I don’t ever do Escape matches with randoms, personally. Thankfully I have my regular team and/or can solo some of the hives no problem. This mode requires a bit more direct team cooperation than horde IMO and that combined with the fact that the Surge and Clock have taught A LOT of bad habits to the public.
I’ll join lobbies for Horde on occasion though, haven’t had the worst luck there. I usually just avoid the obviously toxic lobby names. Such as ‘need Jack, Del, and JD’, or ‘must be re-up X’. I’ve done many off-meta Master runs at this point and if people can’t play without the meta then they aren’t worth my time.
Of course there are still those rather ignorant players that buy/move fortifications when there is an Engineer or who go most of the match without neither depositing or even perking up. But what can I say. Randoms will be randoms.
I would also rather have a less-skilled player that is willing to cooperate, than a skilled, toxic, elitist ■■■■■ that thinks they know it all.
That same Checkout match Siul was talking about, there was a Brawler playing some sort of ranged build that wasn’t looking like they were doing much, but they sure had your back if you went down. I was playing Execution Nomad and could easily go down with one wrong move, but every time that I did, I could count on the Brawler to use their Ult and come get me, every time that I needed it. That alone more than helped me completely lock down the side lane that I was holding (the Fabricator was in a player spawn). We beat the match on Master just fine in spite of that Engineer that refused to expand the base.
Then yesterday, another interesting match on Training Grounds. Host was ranged Nomad, I was Marksman, and then there was a Combat Medic, Mechanic, and Jack.
Seemed to go well at first, with the usual save-up-for-forge strat. Was almost wave 10, Mechanic built the forge, and the next wave or so, Jack frickin quits, and never joined back. Some random Brawler joins, and a handful of waves later the Mechanic quits too, even though it seemed like we were pulling through anyway. WTF. I believe that a second Combat Medic joined, can’t remember what the last class was in the end (there was a temporary Inflitrator at some point but later they apologized that they had to go). In the end, the team with no Engineers or Jack, and no meta boss-killer classes managed to finish the Master run, all while expanding the base and were able to keep the taps up most of the time. Were still swimming in power by the end.
Why can’t more people be willing to work together and adapt to pull through the situations?
Was this on horde or escape lobby? I’m regular on horde and I’ve never seen it yet. Love to have a peek and see who is the host.
… Not 
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