COD4 patch ruins the game outside of America?

by Terrence Stasse { Mar 8th 2008 at 6:00PM }

With the COD4 feature patch having received good initial reception from the community it's a bit surprising to discover that some players are reporting problems. Specifically there are problems with the host-migration feature that was supposed to help the connection problems. It seems that gamers outside of the Americas are having trouble getting a host who is local enough to them that they can get a good connection. GeekPulp was able to get a response from the Infinity Ward Community Manager, Robert Bowling, who had this to say:

"That doesn't mean it will always choose a US player, but I understand that the odds are typically stacked against some of our more remote players to be selected as host. We're currently looking at options available that might help out with those odds and I'll keep you updated on it."

So hopefully we'll soon be seeing another patch that'll fix the things that the first was supposed to take care of. In meantime, to our readers overseas, have you all noticed any effect on the game since the patch?

[Via GeekPulp]

Tags: cod4, infinity-ward

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

asdfadsf @ Mar 8th 2008 6:18PM

Does it even matter? There are hardly any 360 consoles outside the US&A...

PeterF @ Mar 8th 2008 6:35PM

WTF? If most of the people who are playing in that certain match are in America, why should we have 1 person across the world host it? It doesn't make sense, most of the people would end up lagging badly.

Terrence Stasse @ Mar 8th 2008 6:41PM

Guys, you're having a really bad attitude here, and giving Americans a bit of a bad name.

If there are players in places other than America, then they should (ideally) be matched with players closest to them. American gamers shouldn't host overseas games and overseas gamers shouldn't host American games.

I'm astounded by the above two comments. The folks who bought the game shouldn't have their experience degraded by an update, no matter where they live.

jez @ Mar 8th 2008 6:43PM

I am still getting host on all the games even though I'm in the uk. I think the day time uk people on Europe should have host Andre people in USA have host then no lag.

jorgiex @ Mar 8th 2008 6:49PM

Hell I downloaded the Patch and ever since I put it on my system my Disk drive won't play games..OMFG...! I am getting Condemed2 but I won't have Elite back for another 2-3 weeks. Dam.......!

Terrence Stasse @ Mar 8th 2008 6:52PM

Funny you should mention Condemned 2 ...

Watch the site readers, as there's going to be some news very soon regarding that release. Basically that 2-3 week wait will end up being a moot point.

jdkay20 @ Mar 8th 2008 6:53PM

who thinks this patch benefits the game?
Besides the kill cams everything is worse. I keep ending up in games that are almost over, in rooms with half the people there should be, and all the noobs with acog sniper rifles have ruined the modern combat.

Shade @ Mar 8th 2008 7:03PM

I like pretty much everything about the patch, but the host choosing algorithm does need work. It's apparently using whatever player has the least ping, when it should run an average of each player's ping to every other player in the room. Something like that. This way it would be able to choose the best host for each group of players, and bam!, everybody's happy.

Of course, this will only work properly once they show ping status in the lobby BEFORE the game actually starts. This way people with bad pings can give up on a room in time.

Cheers

SadisticHam @ Mar 8th 2008 7:08PM

Weird, i play tactical with my friend and he always gets hosts, we both live in the Uk and we almost always go up against Americans.

The host is still broken though, it's rather amusing because if you ever get loud mouths on the other team, talking smack you can teach them a lesson by getting 5-10 points in the lead and having your host leave. You get the win and they get annoyed. ;D

Call me an asshole but still, people on Live need to be a bit more polite, I grow tired of coming into a game and being told to piss off back to england. XD

But on topic, yeah, not noticed any problems myself..sniper still seems a bit crap.

Mastiha @ Mar 8th 2008 8:36PM

I've come across a number of situations where the whole room is full of Australian's then one guy from the US joins, gets host, and the lag fest begins.

MaXKiLLz @ Mar 8th 2008 7:43PM

PLEASE USE COD3's method of HOST MIGRATION!

JakubK666 @ Mar 8th 2008 7:59PM

Why do you guys even give a shit? CoD4 only has ten days left and everybody will forget about it like it happened to Halo 3.

