I think the survey was good. The thing is this. Talking about the survey here would most likely end up being "Boo! I don't want to play with Facebook Friends, I want it to be like iso!"
I mean, if there would be a poll about the optimal number of players in a Dominion game here, I think 2 would win by a far margin. Looking over at Board Game Geek the same poll would give a different result.
Best Recommended Not Recommended
1 1.0% (5) 3.6% (18) 95.4% (480)
2 34.5% (280) 58.5% (475) 7.0% (57)
3 55.9% (462) 43.2% (357) 1.0% (8)
4 43.1% (353) 51.8% (424) 5.1% (42)
4+ 2.6% (13) 22.4% (110) 74.9% (368)
Lekkit, you know I love you, but I'd also like to take issue with the results of this survey.
First, the total # of "Best" doesn't add up to 100%.
Second, you have to wonder who the target market is. Are "casual" gamers going to buy all of the expansions and drop $30-40 on gokoins?
Also, I've played a ton on BSW - which is a close analog to the iso implementation, and that userbase was also very heavily weighted to 2p games. I loved BSW (> 1k games played), until I saw how much better you could do with intelligent matchmaking in an environment where everyone has all the cards.
I think you'll find that face to face, 3 / 4 player games are loads of fun because you're socializing, drinking a beer, talking about how disgusting your friends SO's are etc.
Online, sitting alone in a dark room in front of a computer, (i think) people prefer the 2p experience because it keeps them playing the game, instead of waiting for 3 other players to take their turn.
When the social experience is removed, the problem of downtime is magnified - hence the requests for async play etc.
When I log into iso - there are hundreds of games going, and there are 8,000 people ranked on the leaderboard. I think its reasonable to try to cater to this market, especially when the requests are relatively straight forward:
1. Better matchmaking (skill based, let me see what cards are avail)
2. Fix the UI so that I can simultaneously do the following:
a. Chat with my opponent
b. See what they are doing
3. Implement all the cards
4. Fix your bugs
Now there's a longer wishlist
1. Pro games should also count for the casual leaderboard (so that there's more information when people are making game decisions)
2. Pro games shouldn't be able to be played against bots (high ranked players have inflated rankings due to bot play, which discourages real life play because of fear of ranking loss)
3. I'd like to not be limited to a lobby size of 50, especially when players who are playing the game are still in the lobby
4. Avatars look stupid
5. My music preferences are not retained between computers, between builds etc. I want to punch a dolphin every time I have to turn off that dumb music
6. If the app isn't playable on pads / phones / etc. etc. etc., then it should at least attempt to take advantage of the system that it is on... the PC... where most people have monitors bigger than 1024 x 768