When it comes to multiplayer osu! has some problems. So I'll list them out in order from most to lease notable problems:
- finding the right match with players of same skill and beatmap taste
- afk hosts
- waiting for players with slow internet to download a map
- players picking troll maps
- players who never pass host in host rotation rooms
- new players joining higher level rooms
Solutions:
Every player should be able to set their favourite beatmap preferences: preferred beatmap stars, favourite types of beatmaps (old, technical, streamy, jumpy, speedy, ...), behind the scenes preferences would also contain player's download speed and number of rage quits from multiplayer rooms.
multiplayer rooms should also have preferences which shouldn't be changable after creation. When player creates a new room room's preferences would be set to be the same as are its creator's.
A "quick match" button in the multiplayer browsing screen could then easily find a room with preferences similar to player who's looking for a match. This results in players with slow internet, same skill level players, rage quitters, ... all being put together. if they hadn't have set their preferences yet, they would be placed in rooms based on average rank of all players in the room.
When player creates a room he would have an option (which could be turned on by default) to make this room a host rotation room. After each played map, host would automatically be moved down to next "picker" who's screen would be moved to song selection screen. If he wouldn't want to pick a map he could press button "pass host". Besides the host rotation checkbox in room creation a minimum and maximum acceptable rank COULD be specified to prevent low rank players joining high rank rooms and vice versa.
To deal with afk hosts and players whos beatmap picks aren't desirable to other players a voting system could be implemented. Players would have 4 options to choose from: ban, kick, change host, no vote. ban would have to have at least 80% of player votes to take effect, while kick and change host would need 50%.
A nice feature would also be to use commands similar to solo in multiplayer room browsing screen. Examples: stars>6, ar<8, ...
All these features would fix the problems described above, make multiplayer a better experiance and at the same time it would still allow players to play as if these features didn't exist (if you for example still want to play with a friend who picks troll maps and is on different skill level
).
- finding the right match with players of same skill and beatmap taste
- afk hosts
- waiting for players with slow internet to download a map
- players picking troll maps
- players who never pass host in host rotation rooms
- new players joining higher level rooms
Solutions:
Every player should be able to set their favourite beatmap preferences: preferred beatmap stars, favourite types of beatmaps (old, technical, streamy, jumpy, speedy, ...), behind the scenes preferences would also contain player's download speed and number of rage quits from multiplayer rooms.
multiplayer rooms should also have preferences which shouldn't be changable after creation. When player creates a new room room's preferences would be set to be the same as are its creator's.
A "quick match" button in the multiplayer browsing screen could then easily find a room with preferences similar to player who's looking for a match. This results in players with slow internet, same skill level players, rage quitters, ... all being put together. if they hadn't have set their preferences yet, they would be placed in rooms based on average rank of all players in the room.
When player creates a room he would have an option (which could be turned on by default) to make this room a host rotation room. After each played map, host would automatically be moved down to next "picker" who's screen would be moved to song selection screen. If he wouldn't want to pick a map he could press button "pass host". Besides the host rotation checkbox in room creation a minimum and maximum acceptable rank COULD be specified to prevent low rank players joining high rank rooms and vice versa.
To deal with afk hosts and players whos beatmap picks aren't desirable to other players a voting system could be implemented. Players would have 4 options to choose from: ban, kick, change host, no vote. ban would have to have at least 80% of player votes to take effect, while kick and change host would need 50%.
A nice feature would also be to use commands similar to solo in multiplayer room browsing screen. Examples: stars>6, ar<8, ...
All these features would fix the problems described above, make multiplayer a better experiance and at the same time it would still allow players to play as if these features didn't exist (if you for example still want to play with a friend who picks troll maps and is on different skill level
).