Is this how coop games always are?

So i am fairly new to zero-k, just picked the game up a week or two ago, plowed through the campaign, browsed the forums and YT, and then hit MP. Did a few rounds in a really big game with like 15 people and had fun. Wanted to play something like that tonight but apparently nothing was starting so decided to give the matchmaker a whirl.

Started a coop game. Me and 2 others. I start spiders, spray out fleas everywhere, then recluses. Making mexes, making wind between everything. Perfectly normal, right? One of the other players is rushing a singularity while the other is rushing what appears to be a storage farm. I don't notice atm though, its my first coop, I don't want to be the drag on the team. I push to halfway, and notice we are energy locked. Surley that can't be, i have been building tons of power. Look over at my two teammates and see the above stuff. Mexes with a 1/2 built singularity, like 2 solar total.

They dug in at choke points way back and are building just nonsense stuff. Even I can see its silly. I do the reasonable and ask in a polite manner what the plan is. At this point I also suspect they are setting all the stuff to max priority build because despite having pushed the AI back and taken more mexes, none of my troops are actually building. Unsure how to even check if your teammate is running at priority on resources.

"Hush, stop talking."
"I am doing what I want."
"I just want to annoy you."
"I am playing however I want."

Sure, I guess, anyone can play how they want, but why join coop if you want to play single player? I thought this was supposed to be a team thing? Why screw over the alleged team when you could have done the exact same thing in singleplayer?

So, I guess the real question is, are the matchmaker coop games always like that? Because if so, I won't even bother with the matchmaker tab and stick to the custom lobby rooms since they seem more organized. That wasn't just bad, that was an aggressively unpleasant experience.

Matchmaker coop is where you find the lowest ability group players, yes. Default settings are always used and you fight vs an AI much weaker than the stock AI of ZK. You might find organised rooms more interesting. You’ll always meet new players near release time, but don’t worry, people will improve over time.

I guess I'm lucky to have not run into those sorts of players, but then again, I've only played a handful of online matches.

By the way, is there a way to set game rules so that certain things are limited in how many could be built at a time? I believe there's a way to limit which things cannot be built in a custom match, but is there a way to, say, limit how many storages a player can have at a time to just 1 storage before they can't build anymore?

For quality co-op games you should really go to the battle list instead of the matchmaker and find/host a room that fits you. You get much more control over the map, opponent and who you play with.

If you want to play competitive games, the matchmaker is a much better fit. For teams I'd recommend you grab some friends and party up (invite them to game on steam). Then you'll be guaranteed to have good teammates. Otherwise, due to the game's relatively low popularity, the matchmaker will often pair you with newbies of wildly varying skill.

gajop why would you want to play coop matchmaking at all? Do you find it interesting or challenging to play against CAI?

Indeed. Coop could be made challenging/interesting if you wanted to. And why not? Is there something with ZK that prevents it from having fun cooperative experiences?

how big is the winrate of players in coop?
And why are you sending the signal that willful toxicity and trolling is completely okay if you are "a new player" (whatever that means). You don´t tolerate toxicity in the forum no matter what, yet about ingame it is a totally different story. If Cerevox tells the truth those players openly admitted that they were just there to ruin games. at least at that point i think a callout would be useful.
in my opinion the first time in a new enviroment is the most important, so it would actually be important to tell them our standards right at this moment. Yes you might scare new players away. Those that are here to ruin the fun of other new players. Other players that might leave because they were annoyed by the trolls.
To make this clear, i am NOT talking about the "this new player plays too bad, why are they in my team" but solely about malicious trolls. For those it shouldn´t be relevant if they are new or not. Tolerance in that case is misplaced.

Cerevox, Astran

my usual procedure in this case is going afk or resign and search for a new game.

ZK is a competitive game and is balanced that way. That doesn't mean it can't be played casually brah

Watched game. http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/531935?ShowWinners=True

Agreed. This seems to be a common mistake made by new players in general. I encountered a couple of these players while playing in team matchmaking. In one case I had a player who stayed in base and refused to expand, and I barely managed to clinch the win 2v1 in the front because the other team wasn't expanding well enough at the same time.

I told him that expansion wins the game in ZK and sitting in base doesn't contribute; he made some argument about overdrive setups being a far more lucrative source of metal than any sort of expansion, which I told him was very silly.

Then he called me a troll who knows nothing about the game and never responded to me again. :>