OK, clearly, this was not thought through.
Before, it was bad enough that half the time you get logged into an empty server when you looked for a 'Quick Match', which is totally useless but at least you *knew* it was empty because you were in the lobby and you could just leave immediately before loading the map.

Now, you have *auto-start*, which means you MUST *wait* to AUTOMATICALLY *load* the map (to leave).

You also *DO NOT EXPECT* that you're on an empty server because you're somewhere in the map to start with, so you have the illusion of playing in a game (and because, really, when would you *expect* that the program decides you want to play a Quick Match by yourself on an empty server?)... *WHY* would the program ever decide you WANT to join an EMPTY QUICK MATCH?

Then, to add insult to injury, when you 'leave' you get the *LEAVING WILL COUNT AS A LOSS* message.

It may or may not, I don't know but it surely #&"%#% you off to join an empty server, have to wait to load the map to go look *again* and be told that somehow you're doing it wrong.

I mean, come-on!!!

Fix the dumb Quick-Match interface. *Never* join empty quick-match and make a button in the interface that looks for a different server in *one-click* when you, through some monumental fail of the Quick Match matchmaking system, actually join an empty one.

Surely problems like this one are not a daunting engineering challenge and can be fixed, right?

Typical empty quick match cycle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cARx8Fua384&hd=1

Bump.

Look buddy, They added PRE match so when u join an empty server u can still cruise through map and discover stuff while waiting on other players. The reason why quick match has put u in an empty server is because theres NO ONE playing that mode. Creating illusion that your playing? simply press tab and see if someone is in game lmao.... ROFLmao. Everyone preffers this option, i wish it was there from 1.0 so i could learn maps before fighting.

Not to discount the fact that you're having issues with it because your video clearly shows you are but i just tried joining a quick match game using the same methods you did and was put into a full game within 2-3 seconds.

I noticed your video is quite old and using the 1.4 version. Have you tried again with the 1.8 patch?

Yes, still happens from time-to-time with 1.8 but I didn't want to waste any time making another dumb video that shows the same problem.

I ROFL too but the fact is that the DESIGN of this mechanic is utterly stupid. Not the 'seeing' the map, that is *fine*.
It is the "forced-to-wait-to-load-to-leave-to-click-5-buttons-to-do-it-again-and-again-until-you-find-a-non-empty-server mechanic" that I'm talking about here.

To force you to WAIT to load before you can LOOK AGAIN to join a game is plain dumb. Now, I don't know the criteria the software uses to look for games but I sure know that 'Quick' doesn't mean wait, wait, wait, do it again, wait, wait, wait, no, again, again, OK, go!

I don't mind looking, it's the SEVEN UNNECESSARY STEPS TO LOOK AGAIN that I mind, instead of ONE click.

When you say "from time to time" how often are we talking? If you can give us more information into the issue then we can try to resolve it better

Short answer is that it doesn't happen every time but it's an everyday occurrence.
Sometimes it's 3 empties then you get in a game, half the time it's none, sometimes it's 7 empty.

The frustration is that it's 3 times, 5 different menus+clicks to play, so you end-up clicking 15 times to get in and in rare cases it's 7 times 5 clicks, so it's 35 clicks to get in a game, excessive by any measure. It's not that there is no-one online to play, there are servers with people if you go to the server browser, it's just that the Quick-Match does who-knows-what and you're getting dumped into this cycle of servers that don't meet your criteria (they're empty).

It happens every day that I play but probably depends on the time-of-day, I don't know.
Will try to pay attention to the regularity and get back to you on it with more detail. Thanks for staying involved.

To quote from a previous post on this issue:
--
Instead of
1 click to 'leave' session (because I'm on an empty server)
1 click to 'confirm' leave
1 click to select 'quick match' (again)
1 click to select 'ranked' (again)
1 click to specify 'team instant action' (again)

give us a button to "repeat search" for a match so we can do it straight from the empty server and just find another with the specs we wanted.
--
http://www.gamesas.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=27386

The game is great, it's the frustrations surrounding it that take away from the excellent creation this is.

