So, I wanted to talk about my time trying to get into games in The Finals recently. Man, it’s been a bit of a ride.
Just Trying to Play the Game
Fired up my PC, ready to dive in. Heard good things, saw some clips, looked like a blast. Launched the game, hit that big ‘Play’ button, feeling pretty hyped. And then… well, then came the waiting. A lot of waiting.
Seriously, the queue times could be pretty rough. I’m not talking like 30 seconds or a minute. Sometimes I was sitting there for five, ten minutes, just watching the timer tick up or the little searching animation go round and round. Felt like I was spending more time looking for a game than actually in one.
Hitting Roadblocks
It wasn’t just the wait times either. That was annoying enough. But then, maybe half the time after waiting all that while, I’d just get booted. An error message would pop up – something generic like “Failed to connect to server” or “Matchmaking error”. Super frustrating. You get your hopes up, think “finally!”, and then bam, back to square one, staring at the main menu again.
Naturally, I started trying to figure it out. Did all the usual stuff:
- Quit the game and restarted it. Probably did this dozens of times.
- Rebooted my whole computer. You know, the classic turn-it-off-and-on-again.
- Checked my internet connection like crazy. Speed tests were fine, other games worked okay, streaming was smooth. Reset the router just in case. Didn’t seem to be on my end.
- Messed around with the server region settings. The game picks one automatically, usually the one with the best ping. But I thought, maybe manually picking a different one would help? Tried US East, US West, Europe… sometimes it felt a tiny bit quicker, sometimes it felt way worse, plus the ping was higher. So that wasn’t really a solution.
What I Saw Happening
It definitely seemed worse during what you’d guess are peak times – evenings, weekends. More people online, servers probably getting slammed. It just felt like maybe they weren’t quite prepared for how many people wanted to play. Sometimes after they pushed out a patch or did maintenance, things would change. Maybe slightly better queues for a bit, or maybe suddenly worse for a while. It was unpredictable.
Chatted with some friends who were also playing. Same stories from them. Long waits, getting dropped from the queue randomly. We tried grouping up, thinking a full squad might get priority or something. Didn’t seem to make a difference. Just more of us sitting there, waiting together. Kind of kills the momentum when you’re all ready to go but the game just won’t let you in.
How It Is Now
Lately, maybe it’s gotten a little better? Or perhaps I’ve just been playing at quieter times, I don’t know. The waits aren’t always crazy long now, which is nice. But those random errors kicking you out of the queue? Yeah, they still happen sometimes. It still feels like a bit of a dice roll each time I hit play. Will I get in quick, or am I settling in for another 10-minute wait only to get an error?
I’m still playing it, because honestly, when you do get into a match, it’s pretty fun. Fast, chaotic, good times. But man, sorting out those queue problems was, and sometimes still is, a real test of patience. Just hoping things keep getting smoother on their end. It’s hard to stay hooked on a game when just starting a match feels like a chore.
