Yes, I have observed that the bug has somewhat been mitigated on my end also. Its better now because for TDM/DOM/KOH only 12 players are required now instead of 16. That's the only change that was made, its not a "proper" fix imo.
Currently, for TDM/DOM/KOH, bots are added very early on in the matchmaking with even only one real player on the server and four bots on each side. Then the "populating with bots" message keeps showing as the minimum player count of 12 has not been met. Match starts after the required number of real players fill in to 12.
The issue that remains is the message should reflect the reason for the wait is for real players to join instead of "populating with bots" and it does appear that sometimes, on rarer occasions now, the matchmaker assigns players to the other team instead of the one missing them and thus the match never starts due to imbalance of the teams.
Currently, for TDM/DOM/KOH, bots are added very early on in the matchmaking with even only one real player on the server and four bots on each side. Then the "populating with bots" message keeps showing as the minimum player count of 12 has not been met. Match starts after the required number of real players join to get to 12.
You're right, I thought it was fixed. I swear yesterday the bots were filling to the required player count.
As of writing this, it's still broken. Populating with bots is supposed to fill the lobby enough to actually start the game, not lead to more waiting.
EA_Pulsar EA_Shepard EA_Leeuw I hope you're all well, please could this bug be forwarded to the necessary teams to be fixed. It's been going on for 2 weeks now and has rendered more than half of the game unplayable in regions with fluctuating player counts, particularly regions with lower player counts.
