LFG & Squads
The looking-for-group system is the heart of the bot. Members create squads, the bot broadcasts them to the right channels, and compatible players are matched and joined together.
Squads
A squad is a group tied to a game and a set of chosen filters. At any moment a squad is in one of these states:
- Searching — actively looking for more players. The bot shows a magnifying-glass indicator and posts a live LFG message.
- Paused — temporarily not looking.
- Full — the squad hit its player limit and locks; broadcasting stops.
While a squad is searching, the bot posts and continually refreshes an LFG message in the relevant channel describing the squad — game, filters, current members, and a one-click join link — alongside a control panel.
The control panel
Members drive the squad with buttons:
- Start LFG / Pause — toggle searching on and off
- Get invite — grab an invite link to the squad's voice channel
- LFG ping — ping the game's role for this squad (if enabled)
- Schedule — turn this into a scheduled session
- Player settings — set your own attributes (e.g. your rank)
- Mute suggestions — stop recommendation nudges
Searching automatically expires after a timeout (30 minutes in production) so the channel doesn't fill with stale posts, and an empty squad is cleaned up on its own.
Staying visible (auto-bump)
If a squad's LFG message scrolls too far down a busy channel, the bot automatically re-posts it so it stays visible.
Matchmaking
When a squad broadcasts, the bot doesn't just dump it everywhere. It:
- Routes to the most relevant channel(s) by scoring each LFG channel against the squad's filters, so posts land where compatible players are looking.
- Recommends compatible players and squads to each other, matching rank-style filters within a tolerance so near-equal players still pair.
The result: members mostly see groups that actually fit what they want to play — right mode, platform, and rank band — instead of scrolling past irrelevant posts.
Open to Join (solo availability)
A player who isn't in a squad yet can mark themselves Open to Join for a game. The bot tracks available players and, when two or more compatible solo players exist, DMs each of them a "group up" card showing who they can team with and a one-click way into a voice channel.
- Availability expires automatically (4 hours in production).
- It clears the moment the player joins a voice channel.
This means solo players don't have to sit in an empty channel hoping — the bot proactively pairs them up.