Add “Halo Infinite” severs and geo filtering

[Netduma Fraser]

37 minutes ago, vincent06fr said:

Hello, how is it possible to be on US servers while my Geo filter is on Dublin with a radius of 600 kms and a ping of 40?

I play on xbox Sx.
Vincent

The server in Dublin is most likely an authentication server rather than a game server so may be better to force the UK server. If you have Ping Assist on and there is a server mislocated it can get allowed but the server in reality would be much closer to you, just incorrect on the map.

[vincent06fr]

I would like to be sure to understand how the geo filter works
If I set the distance to 700 kms and I have a ping help of 40, what will be the priority of the router?
the distance or the ping?
I want to play in Europe, do I have to set the geolocation in France (where I live) and set the ping support to 0?
To be sure not to find myself elsewhere than on the Eu servers?

Thanks !

Vincent

[Netduma Liam]

2 hours ago, vincent06fr said:

I would like to be sure to understand how the geo filter works
If I set the distance to 700 kms and I have a ping help of 40, what will be the priority of the router?
the distance or the ping?
I want to play in Europe, do I have to set the geolocation in France (where I live) and set the ping support to 0?
To be sure not to find myself elsewhere than on the Eu servers?

Thanks !

Vincent

They more work in tandem rather than one being of higher priority than the other. When the game client attempts to make a connection, it's checked if the server is within the radius or below the ping assist value. If one of those statements is true, the connection will not be blocked.

Yes, you'd need to set your radius over Europe and Ping Assist to 0. However, if your ping is too high the game server likely won't put you in a game.

[Rickyrocks]

Hi guys so i have been reading all the issues and i must say its been a bumpy ride on Halo infinite and was hopeful that these issues would be resolved by now unfortunately its taking a lot of time and stress not what i was expecting . I have noticed that these are peer host would someone please clarify why these are not showing as dedicated servers and are people hosting their own games also it does not feel like i am on these low pings that its telling having some real shady games like they see me before i even see them so deseptive.

[Netduma Fraser]

4 hours ago, Rickyrocks said:

Hi guys so i have been reading all the issues and i must say its been a bumpy ride on Halo infinite and was hopeful that these issues would be resolved by now unfortunately its taking a lot of time and stress not what i was expecting . I have noticed that these are peer host would someone please clarify why these are not showing as dedicated servers and are people hosting their own games also it does not feel like i am on these low pings that its telling having some real shady games like they see me before i even see them so deseptive.

They are just misclassified servers, it's something we'd have to sort out but it is only a visual issue, it won't impact your game experience in any way. Force some higher ping servers, they may play better if the server is less under load.

[K0NSPIRACY]

@Netduma Fraser @Netduma Liam @Zippy

So 343i have finally released an official statement with regards to both geo filtering and the online multiplayer experience. I haven’t tested if their fix against geo filtering works in any capacity but your thoughts and feedback to both of these articles would be interesting:

Halo Infinite - Update on Latency and Geo Filtering: https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/halo-infinite-update-on-latency-geofiltering/501149/

CLOSER LOOK: HALO INFINITE’S ONLINE EXPERIENCE:
https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/closer-look-halo-infinite-online-experience

 

 

[K0NSPIRACY]

This is the statement from Unyshek regarding latency and geo filter:

[quote="Unyshek"]
Good morning all – today we wanted to share a few updates around Halo Infinite’s matchmaking and online gameplay experience. In this post we’ll be focusing on the impact of “geofiltering” in matchmaking and what we’re doing to improve your online experience.

[In another post that went live today on Waypoint, we dive into “desync” and the online gameplay experience within Halo Infinite. ](https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/closer-look-halo-infinite-online-experience)

We recommend reading both to get the full picture but since you’re here right now, let’s talk about geofiltering.

* **What is geofiltering?**

Geofiltering is when players manipulate their system files or router settings in an effort to force the matchmaking system to give them matches hosted on servers located near them. Many do so thinking that they are creating their own “server selection” within the matchmaking system, but that is not what’s happening. Instead, they are simply forcing the game to be played on their chosen datacenter, regardless of where the other players in the game are located.

* **Why is it bad?**

Normally, when a match is created, the matchmaker hosts the game on a server with the best connection for the highest number of players in the lobby. That means sometimes it will select a server that is in between all the players and other times it will pick a server that’s closer to where the majority of the people from the match are located.

