I’ve put well over 1000 hours into Halo 5’s Arena and consider it the best 4v4 console shooter ever. This is why despite poor online performance, I’ve fought through it and have tirelessly tried every option to fix it since Halo 5’s launch. Recently I believe I’ve found the issue…and it’s related to a major ISP provider (Comcast) however other ISPs may also have similar issues. The problem doesn’t effect everyone. It comes down to the ISP address you’ve been provided and whether or not your ISP has updated their database to reflect the correct location.
I’ve eliminated all other potential causes to latency. My connection is 80 down, 10 up, open Nat, wired and have eliminated nearly all bufferbloat (currently rates as A in online tests). General latency is super low with no packet loss or stutter.
I live near Detroit, Michigan. My Geolocation with Comcast is the most northwest tip of Washington. For those who aren’t good in geography, it’s not very close. This is likely one of the reasons that even when 343 had region lock, I still experienced higher than acceptable latency that I didn’t experience visiting family in other states.
This issue can be addressed for those gamers who know of the issues and are willing to spend $200 for a Netduma router. With that router, you can select your true Geolocation. In researching message boards, I’ve found that this issue is not uncommon even if it doesn’t effect everyone.
343 has decided against server selection in order to improve performance in other areas and I’m not here to debate that stance. My thought is to apply the Netduma router solution to Halo 5 (and future Halos). Allow us to choose our Geolocation (or preferred server) and then let matchmaking do it’s thing. At least that way when 343’s matchmaking is trying to find the optimal match, it’s doing so with the correct information.
I believe this issue effects everyone in the Halo community. Even if your ISP shows your correct location and you don’t experience high latency immediately, the inconsistency for others has certainly led to many dropping the game before they would’ve otherwise. This leads to a smaller community and naturally worse matchmaking for the multitude of playlists over time. If it’s too late to add the fix for Halo 5, hopefully 343 can fix for Halo 6.