The Most Important Thing In Multiplayer

[Tomisama]

(Hoping I can get a sticky on this right away, as this is a very serious subject.)

No matter how good or bad the game or the players are, the most important thing in multiplayer is a quality connection. Without that connection, nothing else matters. If the game is laggy, or players drop, you might as well take on the AI in a single player game.

We now have a tri-color, tri-level, “Connection” meter on the Battle List screen. This can tell you about the host’s connection. I am not sure what exactly we are looking at there, but stay away from hosts with any red bars, am cautious about yellow bars, and always happy to see green bars.

Now that is all well and good, giving you some advanced notice on the potential of a host to be able to sustain the number of players at the army size proposed. But there is no way in the game for the host to be able to analyze the connection suitability of the “players” joining their game.

I am assuming that the host meter is measuring ping between the host and their local Steam communications server. And believe that when different people join their game, the impact on that connection is visible on the Battle List screen. Of course the problem here is that the host can no longer see that meter to have any clue as to how much ping “weight” he may be being asked to carry.

It would be great if this same meter was available in the Army Set Up, to see who might have to be eliminated from the current line up. But even better yet would be a “host to player ping meter” of sorts, as this is the way I believe that the game will be functionally handled, with the host becoming the server for the actual games processing.

Something needs to be done “before” we all venture into Shogun2, as the lag and eventual drops are on the verge of ruining the multiplayer we have now in Napoleon for many players.

This is not reinventing anything, just giving us a tool that is desperately needed!

Thanks for your attention.

Any players who understand the problem, and can add their voice to this request, please do so.

Thanks in advance.