 

[THE SLOTH]

Along with the above, one of the biggest frustrations I have with arenas is not being able to see the rulesets without A) being in the arena and B) giving up your place in the queue. Let's say you join a 1v1 arena, set to 3 stock - 7 minutes, and on Random Omega Forms only. All swell and good, you can see that before even going into the arena. But let's say for instance, Final Smash meter is also on, all items are set to high, knockback rate is set to 0.8x, and you can't see your percentage. You can't see any of these settings unless you click on the rules icon in the top left once you are in the arena, and press the X button. Why? Why can't this be something I can see at a glance or by pressing the X button before I go into an arena to save everyone's time? It's needlessly frustrating.

 

[PURGE THEM LIKE THE]

Although my reasons are anecdotal, and despite the things stated above, I find arenas to be superior to quickplay and elite. I've found there to be fewer laggy people in them while still running into good players as often or more than elite and quickplay. Even when I do get a laggy player or someone trying to play on mushroom kingdom, I can always just kick them and continue fighting the other person.

This is how I run my arenas. Rules are 3 stocks, 7 miinutes, choose stages, loser leaves, 3 players. My title includes my region and that I want competitive stages (title is Usa,Ga,NoLag,CompMaps in case you've seen me). I say my region to hopefully attract nearby players and minimize latency, and no lag to hopefully communicate that I will kick anyone with a bad connection. Too often I see players put stuff that is already displayed in the title. I limit my arena to 3 people because this removes the problems with the queue and ensures that no one has to wait too long to get a fight. I don't know how to communicate that items are off, but I assume that people can infer this based on the title.

 

[Sean²]

Although my reasons are anecdotal, and despite the things stated above, I find arenas to be superior to quickplay and elite. I've found there to be fewer laggy people in them while still running into good players as often or more than elite and quickplay. Even when I do get a laggy player or someone trying to play on mushroom kingdom, I can always just kick them and continue fighting the other person.

This is how I run my arenas. Rules are 3 stocks, 7 miinutes, choose stages, loser leaves, 3 players. My title includes my region and that I want competitive stages (title is Usa,Ga,NoLag,CompMaps in case you've seen me). I say my region to hopefully attract nearby players and minimize latency, and no lag to hopefully communicate that I will kick anyone with a bad connection. Too often I see players put stuff that is already displayed in the title. I limit my arena to 3 people because this removes the problems with the queue and ensures that no one has to wait too long to get a fight. I don't know how to communicate that items are off, but I assume that people can infer this based on the title.

I do something similar. When I host arenas I always name it something like "Northeast Practice" or "Northeast Competitive". Always make it Glorious Smashers, 3 Stock/8 Minutes, and leave the stages Hazards Off - on "Choice". Keep it to 3-4 people so queue times are limited. I have yet to have anyone come in and pick a goofy stage. Usually connections are good, if not I boot them.

 

[earthboundspacefree]

My internet is bad, so it gets mega laggy when it’s above 4 people. I usually make it random set on tourney stages so I don’t deal with stupid stages, and kick anyone who lags badly.