Matchmaking issues (3 continents? Really?)

First off, the game is great, when I get into a good online game, it's great fun. Thanks!

My issue is that the matchmaking is very quick to throw me (and my friends if I'm in a group) into a game, but the matchmaking is pretty horrible.

I'm in Japan. If I play other people in Japan, the game is fantastic. If the host is in Asia, it's totally playable. So why is it that literally 6 of the 8 games I jumped in and out of trying to find a playable game yesterday all had at least one person from North America and at least one person from Europe. I'd see at least one other Japanese gamers in most of the games, but it doesn't makes sense that games have people from three separate continents.

Games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty: World at War were able to have Local preferred and or Local Only options so that instead of spending a half hour jumping in and out of games where the lag was atrocious (and as far as I can tell, there's no way to see the quality of your connection other than to play for a bit) I'd rather wait 5, 10 or even 30 minutes for a game filled with people in Japan/Asia that would be playable.

Is there any way that a local only, maximum acceptable ping or similar option can be made available? It's frustrating enough that it takes a long time to find a game with a good host if you're in Japan...it's worse when your team gets broken up when you finally do.

This will help everyone. Japanese players are happy to communicate with other gamers in Japan and work as a team. Americans, Brits and other gamers that want to communicate in English will be glad to have non-laggy teammates who can speak their language.

I think someone from uber has said they're working on a local only/local preferred type option for a future patch.

The patch details have been announced, and unfortunately, I don't see anything about a local only option:

Connectivity and Multiplayer:

* Reworked the way we handle parties in the pregame lobby to avoid splitting them up.
* Fixed several issues where host migration would fail immediately.
* Decreased wait time after a successful host migration.
* Lobbies will now host migrate and not kick you back to the main menu.
* If the host leaves during the end of match sequence, the host will migrate and players will return back to the lobby and not the main menu.
* Optimized the time it takes to migrate hosts, shortening the time to migrate.
* Improved weapon hit detection in high lag situations.
* Fixed endorsements being incorrect after a host migration.
* Fixed getting into private matches without an invite.

(Only listing the connectivity and multiplayer items)

Now, I do see "Improved weapon hit detection in high lag situation", but that is not what I'm looking for.

Uber Entertainment, where's a local only search engine? Every night I break out MNC, I have to quit at least a few games trying to find a playable one...and I'm sure that if this goes unfixed, the other players in and around Japan are going to gradually stop playing, which means it's just going to get worse and worse for those of us who stick with it.

Local only! Instead of wasting 10-100% of my time trying to find a playable game, I can wait for a few minutes and my friends and I can play a game with a good connection. I've got a few friends who have specifically told me they're waiting for a local only option to buy the game, and I was hoping this patch would have it.

P.S. The three continent example I gave above continues to be the norm. More games than not have both European and North American players despite the fact that my friends and I are in Japan, and want to play people in or around Japan for lag reasons.

neutrino (one of the devs) said "This is something we're looking at." back on the 18th, in regards to an option for local-only matches. So while it probably isn't coming in this update, I wouldn't lose hope altogether.

Part of it is probably the current install base. Is the install base large enough that everyone everywhere (or at least in the majority of places) will be able to make use of a local feature? If people in high-use areas are using the local-only, will people somewhere else (i.e. japan) not have anyone to play with even in non-local matches?

It's sort of a catch 22. A larger install base means a better ability to get into a lag-free match, but with no local option and lag the way it is people are either choosing to not play anymore (or not buy the game altogether.)

If you have a lot of friends japan who are still on the fence about the game, consider convincing them to buy the game and play with you. If there are enough you could just do private matches and be lag free, but even if there aren't you'll have a better chance of one of you getting host if a bunch are playing together.

"Improved weapon hit detection in high lag situation"

That's great and all, but around 90% of my games are "High lag situations", I have a really strong tendency to be incredibly sarcastic so you will have to believe me on the willpower this is taking but, I personally would enjoy it more if you spent more time "Improving the likelihood of getting Low Lag Situations" in general.

