so I reported this in the steam forums back in Feb and out of curiosity I checked it again now to see if it is still broken. and it is
if you have your search range set to medium, then try quickplay it will search up to that range then start hosting. but if you change ANY setting in the options, from then on untill you restart the game, QP will search up to maxium range before hosting.
link to original thread on steam https://steamcommunity.com/app/552500/discussions/8/1797403972728018202/
the way I tested it just now was try qp (my search range is set to medium) so it increased search range once and then started hosting, working as intended.
then I changed my ingame master audio volume from 20 to 21, literally did nothing else,
tried qp and it increased search range 3 times before putting me into a game with a 350 ping russian host. not working as intended.
this is very to reproduce and it happens for me every time. I have tested it on 2 different computers from 2 different locations.
Iām happy to provide any other input like specs if requested