343 Industries adjusts Halo Infinite matchmaking due to latency issues

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries has tweaked the matchmaking of the multiplayer version of the game to reduce latency issues. Players complain that, for example, just after hiding behind a wall, they are still hit by enemy bullets.

The developer explains that in Halo Infinite multiplayer, the player who shoots takes precedence over the player who is being shot at. By that, the developer means that the PC or console of a player who shoots calculates whether that shot was hit or not based on what the client knows about the location of all players.

Only when the shooter’s client knows if someone has been hit or not, does the PC or console send a message to other players’ clients. So this message only arrives later on the PC or console of other players, so those players are only hit later. As with other games, this effect is enhanced by higher latency. The consequences with Halo Infinite are more striking, according to the developer, as players move around the game world at 8.5 to 24 meters per second, depending on whether they are walking or grappling.

To reduce these effects, 343 Industries wants to reduce the latency of mutual players. Although the matchmaking already took this into account to some extent, according to the developer, it should be better since Thursday. For example, servers with a low ping are preferred within the matchmaking. In addition, the company talks about “additional measures” to ensure that players can play “matches against players in their region”. The company does not provide details. The measures would mainly help players in Australia and Asia, but could also have positive effects on players elsewhere.

An update was also released on Thursday that should prevent players from ‘geofiltering’ their matches. Players made sure that they were placed further away on servers, so that they had a poorer connection with the other players.

The developer hopes that the aforementioned improvements ‘and additional tuning’ will help enough. Otherwise, the company says it is evaluating other options, such as a server selection menu just like in Halo: Master Chief Collection or search preferences like in Halo 5. In addition, the developer wants to make visible in the leaderboard who has bad latency and inform players if their connection is bad. . Halo Infinite will also collect more data about shot latencies in matches, so that the developer can better assess the extent of the latency problems.