It's written as uninsultingly as I can muster, if it hurts you it hurts me playing this fooking awesome game and raging at the connections I get.

The fact that MS even allow you to be connected to hosts while playing an FPS outside your own damned Region irks the **** out of me, should be built into live as a god damn option.

=/

Well, in the case of region, yeah, the majority of the time it's best to play in your own region, but a guy in Hawaii's probably pretty happy to join a game in Tokyo as opposed to the East Coast.

I do get your point. I have no issue playing Uno, Texas Hold'Em, Backgammon or other games with people all over the world because the lag doesn't adversely affect my experience.

With MNC, it should be obvious that you're going to have lots of people repeatedly joining and quitting out of games trying to play people with a playable connection. Why they would design a system that constantly throws me in games with people from both North America and Europe when I'm in Japan still boggles my mind. There are plenty of Japanese people playing, I usually see one or two in most of those horrible games I'm thrown into.

When I do get into a game filled with people in Japan, I have to worry about a friend wanting to join up, because I know if I back out to pick anyone up, there's a fair chance we'll spend the rest of the night trying to get back into a decent host or we'll end up playing in a sub par connection where the host is on another continent.

Locale Only should be an option like it is for World At War. If I want to play World At War, my options these days are to either choose locale only and wait for 30 minutes or more, or to jump into unplayable games... But guess what, I'd gladly choose Locale Only every time. I have no interest in playing a game where the lag gets in the way of the game.

At least with other games, I can see (a very rough idea of) my ping when I jump in...in MNC, I need to use an ability or otherwise try to figure out the ping, which just adds an annoying guessing game to a horrible matchmaking system.

And that's a real shame, because the underlying game is great, and when I get into a decent host, even if it's a team of 4-6 guys on the other team that cream us every single match, it's a lot of fun to play.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for a "locale only" search option, but I can't in good conscience recommend this game to my friends who are concerned about matchmaking and lag until that's fixed.

I'm not sure how you interpret locale-only search options, but would it be as simple as setting a much stricter maximum ping for the people setting their search to "locale only"?

How does that keep people who don't use the option from having anyone to play with?

Throwing me into a game with an unacceptable ping is...this probably won't surprise you...unacceptable. Giving me an option that insures my ping will be acceptable will mean less frustration for me and the people in every game that me and my group jump in and out of.

If a locale only search sits around for 5 or 10 minutes before a game starts up, I can live with that. If the game's going to have a good, playable connection, my friends and I can handle the wait. If it gets to the point that I get fed up with playing against Mexico, Italy, the UK and the US in the same game, I'll stop playing, so if your worse case scenario for "locale only" search is that I'll sit around for a long time because there's no one hosting a game in or around Japan, that would be better for me. I'd rather not play than be thrown into the unplayable games that I see so often.

I pay $5 a month for a real IP address for my 360 specifically so I can have an Open NAT and maximum performance. I game on wired controllers and wired internet. My internet...well, my internet is very good:



In every game where locale only search is an option, I have never had a problem playing the game the way it was meant to be played. Unfortunately, MNC is allowing their poor matchmaking to overshadow an amazing game.

I wish. The bigger our party, the harder it is to expect everyone to be patient while we jump in and out of games trying to find something not on the other side of the earth.

As I said in the post I just made, I'll keep my fingers crossed for a "locale only" search option, but I can't in good conscience recommend this game to my friends who are concerned about matchmaking and lag until that's fixed.

This is actually the same position I am in, which is a shame. because the game is simply so enjoyable when you get a good game going compared to pretty much all the supposed "A class" titles.

Basically my continuous posting on the subject is because it appear Uber actually listens to its fans, so sorry, but since practically no one else does...

Cough IW four months to fix the local search that was supposedly tested before release rendering the game worthless outside of the US for 1/3rd of its publishers intended life span, cough cough.