The underlying issue is that the server browser interface constantly live-updates when you look and you have to chase results within the way-too-long list as they move *randomly*, really clumsy/hard unless you are willing to let it finish updating (1000 results), then go hunting one-by-one through 1000 results to find the one you saw in the first five seconds that you thought would be OK. Even if you use the sort options, it's still way-too-long. So you have to filter, which takes several more steps because sometimes you get an empty list and you have to fine-tune to widen it and still look manually anyway.

In essence, *too many steps* to find a game.

"Quick-Match" is just plain easier.

The motivation is to avoid all the filtering and clicking and sorting and manually looking through hundreds of results.
>>> One click, I play.

In reality, the server browser *interface* is easy-to-program but hard-to-use, it's bassackwards.
It should be *easy-to-use* (this is a game!) whether or not it's hard-to-program.

It SHOULD BE:
>>>I click, you find me a short list of possible games, I play (for the Server Browser).
>>>or I click, you find me a viable non-empty-game, I play (for the Quick Match).

Meaning: You make a list where I see what I want and I click it, then I play.


One way to improve would be to have all the checkboxes at the top of the list, *visible* all the time and they could work live, so I uncheck 'empty' and *poof*, all those results disappear (instead of having to refresh and rebuild the list). I uncheck 'full' and those go away instantly. I click Europe and it shows only European results.

So I have 1000 results, click, I have 500, click, I have 200, then I can click a header to sort and see what I *want* and go there.
Still many steps but at least they are in one place and *reduce* the amount of work I have to do every step.
A small reward for each.

Right now, every step buys me more steps = frustrating.

Having so many "windows/screens" (choose the browser, choose the filter, refresh, evaluate, scroll, fine-tune-the-filter, scan the results, scroll, click to join but not be able to because it's been 30 seconds and that server is full, so refresh, or fine-tune-the-filter again, scroll again) to get to what *should* be *one choice* (what game do I want to play) is just not the best way to go about it, especially considering that this is a game and should be fun.

@Cry-Adam I agree with coldpointblue. Joing a match through "Join a game" tab (from the list of servers), and automatically loading the game without a chance to leave is kinda stupid (no time to click "Leave match").. It can be fixed by adding at least 5 seconds before loading the match/map.

I'm having the same issue as well and I feel like it's the one thing that overshadows this otherwise great game (except the presence of cheaters perhaps, but that's another topic).
No matter how you try to rationalize it, queueing up in this game can be a real pain. Iv'e had instances where I had to quit the match and requeue several times before finding people to play with. A process that can take up to 10 - 15 minuets if you're unlucky (depending on how long you wait in the 'empty' game). Iv'e had times where I waited 10 minuets in a single empty game, with no one joining until I eventually got fed up and quit. The fact that now, as of 1.8, you actually loose the match after quitting an empty game is even worse because it hurts your stats. Furthermore, leaving the session and requeueing now takes longer than it did pre-patch because you need to wait the loading time.

Coldpointblue's suggestion:
It SHOULD BE:
>>>I click, you find me a short list of possible games, I play (for the Server Browser).
>>>or I click, you find me a viable non-empty-game, I play (for the Quick Match).

This to me, seems like the obvious and intuitive way that things should work.
I shouldn't have to work so hard and wait so long to find a viable match, as I do now. When I choose Quick Match, the system should hold me in queue until it finds me an active match to join or enough people to start a new one. It should be quick and simple.

If this annoyance were to be fixed, I would consider purchasing the current DLC and any other X-pacs that come out in the future. But as of now, this problem is making the game too annoying to play and really putting me off. What a shame.

The SIMPLEST SOLUTION for the 'server browser' (not the Quick Match) that allows easy-programming and actually helps users find the game they want is to ADD an *ID NUMBER* at the far left as the FIRST FIELD in the list [leftmost in the list] and NEVER CHANGES while you look at the list, no matter how many results you get or what order they shift-to.

Kind of like the song number in an iTunes list. This would allow you to see a server even when the order is *changing* and live-updating and quickly scan to the ID# with your eyes and even though it vanishes into another spot you can simply find it by id# and play there.

Memorizing *one number* quickly is really easy.

So, you see a result you like, even if it gets randomly moved around, it's still #57 or whatever and you can just sort by ID Number and FIND IT EASILY to click and play.

Piece-of-cake to implement programming-wise (just an extra fixed number field in the list) and it gets the job done.