I know that a lot of you are loving it because of the seemingly gaps that it’ll fill when players quit out of team based matches, but like many of you know, there are many disadvantages to it.
I’m a veteran COD player, so I know it’s exact characteristics. I’ll list some of the bad things that I’ve came to hate about it over the years. That ultimately always pulled me back to matchmaking systems that start from scratch.
No identity - Players usually get replaced so often during a match, that you are hardly even competing against a fixed team/player.
Handicap - It’s always been nonsense to include the ¨join in progress¨ system in FFA playlists. Not only can you join a match that you can’t win, but your W/L ratio is also getting unfair loses. The same can be said about the team based playlists, that have party restrictions ( mercenary gametypes ). That’s also the reason why the COD community doesn’t care about their W/L ( outside of clan matches ).
Balance issues - The ¨join in progress¨ system has a habit of starting games that aren’t equal in player count, depending on it’s ¨join in progress¨ settings.
I wish I could turn it off for myself. If I join a game in progress, I’ll quit. Unless it’s close to the beginning, of course. I want to play full matches.
> No identity - Players usually get replaced so often during a match, that you are hardly even competing against a fixed team/player.
I like that you pointed this out.
The rest can be avoided if the system is done right, but this is an inherent trait of JIP that kills it for me. I like starting a match against certain players and finishing that match with the same players. Not ending up with a final score against entirely different players that subbed in half-way through.
I dislike the Join in progress. I feel like enough backlash would change 343’s mind… we’ll see though… maybe in a competitive playlist you won’t be able to join in progress.