Client-Host Connectivity Test And Quality Icon.

[CedarDpg]

Having the ability to filter by ping-time is great and all that. But it doesn't help in manually constructed squads. When we connect to a host, during the handshake process, the client and host should ping test each other and send a test file to each other to test up and down connection speed/quality. It should periodically retest during idle periods such as sitting in squad but not in mission and update. During a session there's a lot of data going back and forth anyway so if it notices a large gap in throughput, dropped packets or other connection errors it would update the icon immediately.

 

It would be nice to have a "signal bar chart" next to our names so that when we form a squad and/or join a squad, etc. it shows up to 5 bars which could be color coded.

 

5 bars-excellent overall connection quality, bright green

4 bars-good overall connection quality, dim green

3 bars-moderate overall connection quality, yellow

2 bars-poor overall connection quality, dim red

1 bar-very poor overall connection quality, bright red

 

A lot of games have a feature that has this functionality, and I think it's something that Warframe should implement. Would also be nice to have an additional toggle in options below the ping time one for minimum connection quality to allow connections to.

[[DE]Grzegorz]

Are we playing on a damn consoles to use colored bars as a latency indicator? Just give us some 3 digit display to the right/below squadmate status.

Edited January 8, 2015 by Mofixil

[Cryp2Nite]

The problem with the connectivity is the required upload bandwidth of the host.

You need at least 1Mbit/s upstream bandwidth to host missions like Defense, Mobile Defense, Survival, Interception...fine.

(Which maybe 10% of the lines are able to) And the latency check at the lobby is the possible worst way to assign a host.

The ping from host to the clients maybe ok in an idle situation, but as soon as the game is under load, and the net code

is trying to shove 100 kB/s through the 30 kB/s line of the host - the latency skyrocket to the point where the connection drops.

The vast majority of problems comes from that. It is not some weird routing between the players, it is not because of packet

loss, it is not because of latency issues. It is the upload bandwidth. Bandwidth is the determining factor.

[Rydian]

Not to mention that if somebody has a slow computer, they can have a low ping normally but when the mission starts their ping rises because the program itself starts getting slow to respond.

 

There's no simple solution to Warframe's latency issues or even an easy way to detect bad hosts.

[CedarDpg]

Are we playing on a damn consoles to use colored bars as a latency indicator? Just give us some 3 digit display to the right/below squadmate status.

 

I don't care if it's specifically colored bars. Numbers would be fine too. Even a frickin' happy, meh and angry face would be fine.

 

The problem with the connectivity is the required upload bandwidth of the host.

You need at least 1Mbit/s upstream bandwidth to host missions like Defense, Mobile Defense, Survival, Interception...fine.

(Which maybe 10% of the lines are able to) And the latency check at the lobby is the possible worst way to assign a host.

The ping from host to the clients maybe ok in an idle situation, but as soon as the game is under load, and the net code

is trying to shove 100 kB/s through the 30 kB/s line of the host - the latency skyrocket to the point where the connection drops.

The vast majority of problems comes from that. It is not some weird routing between the players, it is not because of packet

loss, it is not because of latency issues. It is the upload bandwidth. Bandwidth is the determining factor.

 

Transferring a file between hosts, as long as it's bigger than the burst capacity of the connection can give you an idea of the bandwidth. Additionally, the game could store a history of the hosts you connect to and if you've had a history of bad connections with that host, the client could then opt to not join any squads in which that user is the host. Also, I'm not talking about assigning a host. I'm talking about joining once a squad's already formed which historically I've found tends to keep the person who first sits down and forms the squad as host. Occasionally there'll be a host migration once the mission starts or sometimes mid-mission. That often ends with bad results. The netcode could also send connection stats to DE which they could store in a table and be used to form an average connection performance analysis for use in determining whether someone should be host over another.

 

Not to mention that if somebody has a slow computer, they can have a low ping normally but when the mission starts their ping rises because the program itself starts getting slow to respond.

 

There's no simple solution to Warframe's latency issues or even an easy way to detect bad hosts.

No simple solution, but something is better than nothing. Once again, clientside performance monitoring and delivery of statistics to DE for use in deciding who should host in a squad.