However, if one of the players in the lobby is geofiltering, they will then force the game to be played on their datacenter. To be clear, this means a geofiltering player’s actions take effect after all of the players have already been selected for the match. This happens because the matchmaking system pulls the lobby together when it still believes that all our data centers would be available to host the game. Then, in the process of picking the best data center to host this match, the manipulation blocks out any servers that the geofiltering player does not allow.

When players do this, it creates a small benefit to them at the cost of making the match worse for everyone else.

To provide a real-world example, below is a match between players from Regions A, B, and C – where Region B is located in the middle. For this match, picking a server in Region B would be the fairest to all players, with the lowest overall latency. However, the Region C player geofiltered their ping data and forced the match to occur in their region.

Here’s a ping comparison (in milliseconds) between what our matchmaker detected and what the players were forced to play on due to a geofiltering player in Region 😄

|Player location|Expected ping to optimal server in Region B|Actual ping after being geofiltered to Region C|
| --- | --- | --- |
|Region A|67ms|144ms|
|Region A|86ms|155ms|
|Region A|74ms|147ms|
|Region A|61ms|130ms|
|Region B|26ms|94ms|
|Region B|13ms|82ms|
|Region B|26ms|84ms|
|Region C|97ms|40ms|

As you can see, geofiltering allowed this player to block the optimal server and negatively impact the experience of the entire lobby in a pretty dramatic way. It also wouldn’t feel great to be a player in Region C and get matched into Region B frequently, and further below we share the actions we’re taking to reduce how often that happens.

Given the example above, one geofiltering player can degrade the experience of between 7 (Arena) to 23 (BTB) other people per match, meaning they could impact hundreds of people in one gaming session. Then, take those hundreds of lower-quality experiences and multiply that by the total number of players geofiltering around the world, and you can start to see why this practice is harmful to the game and your fellow Halo players.

Not to mention, as players are forced on to these higher ping servers, they begin to either geofilter themselves, play the game less, or stop playing entirely. All of which increases the likelihood that the people playing the game normally are going to run into someone who is geofiltering and have a lesser experience. It became a vicious cycle and, as a result, the quality of online matches began to deteriorate at a rapid pace.

If geofiltering was acting as a makeshift “server selection” feature, we may have considered turning a blind eye to it. However, since that isn’t the case, we needed to fix it and ensure that players are getting the best experience possible.

* **Addressing the desire for better connections**

Speaking of creating the best experience possible, it’s clear that people were geofiltering because they didn’t feel like we were making matches at that bar. So, our first round of updates is directly aimed at prioritizing connection and improving our matchmaker.

Halo Infinite’s matchmaking system takes into account the locations of players when matchmaking, but sometimes it matches players from other regions. This most often happens when one region has a low population at that time, and the system sees a good match across regions. We’re taking steps to reduce the frequency with which this happens, as it was happening more than we expected when designing the system.

In addition to preventing geofiltering, we’re also taking these additional steps to improve match quality:

* As of today, we’ve increased the priority of low pings to our servers in the matchmaking process. This step should help you match with local players, and therefore have a better connection, more often. As you get more of these local matches, instances of playing on further data centers will also decline.
* Separate from the bullet point above, our Services team has taken additional steps to help ensure you can have quality matches with players from your respective regions, more often. We expect this to have a noticeable impact when making matches for players in less populated regions around the world including - but not limited to - Australia and Asia. This update, which went live yesterday, has already shown promising results and should take further advantage of this morning’s changes. Please keep an eye out and let us know how your games start to feel.

In combination with the changes above and additional tuning to our matchmaking system, we believe that we can create better and better matches over time. If we ever feel like the matches we are making do not meet player expectations or our quality bar, we will evaluate additional means of improving the online experience - including considering features like a server selection similar to MCC or search preferences similar to Halo 5 - further down the road.

* **How did you prevent geofiltering?**

As we touched on above, we can’t let geofiltering continue because of how it degrades the experience for our players. So, earlier today, we made an update to our online services that should prevent geofiltering players from searching in matchmaking.

If our services detect that a player is geofiltering, that player will receive a message saying, “No ping to our datacenters detected.” Once a player removes their geofilter, this message will go away and they should have no issues queuing into matchmaking.

