How hard is it to pick the player who will give the majority of the players the best game experience? And give us a region/good connection filter?
e.g. If in a game there’s 7 Australians and one American, the Australians will have best connection with each other, giving the most players the best game!
But no, Halo 4 always picks someone else to be hosts, even if everyone else in the game but the hosts lags to buggery and back!
Why always American hosts? Again the person with best connection to the majority of the players should become hosts, isn’t it better to have just one person lag rather than 15…?
I’m beginning to think I should downgrade my connection to third world dial up, seems to be the same type of connection that host pullers always have…
Host selection isn’t based around connection quality. It isn’t based around current performance either but rather uses a fatally flawed host record system.
A player with a new Xbox or one who hasn’t played Halo 4 before on their Xbox will pull host often because they don’t have any negative feedback on their host record which is tied to the Xbox’s serial number.
Over time matching international players and players with bad connections with said players leaving bad feedback on your host record will reduce your chance of getting host in future.
Eventually you’ll most likely stop pulling host altogether which is normally after 100-200 games if you are an Australian and have a good connection.
Cable is better than ADSL for gaming providing the routing used is the same on both services but cable does suffer from node congestion which isn’t an issue on ADSL.
Optus ADSL/cable and TPG ADSL often suffer from really bad domestic and international congestion so if you are with either I recommend moving to another provider.
If you have ADSL you may find ADSL G.DMT (AKA ADSL1) with a high SNR margin with interleaving off provides the lowest latency and best performance but YMMV depending on your line quality.
I recommend screening hosts pre-match in the lobby and if it isn’t an Australian just back out because Halo 4’s netcode is awful and even on really good international connection can be iffy whereas Reach is solid albeit delayed.
Hmm, thankyou for explaining how hosts work extremely well!
Only thing is that I did buy a new xbox about a month ago, still never got host and I’ve got 20mbps/1mpbs connection, so still not sure why I haven’t at least grabbed host a few times…
> Only thing is that I did buy a new xbox about a month ago, still never got host and I’ve got 20mbps/1mpbs connection, so still not sure why I haven’t at least grabbed host a few times…
Show us a speed test.
There is a world of difference between 1 Megabit/s and 1 Megabyte/s.
Australian ADSL2 users are looking at 1 Megabit upstream (roughly 0.125 Megabyte/s).
I’m and Aussie player and for me Halo 4/Reach are streets ahead of the previous titles.
> > Only thing is that I did buy a new xbox about a month ago, still never got host and I’ve got 20mbps/1mpbs connection, so still not sure why I haven’t at least grabbed host a few times…
>
> Show us a speed test.
>
> There is a world of difference between 1 Megabit/s and 1 Megabyte/s.
>
> Australian ADSL2 users are looking at 1 Megabit upstream (roughly 0.125 Megabyte/s).
>
> I’m and Aussie player and for me Halo 4/Reach are streets ahead of the previous titles.
Err, thats why I put mbps, the small b indicates its a megabit…
So 20 megabits per second/1 megabit per second, I usually get about 15/0.8 most days
> Only thing is that I did buy a new xbox about a month ago, still never got host and I’ve got 20mbps/1mpbs connection, so still not sure why I haven’t at least grabbed host a few times…
According to your Speedtest.net result you are with Pacific Internet. Frankly they aren’t very competitive on value and use average routing which is a huge issue for Xbox Live games where international hosts are the norm.
If the above is correct you’re probably better off moving to a top tier ISP like iiNet or Internode. Telstra also provide a quality service but are pricey with awful phone support.
What networking hardware are you using?
Having a 20/1mbit connection won’t necessarily make the lag less than a 1.5/256kbps if you are playing off-host on a good connection.
The routing used and service provider play a huge part in the quality of connections when playing online.
> Err, thats why I put mbps, the small b indicates its a megabit…
Lowercase ‘m’ is milli, not mega.
To describe Megabit per second you use Mbps, Mbit/s, or Mb/s.
I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume that because you got half of the notation wrong, you might have also got the other (there are plenty of people who do).
100KB/s doesn’t seem like a lot when you consider you would be hosting up to 15 other players in Big Team and 7 in traditional playlists. Also factor in reporting to the matchmaking system for drop outs/in, and assorted other potential updates.
> Hmm, thankyou for explaining how hosts work extremely well!
>
> Only thing is that I did buy a new xbox about a month ago, still never got host and I’ve got 20mbps/1mpbs connection, so still not sure why I haven’t at least grabbed host a few times…
>
> But yes, the Halo 4 netcoding is atrocious!
That’s absolutely right. Halo 4 has something called P2P servers, which upon entering lobby, it selects a host randomly and whoever is the host gets the best connection. Meanwhile, the other players get laggy connections despite how good their internet is. Black ops 2 has this but the developers of that game had already fixed the lag problems. 343i should get their act together and fix this.
> That’s absolutely right. Halo 4 has something called P2P servers, which upon entering lobby, it selects a host randomly and whoever is the host gets the best connection. Meanwhile, the other players get laggy connections despite how good their internet is. Black ops 2 has this but the developers of that game had already fixed the lag problems. 343i should get their act together and fix this.
