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This topic has moved here: Subject: Region Matching or Ping filtering please
  • Subject: Region Matching or Ping filtering please
Subject: Region Matching or Ping filtering please
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I have only one whish for Halo3: Make matchmaking over live so that we don’t get matched with players on the other side of the world.

Halo2 has a brilliant multiplayer both on LAN and on live when you have a low ping to the other players. You can only get a low ping when playing players who live relatively close to you regardless of your superior internet connection. If ping filtering or region matching is included in the matchmaking process of Halo3, most of the flaws we experience in Halo2 will be eliminated. The weapons and movement will yet again be reliable and the playing field will be pretty even.

I live in Europe and for me the modders, standbyers and other cheaters are minor details compared to the annoyance of playing a high ping host. Since most players live in US I am likely to get matched with an US host and therefore experience this crap in almost every game. Don’t get me wrong, Halo2 is a great game and I know that Bungie has done a good effort to compensate for the ping problem by predictive rendering, handicapping of low ping players etc, but most games are still unplayable for us overseas players. When a game starts it takes me about 10 – 15 seconds of gameplay to notice if that game will be lost because of a high ping to the host. When I have to 7 or 8 shoot someone with the BR in pretty close range in order to get a kill that game is pretty much unplayable. Or if I or someone close to me gets hosts, the US, Australian or Asian players will suffer the same handicap and we will win by a large margin. That’s not fun either.

Bungie, this is your chance to correct this. Please make Halo3 so that the multiplayer can be enjoyed by all players – also those who lives in different parts of the world.

  • 05.10.2006 6:39 AM PDT
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  • Exalted Legendary Member

I agree with everything mentioned above, as regional or IP filtering would be a very useful addition to an almost perfect FPS. Latency is the big problem and Bungie needs to address this issue with some kind of solution.

Now, I know a bit about network code and so I can understand why Bungie may have reservations about giving users access to in-game regional/IP filter settings. Too much filtering will surely defeat the whole purpose of 'Matchmaking' itself. I'm also not a huge fan of online games that let you filter through 100's of available games and pick the one you want and even let you host a ranked game yourself! There is definitely a great sense of achievement when playing in Bungie's Matchmaking system.

I wouldn't like to be in Bungie's shoes when it comes to finding a solution to this problem as it seems no matter what decision they make, someone else has an issue.

At the very least the one thing Bungie could do is split the pre-game lobby into various regions(almost like chat rooms). USA, Europe etc etc... This could be an option just after you select Matchmaking. E.g. Matchmaking > Select Region. From here the network code will select the best connection available in that regional group and create a game.

I would suggest a similar approach to the 'Select Region' above as well as another option which will let you select a game from a list of existing hosts. The later would obviously not be ranked but for gamers who only want a nice competitive but latency free game. This would hopefully satisfy the casual gamer as well as the rank addicts.

  • 05.10.2006 9:39 AM PDT

A grumpy old man who´s done with gaming...

Meet the nicest bunch of people and join in on the banter, visit the OMG Group!

C´mon Bungie - don´t mess up a chance to make Halo 3 the best gaming experience ever! Do include regional filtering or similar as an potion - I can´t stress the importance of that enough!! I for one am not likely to buy Halo 3 if the latency/lag issue has´nt been solved in a satisfactory way. And I´m not buying a 360 before Halo 3 either so I might not get any of them....

  • 05.10.2006 9:57 AM PDT
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Agreed! Why?

This is why;

Subject: LAG AND LATENCY FOR DUMMIES

( there is a summary at the end of this post, just scroll down! )

I believe that latancy is a problem concerning more people than you realize and that lots of the criticism against many elements in the game (especially weapons reliability) is actually caused by latancy. Please read my explanation and tell me what you think! If you think it sounds reasonable you have to agree that this is a serious problem that should be addressed because makes it impossible for many people to play live games on equal terms to those with low latancy.

Many gamers seems to think that’s lag and latancy are the same, but they are not! Everybody has latancy all the time but seldom experience lag (hopefully). Many also thinks that green bars shows that everything is just fine but that is not necessarily the case. Green bars means that your are not likely to experience lag, unless the hosts connection goes bad, because it´s a matter of bandwith and other network factors. You probably know that the bars are reffered to as ping.

Ping is not the time it takes for the information to travel back and forth. In xbox live terms the ping checks the quality of your present connection to the network by measuring package loss. According to the people on xbox live the time it takes for information to travel from your xbox to the network and back is called latancy. You can check out both your ping and latancy via the main menu on your xbox.

Select settings, then choose network setting, then connect... when you are connected press "y" and a window with the information will pop up.

I almost always have a perfect ping with my 8 mbps connection but i suffer from a minimum latancy around 190 ms because i live in Sweden and the information has to travel all the way to the xbox live servers on the us west coast. Since the majority of games are hosted by people around that area it gives you a good idea of how your latancy will be against a likely host.

I can have a perfect game with no lag and still won´t be able to kill people point blank with the shotgun because what i see on my screen and react to is what actually happened a "long time ago" (perhaps 300 ms ago). So latancy is the reason why many people think, for example, the shotgun is unreliable on live.

