Hi everyone,
Since early February many countries outside USA are experiencing extreme long search times finding games.
Even here in Italy the difference was terribly awful: before 02/02/2016 games were found instantly within seconds, now within minutes with lot of “Unable to match” due to not enough players in playlist.
This region lock maybe wasn’t applied everywhere but here (and many other places) it is reality and this makes literally impossible find matches in off peak hours.
I’m trying even now, only for test sake, to find a game in BTB before going to work (here it’s 8:25 AM) and, as expected, no players are found at all.
This is a limitation too big to be ignored by 343, they can deliver every update they want, even something really good, but if we cannot play when we want everything is just pointless.
I know that tho region lock thing was built for limit matching between Europe with USA due to high latency matches, but 343 has to find another way to do this because, now, this is just frustrating.
I hope someone give this topic the attention it deserves because I really want to be free to play every time I want, just like before February.
Thank you.
Same problem here in Finland. I am watching Netflix on my laptop whilst queueing up into every playlist one after the other in the hopes of MAYBE finding a game in at least one of them. No luck so far in the past half hour. 
Yeah, the fact is that we have this new update, and others even better are coming but we cannot fully enjoy them because this absurd limitation.
You cannot cut out entire players local communities preventing them to play with the rest of the world in 2016. It’s illogical and only pushes players to progressively abandon the game.
I really cannot understand this move…
Wait i thought people wanted region lock so they cut down on lag…now they dont?
They didn’t think that maybe the population in their country isn’t high, that’s why they hardly found non-lag games…
> 2533274846171508;4:
> Wait i thought people wanted region lock so they cut down on lag…now they dont?
Stop with easy irony.
Obviousely people search and demand the quickest way to obtain their purpose. Asking for region lock is an example.
It’s the developer that has to read the request and develop the best solution.
This solution certainly works on latency side, but if I can’t find a game good/bad latency is pretty pointless because I CANNOT PLAY AT ALL.
A system that privileges best connections firstly, and then wides his search range (after a certain amount of time) to me is a more logic solution.
Restricting users for hours with the inability to do anything creating only frustration is the worst move you can do when talk about software.
I’m really happy with this. The lag was unbearable and playing against US players on a US connection was undoable if they knew even a little how to play. Would gladly wait 5 minutes for a match if this means great connection.
> 2533274808132968;5:
> They didn’t think that maybe the population in their country isn’t high, that’s why they hardly found non-lag games…
Exactly this. Not everyone can play in peak hours so the only way is matching them with people available in other countries.
Forcing them to search players only in near regions is the same to shut down servers entirely and disable matchmaking for them, that is the core function of what they’ve payed for.
The point is: if I’m European and I want to play halo at 4 AM I must be able to do it, it obviously mean to play with Americans at higher latency (because in near countries everyone is asleep) but this is, physics, signal needs time to travel in far away countries.
A system that privileges nearer servers and then widen his range progressively after certain amount of no success search time to me (I say it again) is the only possible way.
Like this matchmaking service is completely unreliable and the only possible result is that players outside USA (because we all know that the major part of halo community is there so it’s unlikely that they are experiencing the same) will abandon the game
Region lock eh! It actually works pretty well in Nintendo’s online games, and these days, I imagine that something like Mario Kart 8 (don’t laugh, I know) actually probably has a bigger population than Halo 5, so why would this be bad?
> 2533274831669135;7:
> I’m really happy with this. The lag was unbearable and playing against US players on a US connection was undoable if they knew even a little how to play. Would gladly wait 5 minutes for a match if this means great connection.
I would wait 5 minutes for a good game but if after 5 minutes (maybe 2-3 minutes is better) the game cannot find near players ENLARGE THE RANGE INSTEAD OF SHOW “UNABLE TO MATCH… BLA BLA” and repeat (with the same results).
Is that hard to understand that we need an halfway solution??!!
Would you be pleased if facebook would take 5 minutes to load with an high percentage of failure (so 0 certainties that after those 5 minutes it will load)? It’s exactly the same thing.
This is what I call “unreliable service” and experience told me that an unreliable service is a faulty service because its purpose is to be available and provide results 24/7 no matter what.
> 2533274844048576;9:
> Region lock eh! It actually works pretty well in Nintendo’s online games, and these days, I imagine that something like Mario Kart 8 (don’t laugh, I know) actually probably has a bigger population than Halo 5, so why would this be bad?
I really doubt that Mario Kart has a region lock like this. Halo’s is too much restrictive.
This isn’t about population, this is about choices made setting up matchmaking service, obviously not the best they could found.
> 2533274831669135;7:
> I’m really happy with this. The lag was unbearable and playing against US players on a US connection was undoable if they knew even a little how to play. Would gladly wait 5 minutes for a match if this means great connection.
Waiting a few minutes is fine, i have no problem with this but the fact that it will not broaden its search when it cant find players is too far. The only other solution is being able to choose regional servers.
> 2533274989334266;12:
> > 2533274831669135;7:
> > I’m really happy with this. The lag was unbearable and playing against US players on a US connection was undoable if they knew even a little how to play. Would gladly wait 5 minutes for a match if this means great connection.
>
>
> Waiting a few minutes is fine, i have no problem with this but the fact that it will not broaden its search when it cant find players is too far. The only other solution is being able to choose regional servers.
Finally someone with some brain in his head.
I was worrying about the existance of someone that thinks like me about this argument
Im in NewZealand, Cant find a match before 12pm. Arena or Warzone. I have no lag when playing if I do find a game i the afternoon so this Region Lock is just bull…
No need to get upset, I agree with you. That Facebook example is the worst thing I’ve ever read BTW. I just really hope 343I listens to an idea like yours and don’t just get rid of the region lock. The day I have to play on US servers again is the day I stop playing this game.
> 2533274831669135;15:
> No need to get upset, I agree with you. That Facebook example is the worst thing I’ve ever read BTW. I just really hope 343I listens to an idea like yours and don’t just get rid of the region lock. The day I have to play on US servers again is the day I stop playing this game.
The FB example was just a simplification of a great service that is supposed to serve thousands (even millions) of users and that has to work at any time no matter what and with no restriction.
I’m not here to write a doctorate thesis but to raise awareness on the problem in order to make 343 respond to us and fix this.
Also my grammar is certainly debatable but English is not my mother language, I’m doing my best here.
I love this game and I’m really suffering seeing it in this poor state.
Yeah man, i can’t find games in BTB, and it takes forever to find games in other arena gametypes.
I agree OP, this system does not work properly and should be changed
It is a -Yoink- situation that cannot continue. Not being able to play the game when I choose is infuriating.
Thank you for your feedback. Please keep alive this thread to make 343 pay the attention this problem deserves.