Message to FD from everyone in Open. Please stop everything and fix instancing/matchmaking first.

[yul7896]

OK maybe the OP doesn't technically speak for absolutely everyone who logs into Open.
OK maybe the "stop everything" was an unfortunate way to phrase it

It's fair to assume that people logging into open do so because they wish to interact with other players and it's true that this has some major issues for people.

It's fair enough to request that fixing a fundamental mechanic be addressed as a priority above focusing on new features.

An excellent point that I can only repeat.

Mr Majinvash is raising a valid point that aims to make every players experience in Open more of what FDEV intended it to be. FDEV simply cannot continue adding without fixing what's broken.

 

[el_tel]

Just noticed this thread and title. Is the OP sure that the message is from everyone in open?

Using a bit of exaggeration there I think...

To clarify what I wrote above:

Saying that the message is from 'everyone in open' is obviously not true, so why use it?

I don't know how prevalent the matchmaking error is, but I do know that I personally have encountered it twice in god knows how many hours of game play, so it's hardly happening all of the time and therefore not affecting players in open to the extent implied by the use of the word 'everyone'.

This why I said it was exaggeration, which is not to say that the problem doesn't exist and should be ignored.

 

[yul7896]

To clarify what I wrote above:

Saying that the message is from 'everyone in open' is obviously not true, so why use it?

I don't know how prevalent the matchmaking error is, but I do know that I personally have encountered it twice in god knows how many hours of game play, so it's hardly happening all of the time and therefore not affecting players in open to the extent implied by the use of the word 'everyone'.

This why I said it was exaggeration, which is not to say that the problem doesn't exist and should be ignored.

Since we're playing in the same galaxy, it does affect everyone equally. Hyperbole is present in the OP, but where would the world be without hyperbole?

For example, lets say you're an Imp flying through Winter, you're all excited to be undermining in enemy space, the danger of lurking enemy wings is fun, right? So myself and a wingman come across you, I interdict you, you start to poop your pants, we come into regular space and my wingman can see you, but I can't and you can't see either of us?!?!?! This happens occassionally. What happens daily is comms don't work, some wing members can see npcs while others can't, this happens often.

Meanwhile, all we hear from FDEV is something about 'Top Secret', super exciting, huge new updates. Well I'd rather have something work as intended before adding a bunch of new stuff.

 

[Luponator]

Instancing and matchmaking is handled by people who know how to code these type of things.

As evidenced by the flawless, problem-free, stable instancing & communication system noone ever complains about?

 

[Kirk-Fu]

This pedantry over someone saying "I think I speak for everyone when I say..." is ridiculous. No, nobody who says that really thinks everyone agrees with them unanimously, it's a figure of speech used to indicate a majority opinion. Jesus christ lads.

 

[Asp Explorer]

As evidenced by the flawless, problem-free, stable instancing & communication system noone ever complains about?

Simple test methodology will help show wether it's a problem with Elite or the potato your ISP gave you.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Yes, stopping everything to fix instancing is justified in a multiplayer game where people are trying to 'make their own story' by involving other ships.

Screw people with other problems, my problem need to be addressed now!

 

[Anopheles]

Screw people with other problems, my problem need to be addressed now!

Name a problem as serious as people in a multiplayer game not being able to interact with other people in the same space.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Name a problem as serious as people in a multiplayer game not being able to interact with other people in the same space.

Vanishing credits and exploration data? Unstable systems that cannot be entered, or worse, left without dev intervention? Sudden exploding ship syndrome? Rank resets? All of these affect all modes, rather more significant than not being able to see another player.

 

[PiLhEaD]

I don't agree with your premise that matchmaking is 'broken'.

I play in open and group - and when I'm 'out in the black' I see very few other CMDRs. When I'm near a hot-spot (e.g. community goal) I see plenty - all in various states of coming/going/docked.

Given 400Bn stars, 500K+ players, of which only a small percentage will be on-line at max at any one time, and an even smaller percentage anywhere near me, I'd say my 'matchmaking rate' feels about right.

Given the above, I'd suggest adjusting your expectations.

 

[Sysmon]

Speak for yourself, OP.

I play open exclusively, but do not like being dragged into other peoples opinions about it. In fact, I like the idea of being able to be with, yet far away, from other players.

Biggest issue with any MMO is other players, anyway.

S

 

[Zplintz]

It is clear that people do not like the assumption that the OP speaks for everyone (or indeed for anyone other than him/herself without their voluntary agreement). That point had been made well enough now I think.

Circular arguments on this matter are only serving to derail what could (should?) be an important and (I think) interesting topic.

How much energy should FD be putting into to improving instancing/player hookup?

Are there any tools you think might help?