Yeah, Party Chat restrictions and horrible match making (people would fall out during match making, but they couldn't tell us because of the Party Chat restrictions...talk about a double whammy!) were the main two reasons I gave up on MW2 when I did.

Maybe it was just luck, but got into a room with 8 other Japanese people tonight on my first try. Of course, either the one American or the one Canadian was the host, but they quit in the middle of the third game, and we kept the vast majority of the Japanese during host migration and had some great games! (Was first place with 6-23-9 in my last game, which is weird, since I don't think the other 4 people on my team added up to 23 kills between them, but I won't complain. )

Any update on this? Any news of an update on this, or even any mention that the developers are aware of this issue?

I have given up MNC
I wont play the game until they add local search

Does anyone know if a new patch is in the works? I'm very curious to know if they'll add a patch with/before DLC.

I tried using search to search for any updates on lag, but searching for lag gave me:

Search found 946 matches

I think that's a pretty good sign that I'm not the only dealing with lag thanks to the bizarre matchmaking. Hopefully something along the lines of local only search options is in the works for the upcoming DLC...

Do these other Japanese people have lag? If you're getting into a multi-continental game and having lag, but other people from your region are in the same game and not lagging, it may just be the connection you are on?

I was always under the impression Microsoft connected you with people who spoke the same language, based on what language you had your 360 on? Thats how that Halo 3 language boosting trick worked so well.

Is your Japanese console in English, or is it in Japanese?

Yes. I've made friends (chatted with and added to my friend list) at least a half-dozen Japanese guys I've run into on MNC specifically to try to increase the chances of playing with/against people in Japan. All of them have lamented the horrible matchmaking.

Nope. The lag is too bad to bother playing alone, and every time I'm playing with someone else, the lag is either everyone in the group or no one.

The internet in Japan is generally pretty good, and the god-like internet in my condo is one of the reasons I bought the place:


I pay an additional fee to have a true dedicated IP that's MAC assigned to my 360, and gives me a completely open NAT. While I have had friends geographically nearby experience lag in games that I did not, I have yet to find a game where I experience lag while other friends in Japan do not.

MNC is literally the only game I've been playing in 2010 where matchmaking/lag is an issue despite the fact that I find myself playing with/against random Japanese dudes in laggy games where the host is from Italy and there's another guy from the East Coast. (While that is a real-life example, it's possible that the host was one of the guys on the East Coast...The point is, why would Italy, Japan and Americans on the East coast be playing against each other in a game where lag impacts the experience?)

Game specific. I'm set to Japan for my region, and as my Live account (and 360) is Japanese, there's no reason the game would think otherwise. When playing SSFIV, the option to only play people in the same country (Japan) makes matchmaking a dream. (Yes, everyone from HK to Singapore sets their region to Japan to increase their matchmaking options, but I can live with that.)

If you have a Japan Live account, you don't have the option to set your language to English, so my console's in Japanese.

(You used to be able to select English with a Japan Live account, but that was changed in the big dashboard update. However, my friends with US 360s and US accounts that live in Tokyo and have never had problems with Halo or World at War's Locale Only options, and those friends who do play SSFIV are able to play Japanese opponents no problem by setting their local to Japan. While it's not relevant to the troubleshooting you were doing for my case, I thought you might find that helpful.)

peteer01,

You're doing everything right. The Xbox matchmaking does use region setting and language setting as well as Gamerzone info to matchmake. Unfortunately, there isn't a way for us to test matchmaking in a real world setting until it's in a real world setting. We will be adding some other features in the first DLC to help the matchmaking work better. There isn't a simple solution to this problem but we are working on it and will add some features that we can tweak with our Live Update system to make the experience better for you. Thank you for your patience.

Thank you very much for the reply. It helps to know you guys have heard my issue.

I'll be eagerly looking forward to the DLC, and hope new changes will improve the matchmaking.

Merci, Ek.