Just booted up the game (I'm on PS4) and have now been sitting at a queue counter (started in position 287) for almost 5 minutes.

What the hell? Is this a new thing or was I just lucky all the time when logging into the game previously? Or was the counter always there and just invisible up to now?

Really curious about this, because either way, it sucks.

It's been there since beta. Normally lasts under 5mins

Yeah, that can happen. I think in the twenty to thirty times I have booted into that game it has happend 2/10s of the time. I have never waited more than one minute on average. I think my longest wait was 2 minutes.

Huh, weird that I never saw it before, but thanks for clearing that up for me.

I've had that a few times on PC. It seems totally random.

Yeah, and I had some serious control latency last night as well, which I think was somehow related to network conditions. Why do I need to experience this kind of nonsense when I'm almost always playing the game by myself, in an isolated game world. At least stick some Demon's Souls-esque ghosts of other players running around to try to justify this sort of thing.

Ye, the always-on DRM in this game really didn't need to be there. I've rarely experienced hit-confirmation latency but it's there in spots. It means the game will cease to function (and not live on in the archive of games) when those servers are taken offline and so remove the solo experience from being something in the continuing gaming canon.

I've started to notice a couple of queues recently (on PC, EU - only a minute or less waiting to join but still a minute longer than really I needed to "wait" to get into the game - let it connect while I play and I'd not have used the matchmaking until the queue was counted down, is this game had seamless offline play) so I'm wondering if they've scaled back from the launch servers due to less players actively dropping hours into the game a month later and before the DLC starts. Still having no issues finding matchmaking randos within seconds of starting a search so at it's not as if the game seems to be dead.

I've eased up on my anti-always-on DRM stance, specifically for games with integrated PvP using acquired loot. The Souls games are a good example of modified client-side inventories making PvP a very occasional bummer. But I also agree that this game could have implemented an offline mode removing all online components and it would have satisfied a bunch of customers who couldn't care less about online interactions. Was that the game they wanted to make, though? Would that have ballooned or staggered bugfix times or the budget? I can understand the frustrations and dilemmas on both sides.

Just to report my own anecdotal experiences on PS4:

I almost always get placed in a queue at position 250-350 and start actually loading in within a minute of seeing that message. I'm in Denver, CO, if that makes a difference for queueing.

I also very frequently experience hit confirm lag against all opponents, AI and human. When using auto weapons, I've begun forcing myself to let up on the trigger a split second before I would finish off an enemy, knowing that in a half-second the kill shot will register and I'll see the XP popup. It really hasn't dampened my enjoyment of the gameplay, but isn't nearly as seamless as, for example, Destiny's shooting.