Feedback: Automatic Server Selection Issues

[dire kraken]

Since the quiet introduction of the automatic server selector around late September 2025, players have increasingly reported gameplay issues and frustrations that all appear to trace back to the same source: the automatic server selection system. Several of these issues may already be familiar, including:

1. Stable High Ping – Players are sometimes automatically switched to foreign servers, resulting in significantly higher ping and all the gameplay problems that come with it such as:
   a. Increased hit registration issues – Due to latency, the player’s client-side view can fall behind the server-side state, causing targets to appear in positions that differ from where the server actually registers them, especially pronounced against moving targets.
   b. Dashes consuming extra fuel – A lag-related bug where a single dash may incorrectly consume fuel as if multiple dashes were performed.
   c. Increased accusations of cheating/hacking – Players who are unaware they were server-switched may mistake lag-related desync for cheating or hacking.
   d. Particularly problematic for low census regions and larger crews (4+ players) – Players who can only play during off-peak hours, or groups trying to queue together, appear to experience server switching more frequently than players in consistently high census regions.

2. Stable High Ping Across Multiple Matches – Players would be automatically switched to another region, and the game would then incorrectly assign that foreign server as their new preferred server (marked with the “BEST” tag). Every subsequent match would continue placing them there until they were server switched again or they restarted their game. RESOLVED

3. Entire Lobbies Experiencing Stable High Ping – Full lobbies have been automatically moved to foreign servers despite no players in the lobby being from that region, causing most if not all players in the match to experience high ping simultaneously.

4. Manual Server Selection No Longer Functioning Properly – Since the introduction of the automatic server selector, players have effectively lost the ability to select servers manually. Some players have even resorted to using VPNs to alter their preferred server region and regain control over matchmaking.

Understandably, the team may have implemented the automatic server selection system in order to help fill up lobbies and improve matchmaking times. However, if the intention was to improve overall gameplay quality, the system currently appears to be creating more negative experiences than positive ones. Being unknowingly forced onto high-ping servers significantly impacts the general players' gameplay experience and has led to growing frustration among affected players.

Proposals:

• Revert Automatic Server Selection back to Manual Server Selection prior to late September 2025
  OR
• Keep Automatic Server Selection, but limit it to only server switch players into lobbies that they would not exceed 150ms stable ping. Anything above 150ms ping is unplayable for most players. Also re-enable manual server selection, so the Server Selector menu actually works.

[bright python]

PLEASE

[ruby elm]

Yes I agree, I don't know why we can't have both, server selection and another choice 'most populated server''.

[sharp cave]

I agree with this

[tired wyvern]

They should make it so when you click play, it shows all the servers, you just click the one that you want and problem solved

No need to add an automatic selector if players do it themselves

Maybe even make it so if you accidentally press a server that works bad with your region, the game gives you a warning

[dire kraken]

I don't think that's the purpose of automatic server selection. I think its purpose is to improve overall player experience by relocating players into fuller lobbies in shorter queue times when player census is low

[tired wyvern]

That is true, which is why (I wanted to mention this but message wasn't sent) this should be an alternate option to regular matchmaking

Lets say you played 3 matches in a row that put your games on Jupiter, and you are tired of the horrible ping. Just make a more "advanced" matchmaking system that allows the player to select where they want the server to be located.

1. Would people mostly find bot matches? Most likely.
2. Does it get rid of the issue entirely? I think so...?

(also, this system could also have the number of players searching for match in each server, that way you can hunt down servers closer but with more players)

The proposal for reverting the server selection is probably an easier way to fix the issue though

[livid totem]

I also have another issue.

Even on the server with the lowest ping, my minimum ping is still around 160 ms. Of course, my internet setup is perfectly normal, and I do not experience this kind of ping issue in any other games.

Considering the location of the server and where I live, a normal ping should usually be around 70–80 ms.

And this issue does not happen only to me. Among my friends who live in the same area, one gets around 70 ms ping, while another plays with 160 ms ping like me.

I hope they can thoroughly check not only the server selection system, but the overall server infrastructure as well.

In a PvP game like this, long-term server and ping issues are very annoying.

[dire kraken]

hi @livid totem !

it is not necessarily a server issue nor a client-side connection issue, it is most likely a matchmaking issue related to what my post is talking about.

even though it may server selector menu may show your best server is a tolerable low ping, you most likely are not playing in a match from that server at that time.

you are most likely experiencing high ping because you've been automatically server switched to a foreign server in order help you find more players to match up with faster.

but I agree, even though it may help players from low census servers find more players from foreign servers to match with, their experience would be made annoying due to the high ping experience

[livid totem]

What I mean is that even when my friend and I play the same match, my friend gets 70 ping while I get 160 ping. there are times when he also gets 160 ping.
This is just an additional issue on my side.🥲

[dire kraken]

I have friend who lives in Hawaii and I live on US West Coast, we're both US West as our preferred servers but they live further away West, so when we get into a US East server, my ping would be 80 while my friends ping would be around 150. But when we go to Asia server, their ping is much better than mines.

proximity to servers affect ping too, and the automatic server selector doesn't just switch to one foreign server, it can switch to whichever server needs to fill up a lobby.

this means it could've been EU servers for you guys one match and one of the US servers another match

[livid totem]

my friend and I live in the same country, and our country isn’t that large. After looking into it, I found that there seems to be unusual packet loss happening on overseas routes.

At this point, it’s beyond what I can personally fix, and since server-related issues are currently a pretty major problem, I’m just waiting to see if anything changes, while playing on 160 ping in the meantime.😇

[dire kraken]

there should be hopefully be a fix coming next week with the season 5 launch. maybe that might help with your issues

[livid totem]

It feels like this could be solved if there were more players, more stable servers, and servers located in more regions… but yeah, there’s still a long road ahead.