Dear Bungie- What the Hell?

Sarcastic Gamer directs Bungie in questioning what the hell they were thinking with Firefight.

"I’m not sure how to put this, Bungie. We’ve always had a decent relationship.

I thoroughly enjoyed going over to friends’ houses and partaking in huge LAN parties for Halo 1 & 2. I even enjoyed playing the Halo 3 multiplayer when it first came out. While I’ve never beaten a campaign apart from ODST and Reach, I still find your multiplayer component entertaining."

[allyc4t]

Lag in Firefight ruins the whole experience. I hope they fix this.

[-Alpha]

I've only experienced lag in Firefight and it's usually not lag but a slowdown. Here is an explanation from a Bungie.net community member. When asked about lag in firefight he responds:

"Because as far as I know (Halo 3: ODST did this, not sure about Reach)Firefight adheres to the Campaign online process, which means that instead of having a host and making other connections catch up, it makes it to where it slows down so that everybody sees the same thing no matter the connection, which strains connections and makes them worse. Theres a payout to it, but there are always disadvantages.

Matchmaking has a different set up, which is more catered to have a lag free experience, since it doesn't wait for everyone to catch up with the host, which makes laggy players, well, experience lag while others don't"

[plenty a tool]

and it was superb with 3 of my pals....

i dont know what to make of this in all honesty

[pustulio]

So let me see if i got it.

People have lag in Firefight because it "slows down" the game so the guy with the shitty connection can "catch up" with the game?

While in matchmaking no one waits for the laggy guy so the game is not "slowed down" to let the laggy guy catch up?

Correct?

[-Alpha]

@pustolio

I have no idea, he seemed to know what he was talking about so I thought I'd quote him lol.

[Fanb0y]

Not much lag, but there's always input delay caused by the netcode - sorta difficult to compensate for, but it's doable.

I remember Generator Defense in the beta had about a 2 second delay on average for me. Half a second is fine, I guess.

[BlackKnight]

@pustulio

Thats basically it. Matchmaking is Host/Client while Firefight and Coop are Peer to Peer. This is something the majority of N4G seems to not understand. A dedicated server is simply a machine that hosts the game but no one plays on that machine so its DEDICATED to being a server, not half server/half player. Most games are listen servers, meaning someone is a host and is also playing the game (COD series, Halo series, Uncharted 2, and many popular others).

Now Peer to Peer is different. It allows for 100% hit detection and no teleporting player and everyone stays perfectly in sync and sees exactly what other players see. The downside is, the quality of the match is the lowest common denominator, meaning everyone plays at the speed of the crappiest users connection. And lag in P2P only slows down gameplay/response, almost like "bullet time". As long as you have 4 players with good connections, the experience is great and the amount of data that can be sent is MUCH larger, which is needed in campaign and firefight since there are 4 players and then ALL of the AI, which can be up to 25 AI running around, even more when its the bonus round in firefight or around 60 AI in campaign and even running scripted events like cruisers shooting and sniper towers being destroyed.

In match making, you 8-16 people, all you need is ONE with a crappy connection to ruin it for all the players if in P2P. But with server client, the laggy guy will just be skipping around the map and being a hard to hit target. Or if he is host then everyone is screwed, though bungie and many xbox games keep a record of your network performance, and people with stable, fast, high bandwidth connections usually get host. You can even see what the records says about you in Reach now by going to the pause menu and looking at Network.

[FACTUAL evidence]

" Lag in Firefight ruins the whole experience. I hope they fix this."

What do you expect? It's XBL. Maybe the 60$ a year people put into LIVE should get you dedicated servers....but then again it's been 6 years just about.

[Evoluti0n]

I don't own a PS3, and I don't comment on negative things that happen to the PS3, because I simply don't care.

But I love when something negative happens to anything 360 related. I see some of you are real quick to hop on the '60 dollars a year' fanboy bandwagon.

Thanks.

[-Alpha]

For the last time, XBL has nothing to do with what the developers choose to do with their online.

XBL is a service, you pay for the service, you pay MS.

Bungie is the one who created their online the way they did. Also, dedicated servers lag too, I've experienced enough of it on Killzone 2 and MAG.

[hazelamy]

then what's the point of paying ms?

it's always "pay for live so you don't get a laggy service" then "it's down to the developer" when it is laggy.
it's like "you get what you pay for" always a valid statement when it comes to the online service, yet never seems valid when applied to hardware, ignoring the fact that it was proven to be true of course.

i just want to say, i do think live is a slightly better service than psn, but i still wont pay for a service where the user hosts nearly all the games.

