Where is everyone?

[(PSN)crashteddy03]

This is not so much a bug as feedback but it involves the Matchmaking system so I'm posting it here. Happy to move it if required...

I'll preface this by saying that I am based in New Zealand (yep, little old nowhere at the end of the world) and that in spite of this I play on the North America region as there is basically no one in Oceania, especially for trade. Up until the release of Railjack, I never had much of a problem finding a public squad for things like Eidolons, Sorties or Invasions. Occasionally there wouldn't be anyone on a particular node but more often than not I'd be able to find a full squad to play with. Over the past couple of weeks in particular I've ended up doing the Sorties solo (while set to public) or sometimes I will eventually be joined by one or two people. Void missions are more often than not empty or have one other player. In Railjack I can usually find a squad, although seldom a full team of four.
Trading is still as populated as ever, just the missions seem empty.

So my question is where is everyone? Have people gotten fed up with the bugs in Railjack and stopped playing? Is everyone playing Railjack instead? Or has the latency on the Matchmaking servers increased for some reason?

Somewhat related to this, I'd love to see a feature in the Matchmaking where I could disable hosting - that is I wouldn't host a mission (due to my location) but would only be able to join another players/teams mission.

For the record my console is connected via ethernet, we have a fibre optic internet connection and ping response to Canada is about 200ms. I've set the matchmaking ping limit up to 350ms but this hasn't made much of a difference.

 

[kapn655321]

26 minutes ago, (PS4)crashteddy03 said:

In Railjack I can usually find a squad, although seldom a full team of four.

Two things that I think help explain this.

First, as you've noticed, much of the player base is in Railjack exclusively right now. The goal from DE is to integrate this into other missions eventually, so it doesn't just gobble up all the players. We can expect to see or hear of more work toward that end this year.

Second.. this is a guess.. but based on what I've heard, you're not the only one finding Railjack to be a player short most times. My guess is that the matchmaking is prioritizing parties with the least members, first. Railjack is meant to have parties, so it's a detriment to a player to go to railjack and not get at least Someone to help. To assure the best average experience, it is more beneficial for players to get at least 1 or 2 people for backup. This also may suggest players coordinate with recruiting or clan first to assure they get, not only a full party, but a well orchestrated one. I don't think anything's necessarily gone wrong, as much as something else is going right instead. Best of luck!

Oh, also this may do it:

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by kapn655321

[(PSN)crashteddy03]

I think that might well be related - good spotting!