Multiplayer regions?

[Skan]

As a PC gamer with Insomnia my gaming hours are often around 4am-10am. The problem is, I have no problem with finding games at afternoon/evening, but at late night/morning it's next to impossible. So I assume, that multiplayer is locked to the regions (NA/EU/AU) and I really can't understand why it is like that.

It's not FPS so even a mediocre lag is acceptable and with already low multiplayer community in EU that region division imho doesn't have sense.

Is there any chance to remove that blockade, or there are some important reasons to keep it up?

[stokad]

on the pc, it seems we all share the same lobby / leader board. (at least canadians and europeans).

[Skan]

Yeah, I know that leaderboard is worldwide, but are you positive about the lobby? Because for me (EU) there is huge difference when I'm looking for ranked matches at evenings and very late nights. I mean, I'm getting almost instant matches at evenings and I have to wait like 30 min or more at late nights.

[stokad]

It might be because of bugs. (the bug prevent you to join game at this hour) Or it might be because the worldwide player population is so distributed that there is a peak frequentation at this particlar hour (for exemple : europeans have not yet gone to bed, and americans are already able to play after work/school).

Because the leader board is global, it would be hard to swallow if europeans were indeed only playing among themselves (by games feature) wouldn't it ?

[Skan]

Ok, maybe I wasn't clear enough:

Between GMT 2am-4am and 10am-1pm ranked multiplayer is pretty much dead for me and other people from Europe who I met and add to friends after we met in these "1 ranked match per hour". They are all saying the same - it's dead for them and it's a miracle to find ranked match in these hours.

Now if ranked lobby would be worldwide, it would be really weird to be so dead because 2am-4am are hours when there is late evening for large part of NA and 10am-2pm is evening for AU/NZ. So I'm pretty sure it would not be so dead. And ofc in other hours we have no problem with finding ranked games.

That's why I think there are some region restrictions but I can't tell if it's only for some people due to a bug, or is it on larger scale and/or WAI.

It would be great if someone from Firaxis could answer with "Yes, there is restriction like that from reasons <...>" or "No, there is no such restriction".

Also, it would help a lot if there is someone who is from NA and he's 100% sure he played ranked match with someone from EU (or vice versa).

[HPLovecraft]

Perhaps there just aren't large amounts of people playing MP at this time? I am sure a number of people are probably focusing on SP before MP.

[Skan]

Yes, I'm aware that majority play singleplayer - only 5% of players have "win the MP match" achievement, and since it Steamworks game I think it's safe to assume that this (or lower) is the percent of people who play MP.

But for me it's hard to believe that if the lobby is worldwide, then MP is dead at GMT 2am-12am. In these hours there are peak times for NA at the beginning, and AU/NZ at the end.

It's not exaggeration from my side when I wrote that you have to wait 30min-1h for ranked match at these hours in Europe, while at the midday-evenings ranked matches are instant without waiting.

[HPLovecraft]

Yes, I'm aware that majority play singleplayer - only 5% of players have "win the MP match" achievement, and since it Steamworks game I think it's safe to assume that this (or lower) is the percent of people who play MP.

But for me it's hard to believe that if the lobby is worldwide, then MP is dead at GMT 2am-12am. In these hours there are peak times for NA at the beginning, and AU/NZ at the end.

It's not exaggeration from my side when I wrote that you have to wait 30min-1h for ranked match at these hours in Europe, while at the midday-evenings ranked matches are instant without waiting.

Why don't you just enter a couple ranked matches and ask your opponent what country they're located in, then? Fairly easy way to crack the mystery.

[Skan]

Yeah, guess I'll have to.

Although I'm a bit naive and still counting for a simple answer from someone from Firaxis.

[Skan]

I played 6 matches today. Only 2 people answered and they were from EU. 4 ignored me (or didn't understand), but 2 of them had background noises from VOIP, one was speaking french, another italy probably. Other 2 had units named with russian alphabet. So I'm pretty sure they all were from Europe/Russia.

It's gonna take ages for me to gather data with that ratio, and even with ~100 confirmed europeans it's gonna be too little to confirm it or deny. However, this signs tells me that possibility of existence of the region lock for multiplayer is high.

That's why:

Please Firaxis, can you confirm that, and if yes, then why there is such blockade?

[Propbuddha]

This may be just a ping barrier rather than a region lock. The game is matching you with players that you have a decent ping to.

[Skan]

Wouldn't that be pretty much the same as locking regions to EU/NA/AU?

In every FPS & MMO I played that had servers in NA I had ping around ~120 (I live in central Europe) so that would be silly to lock pings like that in turn based game.

Mandatory "Please Firaxis, can you confirm that, and if yes, then why there is such blockade?"

[Skan]

Lil bump, because I was checking the .ini files and found something interesting and possibly relevant to the issue.

In here: C:\Users\<user>\Documents\My Games\XCOM - Enemy Unknown\XComGame\Config
there is file: "XComEngine.ini"

And in this file, under the tab "[OnlineSubsystemSteamworks.OnlineSubsystemSteamwork s]" we have a line:
"Region=255"

Now it might coincidence or it might have no connection to the "multi region lock" issue, but:

a) We have Voice chat forced by steam (and you can change it in steam only)
b) This guy is from Russia and is saying that can play pretty much only with other russians: http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread...h-search-times

So chances are high, that Multi Regions are the same regions that Steam use for their store.
The question is, is that a WAI and Firaxis/2k is aware of this? (if that's true ofc).

Mandatory: "Please Firaxis, can you confirm that, and if yes, then why there is such blockade?"

[Xenogears]

This is happening to me too, i cant find games(im from Chile).

Stuck in "searching for ranked match" 10-15 minutes and when i finally find a match its always against the same 10 brazilians.

[arielus]

same happens here. from argentina. at least should be able to see one match.. nothing. not even custom matches.

[stokad]

Has anyone (encountering empty mp time zone) tried to connect with a proxy to see if the mp environment is the same ?
now proxy are forbidden for unlocking and purchasing games, certainly there are okay for joining mp games.

If you see any differences please report to us

[Skan]

Bump because there's nothing about this in 2nd patch notes and that region blockade is pure absurd with so small MP community.

Put 200 ping blockade on ranked matches and no blockade at all for unranked.

[Xenogears]

They are probably fixing it:

2nd patch notes says: Multiplayer connectivity optimization.

i hope that fix is about our issue.

[Aidos]

They are probably fixing it:

2nd patch notes says: Multiplayer connectivity optimization.

i hope that fix is about our issue.

If the patch doesn't change how multiplayer works, I'll be seriously pissed off.
There was so much hype for this game, and not being able to play internationally is F***** ridiculous!
I haven't been able to play 1 multiplayer game yet - I didn't spend $70 to play campaign.

[ghaza]

Wait for 1 hour already, Asia. Come
On!