Wouldn't it be cool if we could search for any game we want, for any user we want, with just the press of a few buttons?

In its current state, the search system is pretty messed up. The first problem is, when you want to search something, it takes a good 4 or 5 seconds to even show up anything, and then after that, you will probably not even get the search result you looked for, be it a game, a series, a user or whatever. The second and, in my opinion, biggest issue with the search system is that if you want to search for an user for example, the site is also going to show you games, series, marathons etc. that start with the characters that you typed.

This can all be solved with the addition of filters so that you can search for users (for example) separately and for the system to only show you users. Same thing goes with games, series and the others.

For games, filters that show games added before or after a certain period can be added, as well as filters that show games with less or more than a certain amount of active runners, or with more or less submitted runs, etc., the number (a.k.a the certain amount that I keep mentioning) being selected by the player.

For series, you can probably add filters that show series that have a certain number of games in them, or that have more or less than a certain amount of games, or that have more or less than a certain amount of active runners.

And for users, filters for the amount of characters that the name has (or less or more than that amount) might also come in handy.

Let me know what you think, I may have not explained it in the best way, so I'm happy to clear any misunderstandings that you guys have.

I do like the idea of filters although for users specifically I think it would be better if there was just a "More..." option for users in the search bar like there is with games and series. For the load times when searching I've personally never had too much of a problem with them but I would like to see it improved.

That could work too, but something has to be done to the search system, even if it's not my idea or your idea.

Yeah, the present search system is just... unsatisfactory. It works, but it's barebones and makes it hard to find anything new. Not to mention that the amount of results it shows is just weirdly skewed. For example, if I search up my favorite person, @PopeHagrid, by just typing in "Hagrid", he won't be on that list.

A better example is something I run into when searching for bot and spam accounts. I'll let you try it:

1. Type "john" into the search bar
2. Now add a letter on the end, say "c".
3. Completely different results.

I'd still like to have game tags or something as well. I'm more likely to find a new game to run with tags than I am randomly from the front page.

Another issue is that it is impossible to search for certain games because results are sorted by popularity and not by closest match. If you try to search for the game "Hearts" it won't show up.

I'd like it if the system would strictly search for what you typed (case sensitive or not). Right now, if you were to look up my name, Hi, and you type "Hi" in the search bar, the only thing it does is bring up a bunch of games, series and users that start with Hi, but you won't be able to see my user there.

One change that they could also do is, instead of showing all the games, users etc. in a list in the search bar, they could instead take you to a different directory and show you all the results on a different page. What I mean is: imagine there was a directory specifically dedicated to search results, just like there is a directory for the list of the most popular games, the forums, streams etc..

Edit: Turns out I was able to find myself on the search bar just now but I can't seem to find myself again, it seems like it's literally random chance if you appear on there or not.