What's wrong with the lobbies?

[Caffeination]

More like what’s right with the lobbies. The lesser populated a session is, the less likely you’ll be cursed with a soft-lock or an infinite loading screen.

 

And freeroam strangers are actually spawning for once. I haven’t seen that homeless man who asks you for meat for months, or that other man kidnapped by the local gang and mistaken for a bounty target, or even that lady who was bucked off by her horse.

 

I lament that Rockstar will try to “fix” this because they intended RDO to be an unstable buggy mess.

[Sil3ntWr4th_-]

The last time I played RDO there was no complications with the lobbies.

Edited August 29, 2020 by PicklePrick

[Leftover Pizza]

8 minutes ago, PicklePrick said:

NPCS have gone batsh*t crazy, they drive into you more frequently than before the Los Santos Summer Special update was released.

 

at least they are there now. I rode into Valentine this evening and there was 7 NPC's hanging around the saloon near the graveyard, many walking in town too. It's been a while since I've seen the town so alive.

[Sil3ntWr4th_-]

2 hours ago, Leftover Pizza said:

 

at least they are there now. I rode into Valentine this evening and there was 7 NPC's hanging around the saloon near the graveyard, many walking in town too. It's been a while since I've seen the town so alive.

for about 2-3 days since the update was released, it was like a ghost town in some cases. I would get out of my casino and drive near the movie theaters and anomalously there would be no traffic, no NPCS walking on the sidewalk, nothing at all.

it was a very peculiar phenomenon.

Edited August 29, 2020 by PicklePrick

[Leftover Pizza]

11 minutes ago, PicklePrick said:

for about 2-3 days since the update was released, it was like a ghost town in some cases. I would get out of my casino and drive near the movie theaters and anomalously there would be no traffic, no NPCS walking on the sidewalk, nothing at all.

it was a very peculiar phenomenon.

 

Ahem, this is the Red Dead Online subforums.....GTAO -------> over there.

[GrungeNinja]

7 hours ago, Leftover Pizza said:

Hardcore feature series a thing? You'll meet more competition there than in freeroam for sure.

Sure, I love loading screens in between matches that no player but one or two will join, then you have to leave and rejoin, repeat til (if) you find one with more players and those using auto aim while I'm on free aim mouse&keyboard. Thanks, but I prefer the old good free roam pvp.

[Sil3ntWr4th_-]

2 hours ago, Leftover Pizza said:

 

Ahem, this is the Red Dead Online subforums.....GTAO -------> over there.

my huge apologies!

[Leftover Pizza]

5 minutes ago, PicklePrick said:

my huge apologies!

lol. You're comment does apply to RDO in a way too. NPC riders steer into you, the same way as idiot NPC drivers in Los Santos.

[Ragnar Stalheim]

11 hours ago, AStiffBreeze said:

 were shocked at the incredibly low number of people who had.

There's probably some in-house R* complaints as well. Many people put time and effort is put into making these games, I'm sure they're proud of their work, but then hardly anybody sees or plays it because it's inaccessible. It's like a waiter not delivering a chef's gourmet meal.

[Leftover Pizza]

11 hours ago, AStiffBreeze said:

I do wonder if Rockstar is running some tests in production: changing player numbers in lobbies so they can see if there’s a material difference in how many legendary animals spawn. I mean we already know that there are, but maybe Rockstar aren’t certain of it yet. 
 

The fact that the most recent legendary was added as a Harriet mission makes me wonder if Rockstar were looking at how many players were able to sample or skin  the free roam legendary animals, and were shocked at the incredibly low number of people who had. Then as they looked into it, they heard players saying that they just didn’t work in populated sessions. 

We've vented the same complaint with wildlife spawns after Frontier Pursuit launched. They never cared to test anything then. Why should they now? 
I think they've disabled lobby merging and let the servers, which run anyway, be low populated. Perhaps the total amount of players spread over the servers aren't worth merging and will only cause more data transfer and use up too much system resources on user side. 
And who knows Sony had something to do with it, after receiving the numerous CE-34878-0 reports and urged R* to lower the stress on consoles.

[Krommer]

Weird, every time I check I see 26 people (but still never pass any players in game anywhere around the Hennington's Stead/McFarlane area, weird...)

 

I'll have to check after night shift work (I always play after 5:30 AM Central, usually.) 

 

[Chunkey_Monkey]

Whats wrong with the servers ?    .........................    Nothing they are great at the moment. R* leave them as is please

[ALifeOfMisery]

2 hours ago, Chunkey_Monkey said:

Whats wrong with the servers ?    .........................    Nothing they are great at the moment. R* leave them as is please

This is the best state the game has ever been in. I'm sending feedback on a daily basis praising the low population lobbies and the game stability and verity of content they enable.

 

If this is on purpose, R* get a very rare well done from me, if it's accidental, R*, please take the W and leave things alone.

[Gamejunkie]

I love it. RDO is currently a true masterpiece.

[jazzbone]

I just played a fun session where almost everything worked well.
Lobby was 6 at the start but was soon at 1 or 2 and stayed at 1 or 2 for the remaining 2 hours i played.
My attempt to join a protect a legendary was the lone failure as i got a black screen disconnect.

The current low/solo lobby fits how i often desire to play.
That is i can log on for 2-3 hours and have lots of action with little wandering about down time.
The towns are populated, plenty of animals, and lots of random stuff spawning.
Shoot 5 birds from a moving train? Wow, there was, for real, a moving train and birds flying. Had to pinch myself.

