My friend downloaded the game a few days ago and I was really excited to play air vehicles with him, however we kept getting stuck in the queue for a really long time- at one point we waited about ten minutes, so we gave up and tried ground vehicles, but the queue times weren’t much better.
We tried to play air AB again earlier today but the queue times were still pretty bad. Even if we did get a match, there were only about five players per team, with most of the players being bots, plus we kept getting the same map over and over. Is anyone else experiencing similar issues?
So far I have only flown Rank 1. There is something bad going on with the game queue. For the past several days I’ve seen people complain in the game chat of having to wait up to 10 minutes to get into a game. I, however, have the complete opposite (but still problematic) issue. I click the button and am instantly thrown into a game. Unfortunately, most of the games are typically very, very small. I had one this morning with only 3 players on each side, with three other spots filled by bots… so 6 v 6, with only 3 humans per side. Engaging gameplay? NO. For normal hours at Rank 1 this is completely unacceptable to have some people wait 10 minutes, and throw others into empty games.
Likely a lot of people who enjoy playing low level are playing the event, where low BR planes get a significant disadvantage in scoring points for that event.
The loading screen showing the number of players waiting in the queue is pretty misleading - it covers all the servers, and all BR’s - generally more players = shorter times, but that’s not always true and I’ve never managed to figure out what it actually means.
Also the OP - if your friend is brand new and you squad with them then they will miss out of the “new player protection” - which lasts until about Rank 10 or if they get any vehicles BR 3.0 I think - something like that.
During that time they can be opposed entirely by bots giving them pretty easy experience.
If your friend is still in the “noob zone”, it is likely searching for other people in the noob zone to match you two against. Since there are almost never squads of players in the beginner bot zone (and it’s trying to find you a squad to play against), it will take forever to queue. Better to let him play and get out of the bot zone (buy a BR 3.0 or Rank III plane) before playing with him.
Number of people waiting is by TIER, not people within range of you (like any sane person would have programmed it). So if there’s a 2.3 tank in tier 1, and your lineup is 1.0, they will be listed as waiting, but not actually be able to join a battle with you.