Quick join#

The Quick Join API allows players to quickly find and join a lobby without needing to manually select a specific lobby from a query. Players set their query filters, call the Quick Join API, and the Lobby service then tries to place them in a lobby that matches their criteria and has capacity.

Quick Join is designed to solve the common problem where a player manually does a query, looks at the results, selects a lobby to try to join, and then repeatedly fails to join because the lobby has already filled up by the time they attempt to join. It can also be used as a form of basic matchmaking (although only in existing lobbies, it does not create new ones).

Best practices#

Quick Join doesn't guarantee that a request will be fulfilled. Failures can occur if there are no lobbies that match the query criteria, or if the join is attempted and then fails. In these scenarios, clients should expect to receive a 404 Not Found error. If a failure happens, clients can try to Quick Join again (see Rate limits), or can fall back to creating a new lobby and assuming the host role.

The following code sample shows how to set up Quick Join:

C#

try
{
    // Quick-join a random lobby with a maximum capacity of 10 or more players.
    QuickJoinLobbyOptions options = new QuickJoinLobbyOptions();

    options.Filter = new List<QueryFilter>()
    {
        new QueryFilter(
            field: QueryFilter.FieldOptions.MaxPlayers,
            op: QueryFilter.OpOptions.GE,
            value: "10")
    };

    var lobby = await LobbyService.Instance.QuickJoinLobbyAsync(options);

    // ...
}
catch (LobbyServiceException e)
{
      Debug.Log(e);
}