Hiya guys,

First and foremost, when I looked for suggestions regarding this, I found this, this and this; none of which go into too much detail about how it would work. So, I elected to throw bits and pieces together and present you with this: Custom PvP Lobbies/Queues.

So what am I on about? Basically, Lockdown and Blast Network have two options for playing: random teams, and guild teams. The support for matches with friends is, well, non-existent. You have to hit the button at the same time and hope for the best. Not only can getting into a match with a friend(s) be a costly venture, it can also be a time-consuming one. The solution is pretty obvious: allow players to "group" and have the matchmaking system force that group into the same queue. Building off of the party system for PvE, I suggest a re-design of the PvP section...

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Creating Lobbies

Think to when you're going on a run in PvE; you create a party. You can give it options like being open to all, open to friends, and/or open to guild. Custom lobbies build on this.

When you want to play a match of Lockdown or Blast Network, and want to ensure you play with a few friends, you go to create a lobby. Let's take this in Lockdown context: Creating a lobby has the following options:
- Name: Similar to how you name your Battle Sprite. These are for fun, or so your friends can quickly find it in the list.
- Openness: Lobbies can be set to Open to All, Open to Friends, Open to Guild, or Invite Only. Exactly like PvE parties.
- Size: Options available are 8, 10 and 12, allowing for 4v4, 5v5 and 6v6 (suggestions for other sizes recommended).

Whilst waiting, any members of the lobby can change the Openness of the lobby.
Members can be group-voted out of lobby if needed (I'm unsure on details about this).
Any member of an Invite Only lobby can invite their friends or guild members to the lobby.

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Joining Lobbies

For both Lockdown and Blast Network, the options will become "Join Random Lobby", "Join Guild Lobby", and "Join Custom Lobby".

The first two act the same as the current two, where to join a Guild Lobby, you need to create/join a Guild Team.
The third, however, brings up another menu. Similar to the Spectate option, "Join Custom Lobby" will bring up a list of lobbies in the Waiting queue, giving information on the lobby's name, who is in the lobby, time remaining, and the total size of it. Choosing to join one, places you into the next available slot of that lobby. If you fill a lobby, the match automatically starts. Otherwise, you simply sit and wait (possible re-design: same time system as now - matches start every X minutes).

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Lobbies and Randomizing

After thinking about how random teams work, I realised that lobbies do not immediately work with the current random matchmaking.

Instead, when you choose "Join Random Lobby", you will first be placed in the most appropriate lobby (be it by gear, or lobby size). If no lobby exists (or none with space available), but there is sufficient numbers for another match, the current random matchmaking occurs.

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Pricing

Lobbies are intended to be the integral part of PvP, taking over from the current system. As such, creating/joining a lobby will cost the same as if you were joining a random team: 200 crowns per match.

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Lobby Visibility

Whether a lobby can be found in the list of available lobbies depends on its Openness setting, and what position it is in.

By "position", I mean if a lobby is set to be Open to All, Open to Friends, and/or Open to Guild, but is currently in a match, it will not be visible.
If it has just completed the match, during the "Play Again" grace period already in place, it will not be visible.

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Concerns

Q: What happens if there are X number of lobbies, and none of them are full?
A: Each lobby, upon creation (or after a match), is given a 10 minute expiry. After the 10 minutes, the lobby is broken up and members are automatically changed over to "join random lobby". In other words, members are pushed into the other non-full random lobbies.

Q: If 4 "pro" players are friends and all join the same lobby, will they be on the same team? Making the match unfair?
A: No. Lobbies put sets of people into the same queue, allowing them to play together. Team selection is done the same as now: random.

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Lastly, I apologise if there is another thread giving similar detail that I was unable to find.