Host Lag Issues And Potential Solution.

[Mad5cout]

So it is my understanding that the lobby interface is just a client matching system and that the missions themselves are hosted client side.  Not sure what system the host decisions are being made by but it is clear that there are some issues with it given the amount of lag one can sometimes experience in-game.  I am guessing this is done simply by IP proximities or perhaps ping times in some way.

 

The issue with this is that proximity and/or ping is only one factor important for hosting games - the user's system has a significant impact.  My general guess is that hosts are chosen by proximity and/or ping and then people are getting sucked into games with hosts that have really horrible or old machines and the lagging commences.

 

So, I have a suggestion - allow people to offer up their system info ONLY for matching and hosting decisions OR allow an option to opt out of hosting - so people with knowingly crappy machines can deselect the hosting option so that games are always hosted by machines that can handle the traffic.

 

Another option would be for some mechanism to switch the host in game - maybe through a vote call of some sort.  Better yet, if the game can tell that things are lagging to S#&$, it does it automatically.

[Lactamid]

Maybe a combination?
If you have a low-end computer you could switch off the host-option. And when searching for games the game itself would match all the player and select the fastest machine. How ever if a game has already started the switch-function would only take place if as you said - the game was lagging to much. Otherwise it might result in unneccesary server transfers.

[Mad5cout]

Really surprised this didn't get more attention.  I had 3 slide show games today and one that the host was lagging so bad it literally crashed my game as I was leaving the mission to menus.  This is very annoying.  Typically I would just leave the match but most of these were alerts and I think once you leave, you can't join the alert again.  So, this issue basically can screw you out of alert rewards.

[TehJumpingJawa]

FYI I believe the creator of the lobby is always the host.

Re performance:

As the game isn't utilising multiple cores effectively, and numerous game mechanics alter significantly when hosting, I suspect the game engine doesn't separate client and server code on the host machine into separate processes.

This is fine so long as the engine manages its threads well, but apparently Warframe's multi-threading is not particularly effective at spreading load to other cores.

That's the only explanation I can think of that explains why hosting has such a dramatic performance impact upon the host machine.

A short term fix of separating the client and server code into separate processes should dramatically improve host performance on all machines that have under utilised cores.

Though a byproduct of such a change would be that the current inconsistencies between clients and host would be hidden (as the host would be 'just another client' albeit with a 0 ping)