When automatching, the free player often has to wait a while to find a paid player with expansions. As such, the free player might leave the tab and do something else on their computer or device. When they are finally matched, a sound plays, but there is no other attention grab, so the free player might not see that the game has started. This forces the paid player to wait around until the timeout so they can resign the free player. I have been a paid player in the past, currently free; this has been a mild annoyance for me in either role.
To solve this, do one or more of the following if possible:
- system-level notification, so they see it wherever they are
- bring game window to the front
- give the free player 10 seconds to confirm they are ready, booting them back into the automatch queue if they don't respond
- give higher queue priority to free players who have the game window in focus, deprioritizing those who are elsewhere
- change the window icon to make it noticeable that a game is starting
- play the notification sound 3 times, 10 seconds apart
Thanks!