Halo Infinite - Update on Latency & Geofiltering

[Phantomblu]

I report an open discussion by the staff of 343 about geofilters and I ask the management of the Duma routers what direction to take in this regard ....

or in any case if you expect new solutions ...

By now it is a well-known practice in the fields of games and companies, not only for Halo Infinite, have noticed it and are taking steps in this regard ....

 

https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/halo-infinite-update-on-latency-geofiltering/501149

 

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 .

[Netduma Fraser]

This is something we're aware of, the Geo-Filter currently doesn't work properly with the game due to this and it's something we're investigating.

[WR126]

Any updates on this?

[Netduma Fraser]

Nothing much to report at the moment, it's quite difficult as you can imagine. We are however working on a different way to Geo-Filter that may have benefits for Halo but we don't have an ETA for that currently.

[WR126]

Thank you

[Zippy]

Hello @Netduma Fraser,  I have a question about this.. Does the Geo filter actually effect other players? If im solo queuing how does that affect the other players if there not in my party? Usually when I used this I would just get kicked back to the main menu and restart the search..  It never really effected other players..

Your thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Zippy.

[Netduma Fraser]

25 minutes ago, Zippy said:

Hello @Netduma Fraser,  I have a question about this.. Does the Geo filter actually effect other players? If im solo queuing how does that affect the other players if there not in my party? Usually when I used this I would just get kicked back to the main menu and restart the search..  It never really effected other players..

Your thoughts on this?

Thanks!

Zippy.

You can't impact anyone else, you would just be forcing a particular server and when other players search on the some playlist some would get different servers and would get the same as you, there isn't an impact on their side. The only way I could see it forcing other players away from a better server for them would be if the game doesn't have the population numbers.

[Zippy]

1 hour ago, Netduma Fraser said:

You can't impact anyone else, you would just be forcing a particular server and when other players search on the some playlist some would get different servers and would get the same as you, there isn't an impact on their side. The only way I could see it forcing other players away from a better server for them would be if the game doesn't have the population numbers.

Yeah thats exactly what I thought as well.. I think 343 was grasping at straws trying to point fingers at the Geo Filter for causing lag and higher ping to others.. When I heard that I knew they were for the most part wrong..  Even when they did finally block the use of Geo Filtering or blocking certain servers the game still had the same issues with latency.. There was no difference.. The same old same old!  Maybe a certain circumstance might cause an issue but not the numbers they were thinking.. And the thing is if they thought this was the real issue then why didnt they add selectable servers to there main menu for Infinite..? They should just do that to begin with imo.. Im not one to say but they have still alot to learn.. They need some good leadership and folks that have some very good experience..  Not to beat a dead horse but im still shocked how poor that game turned out.. Its eye popin! 

Thanks!

Zippy..

[Netduma Fraser]

57 minutes ago, Zippy said:

Yeah thats exactly what I thought as well.. I think 343 was grasping at straws trying to point fingers at the Geo Filter for causing lag and higher ping to others.. When I heard that I knew they were for the most part wrong..  Even when they did finally block the use of Geo Filtering or blocking certain servers the game still had the same issues with latency.. There was no difference.. The same old same old!  Maybe a certain circumstance might cause an issue but not the numbers they were thinking.. And the thing is if they thought this was the real issue then why didnt they add selectable servers to there main menu for Infinite..? They should just do that to begin with imo.. Im not one to say but they have still alot to learn.. They need some good leadership and folks that have some very good experience..  Not to beat a dead horse but im still shocked how poor that game turned out.. Its eye popin! 

Thanks!

Zippy..

Yeah I don't fully understand their reasoning and of course I don't claim to know how the game side networking works either and all the intricacies work but obviously what they claimed it would solve has not materialized. Hopefully they can get it resolved, Halo is such a classic that many people grew up playing myself included, unfortunately I don't think even with those improvements it could bring me back like Halo 2/3 had me hooked.