Before we wrap up here, we do want to acknowledge that there’s still work to do to improve ranked matchmaking as well. We’re always investigating matches in which players report bad experiences, whether it’s related to ping, desyncing, or Ranked, and our work here will continue throughout the life of the game.

We hope this post answers some of your questions and helps outline a few of the steps we’re taking to improve your experience online. And, as a reminder, we highly recommend reading [this post about “desync” and how latency impacts gameplay in Halo Infinite ](https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/closer-look-halo-infinite-online-experience) to get a look at the full picture.

See you all on the battlefield!

*Please note: If you’ve used any of the methods shared online to block matchmaking servers and you are now unable to revert the change, the Halo Support team will not be able to troubleshoot or resolve the error messages for you.*
[/quote]

[K0NSPIRACY]

Where are you based and what servers are you now connecting to @GBDJG without geo filter? 

[K0NSPIRACY]

Thanks @GBDJG. That pretty much confirms what I was thinking and expecting…this will only accelerate the death of the game for all players outside of America.

[K0NSPIRACY]

@Netduma Fraser help!!!

[Netduma Fraser]

Firstly thanks of all for providing the link to the statement, I've read it and passed it onto the team immediately, I don't want to say too much but we will discuss this in house and provide our feedback. Though it is quite disappointing, Netduma as a whole owes it's existence to Halo as our founder Iain was infuriated by lag on Halo and vowed to do something about it and now this has happened. We will be update you when we can. 

[K0NSPIRACY]

24 minutes ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Firstly thanks of all for providing the link to the statement, I've read it and passed it onto the team immediately, I don't want to say too much but we will discuss this in house and provide our feedback. Though it is quite disappointing, Netduma as a whole owes it's existence to Halo as our founder Iain was infuriated by lag on Halo and vowed to do something about it and now this has happened. We will be update you when we can. 

Thanks @Netduma Fraser 👍

It looks like we have to disable geo filter to get games and then forced to connect to US servers if the game selects a US server. 

[Zippy]

This is very very sad news. And I was hoping this was really meant for PC players that were changing files of the game.. But as we now can see this is not the case. 😞 

Im actually sitting here shocked atm.. A good amount of my friends I play online with have Netduma.. This isnt going to go over well.. Now that Halo has done this I sure hope this doesnt expand out to other games..  

I was Geo Filtering last night on Halo. Now im going to get on and see what server it picks for me now! My guess is this wont be good. Im a US player but it rarely ever put me on the two closest servers to me. It always put me on the East Coast. Which totally made no sense. 

I will post back what server it decides to put me on now.. And see how frequent it does this..  Im really just very upset at this whole thing.. 

Thanks!

Zippy.

[Netduma Fraser]

It is a shame that this has come about due to people exploiting a known exploit with the game files, especially considering we haven't really marketed the router towards Halo players so the amount of people using DumaOS to do so would be minimal. Important reminder that because this is now occurring, using the router to get the best possible ping is even more important so do make sure to dial in QoS to what works best for you. 

[Cajun72]

Just come on here to find this as was getting the same message as you guys! what a shame.

Just to clarify when you say 'turn geo-filter off' do you mean - set home location to middle of the atlantic ocean with minimal radius and set ping assist on?

[K0NSPIRACY]

1 hour ago, Cajun72 said:

Just come on here to find this as was getting the same message as you guys! what a shame.

Just to clarify when you say 'turn geo-filter off' do you mean - set home location to middle of the atlantic ocean with minimal radius and set ping assist on?

Not sure who you are replying to but my understanding is that geo filter has to be turned off completely rather than using ping assist. I haven't been on today so have you tested if this works?

[BillyMeagher]

Same issue here, my filter was working perfectly fine  but now after that update obviously can’t filter anymore unless you guys manage a to find a fix! Quite a shame really seen as me and many others only used these to match low ping servers because of the no server select

[Zippy]

Hey guys! Well I have some very bad news as well.. I now never get a closer server. Im going to go on here again to see whats going on here.. Something isnt right with this update.. I dont think the game is Geo locating me/us properly.. I am a US player and it hasnt put me on even a somewhat close server yet..

