[greatgib]

This deep dive article is very nice.

   At any given time, ~50 of those games are going to be in the buy phase. Players will be purchasing equipment safely behind their spawn barriers and no shots can hurt them. We realized we don’t even need to do any server-side animation during the buy phase, we could just turn it off.

That explains the current trend of "online" video game that is so annoying: For 10 minutes of play, you have to wait for 10 minutes of lobby time and forced animations, like end game animations.

On BO6 it kills me, you just want to play, sometimes you don't have more than 30 minutes for a quick video game session, and with the current games, you always have to wait a very very long time. Painfully annoying.

[nemothekid]

This is not equivalent to "lobby time or end game animations" in other games.

In Valorant (similar to Counter Strike), at the start of the game you have 60 seconds to buy your weapons and abilities for the round. Valorant/CS is typically a best-of-13, and before each round is a 60 second "buy" period.

[dgunay]

In CS you can leave the buy zone immediately. I don't necessarily believe that Valorant's decision to fence players in their spawn for the first minute during the buy period is simply to save on server costs, especially because they realized that optimization possibility after the fact. Being able to buy your weapons quickly may have an element of skill, but it doesn't make for particularly interesting gameplay. They may have just decided that they'd rather level this part of the playing field so people can focus on the core tactical FPS gameplay.

[LorenzoGood]

In CS you have a 20 second+ buy phase where you can't move.

[eldenring]

Buy phase is also used for navigating the map on your "side" before you can shoot at the other guys. Also for planning.

[andrepd]

In CS you have 15 seconds to buy, which is more than enough for any non-newbie.

[AnssiH]

> In Valorant (similar to Counter Strike), at the start of the game you have 60 seconds to buy your weapons and abilities for the round. Valorant/CS is typically a best-of-13, and before each round is a 60 second "buy" period.

Valorant's buy phase is 30 seconds, with +15sec at start of match and halftime.

[greatgib]

If you look at their own stats, they says that for a server that host 150 games, at any given time, they have around 50 games that are in the buy phase.

I don't know how long game rounds last, but if you tell me that you have 60s only locked in that state, that means that the playable game round last around 2 minutes.

And anyway, that you will spend on average 1/3 of your time not playing when you came to play.

Numbers look strange, as 2 minutes looks very low to me for a party, but I don't know how you can explain the ratio of 50/150 otherwise?

And just as an aside, the article in itself tells you that they capitalize on you being in the buying phase to reduce server costs. So looks like that even if they could do something on the game play side to improve that, there would be financial incentives not to do so.

[nemothekid]

Unless you've played Valorant or CS then I don't think it's possible for me explain, in words, the context you are missing.

This game has lots of downtime for the player. For example, a round lasts 100 seconds (then if the bomb is planted, 45 seconds until the bomb explodes). If you die early in the round, you are dead until the start of the next round. Worst case, thats 2 full minutes of downtime for a single player. On top of that the time to kill is VERY low. A single headshot can mean death before you can even react. Compare that to BO6 which in most modes will have an immediate respawns and a relatively high time to kill.

It's not something they are optimizing for financial incentives, it's how the game is played, and how it's been played for 25 years (the originator of the format is Counter Strike).

[greatgib]

It's nothing new. CS but a lot of others are like that. Still, the more years pass since CS, the more you have to wait in the lobby or pre/post gaming. It's not the same when you are in the game even dead. Something happens, the game is running, you can follow what is happening as a ghost.

[simjnd]

> you will spend on average 1/3 of your time not playing when you came to play

The buy phase is playing. It's coordinating with your team on what loadouts to get to best counter the enemy team. The decision making is fun and is play. Because you're not shooting at other players does not mean it is not playing?

[greatgib]

How much fun is it compared to do the shooting?

For this game it is hard to say for me because I don't play it, but I still see complaints about that and the game duration:

https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/169ts34/solution_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/1ekvieo/what_are_...

But generally, for other recent games I have to play, that is a strong complaint that I have. Like BO6 is awful for that for example.

One example I noticed in the past years is with racing games like Burnout. The original game was perfect for a quick relaxing session, you start the game, you play (driving) most of the time. I the last versions of Burnout, you are stuck with hours lost waiting for intro, start and end of race cinematics, that are unskippable. And the whole interface making it painful to have a long session of "really playing" in a row.

Obviously, most often when games are online, despite the fact that there is not a need for a real "loading" phase to reload the same assets 50 times when you play over and over the same game.

[typewithrhythm]

It's the idea that if they leave more players idling in a lobby, but period, or animation, that it costs them less.

It's a deceptive way to sell people less game.

[gopher2000]

> It's a deceptive way to sell people less game.

That's a dumb take. The buying phase is an integral part of the game mode. And the game is free.

[doctorpangloss]

Does Fortnite have a long wait? It became a phenomenon without matchmaking rank (MMR) - after all crappy players die early so they are more frequently in the queue naturally. PUBG / Battle Royale as a format solved the problem.

Can Valorant be exactly the same, and fun, but without MMR? Hmm probably not no.

Demigod (2009), the first standalone MOBA, died for two reasons: it cost money, and it lacked MMR.

Can MMR be done quickly? IMO, no. The long waits are a symptom of how sensitive such games (BO6, CSGO, Valorant, etc.) are to even small differences in skill among the players. Versus say Hearthstone, which has MMR, but it is less impactful.

Thing is, League can be offline for 24h, and people will still come back and play it the next day. This has actually happened a few times in their history. So 10m of waiting... it sucks but people do it.

Another POV - this comment is chock full of them - is that you're just not the intended audience for the Xbox / PS5 / Steam / PC Launcher channel. It's stuff for people with time. What can I say? I mean it's a misconception that this stuff isn't inherently demographics driven - the ESA really wants people to believe, which is ridiculous, that the average "gamer" is 31 years old or whatever, but in reality, you know, the audience - I don't know what "gamer" means or which 31 year olds with kids have time for this crap that you are complaining about - is a 13 year old boy with LOTS of time. 10m to them is nothing.

Looking at Apple Arcade, which has a broader audience, there are basically no multiplayer games, and you can get started playing very quickly in any of the strategy games there, so maybe that is for you.