The only fix R* needs to do is to make private invite only an offical lobby option like it is with GTAO.
However unlike GTAO, everything in RDRO would be available in private lobbies.

Edited August 29, 2020 by jazzbone

[Lonely-Martin]

Yesterday I made 7 ranks of the battle pass in one session, never done that much in one day without either lobby hopping because of twat's or the game crashing, or splitting my playtime into smaller sessions with a break between through getting frustrated at the issues and idiots, felt bloody awesome. The game is absolutely gold when I can play like we are now, only 1 other in the lobby with me and I've no clue where they were as we never passed, lol.

 

The good news is that nothing will change at least until Monday so I'm out to enjoy what is clearly for me the peak of RDRO since it began. I'm hoping to get most of the rest of the pass complete as I have this fresh appetite to play, rank 55 currently so not too much to do now.

 

I do expect things to change next week as R* surely must be livid at how much freedom and how chilled a vibe the game gives off right now with such little chance of a weasel ruining my/our sessions.

 

Hopefully if they do change things back they get some sh*t for it though. Teasing lobby choice was weak but actually having the game play like them only to get rid, oof.

[kcole4001]

6 hours ago, Krommer said:

Weird, every time I check I see 26 people (but still never pass any players in game anywhere around the Hennington's Stead/McFarlane area, weird...)

 

I'll have to check after night shift work (I always play after 5:30 AM Central, usually.) 

 

Maybe try turning off social matchmaking, going into the character change screen and back out again.

It should initially give you a solo session, so likely you won't have many people join, and if the sessions aren't merging it should stay pretty stable with a low population.

[ghostsoap01]

I really hope they don't "fix" this, the game is so much better in this state. Given that its likely not what R* intended, I am sure we will see a patch do away with this come Monday.

[kcole4001]

With 5 others in session, later dwindling down to 2 others, I followed a dog (tomorrow's daily?), rescued a tied up stranger, found the poison poppy shine still, sedated the Tatanka Bison which showed up randomly for the third time near Emerald:

 

This is the game working  properly, despite a few minor glitches that eventually fixed themselves (couldn't interact with shopkeepers, invisible props in buildings).

Positive proof that the lower player count does solve the majority of the game's major issues.

[Leftover Pizza]

1 minute ago, kcole4001 said:

This is the game working  properly, despite a few minor glitches that eventually fixed themselves (couldn't interact with shopkeepers, invisible props in buildings).

Positive proof that the lower player count does solve the majority of the game's major issues.

 

It definitely works a ton better in low pop lobbies. I've seen so many content I normally don't see when lobbies are mid to high populated. 

If Rockstar reverts back to forced lobby merging, they show they have absolutely no means of players enjoying the content. There is absolutely no more denying IO sessions after these days of bliss. 

[ShadowlessDevil]

I'm not complaining

[Assblaster]

Yep I'm getting small sessions too and love it! I've played since day one and this is the first time I've played the game firing on all cylinders. It's a blast when everything works! Wildlife everywhere; tons of random encounters; all missions working; no disconnects! I can actually do more than hunt and fish! I love this game now. I am dreading the next patch though, I just know they're going to screw this up. I really do hope this small lobby thing is the intended fix, and will stay this way. Now that I see how great this game can be, no way I can go back to the game as it was, a broken and buggy mess. 

 

Keep it this way, R*! 

[IamCourtney]

On 8/28/2020 at 10:19 AM, AmyStone said:

Ok, so since the update it's been alternating between fully populated lobbies and almost empty ones. Maybe this is Rockstars way of trying to keep everyone happy and get around the solo lobby issue.

I've been having the same experience. It seems like the high population lobbies are working pretty well when it comes to animal/event/NPC spawn rates.

[Beatrice]

I planned to just farm up some gold to buy OP3 and naturalist on my PC and PS4 accounts, and then just do one daily and log off; thanks to how the lobbies work these past few days, I'm now at lvl20 naturalist on both accounts, doing 7/7+9/9 dailies on both accounts, and the poor Mongols in GoT have grown tired of waiting for me to come back and slaughter them.

 

If that isn't telling, I don't know what would be.

[Sgt Wa Ge]

I'm really enjoying the low population lobbies. Everything is working and it's much more peacefull. I do miss the ocasional wannabe tryhard tho, specially kicking their butt lmao

[StyxTx]

18 hours ago, Krommer said:

Weird, every time I check I see 26 people (but still never pass any players in game anywhere around the Hennington's Stead/McFarlane area, weird...)

 

I'll have to check after night shift work (I always play after 5:30 AM Central, usually.) 

 

The past 2 days I've been on for around 12 hours beginning at 6:00 AM Central and never had a lobby with more than 8 players including me and my friend but most of the time there have been a total of 4 or less including us.

Everyone needs to send positive feedback so they hear first hand from players.

Edited August 30, 2020 by StyxTx

[Leftover Pizza]

Haven't seen an ambush in months. Ran into 2 of them today. What a joy and alive world again. Really, if this is maintains, I'm back in the game again.

[John McCabe]

Absolutely loving these small lobbies. Game is alive.

Edited August 30, 2020 by John McCabe

[Faltskogian]

I went from 5 others in the lobby to just me on me lonesome in the space of ten minutes, was waiting for the inevitable crash or being kicked off the server and surprisingly nowt happened, which was nice. 

 

 

[BUT THE BENZ]

have you ever seen a guy hanging upside down from a tree? I just have. shot him down, then had the option to either accept or decline a reward. accepted, and he gave me jewelry (silver locket something). also, ran into a legendary elk and got me that pelt.

 

all thanks to small lobbies!