BO2 searches based on latency while Halo searches initially searches based on a vague “good connection system” that can include dozens of different counties.
For example with prefer “good connection” in H3, HR and H4 I often match Californians that are 15,000km distant.
Halo 4 is quick to fall back to the quickest search method hence why the matcmmaking is so -Yoink- and plagued with lag issues because matchups with 100’s of milliseconds of lag are the norm.
> > Err, thats why I put mbps, the small b indicates its a megabit…
>
> Lowercase ‘m’ is milli, not mega.
>
> To describe Megabit per second you use Mbps, Mbit/s, or Mb/s.
>
> I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume that because you got half of the notation wrong, you might have also got the other (there are plenty of people who do).
>
> 100KB/s doesn’t seem like a lot when you consider you would be hosting up to 15 other players in Big Team and 7 in traditional playlists. Also factor in reporting to the matchmaking system for drop outs/in, and assorted other potential updates.
This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.
*Original post. Click at your own discretion.
Oh forgive me for not pressing shift hard enough when I put in the M, jeez…
I don’t think there is such a internet speed as millibit, so your argument is invalid, it was obvious I was referring to a Megabit!!!
And since the minimum intenret speed for LIVE is somewhere around 1Mbps/200kbps, I think I have the connection part covered.
@n1cholas
Yes Pacnet might be an average ISP, but it suits my needs and financial situation and quite frankly in Reach I never had any mjaor problems with mathcmaking using the same connection…
And I use a TP Link W8961ND router, port forwarded, and again, never had any major problems with connection in Reach…
So in conclusion, I doubt my connection/router/ISP plays a major part in this problem with halo 4, especially since everything is the exact same it was when I was playing Reach…
And I used to pull hosts every so often on reach as well, Q.E.D the problem lies mostly with Halo 4 and its stupid developers 343i !
A lot of other people on the forums/Xbox Live in general are having the same problem as me, no major problems with Reach or Halo 3, but lagging every game on Halo 4…
Hello, I play halo online since the halo2 biginning and Now i have no way to play this game because of the host selection … Matchmaing host is generally Ok. but in french custom games the host is given to the baddest connexion so everybody is on blackscreen or red bar a game on two and when we kick the host the same thing appear with the second baddest connexion. We just have 5 match the last month and 4 match weren’t played due to black screen. The problem is that the level in matchmaking is very low and as a result matchmaking is not interesting and we can’t play custom
I have a 200Mbps connexion http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/2857311688 but i haven’t hosted a game since the last 200games. I don’t care about matchmaking because there is always other host than french and no black screen . But I would like and every french player i know would like i host custom games like i do in any other games on xbox and pc.
someone have an idea to bridge custom host or to force it ?
> > It’s a lot better than Halo 3 I can tell you.
>
> Soooo Soooo True
>
>
> Halo 4s is fine for the most part although I WOULD LOVE THE OPTION to pick Prefer good connection like all past Halo’s
GOOD GOD MAN! Stop making sense!
BTW, I’m in middle school and just getting into programming and such. How do you know your hosting? Thanks dude
> > > It’s a lot better than Halo 3 I can tell you.
> >
> > Soooo Soooo True
> >
> >
> > Halo 4s is fine for the most part although I WOULD LOVE THE OPTION to pick Prefer good connection like all past Halo’s
>
> GOOD GOD MAN! Stop making sense!
>
> BTW, I’m in middle school and just getting into programming and such. How do you know your hosting? Thanks dude
If you press X while in the pre-game lobby and your name is at the top, you are host.
To answer your question on why host selection sucks.
Host boxes
I have one of these in my house (my Dad wanted his own). Since it was connected to a bigger TV, when I had a friend over we used that instead of mine and since my Dad does not play online, it had a clean host record. It was insane, we pulled host 48 games out of about 50 and if we joined in progress we would cause a host change.
People not using QoS on congested connections
It doesn’t matter how fast your internet is, if there are other people on your connection streaming videos, torrenting or uploading, you’re going to have a bad time. That being said, occasionally these people score host, usually because they have host boxes and they cause havoc for everybody else!
Players not having Open NATs
Anybody that does not have an Open NAT is reducing their chances of host, and they could be a perfect candidate for host of a given game otherwise. While I am sure most of the users here have Open NATs, not everybody online does. In fact, I am sure some people don’t even know what NAT is. I didn’t at one point. If all players in a lobby have open NAT, then there is a better chance that a good host will be chosen.
Also, in terms of the lag problems in Halo 4. This is NOT the only game suffering from these problems. All games on Xbox LIVE in my experience are suffering from bad hosts at the moment and I believe it has to do with in influx of casual gamers not knowing anything about networking.
Halo Reach Multiplayer is now unplayable as hosts keep losing signal and leave one player all alone to complete the mission which I found very difficult especially when going for Challenges.I now quit if I cannot get a strong connection team together as impossible enemies make it difficult to complete without losing lives.
> 2535470239513195;18:
> Halo Reach Multiplayer is now unplayable as hosts keep losing signal and leave one player all alone to complete the mission which I found very difficult especially when going for Challenges.I now quit if I cannot get a strong connection team together as impossible enemies make it difficult to complete without losing lives.
