I love thsi game. The gameplay itself is absouletly awesome. I have no multiplayer problems anymore.
Count yourself lucky. I have yet to start a game in less than 15 minutes. Usually more like 20-30 minutes depending on getting the last spot filled and trying to convince every yellow ping they need to reconnect.
I shudder when someone tries to get a 4v4 game going as I feel that is just asking for pain - you know someone is going to drop. 3v3 right now is a good balance of stability and fun.
Speaking of dropping.. assuming the connectivity issues get resolved perhaps there could be an option added where the focus item you choose gets put up for collateral. If you QQ and quit the game early you lose the item. Perhaps that would curb some of the "I'm not winning/OMG my team sux I'm quitting" mentality. It takes long enough to get a game going - win or lose I'd like to actually finish a game with real people. There are issues with doing that I'm sure. Perhaps differentiate between those people that click the Quit Game button and those that are disconnected by the game. Of course that wouldn't stop the kids from just turning off their systems as soon as the tide turns but hopefully Windows will fail on a few of them.
Another option would be for a teammate to be able to call for a forfeit. The other team members would be allowed to vote on it via pop-up and if unanimous (or majority...) the game would end at that point.
Actually, is there any type of community started where people play closed games? Not sure how well it would work but if you had a group of people that wanted to play full games w/o QQ there could be a universal password for each of those lobby's and even a list of players. Could even get a good voice connection going via Skype, etc. I'm not talking about an elitist players club - I'm talking about people that want to play the game and want to get better by playing with a group of other like-minded people.
Probably not the thread for most of this... so I'll add in: I don't regret buying this game at all. It is frustrating to wait for good connections and it is frustrating when people time out. It is frustrating when one game I have 550 favor points, the next game I have no items and 180 points and the NEXT game I have no items and no points...
...but when the game connects well and we get 6 or 8 people battling it out... it is just a thing of beauty. I really enjoy working on streamlining my build/items/upgrades based on the flow of each battle. Nothing better then when one of your opponents makes that one first mistake... stretches out a little too far... gets a teeny bit too greedy.....Bam! Smiter!
My main focus at present is this: Neither the developer nor the publisher had any designs to release a game that majorly sucked in key areas. They will fix it. This doesn't help those that are not happy with the retail release i know. But it's enough for me. I'll just keep playing as I'm able to for now and be ready for when it all irons out.
