Guild Wars 2

I see no threads here about the changes to Hotjoin, but I see plenty of threads here about matchmaking with inexperienced players & lower queue times…

The changes to Hotjoin can explain what’s happening to your team queues.

First, the play it now button is gone once the player enters a match. That means that no longer can players quickly ‘cycle’ matches to find one they want to play. If they want to leave the match they have to the lobby (and load screen) first. (the exception is that the custom list is still up).

Second, when games end, players are dumped back into the lobby (and have to wait for a load screen). This means no trying to play games with your teammates from the last match.

So the pick up and play casual nature of Hotjoin is gone, with players constantly getting dumped into the lobby. Arguably these changes are good, removing the exploit free win cheese that was ruining Hotjoin.

But the state of Hotjoin today is not good. You enter, get dumped into the outnumbered side of a mismatch down hundreds of points, and your only choices are to lose or go through loading screen hell. Not to mention that spectate mode (more pointless than ever) is still around and sometimes entire teams will swap sides in pursuit of more glory and free wins.

I think a lot of hotjoiners moved to the arenas because the casual format became less so.

You can use the “recently played” server on the list to get back with your team mates.

Got stuck in a hot join yesterday that was already 5v5. What is this kitten?

Nothing to do but sit through another 2 loading screens just to get into a game. Thats the point.

You can still open the PvP menu in hotjoin, then on the left sidebar go to Game Browser and select a server.