Also I did notice my first lags ever after the patch.I also noticed that CoD4 now suffers from CSS AWP syndrome with everybody(unless their level is not high enough) running around with M82 50cal.

Even though I still play it, I can't wait for Vegas as CoD4 is just a cheaper and easier version of Halo.Also check out IF forums...haven't seen worse community in a while.

OBM @ Mar 8th 2008 7:59PM

I keep getting thrown into games with French people, makes a change people swearing in French, fun fun fun...quick mute FTW!

IncredibleBulk92 @ Mar 8th 2008 8:46PM

I've gotta agree with Terrance man, those first two posters are complete jerks. People should get banned for stuff like that.

But yea living in the UK I have noticed that lag has increased quite a fair bit since the patch. Thought my connection was getting worse but this might explain it

B Tizo @ Mar 8th 2008 8:49PM

Terrence, I'm glad you're a sane poster for X3F, and I'm glad you comment a lot. Lag is ALWAYS going to be an issue, regardless of country (or state in th US). It would be awesome if we can have local hosts (UK and US and every other country) but sometimes its not feasible. Especially at odd hours of the day and night. But still, LIVE is about a broad, worldwide community and playing people in other countries is exciting and fun (at least to me). I think its unfortunate that their have been problems, but with the miracle of patches for consoles I'm sure this will be addressed eventually, even if it takes a while. It's not like IW has nothing to do but monitor CoD4, I'm sure they're already hard at work on their next IP.
CoD4 is a fantastic game and IMO the patch has helped tremendously. I for one don't subscribe to the "weapon n00b" theory. The options are available to everyone, provided they have achieved that rank, and if a particular weapon/attachment/perk combo is constantly killing you, adapt and overcome. But that's just me, playing the game the devs made the way its supposed to be played.

Keep up the good work Terrence.

JoeRamboUK @ Mar 8th 2008 9:02PM

I live in the UK have open Nat settings and everything works fine for me. Why are so many people saying theirs problems?

Urza @ Mar 8th 2008 9:08PM

They shouldn't have changed how the host was initially selected. Party leader of the party that starts the game should have remained host. If said person quit, a new host would then be selected, based on the other party leaders in the room.

Everyone realized that if you didn't join someone else session and started the room, your party leader was likely host and thus the person with the best and most reliable connection was always party leader. Why they messed with that formula is beyond me.

It's not just overseas people that are having a problem. Since the patch, more games end early because of bad connections then because of host quits. Games end now for no apparent reasons with all of the players still in the lobby after it ends.

Wickedneoq @ Mar 8th 2008 10:20PM

I agree with the "Host choosing algorithm" needing work synopsis. Although I'm Canadian, some matches turn into total routs due to lag issues. I'm not sure if most of the time it's an American host, but in a room full of Euro players last night, I definitely had an unfair advantage of being able to pop out of corners and shoot first...

Or I'm just really good and don't know it. But the lag issues due to host definitely exist.

KrasnyTova @ Mar 8th 2008 10:56PM

Sorry omb but we have kick ass connection, so you gonna hear us swear a lot :D BTW for the first two comments, that's in the same pool of peaple saying that we can't Speak in french because it's a US game. Ha! and what are you going to do when playing Rainbow six vegas 2 (Form Montreal mean From French canadian) ?

Par.parler vous le francaise ?! ... haha

root @ Mar 8th 2008 11:55PM

i dont understand why there aren't any host-options.
in halo i can prefer good ping.

but in cod4 it seems to be random were on the planet the host is located.

you can't even choose to be host or join somebody.

its just random.
and this sucks

(i was host once and the gameplay changed 150%. getting some frags was never that easy...)

greetings from europe...

Gamer Jay @ Mar 9th 2008 12:06AM

Not to mention that it now takes FOREVER to find a match for a party of 5 or 6 six people with high ranks. Hopefully someone from Activision/Infinity Ward is looking into this.

UNSCleric @ Mar 9th 2008 12:36AM

I'm glad I don't have to deal with this kind of garbage in Halo 3. Maybe these guys will get it working for number 6.