Sure you can adapt your playing style but the point is that we shouldn´t have to because we would still not play on equal terms. I pay for this service - just as much as they do in the US and i want the same quality of service - and i don´t get it. That makes me mad!

That’s it! Do you have any solutions, suggestions or comments that might help? Or perhaps a little bit of sympathy….


One more thing: If you agree that something has do be done please join us and post your thoughts to Frankie!


Executive summary of this thread:

As this thread has proven to bee an enormous success, at least by looking at the attention it has gotten from forum members, and has reached over 500 post I think it will be helpful for newcomers with a summary. I can’t expect anyone to read through 21 pages on this subject before posting a reply, so hopefully this will help you to grasp its contents.

My initial post was not intended to provide final answers or solutions but rather to invite to discussion and, more likely, to raise new questions that might lead to suggestions on solutions.
And so it did in deed. In this thread you can read about people sharing their experiences, their thought and ideas without being flamed by anyone. Some of the posters has contributed more than others and taken very active roles where their professional skills come to use. Intelligent arguments, explanations and fact has been presented and analyzed.

The discussion has focused on issues ranging from consumer awareness, tactics to counter effects of latency, network architecture, network coding, importance of bandwidth and so on all the ways to laws of physics and philosophy. And everything has still been relevant to the topic.

Together we, the most committed posters in this thread, has this far come to the following conclusions:

Lag can occur for a number of reasons depending on network quality and bandwidth. It is generally easier to fix lag problems than latency by getting new ISP or increasing bandwidth.

There is no doubt that latency exist and that it exhibits the symptoms mentioned.

Latency will always be present to some extent and will eventually happen to everyone, mainly depending on the geographical distance to the host of the game.

Latency is ultimately depending on the speed of light and that is something we don´t expect Microsoft or Bungie to fix for obvious reasons.

American players are more likely than any others to be the hosts of any given game and therefore they will not experience the negative effects of latency as much. They are therefore also likely to have an unfair advantage when playing against others.

You can increase your probability to get to be host in the future, by improving your host record in a methodical way. The suggested solution is described on page 25 in this thread.

Latency and its effects on gameplay and the unfairness of its nature makes the world rankings pointless as they to not describe the reality.

We believe that Bungie can do something about this by implementing optional regional filters in the matchmaking. This will give us/anyone the option to choose games with less distance between players and as a result less latency and more fair gameplay. This will make world rankings voluntary and put the focus at regional rankings. It will most likely also increase the waiting time in matchmaking but we are willing to accept that.

Please note that any of these conclusions may be altered as new facts come to our attention!

End of summary.

  • 05.12.2006 2:35 AM PDT
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  • Elder Mythic Member

anyone who's played more than you has no life

anyone who's played less than you is a noob

Why not have servers...? European, American & Australasian. When a game starts, it is played on whichever server is closest to the greatest number of players. Servers will reduce latency regardless of where they are, just because they are a much faster and more stable connection for all players.

Custom games could be played as normal; on a players host.

Servers need not be expensive, or difficult to install. Battlefield 2 has them for free, West, East and EU. Thinking about the sheer number of players that play titles such as Guild Wars and World or Warcraft, they are running 24/7 with more players (and information per player) than Halo 3 could ever dream of. Last time I checked, subscriptions to WoW were well into the millions.

  • 05.12.2006 2:41 AM PDT
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I would rather have a server list than any form of matchmaking. I hate being forced to play game after game of something I don't enjoy. I think Bungie has shown again and again that they have a odd sense of what is fun. Banshee on Ascention anyone? It took them months to have BR starts on Coagulation. I just don't like being told what to play. Allow server lists so we can play what we want, when we want. I'll say this much...if the matchmaking system is still in place in H3, and no server list/self populating games are not, I won't be buying it.

  • 05.12.2006 2:50 AM PDT

YES OH GOD YES.

Oh and Frostbitaren, RIP your latency thread. It was a good one.

  • 05.12.2006 2:59 AM PDT
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Posted by: RhythmKiller
YES OH GOD YES.

Oh and Frostbitaren, RIP your latency thread. It was a good one.


Thank's a lot! I'll miss it even though i haven't visisted it much lately... But it sure did contain a lot of useful information and was probably one of the most mature and intellgent discussions on these boards..

RIP L&L For dummies... :-(

  • 05.12.2006 3:55 AM PDT
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Frostbitaren, Nice to see you quote from your amazing Lag and latency for dummies thread. That thread had over 50 pages with posts from players suffering high latency to the host. Too bad the thread don't seem to exist anymore. Anyone know what happend to it? I think I recall some problems with posts not showing up once the thread exceeded 50 pages.

But to be honest, I really don't care how the high latency problem is solved in Halo3 as long as it gets solved. My concern is that Bungie don't realize that this is major problem for all overseas players (and probably a lot of US players too).

  • 05.12.2006 5:53 AM PDT

Al the whole forum went, that's what happened to it!

  • 05.12.2006 5:57 AM PDT

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  • 05.12.2006 6:09 AM PDT