> now is the absolute broken host selection system.
The way you use now implies the host selection system was better in the past, it wasn’t. There were just more people geographically close to you that were pulling host and giving you a better connection and/or you were pulling host.
> Just today, in 3 different games, on 3 different playlists, I have matched entire teams of players from a foreign country. On every one of these occasions I have been getting monstrous amounts of lag
And you don’t think the reverse is true when you pull host over said foreign players?
> the foreign players somehow pull host over 20 up/20 down connection.
Reach only uses about ~80KB/sec upload for a BTB match with 16 players so even a player with 1mbps upload could provide a smooth experience to players that are close geographically to him provided his connection and networking hardware is in good order.
Higher bandwidth does not equal a better chance to pull host past a point.
> I am simply put at a massive disadvantage because Reach decides to bloom out on the host selection process, and give players from countries that get a clear advantage. It is borderline cheating when these players receive host.
A p2p system always gives certain players an advantage just like a server/client system.
> Foreign players warp around better than any strafe imaginable, are able to shoot through reenforced concrete, equip the Martydom perk, and come back as a zombie to shoot me in the head after I clearly get a kill.
Sounds like normal matchmaking to me.
Maybe try searching with the prefer good connection and language filters turned on although this sometimes results in a player from the same country as you with a garbage connection pulling host and putting everyone yellow or orange bar.
> Halo 4 needs a sort of “local” search option, where players only match within a certain ping. If players from different countries search(which I often do search with players from the UK), the ping should be average for all parties.
I agree but it’s pretty obvious 343i are going with Reach’s awful system of insane detection times and matching you with international players even when prefer connection is enabled. That’s why I also enable the launguage filter or else I am constantly playing on trashy Japanese hosts.
> Most notorious are players from Mexico. I feel like they have the worst internet and somehow get host… They can be the worst players imaginable, but when they pull host they become Gods.
Back when Anniversary BTB was around I played on Mexican hosts a lot and they were always putting everyone yellow to red bar and the first to quit if their team was losing. Hopefully in Halo 4 habititual quitters damage their host record by quitting as the amount of blackscreens in some Reach playlists from hosts quitting was beyond a joke.
> > Worst connection always gets host. Been like that since day one in reach.
>
> Well, also the players with the most guests, and the most apt to quit.
The stupid host selection system reads latency to local players as very low and throughput as very high as its splitscreen/LAN/WLAN so when multiple people are gaming on the same Xbox or have multiple Xboes with open NATs using the one connection getting host is more likely.
Reach has an unwritten law of >1mbps upload = a better chance to pull host in BTB, this is why one Japan can pull host over 15 American or Australian players. The average DSL connections upload will be under 1mbps and many cable providers suffer from congestion and prioritisation so their actual international throughput is much worse than domestic throughput.
> > Lag is to be expected
>
> This statement bothers me. People thinking that BTB automatically equals lag.
I’ve played plenty of BTB games that were perfectly playable on American and Australian hosts but what normally happens is a -Yoink!- pulls hosts and gives both the Americans and Australians poor connections.
This game really does strike me as odd as when I very rarely pull host Japanese players in the match will be full greenbar but when they pull host everyone outside of Japan will be missing some portion of their latency bar.
The Halo 3 latency meters were more consistent in my experience.
> > > Lag is to be expected
> >
> > This statement bothers me. People thinking that BTB automatically equals lag. They are not wrong to think it because it is true but there are obvious solutions that a company like Microsoft, especially Microsoft, can afford and should be willing to employ on Halo of all franchises.
>
> With peer to peer, you would be hard pressed to have a game in which all 16 players are having a smooth experience.
That depends on the hosts upload throughput and his latency to other peers.
America and Japan have good connectivity to most places in the world but since 99% of their traffic is domestic many American and Japanese ISPs under provision international bandwidth resulting in congestion in peak times.