Or perhaps you think it is fine as it is?

Do you think that there are playee ships in your current system that are in a different instance (that should be in yours) or that there aee just too few shios for too many systems?

 

[Coot]

I'll agree, matchmaking needs work.

I was cruising around last night and decided to wing up with someone to do some undermining.
We got a wing of three and found a fourth, sent him an invite and he accepted. We couldn't see him in the wing menu, he could see us, we could all communicate via wing chat, and people who couldn't see others' wingman status could see eachother as green rather than the normal color. Then we added another fourth, and then another. We ended up trolling around empire space in a wing of 6 due to what I assume to be instancing issues tricking the game into thinking our wing still had open slots.

This is the opposite of my normal experience, where matching up with players is fairly easy but staying connected is difficult, and wingmen end up in different instances. I didn't have a problem with the spotty-at-best multiplayer in 1.2, it just strikes me as odd that the obvious, mass-reported instancing and matchmaking issues weren't handled before introducing the galaxy wide pvp-friendly giant expansion/opposition board game module.

 

[Red Dirt Nurse]

Plain wrong. Don't feel so entitled to think you know what everyone wants. Instancing problems have a pretty low priority for me, I'd rather see many other stuff done first. And yes, I play in "open".

Couldn't agree more.

 

[6xes]

until the instancing problem occurs regularly to the ones whom claim OP doesnt speak for me.. truth is it needs some work to fix it PERIOD

The issue is not about who anyone speaks for..

instancing needs fixing PERIOD

 

[Battleship Kickass]

Instancing is by far the biggest issue wrong with open mode. If it is possible making us manually be able to switch instances from a list of instance/ping/number of players in instance while in normal space, and switch occurring when reentering supercruise it would be a quick bandaid fix.

 

[Fendalton]

There should be a 45 player limit, given that there are 45 landing pads in the largest dock.

Does the Matchmaker take players latency / ping into account?

 

[DrStrangeLove]

Perhaps with Wings, this can be partially different. If you could introduce the ability for one player to act as a node for the others in a manual fashion, connection viability in the small group would be hammered out before starting play. Strongest most stable connection between the wingmates could be figured out ahead of time. At the least it would show the members in the group that the wing is possible or due to connection problems not possible.

Then have that be the sole contact for other nodes and the gatekeeper of sorts for the wing members... But the person that chooses to be the lead would need to both have a fast connection, and a system that could handle the additional data throughput. Sadly, it introduces a possibly easy to exploit cheat layer.

 

[Nonya]

Instancing is kind of broken. Last big battle I was in involved 8 of us going up against 3 Anaconda's and one FDL.
1 of the condas jumped away and the other two mass-locked each other and were eventually brought down.
I did my tiny part by keeping the FDL at bay.

But I've been away on vacay for the last 2 weeks so I'm "relearning" ED at the moment.
Flying well in ED is a perishable skill.

 

[Zplintz]

There should be a 45 player limit, given that there are 45 landing pads in the largest dock.

Does the Matchmaker take players latency / ping into account?

There is a physical (hardware) limit of 32 simultaneous connections with Peer 2 Peer networking. This may change in the future (as hardware manufacturers see a demand for a higher numbers).

On top of that there is also a practical limit to how many connections will actually work considering the number of different connection speeds, ping responses and consistency of player connections.

As far as I know the whole matchmaking system very much takes into account latency/ping and general connection speed.

CQC has (I think) been limited to 6 ships per side and I have been in a wing of 4 + seen 2 other wings of 4 in an instance - maybe 12 is the magic number currently?

Instancing is kind of broken. Last big battle I was in involved 8 of us going up against 3 Anaconda's and one FDL.
1 of the condas jumped away and the other two mass-locked each other and were eventually brought down.
I did my tiny part by keeping the FDL at bay.

But I've been away on vacay for the last 2 weeks so I'm "relearning" ED at the moment.
Flying well in ED is a perishable skill.

That's about the ships you fought and what happened in the battle rather than an instancing issue surely?

Perhaps with Wings, this can be partially different. If you could introduce the ability for one player to act as a node for the others in a manual fashion, connection viability in the small group would be hammered out before starting play. Strongest most stable connection between the wingmates could be figured out ahead of time. At the least it would show the members in the group that the wing is possible or due to connection problems not possible.

Then have that be the sole contact for other nodes and the gatekeeper of sorts for the wing members... But the person that chooses to be the lead would need to both have a fast connection, and a system that could handle the additional data throughput. Sadly, it introduces a possibly easy to exploit cheat layer.

I like the idea that you could nominate a wing member (or yourself) as main instance holder if they had a really good connection x- I think the system may be doing something like this anyway automatically (pure speculation on my behalf though).