[Dorwrath]

I haven't experienced any lag whatsoever and besides running through campaign all I have played is firefight.

[lastdual]

Same here. I was online in firefight last night with no lag.

From Bungie's explanation, it seems the limiting factor is if someone has a bad connection, it slows down everyone, since all the AI data has to be fed at the same speed to everyone's console. So play with people who have a good connection and you'll be fine.

[Skizelli]

I too haven't experienced any lag in Firefight, and I was playing with a couple buddies, one whom lives in Japan (I'm in California). Then again, I haven't played a lot of Firefight and connections between Japan and the North American West Coast seem to be decent, so who knows.

For those having problems, remember to check if your NAT is open.

[dabri5]

Hmm not seen any of this myself. I'm sure there are a number of things that could be done on your end to resolve the issue. Nat open, making sue network isn't busy with other people using up your bandwidth. Another thing to remember is that if you have cable Internet you share a line with other people in your immediate area. If you are hopping at a time of day that is busy with activity your performance will be affected. If this happens a lot call and complain. They will eventually put another line box out where you are to divide the connections. I had to do this in the last area I lived at.

[darqwonders]

The problem is, I've never had this issue in ODST, or Matchmaking for that matter. It's only in Firefight where it's laggy beyond belief. What would make it so isolated like that?

According to Reach, my NAT is open, and my connection is good and my packet loss is low.

[siliticx]

hows that 60$ a year going for ya? oh wait so... a popular game having stability and lag issues on launch day, wow, even the 360 has that.

[Evoluti0n]

When a game goes from 0 players to over 2 million, in 24 hours or less, there will be issues. Unlike other developers, Bungie listens to what goes on with their games and their community. Issues will be fixed sooner, rather than later.

To say what you've said in your previous post, is idiotic and fanboyish, at a minimum.

[Skizelli]

Get a life.

[BlackKnight]

Come back of the century. With 4 agrees and 1 disagree. Cream of the crop here on N4G.

[Evoluti0n]

Just the occasional slow-down in campaign.

Overall, its a very positive experience through all the game modes.

[pixelsword]

I don't know if it's lag or slowdown, but something's up. I don't know if they'll patch it or not if Alpha22 is correct.

[MGRogue2017]

I'm planning on trading my copy of Halo: Reach in.. twas going to do it today but I woke up late & I also needed a haircut. (which I got btw lol)

I'll most likely do it tommorow & use the money for some other new release game like NFS Hot Pursuit 2, Medal of Honor or.. uuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... CoD Black Ops! I'll be saving myself from buying it with cash, so why not? :P

[ambientFLIER]

Good. Hopefully trading it in will mean you not commenting on Halo posts anymore.

[Independent_Charles]

good you were proberly a noob anyway. good one less shyt team mate

[ASSASSYN 36o]

Bye!

[Trizard]

All I have to say is WalMart connection. Get wired or fix your router settings to tune it better for gaming. It's your fault, not Bungie's.

[ASSASSYN 36o]

Agreed its more than likely a issue with his ISP than bungie.

[acere]

lag on the best game ever and fee for online how is this possible

[AKissFromDaddy]

LOL, this comment made me laugh, that's all :-)

[michael1023]

whats left me concerned when i played it was that Firefight in Legendary is impossible!!!!!!!!

[ASSASSYN 36o]

I had small lag in firefight right up to the point I selected join good connection only. And ODST had firefight lag and it was fixed. I see absolutely no reason to whine about the post launch issues in this game. I have faith they will be resolved completely.

Next week another... I hate the loud kids in Halo Reach and I didn't know there was a mute button all this time that could have fixed it article.

[Paradise Lost]

I've never lagged in firefight yet.

[lucifon]

Played a whole bunch of firefight with multiple friend groups and matchmaking and had no issues with lag at all

[Bandit03]

Translation of this article: "WAAAAAHHHHHH I Have a crappy internet connection. Let me blame Bungie WAAAAHHHHHH"

[G-Ham]

Halo Reach is a fantastic game, I was exited to know they were putting matchmaking in firefight until i actually played it, The lag in every game ive played makes it incredibly unenjoyable with constant connection issues in both Firefight and Matchmaking, For no apparent reason the game stops and puts me on a black screen with the players of both teams sometimes for minutes or even freezing making me have 2 to restart my xbox :S. I dont expect problems this bad from a company with a great History of multiplayer experience, Bungie needs to get this sorted, And fast!

[ECM0NEY]

Just hit start go to connection and look at your packet drop rate and connection speed. This will tell you if its your problem. :)