Quickplay
Quickplay was an automated game finding system in Team Fortress 2. It lets players leave finding a server to the computer. It was replaced in the Meet your Match Update.
Using quickplay
Quickplay was accessed from the main menu of the game. The button "Start Playing" will open the quickplay dialog.
The quickplay dialog allows the player to specify roughly what they are looking for by selecting the game mode they want to play.
Additionally, there was the option to filter based on who runs the server, Valve and/or the community.
Finally, there was the option to select to play community maps from the workshop as well as beta maps.
The quickplay algorithm
Valve have not officially documented the exact game finding algorithm. But they have noted that it involves servers building up a reputation from how long players are connected to them on average. In general the system takes into account a variety of factors such as: ping to the player, the player’s number of hours played, map, current number of players, maximum number of players, and the server reputation score.
Requirements
Servers have to satisfy several requirements in order to qualify for quickplay.
sv_cheatsmust be off.- The map must be one of the approved quickplay maps.
- Friendly fire must be disabled.
- Random crits must be enabled.
- The
maxplayerssetting must be 24, the default setting. 32 always makes the server ineligible, while values in between apply a gradual penalty. - The server must have a registered server account.
- Highlander mode must be disabled
- VAC must be enabled
- The server must not require a password.
- No messing with the MotD such as forcing players to view it, forcing HTML on and so on.
- No selling of gameplay advantages
Policy of Truth
Quickplay servers are required to be honest about metadata. Player counts, players being identified as bots and server tags must accurately reflect the server configuration.
See also
- TF2 Quickplay Overview on the Steam support website.
