» Mon Oct 06, 2008 8:01 am
Ok, this will be a bit long, but I'll give ya everything I can and hopefully it'll help ya out:
Networking seems to be about the same for me. I'll describe below, but first I'll fill out information as requested:
- Did it take longer than 30s to find a game? It depends (I'll go in to detail below)
- Are you on wired or wireless? Wired 8mbps cable, XBOX 360 is operating on Wireless to the router (Slimline model)
- Have you specified your correct locale (region) in your console settings? Yes
- What was the ratio of red bar to orange bar to green bar players in the match? Dependent on match (Outlined below)
- Did you get into the first game without any issues? Same as above.
First off, you have to understand that I live in Missoula, MT, specifically in the older poor neighborhood where the local internet company hasn't really ever made improvements to their infrastructure. Thus, I do not have the best connection speeds in the world, substandard really, as one might expect in such a situation. We used to pay for 16mbps from Bresnan Cable, but we literally were only ever able to hit 8mbps because of lack of adequate infrastructure, so we downgraded to 8 mbps per to pay less per month.
In regards to more information. Here's my Speedtest.net Information:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1310210246.png
Most games that I get kicked in to I sit comfortably at a double-yellow to triple-green bar. At times it will be a single-yellow bar or single-red bar. Most of the time when it hits that lower number is due to more items on the network in my house (we have 5 computer, two 360's, and three smartphones which can at times all be congesting the network, although its a rarity for all to be on at the same time.)
With that being said, the amount of lag that is given in this game is greater than I have noticed in other online shooters, overall. That is, when I know I have a heavy network load and play MW2, I usually sit at a double-bar (I understand the two bar systems don't necessarily sync between the two games) but the lag is not as noticeable - i.e. most bullets shot still do have a tangible impact. In Crysis 2 in a similar situation, I have to empty a clip to clip and 1/2 of Feline directly in to someone or get an assassination for it to count. Even then, it will have a kill delay of about 5 seconds between when their body hits the ground and it flashes the kill on my screen and drops the dog tag to pick up.
In regards to bad host connections:
I would say this ranks similar to other games, although again since Crysis 2 seems to be a bit of a network hog the issues appear to occur slightly more often. I would say about 15% of games I connect to will be a host with 4 green bars and the rest with single yellow and red bars. When this occurs the game is glitchy and jumpy, and the reaction timing is about the same as outlined above when I am the only one red-baring, however it is occuring to everyone except for the host in this situation. The built-in XBox Live avoid system tends to work here, although just recently today I had avoided about 3 bad hosts earlier in the day and later was kicked in to a game multiple times (5 in a row) where all 3 of them were connected to, so it could use a bit of work.
I don't know if this is because you have started to work a region filter in there and because of the new preference it is now ignoring these commands, but please, please do not adjust that. I'm all for region filters, but if we avoid someone it is usually for a reason. I don't want this to turn in to MW2 where the region filter was so strict and unavoidable that even with avoiding 5+ people in a lobby it would continuously kick you in to it 8-10 times before finding a different one.
As far as lobby issues:
I would say this is about 50/50. About 50% of the time I will get kicked almost instantly into a full lobby and either be mid-session or map voting. Mid-session joining doesn't bother me that much, it does when I'm with a full party as it will often split the teams or sometimes drop people at that point, but when playing by myself it doesn't necessarily have any issues 90% of the time. I do wish you would work on the team splitting that occurs. I have noticed by the second round the game will usually correct itself and put all the party on one team, however it is very common to be split the first round, I would say at least 90% of the time, even when there is open room on one team side for the others to have joined.
Now the other 50% of the time the game will instantly kick me in to a lobby by myself. Sometimes it will search for a bit, but most commonly, about 90% of the time this occurs, it will just kick me in to the map voting lobby by myself. The game will sometimes fill up, and sometimes not. Regardless, the wait time is almost always over 30s, either as the lobby slowly fills up, or alternatively sometimes it doesn't and no-one is kicked in to the waiting lobby, and I just restart the matchmaking process. This can resolve the issue sometimes, and sometimes it just kicks me back to the single-player (just me) lobby. Again, this is about a 50/50 occurence on restarting the lobby, just like the first time its started.
In regards to host migrations:
Host migration could use a bit of work, I agree with this. I understand some situations are unavoidable where the connection will drop, such as if the host has such a bad connection everyone is a red bar and then they drop, the connection will likely not migrate due to information not coming across the network. Similarly, if they turn off their 360, dashboard it, it freezes, or they lose their internet connection, host migration will not work. I understand these issues are systemic to the 360 console, it occurs system-wide on all games that use a peer to peer network. However, host migration only works about 15-20% of the time for me, and many people report an even lower percentage. I understand some of this could be because Crysis 2, as I said above, does seem to be a bit of a network hog, so the likelihood of more bad hosts occurs, and thus the likelihood of more dropped migrations. I understand a patch to make the game less of a network hog might not be entirely plausible as might require a full re-coding of the online netcode. However, I think a fix of some sort could be done to at least get host migration ratios up above at least 40-50%.
Overall, I don't have as many issues as some of the other players do on these forums with the matchmaking and connection issues. Even though the connections can be worse than other games, most of the time I am able to attribute it to my own network being congested (although, again, other games do not have as much of an impact when such is occuring). My biggest problems are with party-splitting and the occasional single-player lobby that never fills.
