I see/hear lots of people talking about never getting to play in BTB games… There are 2 cases/problems you need to be aware of when trying to “fix” the problem.
-
Complete Search Timeout: You search and the game never finds a single player resulting in the red screen stating: Unable to Match, There may not be enough players to support a game in this playlist. This happens for 2 reasons. If there aren’t enough players in the playlist there isn’t anything you can do about that. I notice this weekdays prior to 11am eastern time. You will likely not find a game regardless of fireteam size/skill level at this time. Nothing you can do about that. After that and the games start flowing like someone just flipped a switch. Now if the population is on and available and this is still happening to you it is likely because your fireteam is too stacked and too full to find a group of randoms (or another team) capable of beating you with the 30/70% odds rules of matchmaking. You’d have to drop a player or two from your fireteam or try again later.
-
15/16 Bug (Game is found and at least 1 player dropped immediately from the search): This is the problem that happens in 90% of games (And is easily fixable!) You search and you do find a game, but players have been dropped immediately from the search (15/16 bug). You can sit on your -Yoink- and hope matchmaking replaces that player before more people grow impatient and quit as well. It’s an incredibly short window of time before more people will quit and make the problem worse. Sometimes it works, but the vast majority of times it is not successful fast enough and results in a search timeout due to lack of players - but not because it didn’t find a match for you.If #2 is the problem you face then take action into your own hands! What I’m about to tell you works soooo well that I can honestly say I’ve successfully played 6+ hours straight without timing out of a single game! It is possible!
-
For this to work you need to be searching with 7 or less. 6 or less is preferred depending on time of day. - The second you drop a player from the search (seems like this happens 90+% of the time from my rough observations) you press X for your roster and right bumper a few times to bring up recent players from the last game. Rapid fire invite every single random from the last game by going down the list and hitting Y on each player. Act fast and you will likely get a player to fill the spot. Often times you’ll get 2 or 3 which are now sitting on deck should another player get “dropped” or quit either during the search or beginning of the game. They will automatically fill the rest of the spots. If they aren’t needed then they just don’t get into your game and sit on join in progress. It does not matter how bad of a player they are. Simply put: Without them joining you don’t get to play. Instead you get to sit there for 5 more minutes waiting and praying matchmaking can find replacements. So I’d argue absolutely ANY random is better than not getting to play. And odds are matchmaking isn’t going to find you a better random anyway. - Now comes the hard part. If your fireteam is on the larger side after the game you need to cut the dead weight loose. Even if they are a good player. Give them the boot. Every extra spot you have in your fireteam is really valuable as it expands your capacity to invite randoms on the next search. If you feel bad and keep them it just means that’s one less person you can invite to the next game. - Try and be nice about it. I try my best to message every player that accepts the invite after the game after I boot them and say thanks for coming to the invite and saving the search. We’ll invite again if we need to fill more spots! The vast majority of people reply thanking me for the invite.If you don’t believe me on how well this works check some of my previous broadcasts:
Twitch
If you aren’t doing this (or someone in your fireteam isn’t) you are shooting yourself in the foot and aren’t trying.