As broken as Halo Infinite is who says this update they gave us isnt broke!  Im very disappointed in 343..

Thanks!

Zippy

[Zippy]

5 hours ago, K0NSPIRACY said:

@Netduma Fraser @Netduma Liam @Zippy

So 343i have finally released an official statement with regards to both geo filtering and the online multiplayer experience. I haven’t tested if their fix against geo filtering works in any capacity but your thoughts and feedback to both of these articles would be interesting:

Halo Infinite - Update on Latency and Geo Filtering: https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/halo-infinite-update-on-latency-geofiltering/501149/

CLOSER LOOK: HALO INFINITE’S ONLINE EXPERIENCE:
https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/closer-look-halo-infinite-online-experience

 

 

Thank you on keeping us posted about this.. It greatly appreciated..

Thanks!

Zippy.

[Yale king]

After 343 geo filtering new update today (2-10-22), anybody know how to bypass this ?

[K0NSPIRACY]

43 minutes ago, Yale king said:

After 343 geo filtering new update today (2-10-22), anybody know how to bypass this ?

Nope. I’ve done some minor testing and have a few theories but don’t know if there’s any substance to it yet.

[Cajun72]

15 hours ago, K0NSPIRACY said:

Not sure who you are replying to but my understanding is that geo filter has to be turned off completely rather than using ping assist. I haven't been on today so have you tested if this works?

Update from last night. Removed geo filter for xbox and removed polygon drawing around UK (my location), then put home location to middle of atlantic ocean with 111km (minimum) distance with 50 ping assist. Found I was getting into games then with no issues. I actually was put on the same server I was getting before which is oddly located in the US (central) which I suspect is a misplaced server? see snip below for ID. Haven't tested today but I got into about 6 consecutive matches no problem last nigh.

[K0NSPIRACY]

1 hour ago, Cajun72 said:

Update from last night. Removed geo filter for xbox and removed polygon drawing around UK (my location), then put home location to middle of atlantic ocean with 111km (minimum) distance with 50 ping assist. Found I was getting into games then with no issues. I actually was put on the same server I was getting before which is oddly located in the US (central) which I suspect is a misplaced server? see snip below for ID. Haven't tested today but I got into about 6 consecutive matches no problem last nigh.

Do you know which server you connected to and at what ping? If you’re based in UK and connecting to central US then that would be Chicago at about 150ms.

All I did was turn off “strict” on my geo filter (still had home location set as UK with 250 mile radius despite it no longer actively doing anything) and I was able to join games no issue without the error message, and with auto ping server enabled I could see which servers I was connecting to and what ping. I tested 10x Quick Play games and connected to 6x EU (mostly Amsterdam) and 4x US servers (Dallas and Washington DC). The games on US servers were predictably terrible being connected at 115ms and 85ms respectively, but EU servers were decent at 18ms.

[Cajun72]

25 minutes ago, K0NSPIRACY said:

Do you know which server you connected to and at what ping? If you’re based in UK and connecting to central US then that would be Chicago at about 150ms.

All I did was turn off “strict” on my geo filter (still had home location set as UK with 250 mile radius despite it no longer actively doing anything) and I was able to join games no issue without the error message, and with auto ping server enabled I could see which servers I was connecting to and what ping. I tested 10x Quick Play games and connected to 6x EU (mostly Amsterdam) and 4x US servers (Dallas and Washington DC). The games on US servers were predictably terrible being connected at 115ms and 85ms respectively, but EU servers were decent at 18ms.

The server ID was on the screen shot I attached (see my last message). The ping was 21ms on all 6 games. hit detection spot on and no issues at all. Maybe Fraser can tell from ID where it is? but I doubt it actually is in US with that low ping. 

I turned off strict like you did but only difference is in home location in Atlantic ocean with minimal radius - so to let the ping work instead of the geo filter

[Netduma Fraser]

2 minutes ago, Cajun72 said:

The server ID was on the screen shot I attached (see my last message). The ping was 21ms on all 6 games. hit detection spot on and no issues at all. Maybe Fraser can tell from ID where it is? but I doubt it actually is in US with that low ping. 

I turned off strict like you did but only difference is in home location in Atlantic ocean with minimal radius - so to let the ping work instead of the geo filter

Definitely mislocated, it's actually a server in Ireland