Due to South Africa’s population it’s almost impossible to get a server for hazard zone, I’d appreciate if there was a upscale for the ping to be allowed to play in Europe, I’ve been trying all day to get a hazard zone match and not one yet. I think because the ping is set low for server browsing it defaults me to South African hazard zone servers, It would be nice to play with more densely populated places like europe
PC player. NA West, cross play enabled. For the last 2 weeks I cannot enter a Hazard Zone game between the hours of 2am to 11am. I keep getting auto-kicked back to the menu after 5 minutes of "Waiting for players to join."
Today it's the same thing. Been trying to get into a game since 9am. I got into one game. One. It is now 11:30am.
First, I really wanna make a shout-out to DICE/EA for showing some love to the Middle East, and providing this region with local servers. The ping is great, and the servers are running smoothly; I never imagined I would be playing a MP game with a 2-digit ping, not to mention a single-digit ping!
Back to topic, my problem is with Hazard Zone, I have been trying to get into a game for the last 2 weeks with no success, I've searched for over 4 hours in total on some days with no luck, whatsoever. Joining Conquest/Breakthrough/Rush/Featured portal servers isn't an issue, we get hooked to games instantly. I believe this is most likely related to the low number of players searching for a HZ game in this region, and the way matchmaking works.
Low pop issue:
This can be easily addressed imho with weekly challenges directed towards HZ, encouraging more players to jump in. As much as I hate locking rewards behind a specific game mode, making the reward available -a week or two- later through other game modes would be the best thing to do and should please most players, if not all. Until then, I fear that the low pop issue is only going to get worse as more players will stop searching eventually as they know they won't be able to find a match.
Matchmaking issue:
I noticed that if me and my friend search separately we get different maps sometimes, meaning that we are in two different lobbies, which does not help considering the low pop for HZ in this region. Matchmaking should prolly be reworked to have all the players searching join the same lobby. One way to sort this out is to have just one lobby/map available at a time, and a new one should only become available once the first one gets filled. Also, adding a Hazard Zone Small mode with 6 squads might help save HZ in this region.
p.s. I was able to play a few games after my friends routed their connection through EU via VPN, the ping was horrible but we were able to start a game.
Same, I was only able to play with VPN
Community ManagerMy friends and I could never play the Hazard Zone again.
It keeps loading and waiting for players, after a long time, it goes to the game's start menu.
The game mode is dead, no-one plays it man. Also considering how much "effort" they put into it, you are not really missing much, so don't be sad, this is how things work out sometimes.
I believe this is a playercount issue, not a server one. Takes around 5-10 minutes for me to find one on PS4 and PS5
I actually really enjoy HZ and did it alot for few weeks, but its yeah seems too hard to get a game now (time of day and that matters too though)
That said the matchmaking for it never seemed great, and often would be a different game/map if reque after awhile. Perhaps there is something that can be fixed to improve, like a 5 minute hardcap on game start time no matter how many ready (idk just thowing out there).