Anticrawl @ Mar 9th 2008 1:38AM

I haven't touched COD4 since Army of Two released and by the time I wear AO2 out completely Vegas 2 will be out and well COD4 will be retired unless I start getting a rash of invites from friends. Eh and if AO2 ever gets old then I'll log some hours in Smash Bros. COD4 got stale for me just like Halo 3 and The Orange Box before it. COD4 did last a bit longer though.

jacobmarsh @ Mar 9th 2008 5:11AM

i live in Japan and have noticed that a slight bit of lag makes multiplayer games almost unplayable for me against people in the US or UK. Sniping and melee are pretty much useless against someone that has one more bar on the signal screen.

Like someone pointed out, it would be nice to know how much lag I'm going to have before the game starts so I can quit if it is going to be horrible.

Most of the time when I play against someone from the US or UK I have 2 yellow bars while everyone else has all greens.

petersjov @ Mar 9th 2008 5:37AM

I think X3F should have i look at this, i think with all the world wide people coming here and reading...

I live in Denmark, and I am not sure how it is now, but in the beginning of the xbox360 life, we where playing on american serveres, when i connect to xbox live, im pretty sure i still log on to a server in the USA / and even if people in other countries have there own server to play on, im pretty sure its locatet in USA....

So I play from denmark + somebody playing from uk + somebody from spain, all connecting to USA first = Lag...

Most of the time my connection works fine, it only let be down in CC if i had the cam on......

Simon @ Mar 9th 2008 6:47AM

Surely region filters would sort this out, easily? Just add a preference option to locate players in America, Europe, Asia, etc. Still be the odd laggy game, but it would cut the odds I think.

frenchfried89 @ Mar 9th 2008 7:31AM

Am I the only one who's liking the update? I live in the Philippines (just so you know, there's a lot of Live members here). Before the patch, I would usually get matched with americans, all of them having green bars while i always got red. After the patch, I now get matched with japs and chinese people. I usually get green bars now, I cant understand them though. But because of the patch, I can actually play cod4 online properly now..

AJ @ Mar 9th 2008 8:45AM

The first 2 posters showed little tact, but I actually see their point to an extent. Why should the the furthermost player out host? If matchmaking analyzes all the connections, the one with the best ping or least lag to most of the other players would get the hosting duties.

My problem is that matchmaking shouldn't be putting them together in the first place. There should be an option or checkbox in the settings asking you if you are willing to play out of region at the risk of worse lag.

Wikk3d @ Mar 9th 2008 12:26PM

I live in Spain and once I downloaded the patch the games seem to take longer to start. Since the internet out here isn't the best to begin with, my friends and I usually never get host. More often than not most of my shots don't register because the lag is so bad. If IW could figure out a way to fix my internet here I think that would be a much better improvement to the game.

Potato Farmer J. @ Mar 9th 2008 12:41PM

Isn't the whole point of XBOX Live to be some sort of international gamescape?
Doesn't seem like 1) a lot of XBOX users want that
2) like anyone is willing to use the dedicated servers necessary for that.

shane86 @ Mar 9th 2008 6:05PM

the choice to just play with europeans would be fantastic, no offence yanks.

Brian Fantana @ Mar 10th 2008 4:13AM

The first comment is retarded. There are a shitload of people in the UK who have 360's. And I bet over half of them have CoD4.

Boff @ Mar 10th 2008 8:18AM

Thank you Terrence for a mature response to those first two fuckheads who commented.

Back on topic, I've been having problems in the UK. Joining games with 30s left to play? Uneven balancing of games (6 v 2? WTF?). Host migration NOT working as it should (game quits to party screen to migrate host but then everyone leaves anyway), 'Connection Interrupted' screen, Lag from the Yankee Doodles (but that's always been there!)

V1RU5Z @ Mar 21st 2008 9:06AM

BRING BACK HOST MIGRATION!!!
That is what needs to be done. Sure it may take a few seconds to find the new best host but i think i speak for the majority that we won't mind waiting as we get to finish the game.
I may just be fussy but it's annoying when you get a loss because the host ends the game when you're losing by 5 or so points on domination or by a round on S @ D. You should have the chance to try and win it back.
Please reply with your thought on this comment or rate it! THANKS

Host Migration = Way Fowards
Gamertag = V1RU5Z